Happy first day of August!
Before I get to the news from today, let’s
back up and cover the camping adventure from last night.
We had a blast, and while I love playing
with the twins and their friends; it was really nice to just have a teens-only
night for a change. Jenny would have
loved it too, but then the parental approval might have been different if we’d
had four couples and four tents. Then
again, only having two tents didn’t keep us from having some couples alone time
– it just meant that Michael and I were the odd couple out while Rebecca and
Lucas and Rowen and Tim paired up in the two tents. Don’t feel bad for Michael and me. We had fun too; and there’s a lot to be said
for playing in the water. No, we didn’t
go skinny-dipping, but we swam all the way to the park; wandered around there
for a while; and swam back home again with regular make-out intermissions along
the way. I’m not bragging or anything,
but I’m fairly sure that the river temperature went up a couple of degrees
downriver of us! ;^)
Our return timing nearly coincided with
Rebecca and Lucas reappearing from our – the girls’ – tent; and it was fairly
obvious that they had as much fun as we did – though I’m sure that Michael didn’t
ask Lucas for any details once we were all in our tents for the night. Rebecca, Rowen, and I definitely had some
girl-chat time then; though we didn’t really talk for long before we all
started falling asleep. Since it was
after two by then and we were going to be up early for breakfast and sports;
that was okay with all of us – even if it might have been fun to talk all night
too.
There wasn’t a campfire last night because
we didn’t want to have any of the usual gang of younger kids upset about
missing out on that kind of fun, but we did have some play time that included
an earlier swim and a game of glow in the dark Frisbee. Nobody reading this will be surprised to hear
that the boys talked football quite a bit; and Tim has even bigger plans for
the next three weeks leading up to the week of training camp. While I’m thinking about that, and it was
something that Tim talked about – Kyle left today for his college and the start
of training camp for his new team. I was
a bit surprised that there wasn’t a big farewell party for him, but he
apparently wanted to spend his last night here with Erin Green instead. She’ll be going to the same college, but doesn’t
leave until the same weekend as Violet and Dillon do; so this will be their
first long separation since they started dating.
Getting back to the update, we really did
have an awesome time last night, and we were all in a really good mood this
morning too – even without getting a lot of sleep. Michael and I were up early for Tai Chi; we
all got ready for the day; and Mom sent us off to the park with a picnic
breakfast so that we could multi-task the football and food. Rebecca, Rowen, and I were the only girls
there, and we get razzed about it every time; but it was still fun having
Lucas, Michael, and Tim chase us some of the drills and the route and play
practices were fun too – though Rebecca sat out for a lot of that part of the
workout.
The practice wrapped up in time for Lucas
to catch his ride home, and the rest of us went for a swim at my house before
we packed up our tents and camping gear.
Michael, Rowen, and Tim all moved on after that; and I spent the rest of
the morning getting a head start on my weekend chores again by mowing the lawn. Ethan and Ehlana went with Naomi and Aiden to
KidZone for the morning, so I picked them up there and had lunch with them –
and Mom and Alicia – before we then moved on to some biking, swimming, and play
time at the park that Michael joined us for after finishing up with the lunch
shift at the Inn.
That brings us to the start of the best
parts of the day for me – and for Michael, Rowen, and Tim too. Michael and Tim surprised Rowen and me with a
date night. In my case, Michael told me
about it when we got back to my house so that I’d have enough time to get ready
after handing off Ethan and Ehlana to Alicia and Mom. While I was grabbing a shower and getting
dressed for ‘casual dining and outdoor play and swimming’, Violet was getting
ready to leave for Woodvale with Dillon; so I was able to say goodbye to her
too and have a little chat before we each went our separate ways. I hope she’s having fun this weekend, but I’ll
guess that Michael and I had more fun – we didn’t have a three or four hour
drive to do; depending on how much traffic they had to deal with on a Friday
night.
