Cassie's Journal - September 30, 2015

Happy 28^th Birthday, Uncle Nick!

As I was considering what to write about Uncle Nick’s birthday, my first thought was that his day wasn’t as exciting as Michael’s was yesterday because getting a first driver’s license is a big deal for most teens; but then I remembered that he and Aunt Deborah are ending their day with a kid-free night.  I won’t need the details to know that they’re having more fun tonight than Michael and I had last night.

That should make up for having to work all day, and since it feels as though I’ve been working all day too; they’re having more fun than I am.  Unless they totally waste their kid-free night opportunity, I also plan on being asleep long before they should be; so let’s move this update along so I can get to that napping part of my plan for tonight.

Tai Chi by the river was chilly this morning, but we’ll just need to get used to that – or move our workouts indoors.  None of us want to do that before we have no other choice, though, so we plan on dressing more warmly and enjoying the great outdoors while we exercise.  Michael stayed for a quick breakfast, but then he was off and running to get to his morning weight training.  I had more time to get ready for school, so I took care of the kitchen clean-up this morning; and spent a bit of time with Ethan and Ehlana before meeting up with Rowen for the walk to school.  I’m not writing much about our classes yet this fall, but to be honest; I just like hanging out with Michael and our friends all day.  It’s tough to find anything exciting to write about when my first blast through the Grade Ten material happened when I was a toddler – and I can still remember every detail of those studies.  If it wasn’t for the fun with friends part of school; I’d be totally bored.

Now that I think about that, maybe that’s at least part of the reason why Gwyneth Hathorne is accelerating her education so publicly.  Dark Magi Masters aren’t likely going to have friends their own age for various reasons; so sitting through years of boredom at school would just drive them crazy.  I’m not making excuses for her, since she’s making some really bad choices too from what we know of her through our monitoring of the Hathorne Industries systems; but that doesn’t mean that I can’t relate to some of the issues she has being a Magi Master kid.

Moving along, my cheerleading practice was an entertaining way to end the school part of my day, and then I headed over to Uncle Nick and Aunt Deborah’s house to help out with the tail-end of the pre-dinner work that Mom, Aunt Leanne, Grandma, and Grandma Ayres all helped Aunt Deborah with.  This dinner party lasted several hours from that point until everyone headed home for the night; so all of the birthday fun was spread out a bit instead of being compressed the way it had been for Michael’s dinner party last night.  The roasting of the birthday boy was a bit more advanced too, but I wasn’t really in on any of that anyway because I was on kid control for the meal before moving on to help with the fairly major clean-up.  The only news from the dinner party that matters, though, is that Uncle Nick had fun.

Mom and Dad took Ethan, Ehlana, and me home by nine; and then I used a time-phase while we all worked or studied in the office together for a couple of ‘real time’ hours.  That was a lot of work with a bit of fun mixed in here and there; and then I came up to my room and let Mom and Dad take care of getting the twins tucked in for the night.  I was beat by then, so my bedtime routine took all of about five minutes, and once I’m finished with this update; I’m going to crash for the night.

Thursday is game night at the Inn, and I should probably help out at the Inn during dinner; but I’m seriously thinking about skipping all of that and staying home.  I’ll see how I feel by tomorrow afternoon; but I don’t think that I have many more late nights in me for this week – or hours-long time-phases; since that’s just as tiring as staying up and working until three or four in the morning.

Sleeping is now at the top of my to-do list, and I don’t have anything to add to this update anyway; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - September 29, 2015

Happy 15^th Birthday, Michael!

I did my best to make sure that his day started out great with bonus birthday hugs and kisses before Tai Chi; we exercised by the river; and then I got ready for the day as quickly as possible before going over to his house for breakfast.  Jacob cooked up a couple of Michael’s favorites; he had a few gifts to open; and then we walked to school with Rebecca and Rowen once Rebecca and I took care of the clean-up.

