Heirs of the Magi News Flash!

***Heirs of the Magi News Flash!*** Winter has, for the most part, been mild so far - or awesome for the month that Cassie and Michael spent in summertime-Australia! They are home now and will be working from home for most of the time until Easter. The hometown work will include getting ready for their next trip, but there will be a lot of fun to get in on and share with their favorite people - including their March Break trip to Florida adventure. All of your favorite Magi Masters will continue to work and play while their future plans unfold; so... ...Visit Witch Falls often to keep up with all of their latest stories; and Happy Reading!

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Cassie's Journal - July 9, 2013



Happy 13th Birthday, Elliott!

I may decide that sharing good morning kisses and Tai Chi with Michael is even better than moonlit swims and goodnight kisses.  Our second lesson went just as well as the first; and he – and Ethan and Ehlana – are learning fast.  The twins are really going to need to be careful with this.  They’re not doing anything that would be impossible for toddlers, but I’m sure that Mom and I both noticed that the intentional little mistakes they’re making are being done in perfect unison.  They have things like that happen fairly often, and are trying to learn to control it; but that’s harder for them to do when they’re really concentrating on something.

Mom and Dad finished exercising before we were done again, and went inside to get started on breakfast for twelve.  Michael went home to have breakfast there instead of staying with us, and though I needed to stay home; he advised me that Miranda was expecting me to come over for some of their ‘day off’ breakfasts once my cousins went home again.

I do not have a problem with going there for any meals that Michael’s father and brother are cooking!

After sending Michael off with another hug and kiss – several hugs and an extra kiss, if you include the ones from my giggling brother and sister – I traded places with Mom on the breakfast work crew so she could take care of Ethan, Ehlana, and Nicole while Dad, Violet, and I finished getting the food ready to feed the masses.  It wasn’t really an improvement on the morning tweeird of recent days, but Chris needed to spend more time teasing Martin about Vanessa than razzing me about Michael.  At least it probably did indicate that the novelty was wearing off already.

I was on the clean-up crew again, and then had some chores to do too before being able to take the rest of the day off.  Aunt Leanne needed to work in the office this morning, so Chrissy, Jonathan, Kara, and Eddie all came over to our house when she and Uncle Adam left for work.  While Chris, Martin, and Jonathan all took off on bikes shortly after that, Chrissy stayed and helped Alicia and Dawn with the younger kids while I was busy doing things like laundry; cleaning bathrooms; and helping Mom to put the picnic together that we’d be taking with us to Quarry Lake.  Grandma and Grandpa came over to help us with that too – and they were going to help with driving and kid control for the afternoon too.

Mom set me free at eleven o’clock, and Dawn and I split the last hour we had left before leaving getting our own bags packed for the afternoon and going over to Rowen’s house so we could help her pick out appropriately hot swimsuits and clothes so that she’d be all set for another party opportunity to wow ‘Tommy’.

She accomplished that mission for sure; but I’ll get to that later.

We were back again in time to help load up the vans, truck, and Violet’s car – and get the younger kids buckled in and ready to go too.  As usual around here, these little trips get a lot of interest; and there were lots of kids and teens heading out to Quarry Lake for a weekday afternoon adventure.  Since Jake, Stephanie, and Rebecca were all going with us, Jacob and Miranda thought about going along; but decided to stay home instead.

I don’t need to know what they decided to do instead while kid-free for the rest of the day; but wouldn’t need a second guess either!  :^)

Rowen, Michael, Dawn, and I were temporarily put in charge of the younger kids when we got to the campground while the adults and teens hauled most of our gear from the parking lot to the spot we picked for our day camp.  For a Tuesday, the campground was very busy.  It was becoming more popular every year, but having so much construction going on in Witch Falls was making a difference this year too; with Quarry Lake being one of the closest campgrounds available where family and friends of the workers could stay while visiting.  That was keeping the rooms at the Inn booked to capacity nearly every day too; but there weren’t that many rooms there anyway; and camping was about the only other option within twenty-five miles of town.