I can back that claim up with just the
first part of our date night – which was a gourmet dinner straight from the kitchen
at the Inn with two of Jacob’s specialty entrees and everything from appetizers
to sides and an Olde Bakery dessert. It
might not always be fun when Michael has to help out at the Inn so much of the
time, and especially on holiday weekends; but he’s way ahead of any other guy
our age when it comes to date night dinners – and Tim is very happy to be able
to enjoy that kind of thing with his best friend while also impressing his
girlfriend too.
Rowen and I are going to keep them – not that
we’re just in it for the food.
We had dinner out on the back porch at
Michael’s house, and the boys did all of the serving and clean-up work even if
they didn’t have to cook any of the food – though I guess Michael did have to
warm up a couple of the side dishes that he’d brought home with him after
lunch. Since we don’t have any other
dining options in town for us other than the Inn, and Michael doesn’t really
want to do date nights there with his family hovering around; their plan for
tonight was awesome. Maybe when we can
drive we’ll expand our dating options to include trips to Crystal Springs or
elsewhere, but until then; I’m very okay with teen-only dinners like this one.
Once they’d finished with the clean-up,
Michael and Tim took us for a canoe ride, and I knew that at least one of my
parents had been in the know about the surprise date because one of our canoes
had been moved downriver and tied up at Michael’s dock. Yes, they have more than one canoe too, but
since Miranda and Jacob don’t exactly get to have a lot of play time and our
canoes get a lot more use; it’s usually easier to borrow one of ours than to
get their extra canoes ready to use. We
paddled upriver for nearly an hour; went for a long swim and play in a nice,
fairly secluded spot; and then paddled home again. We went for one more swim at Michael’s house
after that, and then split up for the rest of the night.
Michael and I came over to my house, and we
were in time to tuck the twins in for the night and do a little bedtime story
and chat with them before they went to sleep and we moved on to end our date
night watching a movie in the lounge. We
didn’t really watch it, but that was okay with both of us because our play time
was way more fun – and the movie was really, really bad. I’ll skip the making-out details, but while I’m
there anyway; I have to wonder if the SyFy channel movies could possibly get
any worse than their latest batches of disaster and monster movies.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about
in the future, you can either be very glad; or try looking up some flicks that
really ought to be considered genre spoofs they’re so bad. The latest one this week, and let’s not ask
why Michael ‘saved’ it, is Sharknado 2 – and yes, someone really thought that
it was possible to make a bad movie even worse.
I’m all for the fun of watching major cities get destroyed in disaster
movies, but having a storm drop sharks of all sizes onto the city is just a bit
too much for me.
You can also take that as an example of the
down-side to having a photographic memory – I can remember every detail of all
movies I watch whether they’re good or really, really bad – even when I’m just
picking all of that up in the background.
The good news there is that I can also ignore that continual sensory
input when having more fun doing something else – like making out with
Michael. Think of it as a built-in,
Magi-powered DVR; and you’re not that far off from how that works for me –
though add in that my memories include all senses; not just sight and sound.
Instead of watching a replay of sharks
munching on New York and the people there, though; I’m going to wrap this up
and head off to dreamland by spending some time with the Michael and me play
time parts of those memories. That
couple of hours definitely ranked highest on the hot meter for us for this
week; and I think that’s a very good sign for the start of August. There are lots of things on my ‘wish I could
do more of that’ list, but for once; enough Michael and me alone time fun is
not one of those things.
Now we just need to keep that off of the
list. That may or may not happen, but
one way or the other; we’ll have fun trying! ;^)
Okay, I’d better finish this before I need
to go have a cold shower before going to sleep.
We don’t have baseball this weekend, and no major plans of any kind; so
our first weekend of August is going to be fairly quiet. Maybe that’ll give me a chance to do some
other things from that list – like hang out with my uncles, aunts, and cousins;
but I honestly don’t know what they have on the go this weekend – other than
that Mom and Dad didn’t do a dinner and a movie night because everyone else was
busy with other commitments. If anything
exciting does come up, though; you’ll be able to flip a digital page or two and
found out about it right away – unless you’re as tired as I am right now and
want to have a nap too.
That is it for now, though; so, until next
time...
...Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of
the Light!