There were moments of birthday fun at school too, but I also had cheerleading practice at lunch time; so Michael’s school day highlight was when he was away from school and getting his driver’s license.  I’m sure that you’re not surprised to hear that a Magi teen wrote that little test perfectly, so maybe that isn’t a big deal to most Magi reading this; but taking that first step toward driving is still a big deal for nearly every teen at our school.  Michael didn’t get to do much driving because of everything else we have on the go, but his Dad did take him out for a little drive before he came back to school for the rest of the day.

We did a little birthday party for him at lunch time, but that was short and sweet for Rowen and I because we needed to get to our practice.  This was one of the few times that I wish I could have skipped cheerleading for the day; but I’ll survive – and we did have fun anyway.  Our afternoon classes were uneventful, and then Rowen and I moved on to band practice while Michael and Tim were busy with their football fun.  I should mention that Michael is in the band just as he was last year; and just practices the music we’ll be doing on his own – or when we have our little practices.

Rowen and I hurried over to Michael’s house after our practice instead of waiting for the boys; helped out with the pre=dinner work already in progress; and then helped with welcoming dinner guests until Michael, Tim, and Lucas joined us – along with the other footballers that had been invited too.  Thanks to our two practices on each side of dinner; the actual meal and usual birthday-related fun had to happen in near-record time; so that was just a blur and blast of non-stop action.  Michael had a great time; and then we moved on to our teen praise team practice.  While his birthday had nothing to do with it, we were happy to get through everything we needed to work on at the practice in under an hour; and then we went back to Michael’s house for the rest of the evening.  The highlight of the night there was our birthday make-out session in his room.

Oh wait – that’s how I imagined our evening would go.

What really happened was that we hung out in the living room with Rebecca, Lucas, Rowen, and Tim and watched a movie until four of us needed to get home for the night at eleven o’clock.  Sorry to disappoint you, but there was no major birthday making out going on between Michael and me.  Even our goodnight hugs and kisses weren’t exactly fire and shooting stars because there were two other teen couples saying goodnight then too without much separation between couples.

The birthday fun was over then, and it was time for me to get to my work and studying.  I didn’t have a Magi lesson because Mom and Dad were ready for bed by then, but I did have an archive assignment to go along with the family business work and my language studies.  For all of that, I used a time phase; multi-tasked with some Jacuzzi time; and got about half of the work done while in the tub before taking a break to do my hair.  I was still in a time phase for most of the second-half of that work; so I also had a nice little telepathic chat with Mandy until she fell asleep again.  Using the extra power for that has tired me out, but I will be sleeping before one o’clock; so it was worth the effort tonight.

Uncle Nick’s birthday is tomorrow, so we have another birthday dinner to attend; and that’ll get in the way of my work night and early bedtime tomorrow night.  I’m trying to keep up, but something may need to give soon; since I’m really starting to feel the drain from being so busy.

I’ll keep you posted on that, but it’s time for me to head into dreamland and find out if Michael and I can have more teen-rated fun there than we managed to find time for tonight; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - September 28, 2015

Happy 3^rd Birthday, Valerie!

We had a breakfast call with Valerie, her parents, and brother; and sent a gift that was there for her to open; but didn’t get together with the Malloys.  She did have a party today, though; and I’m sure that Angela and Terry helped to make sure she had a very happy day.

Our fun here at home wasn’t on the birthday party level, but there was a lot going on – and I again had nothing to do with most of the biggest news.  The top story around here is that the outer shell of the new addition for the church was finished today.  That didn’t get talked about yesterday while we were there; so I’ll guess that the construction guys wanted to make sure that everything was done before making that announcement.  There’s still a lot to do indoors, including knocking out some walls between the old and new sections of the church; but the crews will be able to work indoors most of the time all winter; and they’re ahead of schedule thanks to the extended spell of nice weather we’ve had for the past couple of weeks.

