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!

Monday, August 31, 2015

Cassie's Journal - August 31, 2015



Welcome home, Grandma and Grandpa!

It’s been a really long, busy, amazing day!

I’m also exhausted, and have decided to end my August before we get to September.

Look for yet another double-update to start September with; and, until then...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - August 30, 2015



We’ve ended up with a really nice weather day here, and that’s made life easier than expected for the movers in the family as they pretty much finished up with getting Uncle Nick, Aunt Deborah, and the kids moved into their new home by dinnertime today.  I’ll get to that news soon; but let’s back up to yesterday and do the detailed report for Saturday first.

We were able to be outdoors for Tai Chi yesterday; Dad cooked up a big country breakfast for us; and then it was time to get to work.  For me, that started out with a few must-do yard chores; and then I was on kid control duty for the rest of the morning while Mom and Dad were both helping out with the big move.  I had help for my job from grandparents, Aunt Leanne, Aunt Grace, and some friend volunteers; but still kept busy straight through until lunchtime.  That meal was at Uncle Nick and Aunt Deborah’s new house, but they ate late; and I had already had my own lunch and was at the park for my ball game by the time the workers stopped to eat.

Our last regular season game of the summer was against the Stingrays, and while we did have the chance for an undefeated season on the line; the outcome of the game didn’t really matter for the Championship game.  We were already in and had home team advantage; and the Stingrays had won two of three of their games against the Sharks so they were in the big game too.  I have no idea how motivated the Stingrays’ players were today, but Rowen and I were ready to play; and I won’t sugarcoat the results.  We won by a score of fifteen to five; and it was never really even close from the first inning on.  There was one short rain delay during the game, but that didn’t slow us down much; and the game still ended within the normal time – and we were off the field before the next game needed to start.

I was in need of getting cleaned up after the game, though, and while we did go for an ice cream celebration; most of the girls felt the same way, and we kept that Emporium visit short.  I grabbed a shower; got dressed to play; and then returned to my kid control duties.  The major moving was still in progress then, and while we had another dash or three of rain roll through before we stopped for dinner; the work was on-track for what they wanted to have done by the time we stopped for dinner.  Where possible, some healing went on for our favorite movers; which is probably why the coed ball game went so well for our team – and wouldn’t have without that help.  We did have a quick and easy dinner between the late-afternoon moving and the start of the ball game, but that nothing particularly newsworthy happened while the adults mostly just vegged-out for a while and I kept busy on kid control while trying to get a group of toddlers and pre-schoolers to eat at least a little real food instead of just snacking on the treats and desserts.

Rowen and Tim met up with us before we headed to the park for the game; and they’d been recruited to help out with babysitting tonight.  Having a sleepover at my house was enough of a selling point for them; though the cash comes in handy too.  We were at the park with the kids while our team was there for warm-ups, and we stopped in to cheer them on regularly; but I missed most of the game because the kids wanted to play instead of just sitting around watching our parents playing baseball.  The Eagles were up against the Parrots; and the game actually meant something for both teams.  A win for the Parrots meant a three-way tie for the coed teams; and the score could affect the tie-breaker between the Eagles, Hawks, and Parrots.  The win for us meant first place and home team advantage for the Championship game; and would also put the Hawks into the holiday weekend game because they already had three wins.

As I mentioned, I’m sure that the Magi healing that was done on the side before dinner helped a lot; and there were quite a few Hawks players and fans cheering for our team too; but my cheerleading squad was at the playground so much of the time that I’m sure we weren’t a factor at all.  Fortunately, the Eagles didn’t need our help.  They were the home team for the game, so the Parrots did have a short-lived lead in the game; but that didn’t last long; and the Eagles never looked back.  They didn’t use the mercy rule, but could have at one point in the game.  The final score was twenty-one to ten; but the Parrots only did that well because our team took it easy for the last couple of innings.

