Happy 14th Birthday, Joshua!
I’ll get started on the birthday party news
in a minute, since that was where most of the news from today happened for me;
but let’s start this update from the beginning.
Thank-you, weather forecasters, not only
for not messing up last night and actually correctly predicting that we wouldn’t
get rained on for our second sleepover; but also for messing up the forecast
for the rest of the day. Yes, we did get
a couple of little thundershowers this afternoon at Joshua’s party, but not the
all-afternoon, all-evening weather event you predicted.
See?
Sometimes Mother Nature surprises to the good side; and I’ll be the
first to admit that I rarely complain about weather forecasts when they predict
bad weather that doesn’t end up happening.
It’s much easier to adjust a plan to deal with a sudden outbreak of
sunshine than it is to deal with unexpected storms. It’s late, though, and we’ve had way too much
fun today for me to get into another diatribe about one of the few jobs in the
world you can work at with such lousy success rate where you can actually keep
your job despite being wrong so much of the time.
So, first up this morning after our early
morning campground wake-up call was Tai Chi by the river; followed by a camp
tear-down while Mom and Dad cooked breakfast.
Michael, Tim, and Rowen all needed to leave after we ate and finished
cleaning up, but Naomi and Aiden both stayed until they were picked up by a
parent a bit later in the morning. Dad
and I were on outdoor chore duty for the rest of the morning; and while getting
the lawn mowed yesterday helped out with that; it really only gave me more time
to do other work – like weeding the gardens and planting some new flowers. I worked until twelve-thirty; hopped into the
river to cool off and get the worst of the dirt washed away; and then had lunch
before getting ready for Joshua’s party.
I can’t say much about bigger and better
birthday parties, since my parents have made mine fairly amazing since I moved
here, but I do want to begin this birthday party report by mentioning that I
really love just having a fun, family and friends play day kind of party like
Joshua’s parents put on for him. His
party last year was special because Michael and I sort of were, but not quite
yet officially ‘dating’; and this year’s edition was very different because we’re
no longer in the social doghouse like we were last year. We also had more time to party, since the
party was on a Friday last year.
Joshua does live on a farm, though, and the
work gets done first before the play time; so the party didn’t start until
three – with some social time ahead of that starting at two-thirty while the
set-up was still going on. That meant
that I both had time to get ready for the party and that the first round of thundershowers
had come and gone by the time Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I got our ride out to
the Parker farm. We were the first
non-family teens there, and that was a bit of déjà vu from last year too as we
spent that time hanging out with Joshua and Sally; and helped out with a bit of
the work – mostly setting up the games.
One other thing that didn’t change from
last year was how popular Michael, Rowen, and I were with the younger kids –
particularly with Joshua’s sister, Gabrielle.
This year, Rowen and I had her – and her best friend, Wendy Wilson –
around us a lot. They’re both ten going
on eleven now, and while they haven’t ‘crossed over’; we’re apparently not too
scary with how we act around our boyfriends compared to their older siblings
and other teens. There were a few jokes about
that today, but I honestly don’t mind that any more than I’d ever have a
problem with Ethan, Ehlana, and their friends wanting to hang out with us. Rowen can’t say the same thing about Patrick,
since there have been a lot of moments in the past when she’d have seriously
considered offers to trade him in for a less-annoying model; but he is getting
better – and Gabrielle and Wendy weren’t being annoying. They just wanted to have fun; and maybe feel
a little more grown up instead of being lumped in with the younger kids.
I’m sure that everyone can relate to that
particular progression into the land of tween.
Getting back to the actual party news, the
first thing I should mention is that Joshua’s – and Sally’s – families are huge
high school football fans. No surprise
there with boys from both families on the team last season; but that did mean
that Michael and Tim were bound to be talking football a lot today – and playing
too. All of the boys, and their fathers,
are not particularly optimistic about the prospects for our team this season
without Kyle and the other graduating seniors; but Joshua’s and Sally’s
brothers are already talking about bonus summer training to get ready for the
season anyway – news that definitely caught Tim’s interest.
