to blog or not to blog

Sorry I've been MIA for so long... It's been so crazy busy around here that we've barely had time to eat and sleep, much less blog. You might say, "Well, your mom has been blogging, so it must not be too busy!" I will tell you that Mom has lately been blogging only at night. She uses "bedtime" for things like blogging, reading, sewing, and Fox News. I use "bedtime" for sleeping. So yeah, I'm a failure. At blogging, that is.

With so much going on, there's way too much to post about. I will set aside some future posts for topics that need their own post such as the COG Psalty musical that my sisters and I directed, a health update, and a rundown of what my life will be like this next semester.

We just finished our marathon New Years parties at our house. For the first time since...ever, we had TWO parties in less that 24 hours at our house. The Warren version of a "party" is very different from the typical understanding of the word. Instead of loud music, dancing, fancy clothes, and cocktails, the parties at our house are usually an all-day affair and look more like jeans and tshirts, paper plates, 50+ people, more kids than adults, enough homemade food to feed the city, lots of soda, board games and card games galore, trampoline fun, football, and lots and lots of laughing. And the people we invite actually come!

Anyway, we had a New Years Eve Party that went well into the night. I think we had close to 45 people and I think everyone had fun watching fireworks and playing games. As midnight approached, several of us ran upstairs to my bedroom, climbed out of one of the windows and sat on the roof to get a better view of the fireworks. We had some blankets and sleeping bags (it was cold) and it was pretty cool to get a view of the whole neighborhood and beyond as the new year rolled in.
The highlight of the night was when, as we were laying on the roof waiting for midnight, Amy (one of our friends from church) said, "This is the best New Years Eve party I've EVER been to!" In my usual sarcastic tone I said, "Hm...you must not get to many New Years Eve parties then." Amy thought a minute and then replied, "Yeah, now that I think about it, we've always been stuck at home and have never been to one!" So yes, our parties ROCK....if you've never been to one before.

Less than 12 hours later, our next group of partiers arrived to celebrate the first day of the year. We had around 35 people for this one and we sat around watching the college bowl games, we ate ALL day long, broke out the guitars and had a jam session around the piano, and again played alot of board games. Mom showed a couple of the ladies what a sweet and warm family we are when she refused to offer them food until they registered for the annual WholeHearted Mother Conference. Mom brought her laptop into the kitchen and pulled the website up. Being quite hungry and smelling the good food, the two ladies gave up and registered right there. They were then allowed to eat. :)
The highlight of the day came during a 4-hour long (I am not exaggerating in the least) game of Cranium:Turbo Edition. Beth was on a team with our sweet friend and long-lost sister, Blair. It was their turn so I pulled out a card and told them that they had to spell a few words backwards. The way that Cranium works, your team has to spell the word together--one person says one letter, the next person says the next letter and so on. Ok, so the word was "licorice" and they had to spell it backwards. Blair says, "H." I was on a team with our other long-lost sister (there's alot of them) Stephanie, and we both started laughing. Beth didn't see the problem and said, "S." By the time Blair got to the letter "I" everyone at the table was laughing at them and to spare them further embarrassment, I just handed them the card. I think I said something about Blair being blond so she yelled back at me, "Oh yeah? Well you.... [she couldn't find a very good insult for me] You have botox!"

I'm feeling pretty good today because I owned the Bowl Games yesterday. Ever since I can remember, every year my family competes in the Annual College Football Bowl Championship Contest where we pick who we think will win each bowl game. Whoever has the most wins at the end of the season wins the contest. We had a meager beginning with only a few of us in the the family participating and competing for one small blizzard from Dairy Queen. Now the ACFBCC is much more sophisticated with 50 participants (we invite a select few from outside the family), 2 divisions, a commissioner, regional assistants, official bowl sheets, weekly email news updates regarding current standings, big arguments over "misrepresentation of our bowl picks" (aka: losing), and I think that 7 blizzards are now on the prize table. This is one of the biggest events of the year for our family and our secret friends. We spend days and weeks agonizing over our picks before sending them to the commissioner. We have to consider the teams themselves, starting lineups, coaches, location of the game, regular season records, strength of schedules, our own loyalties, prophecy from above, alignment of the planets, and many other things. It's very serious. Losers have been prone to severe bouts of depression and temporary insanity. Anyway, the reason I'm happy is because I had a losing record this year until yesterday, when I took home wins for all 6 New Years games. Out of all 50 people, I was the only person to win all 6. That's what I'm talkin' about!