We headed home right after the game because the adults wanted to get cleaned up and ready for their season wrap-up party at the pub.  As I mentioned with the last report, a camping adventure had been an option for us; but we’d decided to do our babysitting and a sleepover indoors – partly because the weather forecast was a bit uncertain; and mostly because taking care of the youngest kids would have been tough in tents or around a campfire.  Some parental support was there for us while we got all of the kids up to the lounge and set up to play.  Michael came over from the Inn after they closed for the night; and he was here before Mom and Dad left for the pub with Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne.

It was non-stop action after that, and we played pretty much until the kids wore us out.  My journal update last night was written while taking a micro-break between putting two kids to bed and getting back to the fun in the lounge; and the busy kept going through until Mom and Dad got home along with the parents that were taking their sleeping angels home with them for the night.  Yes, the kids were all sleeping by then; but Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I had then needed to clean up – and that took quite a while to do by the time we had all of the toys put away; the lounge and my room cleaned up; and the dishes all taken to the kitchen, washed, and put away.

After all of that, I’m sure that you can understand why Michael and I both wanted to have a sofa sleepover together; and that’s exactly what we did after saying goodnight to Mom and Dad.  Michael and Tim were sharing the guest bedroom across the hall from the lounge; Rowen went there with Tim for their goodnight hugs and kisses while Michael and I happily fell asleep on the sofa in the lounge; and I’m going to pretend that Rowen was sleeping in my bed this morning when Michael and I woke up for Tai Chi.

She was in my bed by the time that Michael and I headed downstairs for Tai Chi; and had two junior cuddle buddies with her while Michael and I were busy exercising with Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden.  We had Zack and Leah with us too; but they just ran around and played by the river while we worked through our Tai Chi forms.  Mom and Dad skipped the exercise today, but had kids to take care of too by sometime before we got back inside; and Rowen and Tim were both helping out by then too.

Breakfast was a wild, toddler-rated adventure; getting a gang of under-five kids ready for church was exhausting; and then getting all of them to the church and returned to their parents was yet another blast of busy that had me ready for a nap.  That wasn’t an option, since we were busy at church with another Sunday school work session to get ready for the holiday weekend service; and then I was back on kid control again not long after getting home from church while the parents in the family worked on a big lunch gathering at our house again before getting back to day two of the move.

I’ve already mentioned that the weather has been great today; and that helped me a lot with my babysitting duties.  Play time at the park was an option; swimming breaks were added in when I had extra support for the junior swimmers; and Michael helped out and played with us while he was on his afternoon break from the Inn.  The one thing that I couldn’t do was help out at the Inn.  They were really busy again today, and I wish that I could have done that too; but it was more important to be there for my family – even if I wasn’t doing any of the moving work.

The house, by the way, looks amazing after the remodel.  I hadn’t exactly spent much time in the Ayres’ house before now; but it’s as beautiful as Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s place – and should be very popular with Aunt Deborah’s family for holidays now too!  That’ll be nice for Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne now that they can share the weekend guests more than they’ve been able to do so far since getting married; and we have one more big dining room to help out with major family meals.

I want to speed this up because it’s late and I’m really tired; so let’s do that.  The work was mostly wrapped up by dinnertime – which meant going to the late buffet at the Inn for a little celebration.  There’s still some unpacking and organizing to do; but Aunt Deborah will have help for that all week and she’s sure it’ll be done in time for having her first family guests coming in for the weekend.  Dinner at the Inn was great for me because I was relieved of kid control duty and allowed to have that meal with the other teen helpers – including Rowen and Tim.  Michael couldn’t get away from the kitchen to join us; but I went to see him after dinner; and ended up staying to help out until closing while Mom, Dad, and the twins went home without me.

The work in the kitchen was hot and tiring, so Michael, Rebecca, and I went for a swim after we got back to their house; and then Michael and I had some cuddle time on the sofa in his living room before I came home for the night at eleven o’clock.  Mom and Dad were still awake than and working in the office, but the twins were sleeping.  I had a visit with Mom and Dad; stopped in to kiss my brother and sister good night; and then got ready for bed and started on my nightly computing and some family business work that needed to be done before morning.

