It's been a good birthday weekend - perhaps even the nicest one I've ever had. Saturday morning Monique and I went skydiving (photos will follow in a few days; the ones I've seen so far are amazing! See below for the detailed account), and then that evening I went out to dinner at On The Border with four swim teammates (where I got sung to by the wait staff and presented with a free brownie sundae), after which we crashed at Jenna's house and played board games and sat in the hot tub. Anna and I ended up talking in her car until 1:15, and then the next morning I got up around 11:30 and went to Jacksonville for the family party, which involved lots of relatives and a menu of grilled shrimp and salmon, potatoes, salad, homemade macaroni and cheese, and lots of chocolate cake (from a REAL bakery, courtesy of Dad's chef friend - none of that supermarket stuff). For those who were so inclined, there were also oysters, but I can't bring myself to touch those. Then today I came home from school to find that Monique had bought me a Happy Birthday balloon, a card, some Turtle Chex Mix, two boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese (a joke about our dismal cooking skills), and a bottle of White Zinfandel. Then I headed to Target to spend the gift card I got yesterday (plus quite a bit more on top of it) on a handful of new DVDs. Now I'm about to run off to a harder-than-normal swim practice, courtesy of Brandon, and then come home and watch a few of the aforementioned movies and split the rest of the leftover cake with Monique. I have a quiz or test in every class tomorrow, but studying is just not happening tonight.

Anyway, all of it was nice, but especially the friend stuff. I mean, Monique getting me presents, and half of Facebook wishing me happy birthday, and my teammates coming to dinner and all of us hanging out together on my behalf - pathetic as it may sound, that sort of stuff hasn't happened very often in my (semi-)adult life so far, so this weekend provoked some 'warm and fuzzies'. So far, age 22 gets two thumbs up.