Okay, I’m tucked in for the night and ready
to get started on a double update after another busy, fun day. Let’s just go back to Friday morning and
start from the beginning.
Happy (Belated) 31st Birthday,
Liz!
Other than giving her a joint gift with
Ethan and Ehlana, and helping out with entertaining Naomi (and Aiden) while
they were here and giving Naomi’s parents a kid-free night; I wasn’t involved
in Liz’s happy day. She did have fun –
though I did not need the kid-free night details that she shared with Mom and
Aunt Leanne this morning when picking up the kids. They had a birthday dinner party with family
and friends too that Mom, Dad, and the twins went to; but I was home and having
fun with my friends instead.
My day wasn’t very exciting until after we
finished our Music, Spanish, and Politics exams. Tai Chi and breakfast was fun, and I didn’t
have any problems with my exams; but everyone was worn out after four days of
mid-term testing. Even with the extra
sleep I’ve had this week, the extra studying and tutoring had a lot to do with
why I ran out of steam tonight and fell asleep while we were watching movies in
the lounge. It was fairly late by then;
but my friends were still amused – and stayed awake for an additional movie
that I slept right through while cuddled with Michael.
I’ve already mentioned that Ethan and
Ehlana had Naomi and Aiden with them overnight.
The main difference for tonight was that we had two bonus couples
hanging out with us tonight – Sally and Joshua; and Gretchen and Brock. Jenny and Lance were again invited; but were
hanging out with his friends last night instead. I got the feeling that Jenny wasn’t all that
happy with the choice; but wasn’t going to pick our sleepover without him over
a night out with Lance. She’ll either
need to deal with that eventually or accept the trade-off and just spend less
time with Rebecca and the rest of her hometown friends. I can guess what she’ll decide, but that
could take a while still; so let’s just not go there and move along.
Since Mom and Dad were going to Liz’s
birthday dinner, we were on our own for feeding ourselves; though Mom did leave
us fully stocked with frozen pizzas and other munchies to cook up and
devour. With five teen boys in the
house; devour is an appropriate term for what they did with all of the food
that Rebecca, Rowen, and I cooked up with some supervisory girl-chat help from
Sally and Gretchen. While we were busy
with that, the boys were playing video games in the lounge, and with the Super
Bowl just over a week away; it’s no surprise that the gaming was mostly
football-related. It took a while to
cook up enough pizza, wings, and a couple of batches of home fries; so the boys
had eaten half the food before we – the girls – even got upstairs to the lounge
with the last batches of food and sat down to eat too. We did have a slice of pizza here and there
while cooking and hauling first batches of food upstairs too; but that actually
worked out better for us – and then the boys took care of the post-dinner clean-up.
Okay, three out of five of them weren’t
thrilled about that, but Michael and Lucas insisted; and Tim, Joshua, and Brock
went along with the plan after their respective girlfriends threatened them
with revoked cuddle privileges if they didn’t lend a hand too.
I skipped over the post-school action; so
let’s back up for just a minute. The
sleepover was fully-booked by this morning; so our country teen guests had
brought overnight bags with them when they came to school. The town teens all needed to stop in at their
homes on the way over from school to get their gear too; but we were all at my
house fairly quickly. We’d had a couple
of cooler days on Wednesday and Thursday that I pretty much ignored because we
were indoors all day except for the walks to and from school, but it was warmer
again today; and some outdoor play time was an option. The guys wanted to go biking for a while, so
we did that for an hour and a half or so – after taking fifteen minutes to get
enough bikes ready to go and re-inflate most of the tires on those bikes. We toured the new section of town first; did
a loop of the rest of the town; and wrapped up our ride with some biking and
play time at the park. The biking trails
in the woods there were fairly messy, but the guys did some riding in there
anyway while the girls stuck to the main trail and let them have fun trying to
muscle their way through the half-frozen and half-swampy muck.
By the time we got home again and put the
bikes away, Mom, Dad, and the twins were at the Seager’s house; so we started
cooking the food right away. I’ve
already covered the dinner part of the night; and it was play time for all of
us after the boys were done with the clean-up.
That meant more gaming for the boys; music and chat time for the girls;
and a fair bit of general goofiness as most of us wound down from exam
stress. Mom and Dad got home with their
four younger kids for the night by a bit after eight-thirty; and the twins,
Naomi, and Aiden came up to the lounge to hang out with us until bedtime. We switched over to movie time then; and
watched Planes 2 with them while Mom and Dad did their own thing for an hour
and a half. We did an intermission after
that so Michael and I could help with getting my brother, sister, and their friends
tucked in for the night. The boys did a
bit more gaming while we were busy; but then we went back to movie night after
that – and after Mom and Dad opted for going to bed then too.