Getting back to the action, we went for a short swim; had our picnic lunch; and had time to play and go for another little swim before Rowen, Michael, and I needed to get to Elliott’s party.  There are a couple of things that need mentioning before getting to the main event of the day.  First, Aunt Leanne is not all that enthusiastic about how she looks in a swimsuit right now.  She’s closing in on the end of her second trimester, and she was over-compensating with too many ‘whale on the beach’ type jokes.  Just because bikinis are out this year doesn’t mean that you didn’t look beautiful – even if you don’t want to believe anyone right now.

Let me know when you read this some day in the future, Aunt Leanne, and I’ll show you the memories I have from today of the guys that were at Quarry Lake who thought that you were hot enough to be worth watching.

We don’t necessarily need to tell Uncle Adam about that, though! :^)

I’m sure that he and Dad both wished they could be out there with us today, but they wouldn’t have been able to have any adult-rated fun anyway with the gang of kids that Mom, Aunt Leanne, Grandma, and Grandpa had with them.  They at least had six teens, and Dawn, to help them out after we went to the party; or I wouldn’t have wanted to leave them – especially when Aunt Leanne can’t exactly run around after kids right now.

Elliott’s parents had booked one of the small picnic pavilions for his party.  The one they were assigned was about two hundred yards from the lake, but close to one of the playgrounds; and in a nicely shaded area.  Michael, Rowen, and I were among the first ‘friends’ guests there, so we were able to sit and talk with Elliott and his girlfriend, Gretchen, while we waited for the rest of our friends to arrive.  Since there hadn’t been Sunday school at church on Sunday, and Gretchen is one of the ‘farm kids’, we hadn’t talked together since seeing each other for a couple of minutes on the Fourth of July; and she wanted to hear all about the latest with Michael and me.  Rowen was happy to help her out with that while Michael and I let her entertain Elliott and Gretchen and enjoyed the show.

I also enjoyed seeing ‘Tommy’s’ first reaction to seeing Rowen in the hot little sundress we’d picked for her to throw on over her swimsuit.  Yes, he has a girlfriend, and spent most of the day in close proximity to her; but as I do a quick little memory review of the scenes around me from this afternoon and evening; ‘Tommy’ spent a total of almost eighteen minutes watching Rowen.  That may not sound like much over the course of about eight hours, but think about what that means when most of that time happened at an average of five-point-eight seconds per glance.  He needed to look at Rowen one hundred and eighty-three times; nearly twenty-three times an hour; or a bit less than once every three minutes.

Just in case you’re wondering, Michael watched me for a lot more that eighteen minutes; but let’s not do the math for that.  What’s important for me is that he wasn’t spending eighteen minutes or more doing that kind of girl-watching.  Before you start wondering if I’m in denial or something, I’m not suggesting that Michael’s stopped finding other girls attractive in the last couple of weeks; but there’s a big difference between appreciating beauty and the slightly obsessive girl-watching that ‘Tommy’ was doing today.

Oh, and I still think that Jake Stone is hot even though I’m dating his brother now; so that kind of thing hasn’t changed for me either.

I need to work on how easily I’m distracted into these little mental side-trips lately!  All of our friends were at Quarry Lake by one-thirty; including the girls who needed to arrive fashionably late.  They know who they are; so no names are necessary.  Every birthday party is at least a bit different, and in this case, Elliott’s parents had set up some group activities instead of just setting us all free to do our own thing for the afternoon and evening.  That started out with a beach volleyball competition with games on the side like Frisbee and lawn darts for the kids and teens when they weren’t playing volleyball.  There were four teams, and four matches that ended with the ‘championship’ game.

Elliott’s team made that final; but so did the team Michael, Rowen, and I were on.  It’s his birthday, and we probably should have taken it easy, but I’m sure I mention regularly that I like to win; and today we did – in straight sets.  It wasn’t close.  I wouldn’t dream of skipping over the fact that having Tim, Nora, and Vanessa were on Elliott’s team too helped my personal motivation; but Rowen didn’t mind helping me out with that – and giving ‘Tommy’ another reason to be impressed with her was a nice bonus.

