For a Cub Scout project, my little brother Jake has been keeping a record of everything he’s eaten this week. He really hates this, and making him do this has been a struggle.

But today beat all: I offered him some lunch, (a highly experimental dish with mashed potatoes, corn, cheese and sausage) and he said, “No thanks, because then I’d have to write it down.” And he kept walking. What a lazy bum.

I give this hunger strike it till 3.

Taste. Or Lack Thereof

“Good morning, Lydia! Hey, I had a dream last night that you were yelling at me in the middle of the night because you wanted me to teach you how to burp.”
“Well actually, John, I was.”
“Really? You weirdo.”

Yes, true conversation. And yes, true confession: I never learned how to burp intentionally. To me burping on purpose was vulgar, and something only losers would do. Just call me too much of a lady; I never, ever had the urge to stoop so low and learn. Never until last night, that is, when I woke up in the middle of the night feeling as though I had eaten half a cup of yeast, a liter of soda and pop rocks. In other words, I had really bad gas and egg burps. Which is the only reason I wanted to learn to burp, because it seemed better than the other alternative.
However, I am proud to report that I never actually learned, despite having awakened and asked both John, a renowned expert, and Rachel, his only competition, during that long, long night. Fine, call me incapable, but belching will never be a part of my repertoire. (Although unflinchingly writing gross and/or time wasting blog write-ups will. At least I know my dad and uncles, a couple gross guy friends and Peter, for whom the above topic is an important daily chore, will appreciate it. My sincere apologies to the rest of you decent, genteel folk.)

• Things I did this week:
• Woke up at 3.30 on Monday morning, against all my teenage instincts.
• Rolled out of the driveway to SEA-TAC at exactly 4 am, a new family best.
• Spent our first 11 hours at an airport or on a plane
• Managed to get 6 people onto a plane which 20 minutes before takeoff had zero extra seats (miraculous!)
• Rode free the whole week in an a 15-passenger borrowed by church friends
• Crashed at my beautiful and talented, lovely and charming Aunt Jamey Knipps’ house for the week.
• Hung out with cousins, had a ball
• Woke up at the torturous hour of 9 a.m. to go shopping with another cousin, also had a ball
• Went to the my grandmother’s viewing, on Thursday, cried my eyes out
• Learnt she was without a doubt a believer, but still cried my eyes out
• Went to the funeral Friday, cried more, but felt better
• Saw The Chronicles of Narnia!
• Celebrated Christmas Eve with bunches and bunches of relatives, some of whom I’d never met, most of whom were weird
• Saw the Denver zoo lights, more relatives, but no other animals besides that
• Threw up all over the exterior of my uncle’s car on Christmas Eve, in front of the capital of Colorado, in heavy traffic
• Spent a highly uncomfortable Christmas Eve night thinking about other things than sugar plum fairies and Santa
• Enjoyed Christmas morning with the Knipps
• Had a lovely Christmas dinner with my dad’s dad at my grandmother’s house. We rejoiced for the turkey who is still alive today and had spaghetti.
• Received a solar powered, scientific calculator and a 6oo page book about math, physics, and the order of the universe from my grandfather. Bring it on!
• Got to DIA this morning, ran into my mom’s mom who had been seeing other people off.
• Prayed that another rather large family I had spied also flying standby would get the seats if they needed it more than we.
• Missed the first flight completely, noticed the other family got on
• Kinda regretted my prayer, bet rebuked myself instantly
• Inventoried, sorted, and counted all 300+ of the flashcards I took to Colorado between flights in the concourse
• Thought about that movie The Terminal for the 15th time since our stay in SEA-TAC
• Got ten people onto the same plane, again at the last minute
• Arrived at SEA-TAC, where my dad complained of a blistering headache
• Squeezed 10 more people onto a rather tiny shuttle plane to Bellingham, noticed for the second time that that day that there wasn’t a single seat on the plane once we'd gotten on.
• Was asked by multiple people at the airport if we were, in fact, the Alberts, and were told unlikely it was that we all made it
• Rode a taxi home for the first time in my life, decided I was glad to own a bus schedule and 50 cents, or at least a bike
• Found 3 pizzas in the fridge, the laundry done and the house cleaned. Good old Renate!
• Got the call that my uncle at whose house we were staying just came down with strep throat, which had been preceded by a blistering headache.
• Decided not to kiss my dad goodnight.
• Thanked God for a safe trip, and all the little miracles along the way

As Prince Caspian you are a noble, goodhearted but mischievous scallywag! Fun loving, you are admired for your easy going nature.
Hmm. Well, at least the results are better than the last dumb quiz I took.