Since we’re there anyway; let’s get the
football part of the party news out of the way now. The first scrimmage started shortly after the
party did anyway; though that was just of first of several mini-matches. Joshua’s brother, Ray, and Sally’s brothers,
Alex and Mark, are all big guys – though Mark is only going on sixteen, and not
quite as big as the two older guys quite yet.
Joshua’s brother has dreams of being the star quarterback on our school
team; though he’s really been sort of an all-purpose player in his first year
on the team. I doubt that even he thinks
that he has a real shot at beating Jeff Morris out for the job this coming
season – if for no other reason than that Jeff does have the distinction of
quarterbacking last year’s championship team.
Short of a season-ending injury; Jeff will be our quarterback again –
and probably team captain.
Now that’ll be a job with big shoes to
fill! Hopefully there’s enough money in
the budget to sew a ‘C’ on Jeff’s jersey too; since he’d need to wrap Kyle’s
old one around himself two or three times to get it to fit.
I’m getting side-tracked; since the point I
was going to make had more to do with how Michael, Tim, Joshua, and the other
guys our age stacked up against the older guys.
Tim isn’t the only soon-to-be high school freshman who wants to play on
the team this year, but if any of the guys in our class are going to be ready
by August; Michael and Tim will be at the top of the list. I can also tell you that after today, Tim
doesn’t think that they’re quite there yet.
I predict that Michael will be doing extra
football training all summer – though probably not until after the holiday
weekend.
Rowen, Sally, Gretchen, and I played some
football too when the second match of the afternoon was open to anyone – including
the kids and girls. I have no intention
of trying out for the team and trying to break any feminist barriers in sports;
but I did do pretty well this afternoon throwing the ball to Michael, Tim, and
a few of the other guys on our team.
Rowen out-ran a few of the guys on the half-dozen plays she was our
running back for; though she’d be the first to admit that her goal was to get
out-of-bounds before getting caught – even if she had a couple of good runs to
get there.
Hint to most football playing guys: pay
more attention in math class. Even in
touch football, you’re going to lose if you don’t understand basic geometry and
physics.
Okay, that’s enough football for me
tonight. Let’s get on with the rest of
the party action.
In addition to the football, our afternoon
activities included swimming in the pond; playing the other usual summertime
yard games; and just having fun together whether playing or sitting around and talking
with our friends. I haven’t mentioned it
in my journal before, mostly because it’s just one of those obvious things to
everyone who lives in and around our little town; but Sally’s family was at the
party because her mom, Cora, is best friends with Joshua’s mother,
Mary-Ellen. Their father’s are close
friends too; though their friendship developed more through their wives – and from
the shared farming and football interests since they weren’t in the same grade
in school while their girls were. I
bring that up because I should do that more in these journals for Magi reading
this far enough into the future that they’d have to look up family connections;
and because I really like Sally’s and Joshua’s parents. They don’t run in the same circles with my
parents, or Michael’s; but their sense of family and priorities is exactly the
same – which is why I feel right at home at either the Parker or Reynolds
farms.
There was more déjà vu at dinnertime when
Michael and I ended up sitting with Gabrielle and Wendy; but we also had four
other friends with us this year – Gretchen, Brock, Lily, and Kris. That made Michael and I the only ‘couple’ at
our table, but it also wasn’t a coincidence that the other four teens were at
our table in pairs. There is definitely
some potential romantic interest going on there – particularly with Gretchen
and Brock. He’s showing all of the signs
of being very cautious about starting a new relationship after his break-up on
the Washington trip with Nora; but that might be exactly why Gretchen is so
interesting to him – because she’s absolutely nothing at all like Nora.
Hanging out with Gretchen sure earned Brock
some attention from Nora – and from Gretchen’s last boyfriend too. Elliott hadn’t dated anyone seriously since
they broke up last March, but he seemed to have a problem with the fact that
Gretchen was finally showing some interest in other guys after enjoying being
single for three months. I wouldn’t say
that seeing Gretchen and Brock together pushed Nora and Elliott together; but
they did seem to be talking to each other more often than they normally would
after dinner tonight.
