The weather finally cooperated today for
the entire day; though the forecast flip-flopped a bit.
We took the chance that we wouldn’t get
rain or storms, though, and went all out to have a great day for our cousins –
and quite a few other teens, tweens, and kids around here.
Tai Chi by the river this morning was good;
though Michael was working the breakfast shift and couldn’t be with us for
that. We decided on our plans for the
day while having breakfast in the sunroom, and as sometimes happens; our plan
morphed into a major event. Mom needed
lots of help – and drivers; but the daytime fun was a trip to Quarry Lake. Some of us could have biked out there, but we
instead decided to rent some bikes out there for riding the new trails; and
have the bonus time at the campground for playing instead of losing the extra time
for the biking there and back.
I won’t write about everyone there, but
Rowen was happy to be drafted to come and play with me – and help with kid
control; and we had a blast all day with Dawn, Jillian, and our entire
gang. The play time out at Quarry Lake
started fairly early for some of us; since Mom decided to just get rides for
everyone first; and then bring lunch later.
We blasted through packing bags with towels and the rest of the usual
summer play day gear; rounded up the first gang of kids and teens; and had a
small caravan of vans and trucks heading out of town by a bit after nine o’clock.
While Rowen and I were basically in charge,
we did have some adult support while out there all day – with some of the
parents and grandparents taking turns as ‘emergency’ responders to help out if
anything happened that we couldn’t deal with.
That didn’t happen; but they did all join in for the fun here and there
too.
Grandpa didn’t get to go rock wall climbing
again today so soon after his little accident, but only because Grandma
out-voted him on that; with use of the all-powerful wifely veto that broke the
one-one tie on the vote. ;^)
We – the kids and teens – did get a chance
to play at most of the activities around Quarry Lake, and Rowen and I mostly
did all of that with the younger kids; but we also all did a lot of swimming
and playing around the lake and on the slides.
As the day progressed, we had more teen and parent support; including
from Michael when he was allowed to come out for an extended break that started
with the trip to the campground with Mom when she brought lunch out with help
from some of the other parents. He didn’t
have to go back again until late afternoon to help with the dinner rush; and
hopped one of the early rides back to town with some of the youngest kids that
were getting tired out by then.
Rowen and I were in the last group to leave
Quarry Lake – mostly because we were still in charge and responsible for making
sure that we hadn’t lost any of our kids along the way. That’s why we didn’t get back here until a
bit after five-thirty; and we missed out on most of the cooking and dinner
set-up work for the fairly massive barbeque dinner we hosted. We also missed out on a lot of the campground
set-up for the tents; but had to put our own tent up once we handed off the
kids to other kid control volunteers.
That didn’t take long, but we also took that time before dinner to pack
our overnight bags and get our sleeping bags and the rest of our tent set up
too; so we barely got all of that done by the time the parents were all at our
house after work; and we sat down to eat in the back yard.
That was a wild hour or so of fun, and we
literally had people scattered all around the yard while we ate. Rowen and I were at the river with most of
the younger kids and maybe half of the teens.
Getting to have Brianna with us was a highlight of that little blast of
food fun; and then we dunked about half of the kids in the river to clean them
off before moving on to some play time in the back yard or at the park
playground. Rowen and I were not on kid
control for that because we were on the clean-up crew instead; so we were at
home as the campground grew as more teens and kids were invited to join the
camping adventure – or semi-invited themselves.
I really won’t list the names of everyone that’s here tonight; but we
ended up with fourteen tents lined up along the river in two rows; with an
average of four kids and teens per tent.
Rowen and I have Ehlana, Naomi, and Brianna with us; and Michael and Tim
have Ethan, Aiden, and Jayden with them.
Most of the teens are paired up and have two or three junior campers
with them; so there won’t be any co-ed sleepovers tonight – even though Naomi
once again attempted to sneak into Ethan’s sleeping bag to be his cuddle buddy
for the night.
There is no doubt that she’s staked her
claim to my little brother, and while I’m sure there are lots of people around
here that think it’s just a cute kid thing; some of us know differently.
More on that in the future!
Moving along, Rowen and I ended up staying
here at home all evening and playing games here instead of joining the play
time at the park. We did a bit of
canoeing with the kids – just short trips upriver to the edge of the new
section of town and back with a couple of kids in each canoe; but we also
supervised a lot of the swimming. Dad
lit a fire at dusk; and all of the kids and teens were rounded up for that last
blast of semi-organized entertainment.
Michael and I led the music once he was set free from the Inn; Tim and
some of the other teens helped with the scary stories; and Mom had some bonus
bits of fun for the kids – like glow-sticks of various types that they could
use while running around and playing after dark. While I loved playing and singing with
Michael, I also had fun cuddling with Brianna and Michael when we took breaks
from the music; and that was a perfect way to wind down what has been a really
awesome day!
It is a work night, so the campfire was
given an eleven-thirty time limit – not for the kids and teens; but for the
neighbors and parents that needed to get some sleep before needing to work in
the morning.
We’ll pretend that we believe that; and
ignore the fact that the time limit also worked out rather well for all of the
parents that are having a kid-free night while we have half the kids and teens
in town here.
Okay, it isn’t nearly half of them, but
there are a dozen or more parental pairs that don’t have kids at home tonight –
including all of my aunts and uncles. No
more information is needed to be added here, though; so let’s once again move
along!
We already had kids falling asleep long
before eleven-thirty, but I left it up to other teens and some parents to take
care of getting those kids tucked into the correct tents and sleeping bags
while I stayed with Michael and Brianna and we continued the campfire entertainment. The campfire was wrapped up with two scary
stories; so I left while that was going on and got Brianna changed and tucked
into my sleeping bag. After that, Rowen
and I were kept busy until after midnight with getting the rest of the younger
girls ready for bed and tucked in; and then we finally got to have some time to
just hang out with Michael, Tim, and most of the teens for a while. There were still a few issues with a few
fired up boys that were interested in messing with us; but we – the girls – let
the boys deal with them as needed. While
we were all getting tired by then, and some of us have to work in the morning;
we still stayed out by the river until nearly one-thirty before splitting up
and heading into our tents to get some sleep.
I’d have liked to do that, but needed to
get some work done first; and then ended up with more than I’d expected – which
is why I’m just getting around to this when it’s past-four. Rowen talked with me for a while when I first
got to work, but she drifted off to dreamland by a bit after two o’clock; and I’ve
only had a short chat with Brianna when she woke up at around three wanting a
diaper change and a drink. She has been
a very nice and warm cuddle buddy to have next to me while I’ve been working,
though; so I was happy to help her out with that – and then sing her back to
sleep once she was ready to do that again.
There isn’t anything to write about for my
work tonight, but all is well with my end of the family business. I did also catch the latest news from around
the world, and I’m very tempted to write a minor diatribe about the attack in
Nice, France; but I’m not going to do that – just as I’ve kept myself from
doing that for other, similar events around the world. Without getting into the story, which you can
read about elsewhere in the archives; I will mention that I always have to deal
with the problem of being a Magi Master with a lot of power who isn’t in a
position to do anything about the horrors that people are capable of inflicting
on each other. At times like this, it
isn’t any comfort to know that I’ll be part of the coming Ascension of the
Light – especially when I know that bad things are going to keep happening
during the years and decades to come as we work toward that destiny.
Wow – that’s a bit heavy for an ending to
an update for a major play day, but I don’t have any other news to report, and
need to get what little bit of sleep I can before we’ll be awake and going
again at sunrise; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
