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!

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Cassie's Journal - July 29, 2015



It’s taken staying up too late again, but I do have enough family business work finished that I’ll be able to take the rest of the week off from it – except for the usual daily work that pops up through my email.  I’m glad that it’s out of the way; but I am so going to need a vacation by next week!

That isn’t going to happen; so let’s just move this along so that I can at least have a nap before getting my Thursday going.

We had rain in town this morning.  That meant exercising indoors; Michael stayed for breakfast; and then he was off and running to go home and get ready to head out for his football practice with Tim.  Yes, it was still raining then; which is why Rowen, Dawn, Jillian, and I were not interested in going to the park to watch the workout.  I didn’t find out until later, but most of the other guys felt the same way; and Tim was annoyed that only Michael and one other guy showed up for the training.  Michael wasn’t annoyed at all, but he does have some concerns already about the attitudes of the guys he’s expecting to be team mates with this year have about getting ready to play – and defend their two-time championship titles.

While Michael was first getting wet and playing football, and then moving on to the Inn to help out there for the rest of the day; I spent my morning at home.  Mom was happy to get some help with the chores; Dawn, Jillian, and I all spent some time playing with Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden; and then we had lunch at noon before heading out to play for the afternoon.  The rain had ended by then, and while most of the trails at the park were too wet to ride on; we biked around town; did a bit of window shopping; had an ice cream break at the falls; and then played at the park while Michael was on his afternoon break.  The playground time was followed by a long swim before Michael needed to go back to the Inn.

By the way, since that has me thinking about the Inn expansion; Mr. Ayres has basically been having a sale at his store all summer.  I haven’t paid much attention to that, and we didn’t visit the Haberdashery today either; but I did notice the signs while going past the store this morning and it reminded me that the Stones and Ayres have a lot going on this summer that goes way beyond weddings and house moves.  For Uncle Nick’s father, the sales are all about making the move to his new store in September as easy as possible – along with down-sizing a bit to a store that is a bit smaller – though that’s mostly from the storage room side of the place.  The good news for the Ayres is that they’ll be done with all of the crazy by the end of September or early October.  Michael and his family will be busy with the Inn expansion for the next couple of years – and longer; once they have all of that extra room for customers and guests!

I am so not going to let Stephanie read this update until after they’re home to stay – or she might get scared and decide to keep Jake in Europe! ;^)

Getting back to the news of the day again, after Michael left for the Inn; Dawn and Jillian kept my brother, sister, and their friends entertained while I went to help Mom with some more work in the house that included making dinner for nine – with a menu that didn’t include any grilling at all for a change.  Violet and Dillon were with his family for dinner because they needed to be there to get ready for the party they threw for Jake and Stephanie after the Inn closed.  I went over there to help them after dinner while everyone else at my house headed for the park and the co-ed baseball practice.

Our dinner break was fun; the four younger kids took charge of entertaining Mom and Dad; and I stayed to help with the clean-up before heading over to the Jacobs’ house.  With the weather cooperating, having the party outdoors was an option; so we set up a few tables in the back yard – even though it was dark out by the time the party started at around nine-thirty.  This event was only for Jake, Stephanie, and the members of their wedding party.  Dillon’s parents, Isabelle, and Andrew helped out with some of the work too; but they also mostly left us alone when we sat down to enjoy a couple of hours of fun that included the obligatory roasting for Jake and Stephanie.

Michael, Rebecca, and I didn’t participate in the roasting nearly as much as everyone else did; but then Jake could have easily roasted himself for as often as he helped his buddies out with their stories.  For me, the most entertaining stories were the ones that I hadn’t heard before.  That’s saying a lot in our little town where everybody hears everything about everyone!  Dillon and Mitch had some stories about their childhood and teens years that weren’t too wild; but definitely the kinds of activities that boys would not want their parents finding out about at the time.  I won’t repeat those stories here, but Michael, Rebecca, and I did appreciate a few good ideas that we might think about trying out over the next few years to see if we can get away with them too!

Just kidding, Mom – or not! ;^)

Taking another little side-trip on that thought; you might be wondering whether my journal actually is open to Mom; since she is, after all, a computer genius.  The answer to that is yes and no.  I don’t have a problem with Mom reading anything I write if she chooses to; though she hasn’t asked to do that since turning my journals over to me to continue on my own after years of writing most of them herself when I was younger.  The ‘no’ part of that is because we do all have our little corners of the archives password protected.  They’re kept on systems and software that Mom created, but even though she could eventually crack any password, even using her Magi gifts; it’d take months or years to do that with my password choice.  I definitely don’t want to bore you with those details; and just thought that you might be interested to know that Mom does allow all of us assured privacy for our personal journals if we want to have that.

While most of us have to work on Thursday, we still stayed and talked until after midnight; Jake and Stephanie were sent on their way; and the rest of us took care of the clean-up before heading home too.  It was one-thirty by the time Michael kissed me goodnight on my front porch and then walked the rest of the way home; everyone in the house was sleeping by then; and I came straight up to my room and hopped into bed with Mandy and my computer as soon as I finished getting changed and ready for bed.  Violet and Dillon got back then after having a late-night chat with Isabelle and Andrew; but they went straight to their room and didn’t stop in to chat with me.

I am so proud of myself – I called it ‘their’ room instead of Violet’s room!  That change in thinking took me a while; and maybe it’s taken the change of having them stay here while any members of Violet’s family are here for me to make that transition.

If I keep getting side-tracked; I’ll still be doing this update when it’s time to get up for Tai Chi; so let’s just wrap this up quickly and I’ll get started on my nap.

I got right to work once I was in bed; put a lot of effort and Magi power into the job; and blasted through everything I wanted to get finished before taking time off from work to focus on the wedding – and everything else we have going on over the next four or five days.  Getting such a late start meant taking a few chances and using some Magi power to speed that work up; but nobody woke up at all while I was working and I’m really glad that I won’t need to finish up tomorrow night.

Maybe I’ll even manage to get to sleep before four o’clock tomorrow night too!  That would be nice, but I’ll have to settle for that nap and a self-heal tonight.  I’m going to get right to the first part of that now; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!