Happy 15th Birthday, Lily!
I really like Lily a lot, and while we don’t
spend a lot of time together other than in class or when she’s been around with
Reid during football season; we’re not close friends because we hang out in
different groups most of the time. That,
by the way, isn’t a Magi thing. Lily
spends as much time with Reid and his Grade Nine friends as with her best
friends in Grade Ten; and then she’s also as likely to spend time out at his
farm as hang out around town where we might run into each other at the park or
elsewhere. Add in that she’s the
youngest in her family; and w don’t even have younger siblings in common.
Having said that, Lily invited Michael,
Tim, Rowen, and I to her birthday dinner and party, and while we really do like
each other; the invitations likely had more to do with Lily trying to help Reid
out with becoming better friends with Michael and Tim. He’s hoping to be our starting quarterback
next year; so having the top two players on the team in his corner will help a
lot with that effort. Tim will be more
impressed if Reid continues to work out with him doing the morning weight
training, and especially next summer when he’ll want to start football training
early; but I think that Tim should remember that being friends makes a big
difference too.
I don’t want to get into a long football
side-trip; so let’s get back to the regularly scheduled update!
We’ve had another really nice weather day,
and while everything else feels a lot like Christmas to me; temperatures that
climb into the fifties and sixties isn’t part of that – not that I’m
complaining. A dusting of snow Christmas
Eve that’s gone by Boxing Day would be fine with me! ;^)
While it’s still cold in the morning, we
bundled up and went out by the river for Tai Chi today. Since we haven’t spent any time with his
parents, and couldn’t hang out with them tonight; I got ready for school right
after Tai Chi and then went over to Michael’s house for breakfast. In addition to getting Miranda’s shopping
trip report, we talked about Christmas in general; I got the latest remodel
news; and we enjoyed another amazing Jacob Stone breakfast. That time together wasn’t long enough, but
school wouldn’t wait for us to start classes when it was more convenient for
us; so Rebecca, Michael, and I headed out on time and got started on another
day of fun and learning!
Okay, most of us would say that the tests
today weren’t any fun, but Michael and I enjoyed our music time with the kids;
and Reid put on a birthday lunch for Lily that was entertaining too. Band practice was another highlight of the
day; and we’re definitely ready for both the seniors’ Christmas party and the
Maple Valley parade. That practice didn’t
leave Rowen and I much time to get ready for Lily’s party – and yes, that is
totally sexist not to include Michael in that statement. The guys around here don’t have a problem
with that kind of thing, though; and would be insulted if we suggested that
they needed a lot of time to get ready for a dance or party – even in the cases
where they do take nearly as long as most girls need to be date-ready for our
favorite boys.
Speaking of favorite boys, we may have a
new couple in our class – or I expect that we soon will have an addition to the
Grade Ten couples’ club. Gretchen and
Marc came to Lily’s party together, and while that might have just been two
farm kids getting a car pool; they spent a lot of time together too; and sat
next to each other during dinner. I’ll
give it a week before it’s official; and then we’ll be down to just one single left
in our class. Gil has been dating, but
hasn’t had an actual girlfriend in a while now; and doesn’t seem to be in any
hurry to ‘settle down’ the way the rest of his classmates have done – or are
currently doing. I’m not suggesting that
we can start booking the weddings for everyone in our class quite yet, but this
is a small town; and I won’t be surprised to find out that most of the matches
we have now survive the rest of our high school and college years.
Lily’s party was a short blast of fun and
excitement for Michael and me because we didn’t have a lot of time between
practices. We weren’t the only guests at
the party needing to move on to the church for the teen praise team practice;
which is why Lily’s parents started dinner early-enough for us to get all the
way through to the birthday cake dessert and gift opening parts of the night
before we needed to hurry over to the church.
Michael and I were at the far-end of the table from Lily, Reid, and
their best friends; so we were out of the loop for most of that action. We did have fun chatting with Rowen, Tim,
Sally, Joshua, Gretchen, and Marc – even though the guys wanted to talk
football most of the time. I won’t go
into major details about the gifts, but I will mention that Reid did a great
job with the boyfriend gifts for Lily.
He might be a year younger than us, but some of the older teen guys at
our school could learn a lesson or two from Reid when it comes to gift-buying
for girlfriends. Maybe he’s just
smart-enough to ask for help with things like that, but whatever he does to get
it right; Lily certainly appreciated his efforts and thoughtfulness!
There was a lot going on at Lily’s party,
but nothing particularly unusual for having a gang of teens together; so let’s
move on to the teen praise team practice.
We spent most of the time working on the musical tonight; and we started
out with it because we had extra teens and kids around to work on the acting
side of the show. While we did some of
that together; we also split off into groups when needed to work on different
scenes. That was a bit crazy for Michael
and me because we’re two of the leads; but it was fun too. After spending an hour and a half doing that;
the ‘actors’ were set free; and the ‘musicians’ moved on to do a quick
run-through of the rest of our holiday music – including our contributions for
the Christmas Eve and Christmas weekend Sunday services.
I went home with Michael after that; we did
our homework together; and then had a short bedtime chat with his parents and
Rebecca before I left at a bit before eleven o’clock. We didn’t have time for any make-out
sessions, but we did still have a fairly awesome day to that point; and I
really needed to get home and started on my usual nightly studies and work.
Ethan and Ehlana were in bed by the time I
got home, but Mom and Dad were still working in the office; so she did my Magi
lesson with me; and then we all headed up to bed by midnight. While I was busy with practices and the
birthday party, I didn’t really miss out on much of anything; though Mom, Dad,
and the twins did have some play time and wrapped some gifts while I was out
and they watched a Christmas show while doing that before moving into the
office to work or study for the rest of the evening. My day was more fun than that; but then I’ve
been making up for that with a late work night – mostly because I didn’t want
to do yet another major time phase.
Sure, I get done the work early; but there is a cost to using so much
power every day.
I stopped in to kiss Ethan and Ehlana on my
way up to bed; got changed and snuggled in bed with Mandy and my computer; and
got straight to work – starting with my archive assignment. That was more than three and a half hours
ago, and while I’ve gotten a lot accomplished; I’d put myself to sleep listing
everything here before I got as far as number three on that list; so let’s just
not go there. With barely enough time
for a nap now; let’s just pick our Christmas song for the day and call it a
night.
Since I’ve been on a minor roll with
girl-power Christmas songs, let’s keep that trend going a bit longer with this
pick by Barlow Girl.
Okay, time to get to the napping part of my
day; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
