Mardi Gras!

This past weekend, I got to unwind a little from the stressful couple weeks I've been having. One of my friends here is a native Louisianan, so we had a little Mardi Gras party on Saturday!

I did my nails accordingly, of course. We made gumbo, which turned out pretty good! Sadly, I have no pictures of it, but that's okay because we thought it would be fine to use jambalaya mix instead of gumbo mix...so unfortunately the rice expanded a ton (but don't you steal the name gumbalaya, because we're patenting).
I was introduced to the tradition of King Cake. It's more or less like a giant glazed cinnamon roll. There's a little figurine of a baby hidden inside it and apparently, the tradition is that whoever gets the baby in their piece buys the next King Cake. The baby in ours was definitely male and more than a little creepy, but the cake was delicious.  We also had some delicious biscuits and beer and cheese grits, so really, what more could a girl ask for, right? Turned out to be a really fun, relaxing night! But now...back to the grind.