I was too tired for any major time phasing, so that’s taken a while; and now I’m only going to have time for a nap before I’ll need to be awake again and on the go for a day of cheerleading and chores.  The chores will be at Grandma and Grandpa’s house; and the highlight of the day tomorrow is going to be their return home from Canada.  With the holiday weekend now just days away; there are sure to be a lot of highlights this week – including baseball championships and a second football game on Friday night.  That’s all going to be amazing, along with everything else we’ll be doing, but I really just need to get some sleep right now; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Cassie's Journal - August 29, 2015



It’s been a wild and crazy-busy day; and the full report is going to have to wait until tomorrow.

To tide you over until you flip the digital page some day in my future; here’s a few teaser highlights.

Uncle Nick and Aunt Deborah are in their new home tonight – without the kids.

My team won our game this afternoon and we’re undefeated for the regular season.

Mom and Dad’s team won tonight too.

We had rain roll through a few times today; but that didn’t get in the way of any of our fun and only delayed the work a bit.

Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I have a gang of kids with us tonight; we’re indoors because it’s easier to deal with the babies and toddlers than trying to take care of them in tents; and quite a few of them will be staying here overnight – including Leah and Sebastian.

I’m not doing the full report sometime after Mom and Dad get back from the pub and the kids that aren’t staying overnight go home with their parents for a reason that I’ll let you guess about just for the fun of it.

I need to get back to the babysitting now, though; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - August 28, 2015



I’ve definitely mentioned in my journals that I like to win, and that sentiment extends to Michael and our football team; but a win was not to be for us today.  That made the Grand Summit players, coaches, and fans very happy – and made the road trip and dealing with a rainy night worth it for them.

I am so not glad that we could help them out with that, but before I get to the rest of the football night report; let’s cover the news from the rest of the day.

While rain was a possibility all day; we didn’t get any this morning or through most of the afternoon.  Tai Chi by the river was nice; Michael stayed for breakfast because Mom didn’t think that he should settle for Pop Tarts on a game day; and we both eventually ended up at the school on time for our respective practices.  Both the cheerleaders and football players had light workouts followed by meetings; and then we were set free at lunchtime with the afternoon off before the big game.  Michael had to get to the Inn to help out there, and Rowen and Tim had things to do too; so we didn’t get to talk for very long after our practices.  I can tell you that Tim was worried about the game, with now-obvious good reason; while Rowen and I were very happy with our squad.  We’ll still get a lot better as the season goes along, but we were ready for the game by then; and I don’t think that any of us were even a little bit nervous about our first game of the season.

Having the afternoon off from cheerleading felt strange, but I had lots of chores options available once I got home and had a quick lunch with Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana.  With the rain in the forecast, I opted for mowing the lawn; since it was a job that I could get done with the time I had available before I’d need to get cleaned up and ready for the game.  I also helped Mom and Aunt Leanne with some of the dinner prep work for the dinner and football or movie night that we were hosting at our house; and had my own dinner while they continued to work so that I could be back at the school in time for the pre-game meeting and set-up with my squad.

Before I get to that, while I was busy with my practice and working; Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana spent the morning at the lab; the twins were at KidZone for the afternoon; and Mom split her afternoon time between her grocery and supply shopping and chores at home.  Aunt Leanne came over after the kids had finished their afternoon naps, and while I didn’t get to spend much time with them; I did get to have a bit of cuddle time with Brianna while having my dinner.  As of now while I’m writing this, I don’t have many details from the dinner I missed out on while busy at the school; but I can report that most of the girls opted to stay home for a chick flick movie night instead of going to the game and getting rained on.  Most of the guys felt obligated to come out and support their two-time champions, and Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden came with them; but the younger kids were kept at home.