I could add something to that; but I’d hate
to spoil the surprise.
While we are on the teen drama scene,
though, Lily and Kris were having fun together today, but weren’t getting too
cozy. Lily did just break up with Marc,
though, so even though that wasn’t a messy break-up or anything; she’s probably
trying not to rock the social boat by making it look as though getting together
with Kris had anything to do with ending things with Marc. There is other teen dramas going on – we do
have other single teens right now with all of the spring break-ups; but nothing
imminent enough to report quite yet – or at least as far as anyone looking at
the current events knows without having any future insight.
Honestly, I’m just glad that Michael and I
will not have any starring roles in any of those upcoming high school teen
dramas. He’s mine – so hands off, girls!
;^)
The dinner menu was standard barbeque fare
with a couple of cake options and copious quantities of ice cream for
dessert. Joshua had a lot of gifts to
open, so that took a while; but cash and gift cards do seem to be getting much
more popular this year as gifts for teens.
I don’t personally like doing that; but then I do have some advantages
when it comes to things like that; so I’m pretty good at picking gifts for
people.
I skipped mentioning the second little
thundershower that rolled through here this afternoon, but only because those
of us who were already wet from swimming didn’t care; and since the forecast
had been for rain anyway; one of the barns had been set up for an indoor dinner
if needed; so there was a big place for everyone to go to get out of the rain
if they wanted to do that. When it
cleared up again after the rain, it only took a few minutes to move tables and
chairs out of the barn.
The post-dinner clean-up was a group effort
that teens were ‘encouraged’ to help out with; and then it was time to get back
to the fun and games until the campfire started at dusk. Rowen and I mostly played with Gabrielle,
Wendy, and some of the other kids and teen girls while the boys had another
football match; and then most of us went swimming to cool off again before
settling in for the campfire. Michael
and I weren’t the only guitar players in the group tonight; but we were two of
the favorites – especially when we added in a few duets that had some of the
adults and teens dancing near the fire and everyone else sitting back and
enjoying the show instead of singing along.
We weren’t officially having a dance; but
Michael and I danced a couple of times too after most of the kids and adults
went home at eleven o’clock and Ray put some canned music on for us to listen
to instead of doing any more campfire songs.
The spooky stories got scarier once the young kids were gone, though;
and we had a blast hanging out with our friends. Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I also had a later
curfew than last year – we got to stay at the party until it ended shortly
after one o’clock. In fact, we were even
four of the last to leave – partly because Mom and Dad had gone out too and
were designated drivers for their friends.
They did a run out to a pair of farms first; and then picked us up on
the way home. Babysitting services weren’t
at our house tonight, and Ethan and Ehlana are staying at the Seager house
overnight; so I had time to say goodnight to Michael in a lengthy, non-verbal
sort of way while Mom and Dad did one more run to the pub for the rest of their
friends – including Miranda and Jacob.
Michael went home with them after that, and I came up to my room to have
a shower and go to bed.
That meant taking the extra time to dry my
hair, but I seriously needed the shower before even thinking about getting into
my bed. How do I know that? Many suggested that I sleep on the sofa if I
didn’t; because she didn’t want to end up with any farm dirt in her beautiful
fur coat.
The things we do for our cats!
With all of that, it was after three by the
time I climbed into bed, and though I am tired; it’s taken a while to wind
down. I did a bit of family business
work and my usual nightly computer checks before getting around to this update,
and while I may not drop right off to sleep after I put my computer away for
the night; I’d better try to get started on the nap I still have time for
before we need to get up for Tai Chi and whatever Sunday adventures we have
ahead of us. We don’t have anything
specifically planned, but that’s actually okay with me – I could use a rest-up
day right about now before getting into all of the fun we’re going to have
heading into the holiday weekend.
Okay, I obviously have nothing to add to
this update now; so, until next time…
…Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the
Light!