Okay, it was after eleven by then, so that
isn’t particularly early; but it is compared to how late nine out of ten of the
teens in the house were awake!
Ten in the lounge isn’t too crowded, but it
does mean that at least two cuddling couples need to either be on the floor or
in the window alcove while the other three share the sectional sofa at the ends
and middle. Michael and I opted for
being on the floor, and Rowen and Tim switched between the alcove and floor –
though I was sleeping before they made that switch. The boys got to pick the movies and went with
a trio of SyFy channel flicks that were fairly awful to the point of being more
funny that anything else. I was only in
it for the cuddling anyway, though, so I didn’t really care what was on the
television. I lasted through the first
movie; fell asleep sometime during the second; and totally missed the third
one.
Michael didn’t have a problem continuing to
cuddle with me while I slept; and our friends all preferred cuddling with their
respective boyfriend or girlfriend until around four o’clock too instead of
going to bed sooner. I woke up when
Michael picked me up with plans to put me on the sofa and tuck me in for the
rest of the night once everyone else was ready to head to bed for a couple of
hours of nap time; but I only stayed awake long enough to kiss him goodnight,
get ready for bed, and crash again in my bed with Rowen and Mandy.
Half of my friends would have liked to
sleep in this morning, but that wasn’t an option for most of us. Michael and I were up at normal time for Tai
Chi with my family, Naomi, and Aiden; Lucas, Joshua, Gretchen, and Sally needed
to be up early so that we could feed them and get them out to their farms; and
the rest of us either had part-time jobs to get ready for or chores to do at
home. Breakfast for sixteen was a blast,
but also a lot of work; and Dad and I took care of most of the post-meal
clean-up while Mom did the farm teen driving and the rest of my friends got
ready to go home or off to work.
My chores took all morning, and wasn’t
particularly exciting; but we were done our work by one and then Ethan, Ehlana,
and I were set free for the rest of the day.
The temperature had climbed into the mid-fifties by then, so playing
outdoors was an option again; and I took Ethan and Ehlana out for some biking
and park playground fun. Michael joined
us for some of that time while on his afternoon break from the Inn; but he decided
not to come over again after the Inn closed for the night because he was tired
out after only having that nap last night.
I would have liked some bonus alone time with him instead, but then I
got more rest than he did; and can’t really complain that he’s the one who is
tired out tonight.
Ethan, Ehlana, and I followed up our play
afternoon with a family dinner that was at our house this time – and that Uncle
Adam, Aunt Leanne, Uncle Mark, Aunt Grace, and our cousins joined us for. That was fun, and I really loved getting to
have that time with everyone after not getting to do that much for the past few
weeks while dealing with studying for and writing my exams. Top news with the dinner conversation was the
plans that Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace have made for a trip to Seattle to visit
with his family next month – for the week leading into Valentine’s Day. That’s going to be his family’s first chance
to meet Caleb; and they mostly waited this long so that they didn’t take Caleb
flying until Uncle Adam was sure they could do that without having any
Magi-related issues that have apparently come up now and then with Magi babies
in the past during air travel.
Uncle Mark’s parents had considered flying
out at Christmas; but they’re instead planning a trip here for late June with
the entire family instead – not to mention that it would have been a problem
for his father to get away from his practice then too. That’s something that is really great about
having two doctors in our little town now – Uncle Mark and Uncle Adam can now
take these vacation trips without it being a problem at their clinic.
Anyway, dinner was awesome thanks to the
company and entertainment. The food was
good too; but we went with a fairly easy pot-luck meal that didn’t require too
much work for anyone. My aunts, uncles,
and cousins didn’t stay late because we were all ready for a quiet, early
night; so it was just the five of us again by seven-thirty or so. We wrapped up our day with a movie in the
living room; I helped with getting Ethan and Ehlana into bed again; and then
Mom, Dad, and I all went to our rooms too.
I was in need of some Jacuzzi time before getting ready for bed too; but
I was finished with that, had my hair dried, and was tucked in with Mandy
before eleven o’clock. I only did the
basic nightly computer checks and one quick family business job before starting
with this update; and I plan on being asleep about five minutes after I wrap
this up.
I almost forgot to wish Lisa and Happy 14th
Birthday! Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I had
a gift for her that Rowen dropped off for her this morning on her way to the
computer store; but we weren’t invited to her party this year. She was doing a dinner and movie night in
Crystal Springs; and only had her four best friends along with her for that
adventure. I hope that she’s had an
amazing day; though we won’t hear the details about her party until we’re all
at Sunday school tomorrow.
That does definitely wrap up everything
that I wanted to cover tonight; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