The game set-up in the rain wasn’t fun, but we had a good meeting after that; and the rain didn’t really dampen my enthusiasm at all – or Rowen’s.  Jenny wasn’t happy about the rain; but she was about as fired up as I’ve ever seen her to have Joel there watching her cheer for the first time.  He probably won’t be here next Friday night for that game, since he’s heading home and spending the long weekend with his mother and their family; so this will be the only chance he’ll have to see her in action with our squad.  That experience has likely been mixed for Joel, since Jenny gets a lot of attention from boys at the games and tonight was no exception to that; but she did leave with him tonight and didn’t do any flirting with those admirers tonight either.  Jenny’s assured us that she and Joel are not going to attempt long-distance dating after he heads home; but she does really like him a lot and wishes it could be different.

I’m procrastinating a bit now; so let’s get to the football game part of this update.

As I’ve already mentioned, Tim’s worries were proved out tonight; and we lost big – by a score of fifty-six to twenty.  There’s no way to sugarcoat it; our team made a lot of mistakes; we fell behind early; and it just got worse as the night went on.  The bad parts of our game included five turnovers by our new quarterback.  I’m not going to put all of the blame on one guy, since Ray had lots of offensive line problems too; but the three interceptions were pretty much on him – and that number would have been even uglier if Michael and Tim hadn’t played defense on offense with another dozen bad throws to block what would have otherwise been more easy interceptions.  All of the interceptions and the two quarterback fumble-turnovers led to points for Grand Summit; and they let up on us later in the game or the score could have been even worse.

The only bright spots in the game for our team came from Michael and Tim – both on offense and defense.  Tim score two touchdowns and Michael scored one.  All three of those scores were on big-yard plays thanks to after-the-catch runs.  They had other big plays too, but those opportunities were then messed up by turnovers; drive-ending incompletions or no-gain runs; and the two missed field goal attempts that Captain JJ whiffed on from distances that he could hit last year.  He missed one of the touchdown extra points too; which is why we only had twenty points on those three touchdowns.  I don’t want to place any major blame on Jason’s shoulders either; but I am going to comment on his leadership style tonight.

Most of my information for that comes from Michael and Tim; and they waited until we were back at my house and in the lounge before venting over the game and their new captain.  You can be sure that they didn’t exaggerate anything, though; and Jason is not their favorite team mate right now.  Before I get to their issues with Captain JJ, which is his own preferred new title; I’d also like to mention that having the team kicker as captain is very different for the guys because they don’t have him on the field with them for most of the plays.  Sure, Jason does sub now and then for special plays, but our team was never in a position tonight to use any of those plays; so he was only on the field for kicking plays.

Leading from the sidelines when Coach Robinson is already doing that may not work very well; though I won’t declare that a fact after only one game.  I can tell you that badgering, blaming, and insulting Michael and Tim will not work to motivate them – especially when they’re blamed for things that weren’t their fault – like most of those interceptions and incompletions.  Jason apparently can’t tell the difference between blocking an interception and dropping an easy catch.  His compliments for good plays were all back-handed too, and while that sort of thing might motivate some people; it doesn’t work for at least half of his current team mates.  Michael and Tim were on the receiving end of a lot of crap from their captain, and so was Lucas; since we had almost no running game tonight.  While he wasn’t having a good night; Lucas’ problems were mostly due to mistakes on our offensive line and a defense that was determined to stop the run as soon as they saw that our passing game was such a mess.  Lucas should have gotten praise for dealing with that and not giving up any turnovers despite getting hit a lot tonight – and usually behind the line of scrimmage.

The game-time issues with their captain weren’t the worst of it for the night.  Michael and Tim were not at all happy with the locker room rant at half time that Jason unleashed on his team; and the post-game insults and complaining had them wishing that they weren’t such nice guys.  None of that happened while Coach Robinson was with them, so he’s likely unaware of the problem, and since Jason wasn’t bashing his fellow seniors and best friends at all; none of them stepped up to help their younger players.  The shock of being so soundly beaten in a game might have had something to do with it; but then Tim thinks that all of the seniors are delusional and agree with their captain’s assessment of the game – and which players were responsible for the loss.  Jason even blamed the weather for some of their problems despite the fact that the rain wasn’t an issue for the Grand Summit players at all.