I love Narnia. Fantasy at its finest. I've read the Chronicles so many, many times. My record is tearing through 3 books in a day when I was about 10. I think my favorites are The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Horse and His Boy, although the more I think about it, the more indecisive I get.

I do look forward to seeing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in theaters with my cousin. Although I had tentative plans to see it with some other friends, I'm quite glad that fell though so I could hold out for this. Seeing the movie so close to Christmas time with my cousins and aunt and uncle will be wonderful. We also hope to go through the Denver Zoo and see the Christmas lights, and then enjoy Christmas Eve at my aunts house with my mom's family.

We leave for Denver Monday; the funeral is on Friday. It will be really hard, I don't even want to think about it, but there will be closure. And then my grandfather wants to do Christmas just like always. But it won't be just like always, because Grandma won't be there.

And yet, even though she's not there, it only makes me cherish more the precious thing that Christ did when he came down here to earth that holy night in Bethlehem. He came to save us, to make death and separation from our loved ones only a temporary thing. Jesus Christ's coming down so humbly, being born in a barn, and living here on this crummy, crummy earth, so that he could eventually die for us. That is why I personally celebrate Christmas.

Oh happy day! For the first time in—gee, just how old is John anyway? —12 years, I guess, I have my own room! Ok, my own closet, but one that’s as large as my brothers’ room. Yes, I measured it. But let’s face it; it’s all about the door to close the world out (remember Freaky Friday?). Oh, the phone in my room is nice too ;-) Because I’m still adjoined to the sisters’ room, I remain in charge of my own bathroom, which I only have to share with Rachel; anyone else caught using it get quite the tongue lashing, just ask John.
Admittedly my bedroom’s not quite done yet. Ummm, there’s now window yet. (lol) But we do plan on making that happen—unfortunately, with my parents, ‘soon’ is a relative term. In lieu of a window I currently have a large mirror, which makes the whole room feel bigger, and is only depressing before hair/makeup. After the window goes in, I’ll paint it something really fun, maybe hot pink with black dots. (Chill, I’m just kidding)

Scrambled here are the names of actual Christmas carols. Can you figure them out?
1. Quadruped with crimson proboscis.

2. Eight pm. to six am. without noise

3. Minuscule hamlet in the near east.

4. Ancient benevolent despot.

5. Adorn the vestibules.

6. Exuberance directed to the planet.

7. Listen, Aerial spirits announcing.

8. Trio of Monarchs.

9. Yonder in the haystack.

10. Cherubim audited for aloft.

11. Assemble everyone who believes.

12. Hallowed post meridian

13. Fantasia of a colorless December 25.

14. Tintinnabulations.

15. A dozen twenty-four hour yule periods.

16. Befell during the transparent watch.

17. Homo sapiens of crystallized vapor.

18. Desire a Pair of incisors on December 25.

19. I spied my maternal parent osculating.

20. Perambulation through a December solstice fantasy.

I really don’t know how to start this. Life seemed just about perfect until last Thursday, and then things have just sort have come crashing down.
My grandma Shirley, the darling redhead, died instantly in a car accident. They were rear-ended by someone who had some kind of medical failure. (My grandpa is still in ICU, but he is healing). You can’t imagine how I miss her! She was so wonderful—one of my friends described her to another friend as ‘the grandma you wish was yours.’

