I got to spend the day with Michael and his
family; and that started out great with my morning wake-up call – or to be more
accurate; ‘our’ wake-up call.
That’s right, my plan worked perfectly; and
I got to do another sofa sleepover with Michael. There are a couple of things that you should
keep in mind about that, with the first being that I can’t ever fool my Mom
about anything; and second, Michael wasn’t asleep yet when Mom and Dad got home
– he got permission to stay there with me before going into nap mode too. I didn’t ‘see’ that one coming, if you know
what I mean, but it worked; so I’m good with the results.
Our wake-up call came from Ethan, Ehlana,
Naomi, and Aiden. That was fun, and so
was the few minutes we had after they ran off to say good morning in a
non-verbal sort of way before we needed to hurry up and get ready for Tai
Chi. We did have a little time to do
that while Mom and Dad were busy with Zack and Leah; but then we did our
exercises – out by the river, thanks to the still-warm weather – while our two
youngest guests played together on one of the benches and watched us work
through our forms. Michael and I hit the
showers right after that – separately – and got ready for church while Mom and
Dad took turns keeping track of the six kids and cooking breakfast.
We were given first shot at bathroom time
because we needed to get over to Michael’s house for breakfast. I would have stayed at home to help Mom and
Dad instead, but they’d already arranged for extra morning help so that I could
go with Michael to the extra-special breakfast that Jacob and Miranda had set
up for Jake and Stephanie. Aunt Leanne
and Uncle Adam were already there by the time that Michael and I were ready to
leave; so we got teased about our sofa sleepover for a while before heading out
– and right into another round of razzing and jokes once we got to Michael’s
house. Mom had been nice enough to let
Miranda know about our sleepover and send a picture; and Jake was especially
happy to razz Michael about it.
I’m fairly sure that Jake just wishes that
he’d thought about doing sofa sleepovers with Stephanie when he was thirteen or
fourteen – though if they were much older than Michael and I are now when they
did their first co-ed camping adventure or sneaking into bedrooms at night; I’d
be very surprised.
Fortunately for us, everyone at the
breakfast was more interested in talking about Jake and Stephanie than sofa
sleepovers; and weddings, European college adventures and final exams were all
on the chat topic list. We also had
Stephanie’s parents and Lucas with us for breakfast – and Lucas had stayed at
Michael’s house overnight. I didn’t
mention this in my report yesterday, but Lucas and Rebecca were part of a
babysitting team at the Bassett’s house.
The man difference for them was that their kids were mostly older; and Jessica,
Ryan, and Sophia were only allowed to have one friend each stay with them
overnight while the rest of the kids were picked up after the party at Sheldon’s.
Breakfast was amazing, and for that; I’m
talking about the food. Just in case you’re
reading this in the future while having a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast, I
won’t add in all of the details that would definitely make your food seem
tasteless by comparison; but I will say that Jacob went all-out today and I’m
really glad that I got to be there to enjoy it.
The conversation and family time was awesome too, and while you get used
to being apart when needed; that just makes being back together again that much
better.
For the final exam part of the chat time, I’m
sure that nobody reading this will be surprised to find out that Jake and
Stephanie are top students in their classes and aced them. Jake might feel as though Michael and Rebecca
are a lot smarter than he is because they both do better in high school than he
did; but he was basically a straight-A student too even if there weren’t very
many ‘pluses’ to go along with those A’s.
We didn’t get into a lot of details about
the wedding, since Miranda and Samantha haven’t even had a chance to talk about
it with Pastor John yet; but it will definitely be happening next summer before
Jake and Stephanie need to leave for school in Europe – and hopefully in time
for them to have a week or two for a honeymoon too before starting classes. Since they’ll be back at school until May,
that’s going to mean that they’ll need a lot of help from home to do all of the
work; but I’m sure that Miranda and Samantha will have all of the help they
need for that – including from Rebecca and me.
I’ll keep you posted on wedding news as it
comes in.
It’s funny to think that Michael will soon
have a sibling wedding in his family while it’s a safe bet that I’ll be the
first kid married in my family – unless Ethan or Ehlana plan on getting married
in time for Kindergarten or ahead of some other academic milestone – like the
start of middle or high school. Jake and
Stephanie will also be out of their teens this coming spring too while the
twins will still be in the single-digit age group for quite a while. They might even still be in that group at the
same time as Jake and Stephanie’s kids – not that I’m trying to rush Jake and
Stephanie into that club! ;^)
Finally, on the European college
information front, Jake and Stephanie don’t have all of the details yet, but
they do know that they’ll study for one semester in Italy and one in
Spain. Jake’s program there will be very
hands-on, working with some of the top chefs in Europe. Stephanie’s program won’t be nearly as
exciting; but she will get a lot of exposure to international accounting
practices and standards that could come in very handy for our family
business. Isn’t that convenient for all
of us?