I don’t want to drag this out, but losing the game was bad enough; so having their captain rip them apart in front of their team mates when it wasn’t justified at all really had Michael and Tim feeling angry and disappointed.  They’re going to need to find a way to deal with that; but Rowen and I didn’t try to help them out with that tonight.  We were just there for the cuddles and so that they’d have sympathetic ears to nibble on once they’d finished venting. ;^)

Since the game went so badly for our team, I’m not going to go all sunny and happy with the cheerleading side of the game report.  The rain kept us damp most of the night, but we did our best to cheer on our team despite not having a lot to cheer about; and our halftime routine was a big hit with the spectators for both teams.  Actually, that’s one thing that I really should mention about the game – the number of spectators we had tonight.  I didn’t think about it at all before the game, but the rain brought a lot of the area campers into town for shopping, dinner, or pub time; and quite a few of them ended up stopping by to watch some or all of the game.  We had a bit of that last year for the first game; but not nearly as many as we had tonight.

Getting back to the cheerleading action, the highlight of the night for me was our halftime routine.  This year, our singing in the rain – umbrella mash-up included more acrobatics than last year; Rowen and I lead that part of our routines; and the other girls had some cool tricks with their umbrellas too that all worked perfectly tonight without even one mistake.  I’ll also be a bit proud of my squad and declare that our halftime routine was better than the show the Grand Summit cheerleaders put on – despite the fact that they have a bigger squad and had a more ambitious routine.  Don’t get me wrong – they were good; but we were better tonight!

Moving along, the post-game festivities were not at all festive for our team.  The congratulations with the Grand Summit players, coaches, and cheerleaders was tough for some of us; the friends, family, and fans visits after that were bittersweet, and as I’ve already mentioned; our players did not have fun in the locker room after the game either.  Rowen and I had more fun than Michael and Tim did with all of the post-game action, but we also knew that they weren’t having fun; and did our best to get everything done so that we could meet up with them and come back to my house.  We already knew by then that there wasn’t going to be a post-game party for the team anywhere; and Michael and Tim didn’t want to hang out with any of the other guys by then anyway.

The movie night was still going on at home when we got here, but it started wrapping up once the men were back from the game because we’re all going to be busy this weekend with the big move and other work.  We had a little chat with everyone before coming up to the lounge; Michael and I took care of getting Ethan and Ehlana into bed; and Rowen and Tim had snacks, drinks, and a movie ready to go by the time we joined them in the lounge.  Michael and Tim took care of the post-game venting first; and then we enjoyed the cuddle and a movie time.

Michael and I both need to be up early in the morning, so we only watched the one movie; and then I went downstairs to see all three of my friends out.  Michael stayed for some bonus goodbye hugs and kisses while Rowen and Tim did the same thing out on her front porch; but then I came back up to my room; got ready for bed; and got started on my computer and email checks.  There was a bit of family business to deal with along with a couple of family and friends emails to read and answer; but it hasn’t taken me long to get all of that done – and I didn’t use a time phase to do that tonight.  Getting to sleep before midnight wasn’t going to be an option anyway; but I mostly skipped the use of any Magi power tonight because I didn’t want to use the extra energy.  I’m going to need to re-charge after using a lot of power this week; so I’m going to try to take a day or two off from any major power use if I can do that.

That might not be an option if any healing is needed for any of my favorite people due to the moving work, chores, or baseball tomorrow; but we’ll see how that goes.  For right now, though, all I’m really interested in doing is sleeping.  It’s going to be a very long, busy weekend, and that’s all I have for tonight anyway; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!