The cold is back this morning, and while I
didn’t mention the weather at all in my update yesterday; it’s a little bit
funny that it was warmer and rainy yesterday but freezing and sunny today. I haven’t spent much time outdoors yesterday
or today, so that hasn’t mattered much anyway; but then I only mention it
tonight because the cool-down has me thinking about Christmas – and the
probability that we won’t be getting to have a white Christmas this year. The forecast isn’t looking good for that right
now, but there’s still time for that to change.
Let’s hope that the weather experts are wrong on the extended
predictions!
My day started out with Tai Chi; Michael
stayed to have breakfast with us – and Violet and Dillon – and then he went
home in time for both of us to get ready for school. When I did head out this morning, I had a
feeling of being off in my own little world as I left; mostly because Violet
and Dillon went along with Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana to the lab. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that
they can do some work there over the holidays too – just as Jake and Stephanie
are helping out at the Inn; but Ehlana is very excited to have Dillon here to
play with her at the lab – especially since Uncle Adam is spending a little
less time there while Uncle Mark is still spending extra time at home with Aunt
Grace and Caleb.
Mom was only spending the morning at the
lab because she left for the city shortly after lunch. The twins were dropped off at KidZone for the
afternoon; and they’re staying with Aiden and Naomi tonight while I’m here at
Michael’s house. While I’m thinking
about that, we have approval for our Friday night sleepover now too; Ethan and
Ehlana will have their best friends staying with us; and I’ll have Michael,
Tim, and Rowen with me. Lucas and
Rebecca have an invitation, but Lucas doesn’t think that’ll happen because he’ll
be busy working with his father this weekend.
I didn’t invite Jenny and Lance; but that’s only because I knew they
already had other plans.
While I’m on that train of thought, I
should mention that Rowen and I aren’t spending much time with Jenny or the
other cheerleaders anymore – just as Michael and Tim don’t hang out with the
football guys all of the time either.
That’s not a surprise to me, since the older teens in particular are
back to hanging out with their usual groups of friends; but it does mean that
we get our daily gossip from other sources most of the time now. Jenny prefers hanging out with the older
girls too whenever she can; so we don’t even see her that much when we’re
spending time with Rebecca and Lucas – though they’re also busy with the girls’
basketball gang right now too.
It isn’t as though Michael and I – and Rowen
and Tim – haven’t moved on too. We have
the band group and our own usual gang of classmates; but I still miss spending
that extra time with Jenny, Rebecca, and some of the other friends we’d gotten
closer to during football season. I know
– add it to my long list of minor regrets over people that I don’t get to do
things with often enough. I wonder if
that would really change at all even if I could keep the entire town in a time
phase twenty-four-seven; or whether that would just end up giving me a longer
list?
Time is moving along for me right now, and
I want to get to sleep soon; so let’s move this along a bit. It was all-Christmas, all-day at school. Michael and I had more practices with the
kids; and the rest of the class time was filled with holiday fun instead of
school work. The best parts of the day
were when we played with the younger kids; though we kept entertained all day –
including during band practice after school as we got ready for that part of
our Christmas pageant.
Michael, Rebecca, and I went to help out at
the Inn after our band and basketball practices; that kept us busy for a couple
of hours; and then we needed to get to the church for the dress rehearsal for
the Christmas concert on Sunday night.
All of the teens involved in the entire program were there for that; and
it was a wild couple of hours of work and play as Stacey and her other
volunteers guided us through the entire program. Yes, that took longer than the show will be;
but there were lots of pauses between scenes as we received our last
instructions – and quite a few ‘second takes’ too. I won’t include the details here; since I’ll
do the full concert report with my journal update on Sunday night. I do think that we’re looking pretty good
right now, though; and the little glitches will be ironed out by then – or they’ll
just add character to the show!
Michael and I stopped in at my house after
that practice so that I could pick up my overnight bag – mostly because I hadn’t
wanted to haul it around all day. We
were back at his house before his parents, Jake, and Stephanie got home, but
Rebecca was there; and we all sat down and took care of the bit of holiday
homework we’d been given – which was really just more play time pretending to
be homework. We even had time to make up
a bedtime snack and drinks for everyone and have it ready by the time the rest
of our little gang got home from the Inn.
That was a fun little bedtime visit; though
not very long because Michael’s parents need to be up early for their normal
Wednesday work day. Jake, Stephanie, and
Rebecca all went up to bed shortly after that too, and though they had
different motivations for doing that; Michael and I were very okay with getting
some alone time. We sort-of-kinda-didn’t
watch a Christmas movie and spent some quality time making out; and then we
came up to our rooms and got ready for bed too at a bit after eleven-thirty.
I’ve blasted through my bedtime computing,
and if I hurry; being in nap mode will happen before midnight. There isn’t any news from Mom and Dad or
Ethan and Ehlana tonight, so I’ll add any news from them with the next update –
though if you want the best parts of that night away from the kids news for my
parents; those details will need to be found somewhere else. I’ll likely only hear about the dinner with
the Malloys; and I’m okay with not needing to know the hotel sleepover details!
I probably shouldn’t have taken my train of
thought down that particular track when Michael is in a room just down the hall
and Jake and Stephanie are together in his room; so let’s do the Christmas
music video part of the report and then I’m going somewhere that Michael and I
can be together for the rest of the night – in dreamland.
Here’s another of the songs we’ll be
helping the kids out with for the Christmas pageant; and it continues to be a
holiday favorite with the kids – just as the movie is for kids of all ages!
