Welcome home, Grandma and Grandpa!
We had a family dinner at our house to
celebrate and hear a few travel stories; but I’ll get to that as we go along
with the update for today.
My morning didn’t start out with wake-up
cuddles and kisses with my boyfriend; but I was fired up and ready for another
busy, exciting day. Doing the wake-up
calls for Ethan and Ehlana was fun; and so was Tai Chi with them, Mom, Dad, and
Michael. Other than grabbing a quick
breakfast, I was on the go again all morning after getting ready for the day
and meeting up with Rowen before going on to the school for day two of our
cheerleading tryouts. Since she
collected me on her way there, I was also able to help her out with a little
Magi Healing session to take care of some sore muscles and strains she had
after our workouts yesterday.
I think that everyone in Witch Falls is
nicer than most other places, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t drama –
particularly when competing for activities like the football team or
cheerleading squad is involved. There’s
no way I’ll declare victory early before we find out which of us make the squad
tomorrow; but I can assure you that Vanessa and Nora are not happy campers
today – and aren’t feeling very optimistic about their chances now. You shouldn’t need to have more than one
guess to deduce who is getting blamed for that.
Rowen and I understand, and are trying not to make things worse; but
being nice really just seems to be annoying them even more.
The drama is really just affecting Vanessa
and Nora – and a few other girls. Being
upset or angry isn’t making it easy for them to be cheery or fired up; and
faking it doesn’t really work. I’m not
suggesting that Rowen and I aren’t the best of the freshmen group of hopefuls;
but I do think that Vanessa and Nora could be doing better if they weren’t
alternating between trying to show off and getting worked up over how Rowen and
I are doing. Again, that isn’t something
we can talk about with them; so we’re just trying to focus on our own efforts.
Our warm-up and workout was just as tough
as it had been yesterday; and Rowen and I were again at the top of the class
for all of that – including being first and second again for the run. Yes, the Magi healing does give us an advantage,
but in my personal case; my self-healing for things like this is pretty much
automatic – and I’m not going to leave Rowen sore either when I have other
options. Whether you think that
advantage is fair or not is subjective, and whatever your opinion; the only
thing that mattered to us is that it did help a little – and we impressed Dani
and Linda.
What was even more exciting, though, was
that we blew away all of the girls with our original routines. I’m not going to write about what we came up
with unless we either use them if we make the team, or while lamenting our loss
if we don’t; but I can tell you that we came up with themed routines – and the
one that was meant for a rain day game was picked as the winner out of all of
them. The original routines part of the
tryouts took a while, so we worked a bit later than yesterday to still have
time to learn more of the routines from seasons past. All of that was a blast; and the best part of
all of this for me has actually been watching Rowen shine in a way that I’m not
even sure she suspected she could. As I
mentioned already, we’ll know tomorrow whether we make the squad, and while
we’ll be doing the full workout; the main practice will be a final round of tests
and routines before Dani makes her choices.
Since our tryouts ran late, Rowen and I
only had time to check in with Michael and Tim at the tail-end of their lunch
break; and then they got back to work for the afternoon while we went back to
my house for a quick swim and lunch before getting cleaned up and moving on to
the salon to get our hair done. That was
for our back-to-school appointments, but Vicky and Liz went above and beyond
for us; and we’re going to look amazing for those tryout ‘finals’
tomorrow! They also passed on some
tricks and tips for doing our hair for best effect while cheering without
having to worry about things like getting it dirty from brushing the ground
while doing flips or having it get out of control and in the way of the other
girls on the squad.
None of the other girls were at the salon
while we were; but I wonder if Liz offers that advice to all cheerleader
hopefuls? I was also picturing Ehlana
and Naomi at the salon in about ten or eleven years having the same conversation,
but that’d be different for them anyway; since Naomi will be a grade ahead of
Ethan and Ehlana.
Anyway, that was another blast of fun, and
then we had a snack break at the computer store with Owen and Patricia that
included a recap of our cheerleading and salon adventures. Rowen stayed at the store after I needed to
leave to meet up with Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana at Grandma and Grandpa’s house to
welcome them home and help to unload their minivan. Mom and I didn’t stay there long either
because we needed to get home and working on the big family dinner; but Ethan
and Ehlana stayed to have some quality time with our grandparents before
needing to share them with our aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Dad came home a bit early so that he could
start grilling the steaks, chicken, and kabobs, and while he was busy with
that; Mom and I put together all of the side dishes - scalloped potatoes; corn
on the cob; an appetizers tray; veggies and dip; and three cold salads. We eventually had extra help from our aunts
and uncles; but Grandma and Grandpa were only given one job – spend time with
their grandchildren. I’m including Leah
in that, and while she technically isn’t one of their grandkids; most of the
grandparents in our families don’t make the distinction when it comes to the
junior cousins. Leah is being taught to
address my grandparents as Grandma Aileen and Grandpa Shawn – which is the same
thing that all of the kids are doing with the collective sets of
grandparents. That might seem weird to
some; but I like the idea of having more people to love in our family.
