There’s a lot to write about tonight, but I want to start
with my favorite news – that Rowen and I are going to be in the Fourth of July
parade this year.
We were drafted by her parents to come up with something to
do that Emerson’s could sponsor; with the only instructions being that whatever
we did needed to allow us to toss candy to the crowd too. By noon, we’d decided on doing something with
our bikes, and after talking about it with Michael when we got together at his
house after lunch; we decided to go with putting together a street tricks
routine. It wasn’t tough to get Tim
excited about the idea when we told him about it; and we had our little stunt
group set to go – though Tim was immediately in the doghouse again with Nora.
I’m glad he was willing to take that hit for the team
because he had a great idea for using a low-ride equipment trailer to do the
cooler tricks on; and his mechanic Dad and Uncle were a much better choice to
help us put that together than our chef, lawyer, and computer expert fathers
would have been. We may have an extra
sponsor now too; but the Moms can work that out while we concentrate on putting
our little trick riding demonstration together.
We worked on that for a couple of hours this afternoon,
starting with some trail riding before spending some time taking those trail
tricks to the street – or more accurately to the back yards and park picnic
area. Picnic tables worked great for
practicing jumping up onto objects and balancing; a four-by-four on the ground
worked for a balance beam that didn’t hurt to fall off; and Michael and Tim put
together a make-shift ramp for us to try small jumps on. It was a fun afternoon, but we’ve got quite a
bit of work to do if we want to impress our family, friends, and neighbors next
week.
The riding took up a lot of our afternoon, and we had
company some of the time – particularly while we were practicing wheelies and
bunny hops in the parking lot at the park; and riding on the picnic tables near
the pavilion. Vanessa and Nora were
particularly interested in what we were doing, and made sure that Michael,
Rowen, and I got laughed at whenever our trick attempts failed; and there were
frowns and glares each time we succeeded.
Some of the other tween and teen guys at the park joined in to try
showing off their best tricks too, and that mostly gave us more ideas for what
we could put into our routine.
While Nora was annoyed with Tim for hanging out with Michael
again and running off to play on his bike with us; today she changed tactics
and lured him back to the fold with a timely invitation to go for a swim and an
Emporium ice cream run. I’m sure that
she was just so happy to have Tim follow her like a happy little puppy that she
just forgot to invite Michael, Rowen, and I to go along too. We had to settle for some water play time
with Ethan and Ehlana instead; and scooped our own ice cream cones at home too
instead of taking the chance of some more tweeirdness by going to the Emporium
too.
That swim was pretty much the end of my play time for the
day anyway; though we got approval for a major bike trip tomorrow before
Michael went home to have dinner before his baseball practice. We’re going to bike out to Quarry Lake;
and Michael sent an email to Rowen and me tonight to confirm that Tim was in
for the trip too. The bad news that came
along with that was a heads-up to let us know that Vanessa and Nora were
talking to Tim about meeting him out there and spending the day playing with
some of their friends – which they made sure Michael overhead before leaving
him on his own after the practice.
I didn’t get that news until after I was in bed for the
night. When Michael went home, Rowen and
I helped Mom with making dinner and getting the office ready for a combination
wedding and family business meeting. She
went home to spend the evening with her parents and to do some work around the
house; and Violet was having dinner with Dillon; so it was just the five of us
at our house – until our regular meeting members started arriving shortly
before seven.
Let’s start with the family business and future plans
news. The second basement level of the
lab has been finished now, and they’ve begun working on the third and ‘top’
basement level. It’s on target to be
done in about six weeks; and then the framing for the two floors that will be
above ground can begin. The goal is to
have the lab closed in by winter so the construction crews can continue their
work through the winter. On the archive
side of that part of our future plans; Grandma Eleanor and Grandpa Grant are
going to start getting books ready to transport back home on all trips from now
on; and we should be able to start moving them into the new building by next
Spring.
We went over the house construction next, and the three
houses that will be moved into at the end of July, including Aunt Grace and
Mark’s new home, are all at the finishing and clean-up stage. Other homes being worked on include the
houses that the main construction company owners are building for themselves,
and one row of townhomes is being built now that will mostly be used as model
homes. On the planning side of things,
we have the final drawings for the first apartment building; and construction
on that site will begin in September; though the land will be prepared this
summer, and they may put the foundation in early too if everything else stays
ahead of schedule.
The town business development needs chat started out with
something that wasn’t specifically part of our plan, but is going to be news
over the next few days. Witch Falls
Electric and Lighting are building a new store and shop; and expect to be
opening the new store in time for the Thanksgiving shopping week. Their current store is behind Emerson
Computers, and Aunt Leanne will be selling or leasing the building for them for
when they’ve finished moving. Since that
does fit perfectly into a plan that we do have; but we won’t need to do much
about that until September. I’ll write
more about it then.
While there isn’t much we need to do about the people part
of our near-term future; we did go over all teen college students we’re
‘helping’; and though there will be some surprises for them over the next
couple of months; everything is pretty much happening as expected. Our assistance now will range from financial
to some special lessons that Mom’s going to do with Stephanie just in case she
should end up anywhere near the Hathornes for any reason at all while she and
Jake are in New York for the next four years.
We discussed some plans for adults, and there are some more
teens in Grade Eleven and Twelve this year that we’ll be keeping an eye on too;
but there isn’t anything there that gives us anything that needs to be done
over the next couple of months.
Aunt Leanne led the wedding plans update; and we’re really
going to start getting busy with that this weekend when Aunt Grace, Mark, and
both sets of parents get here on Friday and Saturday. From Saturday afternoon on, I expect to be
busy day and night for the next three weeks – including the two weeks after the
wedding when we’ll have cousins from both families on vacation with us.
I’ll be helping out with some of the extra work this weekend
and next week; but a big part of my wedding assignments is going to be younger
cousin control and entertainment coordinator.
I think I’ll ask Rowen if she’d like another part-time job to help me
out with that – we’re going to have a lot of younger cousins here. Hiring Michael might be fun too, but it’ll be
all hands on deck at the Inn next week; so other than finding some time to
practice for our Fourth of July trick riding demonstration; we’re not going to
be spending much time together anyway – except on the Fourth and at the
wedding. As long as our first date isn’t
a total disaster, I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to spend more time together
for the rest of the summer.
For tonight, though, that’s pretty much all of the news I
have. The meeting took about three
hours, so Ethan, Ehlana, and I pretty much went straight to bed after that – though
I had a quick visit with my Jacuzzi first before cuddling with Mandy and
getting started on my summer-lite nightly computing. There were a few business-related email to
deal with, but I’ll still manage to be sleeping before midnight; and that’ll be
enough downtime to be fully charged and ready for our bike ride out to Quarry Lake
in the morning.
Now that I’m thinking about that again, I’m going to invite
Violet and Dillon – and Jake and Stephanie – to drive out and play with us for
a while if they’d like. The extra
support might be good to have around if Vanessa, Nora, and the rest of the
couples club are at Quarry
Lake tomorrow too and not
playing nice with Michael, Rowen, and me.
I’ll ask Violet in the morning – she’s still out with Dillon, and probably
doesn’t want to be disturbed with a text message.
Okay, that really is it for tonight, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