That, by the way, has been good for the ongoing harvests around here too; and the farmers are generally all fairly happy right now.  I should also mention that the crops that the farmers are growing for the lab are doing as well as expected; and the best sign of that is that it doesn’t look as though the lab will need to pay out any crop failure subsidies at all.  They’re buying up a lot of seed to get ready for a big expansion next year; but I’ll leave the details for stuff like that to the archives that Uncle Adam and Ehlana are keeping for the lab.  Feel free to read up on all of that boring science and agricultural business stuff there! ;^)

Closer to home – like here in the house; the back porch to sunroom conversion work is almost finished.  We haven’t been allowed to go in and see it in a while now; but Dad did tell us that the finishing work will be done sometime in the next two days and then there will be new furniture delivered for it on Wednesday or Thursday – in time for their anniversary on Friday.  Since Mom has been around here and none of it is a surprise; Dad’s at least hoping that she’ll love getting to see the finished room on Friday morning.  If that’s anything like when I got to see my room for the first time; it’ll be amazing for Mom.  I can hardly wait for Friday!

Then again, I’m looking forward to morning and sharing Michael’s fifteenth birthday with him; so I’d better move this update along and get some sleep.

Compared to all of that, my day has been fairly uneventful.  Tai Chi by the river was nice; breakfast with Mom, Dad, and the twins was pretty much all of the time I spent with them today until after I got home from Michael’s house tonight.  We had a good day at school; cheerleading practice was fun; and then I went home with Michael to have dinner there and then spend the evening studying, having a music practice, wrapping that up with a minor make-out session, and ending my evening there with a bedtime chat with his parents and Rebecca before I came home again.  Mom did my Magi lesson then; I had a chat with her, Dad, Ethan, and Ehlana; and then I took care of getting the twins tucked in for the night on my way up to my room.

It’s been all work and study since then once I was in bed with Mandy and my computer, but I time phased some of that; and didn’t have as much to do thanks to the bonus work and studying on the weekend.  That’ll give me the chance to have a couple of extra hours of sleep, and since I do have a birthday dinner to go to tomorrow in addition to school and three practices; I’d better get to the napping so that I’ll be ready for all of that.

Until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - September 27, 2015

Happy 10^th Birthday, Jaimie!

I had absolutely no involvement in my cousin’s happy day beyond sending a gift and an email, but she did answer my email; so I know that she has had a lot of fun today.  Uncle Mark, Aunt Grace, and Caleb were there too, and while I didn’t mention it with my last update; they went there yesterday afternoon and are still on the way home now as I write this – leaving at around eight o’clock so that Caleb would sleep most or all of the way home.

While the birthday fun for the family has been in Granite Park today; I’ve had a lot of fun here at home too.  That started out with my sofa sleepover wake-up call, but before I get to that; let’s review the date night in at Michael’s house first.

By the time I got to Michael’s house, he already had most of the set-up finished for our movie night.  That included having snacks set out in the living room; pizzas cooking in the oven; and cold drink options available in the kitchen.  Rowen and Tim joined us just a few minutes after I got there, so Michael and I didn’t have much time for hugs and kisses; and then Rebecca and Lucas arrived together – in Lucas’ truck.  For the record, he won’t be sneaking up on anyone while driving it because it’s fairly loud and distinct-sounding; so maybe his mother didn’t have a problem with that at all.  He definitely won’t be able to come home late without her knowing it – unless he pushes it for the last half-mile or so.

The first thing that I should do for this part of my update is thank the guys for taking a night off from college football.  Rebecca, Rowen, and I know how much of a sacrifice that was for you – especially when it meant missing out on watching a few upset matches.  It’s still early in the season, though; and they’ll survive.  We did still go with action movies instead of chick flicks; so it wasn’t all bad for them.  All three boys were happy to start out the evening with pizza, and while Lucas and Tim can pretty much eat all of the time; Michael’s motivation had more to do with having a very early dinner break followed by hours of cleaning in the kitchen.  We – the girls – only had a slice or two each, but that had nothing to do with watching or weight or anything – we just weren’t as hungry as the boys were.