Michael was with me for our family dinner,
and he came over after finishing his practice and going home to have a swim;
hit the shower; and get changed. He
assured me that we should all be grateful that he didn’t stop in on the way
home – particularly if we’d been standing down-wind of him. Dinner was a crazy-busy hour or so where we
all ate too much and the entertainment ranged from travel stories from Asia to
more teasing for Michael and me about our co-ed sleepover on Sunday night. While everyone else was spending the evening
together, Michael and I needed to leave in time to get to our teen praise team
practice, and with the holiday weekend service coming up on Sunday; we were at
the church for an hour and a half before finishing a full run-through of the
program – though we didn’t have everyone there who will be involved in the
skits and bible readings. Michael’s
going to be playing guitar this time too; so he’s going to be very busy this
weekend – especially if he’s playing football of Friday night!
I’ll take the over on the odds for that,
though while Rowen and I will find out about cheerleading tomorrow; the boys
won’t learn whether they’ve made the football team or not until Thursday. Since I’m on the subject, let’s back up and do
the football recap as told to me by my favorite team prospect.
While our cheerleader tryouts didn’t change
a whole lot in intensity compared to yesterday, Coach Robinson took the
football training up a notch or two; and added in new elements that ranged from
tougher drills to a class on learning the basic team playbook. I didn’t mention that in my journal last
night; but the guys did have homework to do with studying the playbook to get
ready for today, and while Michael’s memory isn’t quite as good as mine; he is
at least as good as Dad in that department – and pretty much has all of that
memorized already. He and Tim are also
continuing to impress their coach and most of the senior players, and while
that’s sending some teen drama their way too; it isn’t quite the same as it is
for Rowen and me because the boys don’t get cut because of team limits that
most small schools never hit. They’re
mostly just in trouble for setting the impress-the-coach bar high for the
junior players.
Tim’s also sure that their coach is already
picking places for them on the team; and that conclusion is mostly because they
apparently spent almost all of the route-running and scrimmage time as wide
receivers when on offence; and cornerbacks on defense. Jeff Morris apparently loves them because
they either catch the ball or make sure that they block potential interceptions
when he throws to them; which is something he hasn’t really had a lot of help
with when Kyle was their star and leader.
This is second-hand through Michael, but Tim thinks that they’re
actually bringing up the excitement level for a lot of the senior players who
were sure that our team wouldn’t be very competitive this season without his
cousin.
I like hearing that Tim’s getting very
confident now; but let’s wait and see how it goes. His dreams of stepping out of the shadows his
uncle and cousin cast over our local football program might take a while – if
he can do that at all. I’m sure that his
father is cautioning him; since he knows how that feels very well – even now. Martin is a very different personality to his
brother, so I doubt that really bothers him anymore – if it ever did – but it
is and will be a big deal for Tim.
Considering what I do know about his
future, football glory won’t be that important in the grand scheme of things;
but I still hope his dreams come true for him – though I also hope he’ll know
that the best things in his life aren’t going to be found on the football
field.
Well, if Rowen and I make the cheerleading
squad, at least one of the best things in his life will be on the field too;
but you know what I mean! ;^)
After getting back from the church, Michael
and I went for a swim with Ethan and Ehlana; and then caught the tail end of
the family reunion until Grandma and Grandpa ran out of steam and went home to
get some sleep. We took care of getting
Ethan and Ehlana into bed after our guests all left; and then ended out evening
with a Magi lesson that included another healing session for Michael before I
took him up to the lounge for a little cuddle time while we mostly talked football. That doesn’t sound all that exciting to most
girls, but we didn’t really have a lot of time anyway; and Michael wanted to
talk about some ideas he had for what he and Tim could do to make up for their
two biggest problems for making the team – their smaller size and lower
strength compared to the bigger guys. I
won’t go into the details there, but we did come up with some different
options; and I’m sure that Michael will appreciate every chance he can get to
avoid getting tackled by guys that out-weigh him by as much as a hundred
pounds.
We did take time for a minor make-out
session; but that didn’t rank very high on the hot scale before Michael needed
to get home and off to sleep. I still had
some work to do along with my usual nightly computing; so he left nearly an
hour and a half ago. The family business
work wasn’t anything major, but I spent a little extra time on the computer
checks and email – and another bedtime text-chat; though this one was with
Rowen instead of Violet.
She had fun hanging out with Tim tonight;
and they tried out a couple of the suggestions I had for him to deal with sore
muscles and the bruises and aches that go along with football. For some reason, they had a lot more fun with
that than Tim would have on his own; but I won’t go into the variations they
used to make their non-Magi healing time so entertaining.
That does have me thinking about trying
that with Michael; though we’d still do the Magi Healing too. That won’t be an option for the rest of this
week; since he’ll be working and then I’ll have a house full of family here;
but I’ll keep it in mind for future reference.
Right now I just need to get some sleep and
be ready for the biggest day at tryouts so far this week. Keep your fingers crossed and hope for the
best – I’ll let you know how it goes!
Until next time...
...Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of
the Light!