Again, I’ll include more details as they
come in – though it’ll be months before Jake and Stephanie have their itinerary,
class schedules, and travel and housing plans worked out. On the housing part of that, it sounds as
though being married is going to make a big difference for that – and they may
not have been able to match up their programs if not for that.
I should move this along; though there
really isn’t all that much to add to this update. We enjoyed that amazing breakfast, Michael
and I were on the expanded clean-up crew that included Stephanie’s parents,
Rebecca, and Lucas; and then we all went to church. The only news there is that we – the kids and
teens – spent our Sunday school time doing final prep work for the Christmas
concert next Sunday night; and Jake and Stephanie were picked by Pastor John
and Stacey to join them for the meet the Pastor time after the service so that
everyone could congratulate them on their engagement and selection for the
overseas study programs next year. I
never really thought about the second part of that as being a big deal; but I
guess it really doesn’t happen very often in Witch Falls – even if many teens
do travel a bit during their college years.
The service went long today, and while Jake
and Stephanie stayed for quite a while, Michael, Rebecca, and I all went to the
Inn right after Sunday school to help with the prep work for the lunch
rush. That’s where I stayed all day
through until the Inn closed for the night – except for our afternoon break
when Michael and I picked up snacks at the Emporium and just sat near the
statue by the falls and did pretty much nothing except enjoy the time off of
our feet. That maybe doesn’t sound like
much fun, but it really was – and that was mostly because the whole place
seemed more alive and lively with Jake and Stephanie there to help with the
entertainment.
It definitely seems quiet here at home as I’m
cuddling with Mandy and doing my nightly computing. I didn’t come straight to bed after getting
home – there was a Magi lesson with Mom, and a bedtime chat with Ethan and
Ehlana when I tucked them in for the night before I came up to my room. That was followed up with a soak in my
Jacuzzi that I enjoyed without any multi-tasking; and then I climbed into bed
with Mandy once I was changed and ready for this last bit of wind-down time.
The language studies are done; Mom didn’t
give me any archive homework; and it only took me ten minutes to do my family
business work. That works for me, since
it’s already been a very long day; and getting to sleep before midnight again
will help me to recharge and be ready for what is going to be a very busy
week. I haven’t even written anything
about what my family was doing all day, but part of the being busy next week
will be because Dad will be in the city.
He worked in the office most of the afternoon and evening to get ready
for that, and just wrapped that up a little while ago to go to bed. No, Mom and Dad are not sleeping, but let’s
not go there or I’ll be wishing that Michael and I were doing another sofa
sleepover tonight!
We really are going to have a busy week,
and in addition to Dad being away; Mom is going to the city for a sleepover on
Tuesday night – mostly so that she and Dad can do a Christmas dinner with the
Malloys. Violet, Dillon, Josiah, and
Christina will all be home tomorrow sometime; Michael and I are going to be
helping out more at the Inn because they have Christmas dinners booked pretty
much every night between now and Christmas Eve day. Miranda and Jacob won’t be taking full days
off for the next few weeks – though they don’t plan on working all day on
Monday or Tuesday this week – just during lunch and dinner as needed. Add in the Christmas pageant on Thursday, our
music practices on Tuesday, and the fact that our Christmas vacation starts on
Friday afternoon; and it’s going to be non-stop action all week.
That does remind me that I need to talk to
Michael, Tim, and Rowen about a sleepover this Friday night so that we can kick
off those holidays with some teen fun – though I should probably talk to Mom
and Dad about that in the morning before booking anything at our house. They might prefer not to have a house full of
kids and teens after spending most of a week apart. It’s just harder to plan things like that
during holidays at any other houses when the parents are all busy with work at
their stores or the Inn.
Dad is going to be leaving early in the
morning, and I want to be awake to seen him off; so I guess that’s all I have
for tonight – except for picking the Christmas music video.
This is one of those songs that isn’t
really about Christmas at all; but makes it onto a lot of Christmas favorites
lists anyway – including mine.
May the Magi Force be with you!
