This has been the nicest rainy weekend I’ve seen in a long
time! We had another beautiful day from
the time the rain from Saturday night moved on until the showers started after
I climbed into bed with Mandy and got started on my usual school night studies
and computing.
Mom and Dad may be glad that I don’t get more than eight
consecutive hours of sleep very often because I was fully charged and ready to
go when I helped Ethan and Ehlana give them a fairly enthusiastic wake-up call.
Bouncing on the bed was involved, but I
left that up to the twins; and only got involved when they bounced off and
needed to be caught and tossed back into the fun.
Tai Chi by the river was nice, but a bit damp on the feet
thanks to the rain last night. Ethan and
Ehlana sat on the dock and fed the birds some bread while we exercised. We had a fruit salad and Olde Bakery muffins
and croissants breakfast; and then Mom, Ehlana, and I played dress-up for a
while before we all met up with Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne for the walk to
church.
This was Beth-Anne White’s first time going to church with
her parents and big brother; and the entire White family had center stage
before and after the service. It isn’t
like there’s an epidemic of pregnancies going on in Witch Falls
right now, but this has been, and is, the first time that Mom and I have had
the personal attachments to so many pregnant family members and friends. Beth-Anne’s introduction to her friends and
neighbors brought my attention to her cousins Amy and Jared. Amy is due in early August, and from what I
saw today; she’s going to be practicing for her own baby a lot with her
favorite cousin’s adorable little baby.
I’m biased, because Amy is still my favorite teacher ever so far; but I
think she is going to be a really great Mom!
The only other news from church today is that all of the
Sunday school classes were involved in some way with getting ready for the
Memorial Day service that the teens will be leading. Our class worked on backdrops for two of the
skits. Paint and tween boys were
involved, so it was occasionally messy, but smocks were available; and
everything else washed off except for a few splatters in my hair that I needed
to deal with after getting home.
This is the last weekend before summer hours kick in for
most of the stores in town, so Mom and Dad invited Rowen and her parents and
brother for lunch; adding them to the group we already had coming to spend the
afternoon doing more holiday weekend pre-cooking. Patrick ended up having Scott with him, but
the occasionally-terrible two mostly just tossed a baseball around before lunch
while Rowen and I were busy with Ethan and Ehlana, and they went biking after
lunch; so the only time they spent trying to mess around with us was while we
had lunch by the river.
Their decision to go biking had Rowen and I deciding to take
Ethan and Ehlana for a canoe ride – though we didn’t make that decision until
after the boys were gone. We took two
canoes; paddled downtown; went for a walk to the falls; and then stopped at the
Inn to invite Michael and Rebecca to join us
for some Emporium ice cream and more canoeing.
Miranda set them free for their afternoon break a bit early
so they could do that, and we ended up wandering around the Emporium for fifteen
or twenty minutes before getting our ice creams and going to sit by the river
to eat them before hopping in the canoes.
That gave Michael time to read Ethan the little book he’d needed to get
at the store too, and if that was another matchmaking nudge; they’re going too
far by getting me to pay for it!
After our last canoe ride, I have no doubt that Michael will
be stuck in my canoe whenever Rowen or anyone else can make that happen; and
today, it was Ethan making sure that Michael was with us. Ethan also sat right in front of Michael too
instead of with me for the trip upriver and back home. We stopped at the park first for some
playground time, and were just leaving again when Patrick and Scott buzzed through
on their bikes coming back from their trail ride. I’ll guess that seeing Michael in the canoe
with me had everything to do with why they were in the back yard by the time we
docked the canoes and got out.
We had time to play for a while longer, and had drinks and a
little visit with the cooking crew and their guests; and then Rowen and I
hopped in the canoes again with Michael and Rebecca when it was time for them
to get back to the Inn. Patrick and
Scott supposedly were biking to the Emporium for ice cream when we left, but
they were razzing us from the Quarry Road bridge when we paddled under it; were
skipping stones into the river from the park when we passed them there; and
then they must have raced back across the bridge to be on the road above the
dock to razz us some more about being so slow.
Okay, maybe I was a bit annoyed with them; and that’s
definitely why I hugged Michael too after doing the goodbye hug with Rebecca.
Rowen thought that was funny, but I felt a little guilty
about it by the time we paddled home again; and that’s the only reason I
included Patrick in the goodbye hugs when they headed home with their parents
on the way to a family dinner with their grandparents.
The cooking session was over by then, so most of our guests
started heading home or on to other places, and by five o’clock; only Grandma,
Grandpa, Uncle Adam, and Aunt Leanne were still with us. They were staying for dinner; and we were
doing another barbeque. Mom decided to
just go with cold salads for side dishes, so there was minimal pre and post
meal work; and that last few hours we spent together was almost all fun and
games with a healthy dose of relaxing for Mom, Aunt Leanne, and Grandma after
they’d done so much extra work all afternoon.
Ethan, Ehlana, and I not only had company for our evening Magi
lesson – Mom had Grandpa, Uncle Adam, and Dad teaching us while she taught them
some new training techniques that would help them with future grandchildren,
children, or nieces and nephews. Grandpa
took care of Ethan and Ehlana’s bedtime story too, and then he and Grandma, and
Aunt Leanne and Uncle Adam, went home once the twins were tucked in.
I needed another visit to my Jacuzzi after that, and this
time I didn’t do any multi-tasking so I could just relax and enjoy a nice, long
soak in the hot, frothy water. The
trade-off for that has been a later night, but even working until nearly two
has been okay after getting the extra rest last night. My archive homework was easy enough, but I
put a little extra time into the language practice and reading to start getting
ahead for the long weekend. Yes, it is
my own timetable, but it’s also a big part of my personal future plans; so it
isn’t something I can let slide.
Most of the email from around the family was about the
holiday weekend too. Violet and Dawn are
fired up about being here for three days, while Jaimie and Kaitlyn wish they
could see us too while also being excited about spending time with Aunt
Alison’s and Grandma Mercy’s families.
Aunt Grace is going to Seattle
again, and this will be her last trip there before the wedding. It’ll also be the last time she sees Mark
before they both move here at the end of June – though they’ll technically be
guests at Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s until the wedding, and on their
honeymoon for the two weeks after that.
Other than continuing to get ready for the holiday weekend,
it should be a fairly quiet week, and with the annual work all of the students
do on the Friday of the Memorial Day weekend; we really only have four days of
classes this week. Since those Monday
classes are barely more than a handful of hours away now; I’d better call it a
night.
Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging
out!
