Happy 33rd Birthday, Liz!
Naomi is staying here for a sleepover and
Eli is with Zack tonight, so we won’t discuss how much birthday fun their
parents are having with a kid-free night; and I’ll just hope that Liz has had a
good day.
My day has been very long and a bit too
busy; so I’m going to keep this report as brief as possible.
Our return to regular classes meant getting
right into new study modules in most of our classes; so that kept us busy as we
were given new projects and assignments to work on over the next month or
two. While that wasn’t exciting for most
of my classmates, most of us will be going to Florida with the marching band;
and we’re fired up about that now that we’re starting to count down to that by
days instead of weeks now. The guys were
also talking football, and while I can’t honestly share their enthusiasm for
the upcoming Super Bowl, it will be the end of the season; and we have the
bonus that we’ll be in Florida and at Disney on Super Bowl Sunday – so the guys
will have more interesting things to do for the day instead of sitting around
watching the game.
That, by the way, reminds me of some issues
we’ll have here at home with so many of the teens in town away that week. For Jacob and Miranda, they’ll be
short-staffed all week, but that will be a bigger deal on the Sunday because of
their Super Bowl buffet and party.
Sheldon’s Pub and other stores will have the same issues, since there
will be a shopping sale too, but maybe we’ll also off-set those problems with
fewer shoppers and diners – unless all of our families show up to play and eat
while they’re teen and tween free! ;^)
I can’t do anything about that, but we did
have our final marching band support meeting before the trip tonight; and I was
there for that. Mom and Dad hosted it,
and since Miranda and Michael were going to be at it too; we had them – and Jacob
– over for dinner too. Rebecca would
have been invited, but she was with Lucas tonight; and didn’t come to the
meeting. Michael and I did our homework
after school; helped with making dinner and the clean-up; and enjoyed the fun
time with our parents, Ethan, and Ehlana.
We took our gift for Liz over to her between the clean-up and meeting
while going with Ehlana to get Naomi; but that was the extent of my involvement
in Liz’s birthday adventures. I should
mention that Aiden is here too, but he was dropped off after dinner; and the
four kids spent the evening in the lounge until they got ready for bed shortly
after our marching band meeting wrapped up.
I won’t go into all of the details, since
this update is already longer than planned, but there are some details that
need to be included; so let’s get to that.
On the personal side, I am going to have four Magi chaperones with us on
the trip. That back-up won’t mean
unusual supervision for me, but they will be able to keep tabs on me through my
phone; and I’ll be able to find them if needed.
We aren’t getting any sense of danger for this trip, and have no sign of
anything to worry about from our Hathorne systems checks; but Mom is insisting
that we be prepared for the worst while hoping for the best. For the overall trip, we have a finalized
itinerary; everything is paid for; and there is a fund for spending money that
will be available for the kids that need it – along with a travel and expense
fund that the chaperones will have at their disposal. We went over any last-minute uniform issues;
will deal with the last bit of that at practice tomorrow night; and we’ve
finalized the logistics for the buses to and from the airport – and also dealt
with the baggage issues that go along with hauling our band instruments along –
including the flight transfers we’ll have each way. Getting the smaller instruments to Florida
isn’t a big deal, but the drums and larger instruments did require some extra
planning – and expense. Finally, we
worked out the chaperone groups; made sure that all of the room and buddy
system pairings were worked out; and every group of teens will have at least
one smart phone with them that the chaperones can use to contact them anytime
they need to do that. There are dozens
of little details I’m skipping, but that’s likely enough to explain why that meeting
took a couple of hours.
The good news is that the work for the trip
is pretty much done except for the packing – and the last fruit and vegetable
boxes orders that will be delivered this Friday. There are a lot of adults around here that
deserve to be thanked for all of their help with the band, but since the list
is too long to include here; I’ll just offer a blanket thanks for everyone
involved. I wish that they could all
come along for the fun, but that isn’t an option; so maybe we’ll need to come
up with some other way to thank them. I’ll
think about that and keep you posted if I come up with any ideas.
Moving along, Michael stayed to help me
with getting the twins and their best friends tucked in for the night; we had a
bit of alone time for saying goodnight in a mostly non-verbal way; and then he
went home and I came up to my room to get started on my bedtime computing,
work, and language studies. Time phasing
helped, but I had a lot to get done tonight; and it’s now heading toward four o’clock. This didn’t end up being a micro report, but
I am done now, and heading into nap mode is now my top priority; so, until next
time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
