Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - September 30, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

Happy 33^rd Birthday, Uncle Nick!

 

This month-end update is early because we’ll finally be busy with a birthday celebration for the rest of the day, and in addition to our ‘dates’ to the birthday dinner and party; we’re going to have a mid-week sleepover with Naomi and Aiden tonight too.

 

We just finished our school day adventures, and had fun while there, but we’re really looking forward to the family-and-friends’ play time that will be starting soon because we’ll be on kid control at the Ayres’ home while Mom helps out with the birthday dinner work.  The rest of that story will have to wait for tomorrow, but since we have a little time while getting ready for our night out at our aunt and uncle’s house; let’s cover some of the news of the day.

 

Our perspective on election years and presidential politics is more-informed than for most kids our age, but then if any of our friends had cared to watch the first presidential debate last night; they’d have soon turned it off again; since we can all watch playground name-calling at school that would be just as intelligent. ;^)  That’d be funnier if not true; and we will totally understand if a majority of eligible voters exercise their right not to vote for either of these candidates.  On the pandemic front, we’ll pass thirty-four million confirmed cases today, and that debate was a perfect illustration of how messed up politicians really are.  While the world is dealing with two million new coronavirus cases a week and five-thousand deaths a day; they fight over who would have been worse at dealing with the crisis.  News flash – this pandemic isn’t about you, Mr. President or Vice-President!

 

Moving along, while we don’t normally comment on the various wars going on around the world; we’re keeping an eye on the new fighting that has broken out between Armenia and Azerbaijan.  There are already too-many problems in that region; allies are lining up on either side of that fight; and we really hope that the fighting won’t escalate and that mediators will step in before we end up with more countries being destroyed and innocent people get caught in the crossfire.

 

As we think about all of that; this isn’t a positive way to wrap up what has been a really good month for us – with nothing but bad news.  That contrast for our lives continues to be something we think about, but as we’ve mentioned before; we don’t feel guilty for our blessings – we just want those same blessings for everyone; and hope to help that happen as we work toward the Ascension of the Light.

 

Going to Uncle Nick’s birthday party doesn’t really do anything toward making that happen, but love and joy starts at home; so we’ll do our part to share a bit of both with the people we love the most.

 

Especially when it comes to what will hopefully be a co-ed sofa sleepover with Naomi and Aiden later tonight! ;^)

 

We’ll let you know how that – and the party – goes for us tomorrow night, but that’s all for now; so we’re out of here and back to the real world.

 

This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - September 29, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

Happy 20^th Birthday, Michael!

 

Another day; another birthday that we didn’t get to have much involvement in.  Michael doesn’t seem to miss having us around to help out with his celebration; and we’re not going to write about why our sister might have her husband feeling that way! ;^)

 

They still had classes and assignments as normal, so we really can’t comment much about his birthday adventures beyond the gifts and video chat at breakfast.  Our day since then included the online lessons and assignments for our home school day; we followed that up with biking and play time at the park – along with a check on the progress for the new trail to Quarry Lake; and then it’s been a standard work and study evening here at home with Mom and Dad.  None of that may sound very exciting, but we continue to be happy; and that’s a gift that we appreciate a lot – especially this year.

 

We just finished up with bath or Jacuzzi time – which we needed after the park play time, and we’ve had an especially-long day thanks to some time-phased studying tonight; so that’s all we have for this report.  Stay tuned; and we’ll try to do a better month-end update tomorrow night.

 

This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - September 28, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

Happy 8^th Birthday, Valerie Malloy!

 

That might be the top news for our family today – and we didn’t have much involvement in her special day beyond a very short video chat and the gifts that Dad dropped off for Valerie while on his last trip to the city.

 

While we didn’t have much birthday-themed fun, we did have a good day at school; opted for lab or archives play time after that; and have been doing the normal weeknight study or work thing with Mom and Dad in the office.  The Magi lesson and music were the most-entertaining parts of our evening, but we love the work at the lab and our ‘real’ studies too; so it has been a good day.  We’ll only have Naomi and Aiden with us for our ‘home’ day tomorrow, so we should get our work done early, but we’re also tired now; so wrapping this up and getting some sleep isn’t about being ready for our online lessons and assignments.  There is more that we could write about for current news, but that rarely seems to be happy news; and we just don’t want to go there after a happy – if quiet – day.

