A week or two ago my buddy Tim (the guy on the left) asked me when my birthday was. Soon he was telling me about how he recently had a birthday cake covered in candles. Without thinking, I blurted out something like "I haven't had a cake with candles in DECADES." Tim, being the charitable guy that he is, immediately declared that I would have a cake with candles on my birthday.

As the big day approached, the group of guys pictured above (Tim, James, Marco, Brian, and myself), along with Brandon (not pictured) and Barry (behind the camera) went out to a restaurant called C.J.Muggs to celebrate. We stuffed ourselves on some delicious food enjoyed some great conversation.

Upon returning to the seminary the guys, most of whom live on my hallway, all crowded into Tim's room to assemble my birthday cake. Next, they processed across the hall to present me with the delicious chocolaty confection, pictured here:

What a culinary masterpiece! I laughed. This is like a seminarian MacGyver birthday cake... assembled from whatever Tim had in his room at the time.

We are such bachelors. Oh, and I'm 29 years old now. Wow, I'm starting to approach being old.

Every year we seminarians celebrate Mardi Gras with some delicious food and entertainment. This year's entertainment included a humorous video made by some of my classmates. You might not get much of the humor in the video because it consists mostly of "inside jokes," but you might find it funny. Here it is:

As you can see, this year's theme is "our building is old." Thankfully, it is about to be remodeled and expanded.

Last Sunday I rode my bicycle through the neighborhood while wearing shorts. It was beautiful weather, in the 50s and sunny.

On Tuesday, it even got up near 70 degrees. Then in a matter of hours the temperature dropped to 15 or so, the wind picked up, and it snowed. As usually happens when the weather gets a little crazy, the seminary lost power for a few hours.

We ate supper by candlelight, played cards, and went to bed in the cold building. Power was restored during the night.

The next two days were uneventful. But last night Saint Louis got 8" of snow, more than I've ever seen in my time down here.

Unfortunately, it's going to get into the 40s tomorrow and it's all going to turn into a big, slushy mess. Here are a few more snapshots of the seminary under snow:

A view from the south of the ambulatory and building.

The chapel doors in the courtyard.