I didn’t get as much nap time as I’d hoped
thanks to Brianna’s wake-up call at around three-thirty, and while that meant
not having much sleep at all; the quiet play and cuddle time with her was one
of those remember forever moments that make me glad that I do have such a great
memory!
Sunrise Tai Chi was as much fun because of
Brianna again too, and while she won’t be able to actually even really pretend
to exercise with us for another year or two; I have a feeling that the indoor
workouts at the Carrington house are going to get very entertaining this
winter.
For those of you taking that thought about
indoor Tai Chi, interesting workouts, and my aunt and uncle in a totally
different direction – cut it out! ;^)
When the weather continued to hold for us
this morning and looked good for the rest of the day except for a risk of a
storm this evening, the winning vote for the cousins was one last blast of fun
at Quarry Lake. That’s why we ran around
like crazy getting ready for that outing after breakfast; Mom and Aunt Leanne
rounded up the drivers and volunteer helpers; and then we caravanned out to the
campground and got there not long after it opened to the general public for the
day. We rented some bikes; had a near-repeat
of the fun from last weekend without the birthday party or grandpa breaking his
arm events; and generally had a really great day together! I’m not going to drag that out; since it
really was just more of the same kind of fun, but I did love spending a lot of
time with Dawn and Jillian; Jaimie and Kaitlyn; and the rest of our
families. Michael and Rebecca got a ride
out with Jake and Stephanie when they all took an extended break together, and
while they were heading back earlier than I needed to; I got a ride back to
town with them so that I could grab a shower and have a little break before
going on to my ballgame. Rowen and Tim
did not come out to the lake with us; but that was because they were needed at
the store and shop today instead.
I was ready for my game by the time the
first Quarry Lakers returned to town, so I helped out with unloading the van
and truck; but didn’t go on to Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s from there because
I wanted to get to the school early-enough for some warm-up time after a
too-long break without practices. That
made Carolyn happy because she was doing the same thing and had a couple of
other team mates with her for that; but most of our friends didn’t join us
until about fifteen minutes before the game because they were all busy with
work or other plans. That included Rowen
and Rebecca; with Rebecca coming from the Inn after helping out with the prep
work for dinner.
Let’s not drag out the baseball recap
either, since it wasn’t a really competitive game; and it turned out that
Carolyn had nothing to worry about due to the lack of practice. We were up against the Comets again this week
because we’re still a game behind until we can get the game we missed on the
holiday weekend re-booked. To make a
long game story short; we took an early lead; kept growing it over the first
four innings; and then coasted to an easy twenty-to-eight win that could have
been mercy-rule worthy if we hadn’t let up for the last three innings and done
a few other things to keep entertained – like rotate positions and give other
players a chance to do things in the game they wouldn’t normally do – like pitch
to a few batters.
No, I wasn’t one of the pitchers, but then
I don’t do that on purpose when it would be too easy for me to let my natural
competitiveness get the best of me. I
wouldn’t need to throw pitches at two hundred miles an hour or more to strike
out batters when my math-coordination skills could do that at much slower pitch
speeds.
I digress with that, so let’s get back to
the story. I had a snack before going to
the game, so after it was over; I went on to Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s house
to catch the tail-end of the evening fun there – and let Aunt Leanne feed me some
leftovers from the family barbeque that I’d missed while playing ball. I went for a hop in the river too; and then
had time for a round of cameo visits before the party broke up and our families
headed home to their own houses for the night.
The cousins were split up for last visits with specific aunts, uncles,
and cousins; so we only have Dawn and Jillian here tonight – and mostly so that
they could spend these last few hours of the day with Violet and Dillon. Jaimie, Kaitlyn, and Jayden are with Uncle
Mark and Aunt Grace tonight; and Kara and Eddie ended up with Uncle Nick and
Aunt Deborah.
Once we were home, I needed to hit the
shower again; and wasn’t the only teen in the house feeling the need for that –
or some tub time. Since the latter meant
borrowing my Jacuzzi; Dawn and Jillian took turns doing that after I was
finished my quick shower; and then we hung out in the lounge with Violet,
Dillon, Ethan, and Ehlana to mostly chat and not watch movies while the tub
time rotation rolled along – including baths for the twins and showers for
Violet and Dillon. That was occasionally
a bit amusing, but not too weird for any of us; and we had a lot of fun hanging
out together while Mom and Dad worked in the office. He’ll be in the city next week, and while he’ll
have some more time to work from his hotel tomorrow after doing the meet and
kid swap with the Rice and Proctor parents; he’s running a bit behind on
getting ready for the trip.
I’d suggest having Mom going along to help
with a bit of time phasing; but after two weeks with gangs of kids around; she’d
likely just end up distracting Dad and making this, um, tougher for him to get
his work done on time. ;^)
Yes, that was my fault; but try not to have
too much fun with that train of thought!
Moving along, Ethan and Ehlana went to bed
at eleven o’clock; Dillon went to his room not long after that; and Violet,
Dawn, Jillian, and I wrapped up our day with about a half-hour of girl chat
time before we decided to turn in too. I
would have been okay with going to sleep them, but had work to do on my computer
first; with most of that having to do with current events in Turkey and
neighboring region. Check over at the
current events archive for reference to the failed coup attempt in Turkey,
since I don’t want to get into that here; but I do have some family business
interests at risk there because of the problems; so I did what I could to
protect our companies – and in particular, the people working at those
places. That can be a tricky thing to do
in countries with some serious problems like Turkey has, but I’ll also mention
that Mom’s computer systems are secure; and we’ll never need to worry about
anything we do being a problem for anyone in other countries solely due to
where we’re from – because none of them know the answer to that.
I’m getting off-track again; and that’s a
story for Mom to tell through her tech archive anyway; so I won’t go there
either. I will report that I worked for
nearly three hours after Dawn, Jillian, and Violet left my room; and now I’m
pretty much ready to crash and nap for the bit of time I can do that. After most of the past two weeks off, and
since my cousins will hit the road right after church tomorrow; I’m booked to
work the Inn for the full lunch-to-close shift.
The good news after that is that Michael has his two days off; and
sleeping in on Monday morning will be an option if I really need it after a few
days without much sleep.
That’s something I won’t be able to let you
know about until Monday night, and too far away from right now to even be a
blip on my fuzzy mental radar. It’s been
great to have our cousins here, but I’m ready to get back to something closer
to normal for a while too. Let’s start
that out with some normal nap time, and that isn’t something I can multi-task
with my computing; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