 

If you’re not ready for a nap too, flip the digital page for whenever you’re reading this in our future; and we’ll go get some sleep before getting to the adventures we’ll write about tomorrow night! ;^)

 

This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - September 27, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

Happy 15^th Birthday, Jaimie Proctor!

 

Our involvement with her special day was limited to sending gifts and a video chat, but while she has to wait a day to take the test; she’s most-happy about being able to get her learner’s permit.  Driving on her own is still a year or so away, but we’ll expect to see her driving into town the next time they’re here for a visit; and the jokes are being revived from Violet’s turn at that age – including suggestions that Jaimie could get a car out of the deal if she gets a hometown boyfriend too! ;^)

 

We don’t really have much news to write about from home.  We had a quiet morning that included the church service and Sunday school; Dad worked in the office for a lot of the rest of the day; so we split our time between the lab or archives this afternoon; a bike ride at the park; and an evening of studying and music that just wrapped up a few minutes ago.  We did go to dinner at the Inn, and had fun with that, but it still isn’t the same as when we could have the Sunday buffets; and that continues to have a big impact on the business at the Inn.

 

Tomorrow is an at-school day, and we’re ready to get some sleep now; so we’ll go do that now.  Stay tuned, since the wind-down to the end of September always leads to the excitement that goes along with heading into one of our favorite months of the year!  The fall festival and Halloween are just two of the events to look forward to in the coming weeks, so we’ll get the rest when we can to be ready for all of those awesome adventures!

 

This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - September 26, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

The camping last night was a blast; Tai Chi by the river with extra exercise buddies was awesome; and one of us won’t comment on breakfast with Zack, Eli, and the other guys they goaded into their version of food fun.  Since then, it has been a fall clean-up chores day with a lot of work that included packing up the tents; we worked until dinnertime with breaks for lunch and cool-down swims; and then we really needed bath or Jacuzzi time after that before getting around to our evening entertainment.  It was just the four of us for that tonight; we watched a movie; followed that up with some music fun; and now we’re doing the bedtime twin chat while doing this update.

 

Since we don’t really have any news from home – especially compared to yesterday and Violet’s pregnancy; let’s do a pandemic update before calling it a night.  For the big picture, we’re passing more milestones this weekend – thirty-three million confirmed cases and one million deaths worldwide.  The numbers in each country are very different, but while they’re at different stages on the pandemic curve; the weekly new cases worldwide will still be over two million for the second week in a row.  The daily death toll is still averaging around five thousand and hasn’t been rising, so our treatments are obviously more-effective now – along with other factors including more cases being detected from younger, healthier people and at-risk people taking better precautions to avoid catching the virus.

 

Cassie and Michael’s college data backs part of that up; though we don’t get all of the information they’re sure to be collecting; and we’ll skip commenting on the aspects of their back-to-school issues that seem more like an evil science project for more than just tracking the spread of a pandemic through a controlled population.  Approximately five percent of their student population has now tested positive; and that number is growing at approximately one percent per day.  The daily growth rate is happening even with all of their social and health precautions, but while everyone is reportedly recovering; we don’t know whether there will be longer-term health issues for those students.  That five percent total is about double the national rate, but the testing is sure to be better and targeted; so that isn’t really a surprise.

 

One thing we do expect to learn over the next few months from that college data is related to herd immunity.  Current estimates suggest that the actual number of people that have had coronavirus is ten times the confirmed cases – which for the national total would mean that we’re somewhere between twenty and twenty-five percent instead of the confirmed 2.2 percent.  If that proves true, then Cassie’s college would actually be at around fifty percent – and that would put them fairly-close to the numbers needed for herd immunity.  If that happens within the next month or so; then we should see a large decline in new cases to near-zero – and if the rates for new cases don’t change; then those estimations are wrong.  Let’s not get into the possibility that virus immunity might be temporary, since even with an effective vaccine; that’d mean that coronavirus vaccines might need to be repeated – just as is done now with flu shots or other vaccinations.

 

There is still a lot that we just don’t know about this virus, so we’ll keep doing what we can to help out – whether that’s at the lab or through the family business and charities.  That never feels like enough, but then that’s true for everything bad in the world that we can’t just fix or keep from happening at all.  The good news is that we know that things will get better; since we do believe that our side will win the battle for the coming Ascension of the Light! ;^)

 

That’s enough for tonight, and we are tired after a long, busy work day; so we’re out of here; and will be off to dreamland soon.

 

This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!