Happy 15th Birthday, Allen!
There has been so much going on today, but
even though Allen’s birthday isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things;
let’s start with that anyway.
First up with his big day is the teen drama
that won’t be big news for a little while yet; but will be on the teen gossip
network before too long. I’m in the loop
for that because I just happened to be in the vicinity when Marcie rather
emphatically explained to Allen why his birthday wish should be to get her for
a girlfriend. Part of her little chat
with him was non-verbal, but from the expression I saw on his face later; I’d
say that he got the message loud and clear! ;^)
Yes, he and Karla did just break up, but
with fewer appropriately-aged choices for boyfriends and girlfriends; I’m not
surprised that Marcie didn’t wait longer to make her move – especially since
she really does like him a lot. They may
or may not wait a little while longer before officially doing any dating; but I’ll
guess that they will be a couple before the next holiday weekend.
While that bit of teen drama might end up
being the best part of Allen’s birthday, I’ll guess that getting his driver’s
license was up there too. He didn’t have
a birthday party because we’re all getting ready for exams now; but he did go
home for a birthday dinner with his family and best friends between the after
school and evening study sessions at my house.
We also did a birthday lunch for him at school that was fun too – even if
it was fairly short due to the football scrimmage that Tim talked most of the
guys into having for the second half of that break.
Our classes today were all about exam
preparation; and that’ll be the case all week.
I wouldn’t say any of the work was particularly exciting; but most of us
still managed to have fun. The study
sessions at my house were good too – at least from my perspective. I won’t say that everyone was having a blast;
since that’s impossible when the main study subjects are math, science,
history, and the other core classes. For
some reason, some of my friends don’t find all of that memorizing and playing
with formulas fun at all. They do
appreciate the tutoring that’s primarily from Michael, Rowen, and me, though;
so they’ll keep coming back for more.
Having a gang of teens over made things a
bit crazy at our house tonight. Mom,
Dad, and the twins were busy with the Malloys too; and Violet and Dillon were
in the mix for dinner and the evening too – once they’d finished work at the
lab for the day. I missed out on most of
that except for dinner, but even then Michael and I were also entertaining
Rowen, Tim, and most of our ‘farm kid’ study buddies because they stayed for
dinner too instead of heading out to their farms and turning around and coming
back in again. Mom was prepared for the
extra mouths to feed, and went with grilling burgers and jumbo hot dogs plus a
half-dozen cold salad and veggie sides.
That worked for us because we had more time to study – and because Michael,
Tim, and some of the other guys had to get to their baseball practices right
after dinner too. That made the tutoring
part of our night easier for Rowen and me because we worked with some of the
girls while the boys were gone; and then mostly just had the guys to help after
they got back from the park or school.
I won’t bore you with those details, but
there has been a lot more going on around here today; so let’s get to the
bigger news stories now.
At the top of my personal list for that is the
official announcement that Jacob and Miranda have closed the deal with Uncle
Nick’s father and they’ve bought the Haberdashery building. Grandpa Ayres will spend the summer getting
ready to move to his new store location down the street, and once he’s in the
new place in September; Jacob and Miranda will start working on the major
renovations of both buildings that they plan on having finished by the time
that Jake and Stephanie graduate in just less than two years. That sounds like a long time, but it isn’t;
and it’ll take that long to do all of that work – especially when they’ll be
sharing construction crews with all of the other projects going on around town.
While I’m on the construction line of
thought, let’s do a quick update of some of those other projects. I haven’t mentioned the church addition in a
while; and the work there is coming right along. The foundation is in, and that project is
on-time to have the outer shell finished and closed in by Thanksgiving. As with most of the other big projects here;
that’ll allow the crews to do the indoor work through the winter – and eventually
knock out some walls to make it one big, happy church!
There isn’t anything new since my last
update for the med center; though it is pretty much a done deal that the
official opening will be during the last full week of June. That’ll be nice timing, since school will be
out, and even more importantly; Aunt Leanne will be due anytime after that –
even though her due date is in July. I’ve
already mentioned before that Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne are getting teased
about that being the main reason for the timing on opening the med center; but
I expect an uptick in those jokes as Aunt Leanne gets into the last weeks of her
pregnancy.
The new apartment building will be open for
early move-ins that week too; and Aunt Leanne and Claire have all of those new
rentals pretty much dealt with already.
As with the first apartment building opening, that’ll leave a glut of
older apartment rentals available; but that’ll work out for upgrades and
remodels anyway – like the one that’ll be turning the apartments above the
Haberdashery into suites for the Inn.
Finally, I’ll also mention that the
Solar-Wind farm project is getting closer to completion too; and it should go
online in August. That may be one of the
least-exciting projects on the go around here for everyone except those
directly involved; but it will be one of the most important long-term
infrastructure developments we’ll ever do here.
Having the new bridge that Terry’s doing
the engineering for is definitely a bigger deal here, and while I’m not in the
loop for that project either; I did get to hear a bit about how it’s going so
far while talking with Terry and Angela tonight. The start of construction may still be a few
months away, but there’s a lot that goes into building even a comparatively
small bridge; and this one is definitely being designed and built to last. Terry isn’t getting to have as much fun while
he’s here as Angela and the kids are having; but Mom and Dad are doing their
best to help him enjoy the visit even with all of the work he’s doing.
Speaking of work, I’ve been doing lots of
that since coming up to bed tonight – and I didn’t get around to doing that
until nearly midnight. It’s late, and
that part of my night was fairly standard studying and family business work; so
let’s just skip that part of the update and call it a night. Tomorrow is going to be more of the same
except with slightly different dinner plans and no baseball practices; so I’d
better get whatever sleep I can – which in this case will be a bit more than
two hours.
I foresee some self-healing before Tai Chi
to make up for the lack of down time; but I’ll probably be dealing with that
little downside of being too busy for most of the next two weeks. Instead of thinking about that too much,
though, I’m going to put my computer away and get to that nap right now; so,
until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
