As I sat here in bed with my computer, I realized that this was really the first time that I’d stopped all day; and even now, writing this archive journal doesn’t exactly count as not doing anything. It’s been one of those crazy-busy days, and I’m going to try and make this quick so I can get a few hours of sleep before I’ll need to help with the twins in a few hours.
Rowen and I had fun at school. Mrs. Warren assigned our first big project of the year – this one in science – and gave us time to get started on them. With a Gym class, lunch, and recesses added in; it was nearly non-stop fun all day! Since Rowen was working at the store after school, we did our after-school snack there, and then I went home and worked in the office on the family business until dinnertime. Mom had Alicia there to help her until then, but since Grandma and Grandpa were having dinner with us, Alicia decided not to stay and eat with us tonight.
Mom wasn’t directly involved in the travel plans that Nancy Emerson coordinated, and though she was regularly kept up to date on everything, Grandma and Grandpa’s upcoming trip to South America was the main dinner conversation topic tonight. There's still just over five weeks to go before they’d be going, but the final travel arrangements, and their itinerary, had been finalized now; and they’d wanted to talk about both the work side of what they’d be doing for the family business and the sightseeing and fun they had planned around the work.
Grandpa joked about taking me along as their personal translator. I thought it was a great idea, but Mom and Dad didn’t think I should take a month off of school to do that, and vetoed the suggestion. Oh well – maybe they’ll let me go on a summer trip with Grandma and Grandpa sometime. Anyway, for this trip, their four weeks are going to be split up with a week each in Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Most of their work will be checking out our business investments; though they’ll check in on a few charity projects too.
We’d been able to take our time having dinner, and Grandpa, Dad, and I did the cleanup while Mom and Grandma got Ethan and Ehlana ready to go out to the Inn for game night. Rowen met up with me there, and we ended up hanging out with Rebecca and Jenny for most of the evening. Sometimes I really miss doing things like this with them all the time like we did before they ‘crossed over’; but neither Rowen nor I miss it enough to join them on the other side yet. The good news for us tonight was that Rebecca in particular was having a ‘boys are gross and stupid’ day; though it was fairly obvious that her sentiment was directed at one specific boy.
I didn’t mentioned this in my journal last week, but Ethan and Ehlana are very popular at game night; and they love getting passed around – mostly among the Moms, Grandmothers, and teen girls. There aren’t usually very many babies or toddlers at the Inn on Thursday nights, so that makes them a bit of a novelty. One concern that had come up was from the ongoing comments about how good they always were – never crying or fussing in public. We all talked about how to deal with that as part of Ethan and Ehlana playing ‘normal baby’, but decided not to have them do anything different. It was one thing not to talk or read in public, but pretending to scream and cry for no reason other than for show just seemed silly – not to mention noisy and irritating to all of us!
After spending a couple of hours playing games we went home, and I helped Mom get set up to nurse the twins while Dad went to work in the office. Ethan and Ehlana had a lot of questions for us while they nursed, but they were soon ready for a nap too. While they slept, Mom and I joined Dad in the office, and we worked until just a few minutes ago; when I came up here to my room and got ready for bed. For me, that extra work time was mostly because I’ll be taking most of the weekend off from family business work. Now that’s something to look forward to – one more school day, and the weekend will be here!
