Happy 14th Birthday, Denise!
Have things ever changed in a year! While we were celebrating Denise’s birthday
today, this was also a significant day for Rowen for a different reason – it’s
the one-year anniversary for Tim’s big break-up with Nora. We certainly didn’t bring that up today
around our friends – or even with Tim and Michael – but I’m sure that we weren’t
the only two teens to remember one of the biggest teen drama stories of last
summer.
Before I get into the news from Denise’s
party, though; let’s do a quick review of the rest of the day.
Michael came over for Tai Chi; I had
breakfast at his house; we went to the park for the football practice; and then
I helped out with the chores at his house so that we could have the work done
by lunchtime. I had lunch there too, and
then Michael and I met up with Rowen and Tim for a couple of hours of biking at
the park before we needed to get ready for the party. Since Denise is a farm girl, even having her
party start at four was an early end for her day; though the work there didn’t
completely stop until nearly dark – her father and the summer farm hands just
worked around us. Violet gave us a ride
out to the Burroughs farm, and just in case any future readers don’t know this;
yes, Denise and her family are distant relatives of the Pastors. That’s actually going back quite a few
generations to the common ancestors; so they’re not any closer to the ‘church’
Burroughs than anyone else in the congregation.
Denise’s party started out with a long
social hour, but the guys were soon tossing a football around while the girls
took care of the socializing. It would
be more honest to call what we were doing gossiping; and the changing social
status of our friends was high on the list of chat topics. Denise’s new relationship with Luke was an
obvious favorite, but the other new couples got a lot of attention too. Since Nora and Elliott were one of those new
couples, there was zero risk of a repeat from last year with her; but it was
awkward a couple of times to see her watching Tim and Rowen in a way that made
it obvious that she was remembering what had happened last summer – and not in
a fond way.
Elliott seemed to understand what was going
on with her; and I think he did pretty well with both handling it and
distracting Nora so that she didn’t dwell on her personal romantic history too
much. That didn’t get talked about among
the girls either, but we had lots of other things to keep ourselves entertained
with – including some frequent goofiness from the guys as a few of them were in
‘impress the girls’ mode today. Rowen
and I stayed away from playing football at the party, but we did play games,
and since it was really hot out; going for regular swims in the pond was an
option too.
One other major difference this year for Denise’s
big day was that her party was on a weekday, and while that hadn’t really been
clear before we got there; a late night event was not in the plans for parents
who were used to getting up before dawn to get their work day started. The barbeque dinner, birthday cake, gifts,
and song were all pretty normal, and we followed that up with a couple of hours
of play time; but then it was time for the party to break up at dusk. While Denise would have liked to at least
have added a campfire and hang out with all of us longer, it wasn’t all bad;
since she did get to keep Luke for a while and spend some alone time with him
after seeing the rest of us on our way.
My evening didn’t end that way, but Violet
and Dillon picked us up; and then went for a swim with Michael, Tim, Rowen, and
me once we got home. Jake and Stephanie
joined us for that too; and then they moved on with Violet and Dillon to hang
out at Michael’s house for a while. The
meeting was still going on at my house, so Michael, Tim, and I went over to
Rowen’s house with her and hung out on the front porch for a while before we
collectively called it a night and Michael walked me home.
I know, it wasn’t that late yet, but we are
biking out to the Norton’s farm in the morning; and we have a tentative plan to
bike to Pinehurst after that. Rowen’s
started to tease Michael and Tim about them wanting to case their division
football rivals with these trips; but all of those towns are the closest to us –
which is why they are in our division. I
mostly just like getting to spend the day biking with my best friends and going
places that I either haven’t been – or haven’t visited during nice weather. Our plans are tentative because we’re going
to wait to decide until morning when we check the latest forecast.
While Michael and I weren’t staying up late
for some cuddle time, I’ve ended up being busy for quite a while since kissing
him goodnight on my front porch. I started
with more goodnight hugs and kisses shortly after getting inside because the
meeting was wrapping up and my aunts, uncles, and a couple of extra guests were
heading home. Then there was a bedtime
snack and meeting recap with Mom, Dad, and the twins; and then I took care of
getting my brother and sister to bed while Mom and Dad took care of some work
in the office that they hadn’t been able to get to yet because of the
meeting. I also ended up doing some
family business work after coming up to my room, and Violet and I had a little
girl chat after she got home for the night and Dillon was actually home at his
house for the night; but let’s start all of that with the meeting highlights.
