Happy 34th birthday, Aunt
Leanne!
It’s Friday, and that normally means
starting with the football report, but since we also have the fall festival and
Aunt Leanne’s birthday today too; I’m going to try and write this update in
order – starting with my morning wake-up call for Tai Chi.
I needed to be nudged into action too,
since I would have slept in if Ehlana hadn’t come and bounced me out of
bed. Tai Chi by the river was very, very
chilly; and I was wishing for the warm weather from last weekend for the first
day of the festival. Michael met us by
the river for our workout; stayed for breakfast in the sunroom; and then went
home to get ready for school – and our play day at the festival. With the temperature barely holding in the
forties, we dressed for the weather; but it still meant a very cool morning at
the park when we did eventually get there after going to school for our
homeroom classes before everyone walked to the park.
While we were set free for the rest of the
day once we were there, most of the students at our school had at least some
festival homework to do too; so Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I decided to get that
out of the way first while waiting for it to warm up a bit. Midway rides can be fun when it’s cold out
too; but it was much nicer to go on the thrill rides once the temperature
climbed into the sixties. We toured the
tents filled with crafts, baking, and farm produce for all of the contests; checked
out the main pavilion and watched a couple of shows; and played some of the
games. We even had some math to do that
was game-related; but it wasn’t anything terribly complicated – like working
out the math that would ensure a win with the ring toss over the bottles
game. Yes, I could do that too, just as
Mom has done before; but I haven’t had any good reasons to do that like she has
– and wouldn’t want to part with the money to make up for actually playing to
win that game. Our math was mostly in
statistics collection for our own gaming experience; and we’ll combine it with
everyone else’s data next week for some as-yet unannounced assignments.
The rides were the highlight of the day for
us, and the festival continues to get some of the best rides thanks to the help
of local businesses – including the lab.
I’m sure that’s why we had students from even more of the area schools
coming here today; and that was even more fun for us as we had a lot of little
cameo chats with other teens as we played the games and waited in line for the
rides. That was even more fun for the
single teens at our school, since it was a great chance to meet guys or girls
from those other schools; and that was fun to watch too – especially when it
was happening with our friends. Jenny
was one of those singles, but I’ll get to her story in a bit.
For me, the highlights of our school day at
the festival were lunch with Mom, Aunt Leanne, and my brother, sister, and
cousins; getting to spend the entire day with Michael, Tim, and Rowen; and an
early birthday dinner for Aunt Leanne at the park that included opening some
gifts and demolishing an Olde Bakery birthday cake before Michael and Tim needed
to get to the school for the football game and Rowen and I needed to meet up
with our fellow cheerleaders.
That brings us up to the football game – or
at least the pre-game action as we got ready for a chilly evening for playing
the game, cheerleading, or being a spectator.
We were up against Brookbridge tonight, and that was of particular
interest for our cheerleading squad because Jenny had spent most of her
afternoon hanging out with their star senior wide receiver – and she was well
on the way to falling for him by the time they split up after walking to the
school together. Her stories kept us
entertained while we set up for the game and then did our warm-ups in the
school gym; and we were all in a great mood by game time.
Even with the fall festival in full swing,
we still had a pretty good turnout for the game; and everyone was in for a wild
ride – if not by comparison to the thrill rides at the park. Brookbridge came to play tonight; and Jenny
might be at least partly responsible for why their best wide receiver was
having a great game tonight. She
definitely got some attention from fans of both teams for cheering him on
whenever he was in on the plays for his team.
He had a better night on offense than either Michael or Tim did, and
scored Brookbridge’s only two touchdowns; but I’ll guess that he’d have rather
had the win over the personal stats – just as Michael and Tim were happy to get
the win even though they only scored one touchdown each. Our team scored four touchdowns, but Lucas
had one on a running play; and Reid Spencer scored one on a trick play that
they tried out for the first time tonight to try and take the pressure off of
Ray after he’d given up three fumbles and one interception; and had been
getting hit a lot to that point in the game.
According to Captain JJ, it was the kickers
on both teams that were the stars tonight, and there was a case for that with
Brookbridge; but I wouldn’t have said that for our team. Brookbridge had five field goals to go along
with their two touchdowns; but Jason only managed one field goal and the four
extra points on the touchdowns to help us to the thirty-one to twenty-nine
victory. Yes, he was still to scorer for
our team with seven points, but he never seems to notice that the rest of his
team gets him into position for both field goals and those extra points; and I
think that it was our defensive efforts on both sides of the ball that made the
difference for us. Reid’s trick play
touchdown was timely too; if only because it made Brookbridge take a bit of the
pressure off of Ray for the rest of the game while also getting back seven
points that we’d given up to Jenny’s soon-to-be new boyfriend.
Since that’s pretty much guaranteed to
happen, let’s put a name to the guy! Peter
Gallagher is, as I’ve already mentioned, he’s a senior at Brookbridge and one
of the best players on his football team.
He’s also tall, easy on the eyes, and exactly the kind of guy that Jenny
loves. I won’t hold his football success
against him because his touchdowns didn’t come from beating Michael or Tim
tonight, and when he was matched up with one of them; they mostly battled to a
draw. Michael and Tim didn’t beat him
for any touchdowns either when he was playing defense; so they were fairly
evenly matched. I’d suggest that we can
see how that goes next season when Michael and Tim are taller, but Peter will
be done high school this year; so that won’t happen.
We did get to hang out with him for a while
after the game when Jenny introduced us to him – and then while we were all at
the teen dance at the festival once we were finished at the school; and I
expect we’ll see him fairly regularly in the coming weeks because he seems to
be as interested in Jenny as she is in him.
I’m skipping the cheerleading report and moving along; but only because
I really don’t have anything major to report beyond Jenny’s cheering for
Peter. The rest of our cheerleading and
the half-time routine were great; but not particularly newsworthy.
I can pretty much say the same thing for
the dance; though that’s mostly because I was getting really tired by then and
it was getting a lot colder out. We
pretty much had to attend because it’s expected of the football team when we
have a home game on the festival weekends, but to be honest; I’d have rather
come home after the game and enjoyed some make-out time with Michael
instead. We still managed to have fun
anyway, and I liked hanging out with our friends and going dancing with
Michael; but then I was also ready to go when we decided to leave at midnight.
That choice was partly motivated by Michael’s
work schedule on Saturday. He’s working
the breakfast and dinner shifts so that he can have most of the daytime hours
off to spend at the festival with me; but that also meant that we didn’t go
home to have any major make-out time. I
did stop at his house for a long goodnight hug and kisses; but then I was home
by twelve-thirty. Everyone was already
sleeping, but I stopped in for some goodnight kisses with Ethan and Ehlana –
and with Zack and Brianna when I found out that they were staying overnight
too. I hadn’t known that in advance, so
it was a nice surprise; and I’m sure that Aunt Leanne appreciated the kid-free
night birthday gift.
I came up to my room from there; got ready
for bed; and have been working on my computer since then. While I didn’t make any plans to study or do
family business work, I did have some work to deal with from my email inbox;
and I did a check of Hathorne Industries too before getting around to this
journal update. There isn’t anything to
report from the work; and all is fairly quiet at Hathorne Industries for a
change – at least when it comes to anything that we can make a difference for
through our family business.
That pretty much covers the main news for
the day, and I’ve got another very busy family and friends play day ahead of me
tomorrow; so that’s all for day one of the fall festival. Let’s hope that the rest of the weekend will
be as much fun! You’ll be able to flip a
digital page to find out, but I still have to live it; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
