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!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Cassie's Journal - December 1, 2014



Happy 33rd Birthday, Mr. Seager!

Other than anonymously leaving a gift on his desk and going in on the joint gift that Ethan and Ehlana got for him, I didn’t have any involvement in his big day; but Mom, Dad, and the twins went to his birthday dinner tonight while I was busy at Michael’s house.  I could have gone along too, but had to make one of those choices that seem to be happening regularly these days.

It’s a little funny that we’re done football and cheerleading now; yet Michael and I were at least as busy as always – if not busier.  I should probably try to keep this update in order, though; so let’s start with the news from this morning.

It was cold outside!  Mother Nature must have a really good sense of humor to dangle temperatures in the sixties in front of our eyes on the Thanksgiving weekend and then plunge us into the freeze again in time for the start of December.  Tai Chi was indoors, which is no surprise; but good morning hugs and kisses with Michael are not quite as much fun when his hands and face are cold from the walk over to our house.  There is one good thing about being indoors again for Tai Chi, though; and that’s mostly something that makes Ethan and Ehlana happy – getting to practice whatever forms they want to instead of playing at being normal three-year olds.  Michael can do a bit more too; but nobody really notices anything out of the ordinary if he does the same forms as Mom, Dad, and I do when we’re outdoors – even though it would actually take years longer for him to learn everything he knows now.

At school, the top news was obviously the football championship that our team brought home with them on the weekend, and that was fun too, but if I’m being honest; my favorite news of the day was that the guys stopped wearing orange today.  I haven’t mentioned the ongoing fashion craze in my journal since it began back in October, but orange has continued to be a glaring presence at the school through to Thanksgiving; so it was almost shocking for that to be absent from the scenery today.  The Thanksgiving decorations are gone now too; and Christmas is beginning to appear – though it’ll take most of the week before everything is decorated – except for the boards and displays that will fill up with crafts and pictures over the next few weeks.

Getting back to the football for a minute, some of the guys really enjoyed the attention today, but Michael was with Jeff Morris, Caleb, and some of the other guys who kept their celebration low-key and accepted the congratulations and comments with quiet, modest gratitude.  Tim was more fired up, but then he’s living up to a family legacy – and has the distinction of pulling that off as a high school freshman.  Lee and Kyle can’t lay claim to doing that, and while Kyle personally had a good freshman season with his college team; they’re done for the season now and won’t be playing in any championships or bowl games this year.  Before moving on, the college football weekend was big news with the guys today too, but there weren’t really a lot of major upsets to chat about; so it didn’t really take long for them to re-hash that part of the sports report.

While Michael was one of the school football heroes today, he and I were quickly being immersed into Christmas mode too.  We’ve been recruited again to help out with the music for the younger kids at the Christmas pageant; and booked for another duet too.  Getting out of a class or two every day between now and then will be fun for us; but it’s also more work to learn another batch of songs and do the practices with the kids.  Adding that into the music mix with the upcoming band parades and concerts and the teen praise team Christmas events; and I’d say that we won’t need to worry about what we’ll do to fill up the free time we were supposed to have after football season!

Not having practices after school meant that we could do our homework after classes; so Tim, Rowen, and I went home with Michael to do that at his house.  I loved getting to do that, and in addition to our homework from today; we did a music practice to get ready for class tomorrow; and even picked out the duet that Michael and I are going to do – thanks to some internet searching and YouTube video watching.  We’re going to sing ‘It Could Happen Again’ by Collin Raye; and we picked it because it’s the one-hundredth anniversary of the 1914, World War One Christmas Truce that the song commemorates.  What’s going to be even better about our duet this year, though, is that Tim’s going to do the narration at the beginning of the song; and Rowen’s going to make up a flute accompaniment to go along with the guitar and keyboard arrangement that Michael and I have already started working on.

Rowen and Tim went home to his house for dinner, and I stayed with Michael.  I haven’t mentioned Rebecca yet, because she was at her basketball practice until shortly before dinner was ready; so she didn’t get to do her homework while we were doing ours.  We exchanged school day reports during dinner, and then Michael and I took care of the clean-up after we ate so that his parents could relax and Rebecca could get started on her work.  We moved on to his room after that to do our music practices for the new duet; band; and the teen praise team.  In order of priority, the band practice was most important, since we have the Pinehurst parade coming up on Friday night; but the duets were more fun – and that is duets – including the music we’re doing at church this Christmas.

We only had time for a very minor make-out session after our practice time; so we didn’t get teased about that too much while having a chat with Miranda and Jacob for a half-hour or so before I needed to get home for the night.  That was a fun way to end my evening with Michael and his family; but then it was back to normal school night work and studies once I was home again.

My Magi lesson was first on the list; and Mom did that with me while Ethan and Ehlana did some college work.  That took an hour; there was another half-hour and change of chat time so that we could exchange after-school and dinner stories; and then I helped out with getting Ethan and Ehlana tucked in for the night before coming up to my room for the night.  It’s been all work and studying since then – and that was more than three and a half hours ago.

That’s made for a long, busy night for me, but I’m not the only member of our families keeping busy.  Our favorite collegians are all getting ready for final exams this week; and I even had a computer chat with Violet and Stephanie while they stayed up late and worked on assignments and exam preparation.  I didn’t have a chat with them, but Grandma did send an email to let me know that she and Grandpa had gotten back to their condo in Arizona safely.  I’d know that through our link; but it was nice to get their travel report – even if Grandpa finds it funny to tease us by sending pictures along of him or Grandma wearing tees, shorts, or swimsuits while we’re stuck wearing winter coats, hats, and gloves to go outside here at home.

Does it mean that I’m getting old if we’re just at the start of winter; and I’m wishing for a winter vacation down south already?

I probably shouldn’t go there; and start wrapping this up so that I can get started on my nap.  We’re going to have another busy day tomorrow – and a late night too; but you’ll have to flip the digital page in my future to find out why; since that’s part of the surprise Miranda and Jacob have set up for Rebecca’s birthday.

Tomorrow is also the Mom’s Christmas shopping trip, and while I’m not involved in that; I should mention that Mom was busy with that today – as if she didn’t have enough of the go with work at the lab; Ethan and Ehlana; and Mr. Seager’s birthday dinner.  The final number for the shopping group tomorrow is forty-eight women and they’ll be taking twelve vehicles – mostly to have the space for their purchases.  Mom and Aunt Leanne are both driving; but Aunt Leanne has a back-up driver if she’s feeling barfy and needs the help.  If you think organizing that is scary for Mom; wait until you find out how many kids, teens, and adults will be going on the kids’ Christmas shopping trip on Saturday!

Maybe I should be scared, since I’ll be a junior kid-control helper this year, but since Michael and I will be doing that with Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden; I’m okay with having a shopping play day with them – and with Rowen, Tim, and the rest of our group.  We still have a lot of week to get through between now and then, though; so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

That’s pretty much all of the news for today, but since Michael and I have been really getting into the Christmas music swing of things both at school and home; I thought it would be nice to add a little bit of contemporary Christmas music to my journal between now and Christmas.  Maybe some of them will even still be favorites whenever you’re reading this in my future, but if they aren’t; that should just make these little clips of Christmas history more interesting for you.  While we’re not going to be using this song for any of our concerts or services at church this year, we ran across it during our YouTube search and really loved it; so it’s my first pick for my ‘twenty-five favorite Christmas videos of 2014’.



That’s it for tonight; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!