We had her up for Thanksgiving, and the visit was perfect. She got to meet Peter, and we went shopping, rode bikes, she was able to ride Jake's ;-) (right), and of course she made an amazing meal, several actually. I even got to introduce her to my quizzing friends, who thought she was da bomb. And now I’ll never see her again, at least not for the rest of my earthly life.
The pain in incredible, I don’t remember ever crying so much in my life. Everything just feels numb.
And yet, even with all of this, God is so faithful, so wonderful. My dad’s mom was here visiting from Oregon when we learned of the news, and she was so wonderfully supportive while we were all falling apart; a quizzing friend's mom brought over an incredible, huge meal, I still don’t think we’ve eaten it all yet; and our pilot friend secured free tickets for all of us (10, ladies and gentlemen) to and from CO, all we have to pay is taxes!
Tickets to Colorado? Yes! That’s right! As much as everything hurts, we are all excited go back down there so soon! I don’t know exactly when we’re leaving-- it depends on the funeral, but please pray for us as we get ready to go. We may not all make it all on the same flight, which could get crazy, but hopefully everything will go smoothly.

I’ll always miss Grandma so much, her perkiness, beautiful smile, her sense of humor and perpetual busyness, and all the love she’d poured on me. It is so hard, but I know that things will get better soon.

My dad the photographer. We call him the Papa-razzi.

You gotta admit, that's just not normal.

Today was beautiful. The first official Quiz meet of the season. Remember Bible Quizzing? It's that competitive scripture memorization thing I do. My team, Kennocha Lavena, Did really well, winning every match but our last one. I got first for personal standings (sweet) but the more exciting thing is that two of my teammates, Carl and Nate, also did really well and will probably end up qualifying for Nationals, which is in Omaha this year. Oh, I also got second in verses memorized, which is kind of the whole point :)

Then after celebrating at DQ, I came home just in time for pizza and then went to watch a movie with friends. We ended up watching that movie Miracle which unfortunately is about hockey. I generally don't care for sports movies, but this one was ok, I guess. Maybe my dislike for sports movies has something to do with the fact that I don't like sports--either that or they're just pretty monotonous.

Monotonous? Yes. Not that I'm at all an expert on these films, since I rarely sit through any of them, but all the ones I've seen have been pretty dull. I mean, there's the coach with his revolutionary strategies, taking an underdog team to final glory at the pinnacle of whatever sport it is. You can normally tell exactly what's going to happen in the last 30 minutes from the first couple minutes, and exactly just which big, mean, heartless team they will be facing for the last part of the film.

The only reason I'd watch movies like this would be for the guys. (Like, duh!) I mean, there's bound to be at least a couple really hot guys . . . Oh, I love the soundtracks. I'm convinced that with the right music you can make even the most boring sport-- like, say, baseball-- come alive. I also like those perfectly written, beautifully delivered pep talks right before the final victory. I've noticed those don't happen very often in real life.

Although, I did get a really good one from Kennocha's other fabulous coach, Sarah. It happened during our second to last match, the one that would decide if we were going to be able to compete for 1st place, and it was half time. Sarah got down on her knees in our huddle, looked solemn for a moment, and uttered these immortal words, "Girls. . . . Be beautiful!"

Ok, so maybe it wasn't an Oscar winning speech, and maybe she didn't really have anything useful to say to us at all, but it was funny. And we did end up winning that match. Smoked 'em, actually. ;-)

"We chose to fight in the snow war Dividing the brigade."
That's how the Chinese exchange students next door told us, with the help of an internet translator I'm sure, that they were ready to pick teams for a big snowball fight. And what a fight it was!
You need to understand that when it actually snows in Bellingham, it's a big deal. Everything gets cancelled because people don't know how to drive in the snow. One half inch will delay the school system for an hour. (I know, my dear Coloradins, it sounds crazy, but here 2 inches is a huge deal.)
These last couple days it snowed a whopping 2.5 inches where we live. All my siblings were ecstatic--and busy. They built four snow forts. It may sound like too many, but it doesnt' when you think like we huge families do. We invited another huge family to come play with us, and also most of the neighborhood. The battle raged almost 4 hours, with little people mass producing snowballs and bigger people pasting each other. I don't ever remember being so cold and wet, but I also don't ever remember having as much fun in the snow.

Now I'm praying it will snow and cancel the next quiz meet (Saturday) so that I can make up all the review I should have done this afternoon.