First up would have to be the news that
Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace are soon going to be getting some rather shocking
news later this week. I won’t get to be
there for that; but it is going to be very interesting to see how they react –
and hear about how the pre-natal training goes; since it is going to be a first
with a non-Magi mother. Yes, Ethan,
Ehlana, and I know a bit about our collective future in this particular area;
but we don’t know everything by any means, and there isn’t anything I want to
add to my journal about it right now.
This is going to be fun, though!
I’m sure that you can guess that the lab
was at the top of the list for Ethan and Ehlana, and they were very excited to
tell me that everything is now nicely ahead of schedule; and the lab will be
completely ready ahead of schedule.
Ehlana may even get to play there for nearly a full week before it
officially opens the day after Labor Day.
There will still be much more work to do for the actual business, and
employees will be added slowly over the next half-dozen years or so; but the
important thing is that the labs will be fully functional; and Uncle Adam and
Ehlana can start doing their work in earnest.
The migration of our entire Magi archive will kick up a few notches too,
and Mom and Ethan will coordinate all of that work with Grandpa Grant, Grandma
Eleanor, and any other volunteers who help out with that.
With even the finishing work pretty much
finished at the lab, the construction work on the new medical center has picked
up a gear or two, and while the wet spring had slowed things down; that project
is close to being on-time again. Mom
expects the outer building to be closed in by Thanksgiving as planned; and that’ll
give the construction workers something to do all winter. There are other construction projects going
on in the new section of town, but the only two I’ll mention here are the
houses that the Byrds and Carters are building along the river. The main reason I’m mentioning them is because
they each have a daughter the same age as Ethan and Ehlana; so they’ll be
classmates and friends – particularly with Ehlana and Naomi – so I expect to
get to know them a lot better over the years as they all grow up together.
Outside of the family business, but part of
the action around town is the work at the church and a new business that is
going to be opened up late this fall.
The construction work going on at the church is mostly out of sight
right now because they’re doing remodeling inside to get ready for the addition
when they start building it next year.
Other work either has or will include preparing the ground where the
addition will be going and moving utilities and pipes as needed – or running
new lines for power, water, and gas. I’m
not exactly writing up a lot of information about that sort of thing in town,
but if you have some future burning need to know how those things worked in our
time; there are sources available in the archives now that Mom’s added for the
history of Witch Falls section. I’m sure
that you can understand why things like water and septic tanks just aren’t all
that interesting to any teen – even a Magi Master teen.
The new business coming to town is going to
be a second-hand charity store, and we know this because Aunt Leanne will have
the rental deal for it set up by the end of August. The owners will start working on the place at
the start of October; and expect to be open in time for Thanksgiving and the
Christmas shopping season. There’s some
bank financing involved that our family business is backing; but that’s really
our only involvement. We do plan on
making regular clothing donations too; so I’ll start that out by going through
all of my clothes and getting some boxes ready once I’ve picked up my
back-to-school wardrobe.
There were a lot of smaller issues that
were dealt with at the meeting, but I won’t go over everything. With college kids heading out to school again
soon, plans for some of them were worked on; and so were plans for some high
school seniors who might be interested in considering certain career and
education goals. There was a general
review of the family business too; and that’s all pretty much good news as
everything is continuing to improve in nearly every area – despite the
seemingly unending global problems.
I’m skipping a lot of things, but will
mention anything important as events happen.
It was heading toward midnight by the time I got up here to my room, and
while I hadn’t planned on staying up too late, some business-related email
needed to be taken care of; and that took over an hour to finish – with a break
in the middle for my chat with Violet. I’m
glad that she stopped by, since I hadn’t gotten the weekend update yet after
ending up at Michael’s house all morning.
They had a great weekend in Woodvale; though it was a bit of a whirlwind
with three family meals and no real time for a visit with Violet’s best high
school friends. She really does try to
keep in touch with them at least through phone calls, messages, and email; but
choosing to be here does have some costs for her – and her best friends haven’t
exactly been in a rush to come here and visit her – even though they do have an
open invitation.
Violet only talked with me for about a
half-hour, and then she was ready to get some sleep while I finished my work
and the rest of my usual bedtime computing.
It’s heading toward two o’clock now, so I really need to finish this up
and get some sleep if I plan on having enough steam for another long bike ride
tomorrow. We dodged one rain-day
forecast so far, and I hope we do that again tomorrow; but I seriously doubt
our luck will hold out all week. One
more day would be good, though; and I wouldn’t mind a rain day when we’re
working on Wednesday anyway.
I’ll let you know if Mother Nature
cooperates with that plan, but that’s it for tonight; so, until next time...
...Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of
the Light!