I continue to wonder how it’s possible that ‘Tommy’ – and practically all of the guys around our age – have been so completely clueless about just how amazing my best friend really is.  For that matter, there are a lot of girls who are just starting to figure out that Rowen is a lot more than one of the class brainiacs.  One of these days they may even discover that she’s got a wicked sense of humor – though she rarely lets that out to play in public.

We did get to have some free time after the little volleyball competition, and pretty much everyone at the party went swimming.  That gave Michael, Rowen, and I a little time to spend with my family; and we mostly played with Ethan, Ehlana, and my younger cousins while the adults and teens packed up most of the day camp gear and hauled it back to the vans and truck.  All of the teens were staying at Quarry Lake, but they came back and played with us until again helping Mom, Aunt Leanne, Grandma, and Grandpa to round up my brother, sister, and younger cousins; get them dried off; and into the two minivans and Dad’s truck for the trip back to town.

Michael, Rowen, and I needed to get back to Elliott’s party by then, and though Chris, Jonathan, and Rebecca stayed with the four older teens; Vanessa had hooked up with Martin earlier; and he was hanging out with her for the rest of the party.  There were more organized games for the hour or so until we had dinner, and though I heard a few quiet, derisive comments about party games and prizes at our age; I thought the games were fun, and so did nearly everyone else.

Dinner included standard barbeque picnic fare, and the only comment I have about that blast of tweeird is to record for posterity that my new boyfriend chose not to play any of the reindeer games at the expense of getting severely razzed about it by the other guys.  Hopefully the bonus hugs and kisses we shared made up for that sacrifice.  I am so glad that I didn’t have to watch Michael trying to do things like stuff multiple hotdogs into his mouth at one time.  ‘Tommy’, on the other hand, had me wondering how sure Rowen is that he’s her match.  During dinner, the only way that could possibly be true would be with the ‘opposites attract’ theory.

Moving along, getting through dinner, and doing the cake and birthday gift thing with Elliott, took an hour and a half or so, and then there was a scavenger hunt and time for one last swim before it was time to head back to town when the day pass visitors needed to leave the campground.  The last tweeird moment at the lake deserves mentioning, if only because Violet thought that it was just as weird to drive Martin and Vanessa home as I did.  Michael, Jonathan, Rowen, and I went home with Jake, Stephanie, and Rebecca; while Chris squeezed into the back seat of Violet's Car with Martin and Vanessa.  That must’ve been cozy.

Jonathan had Chris, Martin, Vanessa, and some of their other friends go to Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s house to wrap their day up with some video gaming.  Rowen decided to go home instead of hanging out with Michael and me; but that was mostly because she wanted to get a decent night of sleep before we started two major camping adventure days with an all-day canoe ride to the whirlpool in the morning.  When Michael and I got home, we were just in time for the bedtime snack and story for Ethan and Ehlana.  Dawn, Jaimie, and Kaitlyn wanted the party report too; and then after we tucked the twins in for the night, we helped Mom with putting together most of the picnic lunch we’d be taking with us on the canoe trip.

Another swim was next on the fun list, but Dawn, Jaimie, and Kaitlyn all came swimming with Michael and me this time.  That made playing with the glow-in-the-dark water toys more fun; but kept the goodnight hug and kiss time fireworks-free when it was time for Michael to get home.  There isn’t much else to report for tonight.  Dawn and I took turns having some Jacuzzi time; I had a bedtime girl chat with Jaimie and Kaitlyn while Dawn was in the tub; and both of my bed buddies were sleeping by the time I started working on my computer after I finished in the bathroom.

There was more family business work to do, but the email traffic is pretty low while most of my cousins are here. (Jayden almost never sends me email.)  It’s already going on one o’clock, and even Chris and Martin have gotten home and gone to bed; so I should call it a night so I’ll be ready for the canoe trip and camping.  Hopefully, my first trip to the whirlpool with my boyfriend will be as awesome as our first date and first birthday party have been!

Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging out!