The entertainment picks were the new Terminator movie and Jurassic World, and while the on-screen action was entertaining; it was the cuddle time with Michael and chat time with our friends that we loved the most.  Tim and Lucas both have a knack for movie commentary that’s fun too; and having Miranda and Jacob join us for a while between getting home and heading up to bed was a nice bonus.  So was the sofa sleepover with Michael, and we managed to set that up when Lucas, Rowen, and Tim all needed to head home.  After seeing Rowen and Tim out, we offered to take care of the clean-up while Rebecca was busy saying goodnight to Lucas.  We were still doing that when she went up to bed, and once the work was done; we went back into the living room to snuggle on one of the sofas and spend some quality time saying goodnight to each other with no intention of me actually going home unless parental veto powers were invoked to put an end to our ‘accidental’ sleepover plans.

We are very lucky that our parents all think that we’re so darned cute when we do fall asleep on the sofas.  I woke up for a few moments when Miranda checked in on us at a bit after three.  She wasn’t fooled for a second, but instead of sending us up to separate bedrooms; she just took a picture; sent it to Mom; and advised me that she loves me a lot and plans on making sure that Michael keeps me.

I love you too, Miranda; and don’t have a problem with that plan. ;^)

Michael woke me up this morning with a soft, tender kiss or three; I ran home to get changed for Tai Chi and had time for a short round of teasing from Mom, Dad, Ethan, and Ehlana before he met up with us by the river.  It was a beautiful morning for exercising outdoors, and that was the last bit of quiet we had for the rest of the morning – except for prayer time at church.  I hit the shower after our workout; got ready for church; and headed over to Michael’s house for breakfast – and some more teasing from Michael’s family.  The highlight of that meal was actually a video chat with Jake and Stephanie; live from Europe.  It was afternoon local time for them, so breakfast chats do work for them; but I don’t get to be in on them very often.  They’re loving it in Europe, and joke about staying there; but I also know that they really miss home too – and they will be coming home next May – at least for a few months before they’ll need to go back to New York for their final year of college.

While our gourmet breakfast was a highlight of my day, it didn’t seem like very long before we needed to head over to the church; and then Michael and I were busy with the service and then Sunday school.  I’m also going to mention that Lucas did not drive his truck to church today; though I’m only mentioning that to point out that he’s a bit brighter than the average teen when it comes to personal finances.  His parents may have given him the truck, but the expenses are all his; and Lucas is not going to spend money on gas when he doesn’t need to do that.

I did not work at the Inn today, so I walked Michael to the Inn after church; hugged and kissed him goodbye; and then went home to hang out with my family for the rest of the day.  We had a small gang over for lunch; played for a couple of hours on the river and at the park; and then Dad needed to get some work done in the office.  Mom, Ethan, Ehlana, and I joined him there to either work on the family business or study; and I did both so that I could get to bed early tonight.  Michael came over for his afternoon break; he did his homework while hanging out with us in the office too; and then I took a break and went for a long walk with him that included Emporium ice cream treats and a walk around the park on the paths.

We only had the five of us for dinner tonight; Dad and I did some more work in the office after that; and then I came up to my room for some Jacuzzi time at eight-thirty.  I finished up my language study while in the tub; did my hair and finished getting ready for bed; and I’ve been doing one last computer and email check since getting into bed with Mandy and snuggling in for the night.

Getting a decent night of rest is going to help me out this week because we have a lot going on over the next seven days.  Michael’s birthday is on Tuesday; Uncle Nick’s is on Wednesday; Mom and Dad’s fifth anniversary is on Friday – along with the football game; and then they’re going to be away for the weekend while Rowen and I are booked to babysit Ethan and Ehlana while they’re gone.  We’ll have adult back-up if needed from Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, and Rowen’s parents; but I don’t expect to have any problems.  Having all of that going on in addition to our already packed schedule is going to be tough – even when it also means a lot of extra fun; so I’m going to sleep when I can – starting right now.

Until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!