Birthday Boil

So this past Monday Mitch celebrated his 27th birthday and I'm sure by my pics on Facebook and Instagram you have figured out by now that I threw him a crawfish boil. I had been planning this for about 2 months and kept it all a secret for as long as I could. I had everything planned and people invited but about 2 weeks ago I ended up having to tell him and here's why. 1- I knew I was going to need help the day of and trying to keep him from asking so many questions that day of was going to be impossible. 2- I knew he would LOVE to help plan it all. He has always wanted to throw a boil and I knew if I had someone else over here doing it all he wouldn't have been mad, but he wouldn't really wanted to help with it. So I told him with enough time so that I already had everything planned and paid for, but he was able to get excited about it and it was something he could look forward to.

Since we were in Nashville all weekend, I had to have some friends help and they got the privilege of picking up the 25lbs of live crawfish and keeping them for us while we were out of town. When we got back into town after the race, we had to get everything together and I think it turned out just perfect! We had some of our closest friends from Mitch's class over and one couple has three kids and it was so fun to have them all over.

We have been working on getting our backyard in order without spending any money on it. We don't want to put anything into this house since its just a rental, but we also want it to feel like home and be able to enjoy ourselves since we are here for 3 years. So we did some little very inexpensive things and I think it really helped. Mitch and I both love grilling out and spending time in our backyard in the spring and summer and it just wasn't appealing at all to be out there. And it was very frustrating because we have a nice big backyard but it was just really run down and we had no where to sit. So we cleaned up the yard, bought a picnic table and added pretty purple flowers on our shepards hook and those small things have made it become an enjoyable backyard! The picnic table was the most expensive purchase and it wasn't even that much, we got a great deal. So now we can enjoy our backyard and it is starting to feel a little more like home.

So back to the boil. We spent all day Sunday setting up and getting everything ready. Everyone came over around 3 and it was such a fun afternoon. We made the crawfish in several batches so it was fun that we cooked some, ate, played games, cooked some more and ate some more. It lasted all afternoon and people didn't leave until around 9:30 that night. We had dips, coleslaw, hushpuppies and then of course the corn, potatoes, sausage and onions that were in with the crawfish. Mitch just loved it and had the best time. He is already talking about how he wants to do another one soon. Our only problem is we don't have a large boil pot so he wants to invest in one. They are super expensive, so we'll have to save up over time, but it is something that we would really use! Here are some pics from party! Unfortunately I stopped taking pics around when it got dark- so I didn't get any of him with his cake, AND we had red lights up in the back that turned out so good!

We had the best time and since we never got to rest from our race we spent his actual birthday, Monday, relaxing and watching movies in bed! We also had a little bit of left over crawfish and sausage so we made gumbo for dinner last night and it was so good!! 

This week is very low key for me and Mitch has started studying for finals. I still can't believe it's already that time. I think with his spring break being in April makes for a very short semester. At first I didn't like it being so late, but now I do. I mean in March he really didn't need a break yet- he was still refreshed from christmas break, so we April came it was the perfect time! And its warmer in April :)

On a different note, I mentioned in my last post I had hurt my knee while training for the half, well it had only gotten worse and I have been resting and icing it all week. It's still super swollen and every time I move it it makes a loud pop and feel like something is grinding in my knee cap.  So I am headed to Nashville to see a knee specialist to try and figure out what's going on. Please pray it's nothing big because I am planning on doing another half towards the end of the summer/fall and I want to be able to run this one healthy at my normal pace and get a decent time. I also wanted to just keep up my training and not have to take too long of a rest break.