Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 31, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

Happy Halloween!

 

This update is coming to you before we head out for the parade because we’re going to Naomi’s house for the night.  While the fun we still have planned for the rest of the day will be the highlights too; we’re again going to leave our computers at home tonight.

 

Since our last report, we had a really great dinner with some of our favorite people; that was followed by an hour of holiday-themed crafting; and then we watched a movie in the living room – though a few of the boys went with Zack up to the lounge to play video games instead because they didn’t want to watch Girl vs Monster again.  Yes, they do like the movie – just not as much as Brianna, Faith, and Leah do!  When the rest of our guests headed home, we had some bonus music fun after helping with the clean-up; and then we settled in for one more movie to go along with the co-ed cuddling.  That kept us entertained until we were ready to get some sleep; and we stayed paired up in the lounge for that too.

 

The weather today has been awesome!  Tai Chi was by the river; and we had a hot breakfast before getting started on our fall clean-up chores.  That sometimes seems never-ending in the fall, but we are getting close to the end of that work; and we finished up with the leaves and the rest of the work by a bit after one o’clock.  We needed to have lunch then; and then we got cleaned up before getting started on packing our overnight bags and getting ready for the parade.  We’re going to have a music warm-up at Naomi’s when we head over to her house; and then we’ll be having a pizzeria pizza dinner ahead of the parade.

 

All of the rest of our news for today can wait until tomorrow night, but we really are getting to have good weather for the parade – though it will start cooling down again by then; and we’re glad of that since playing our instruments in the cold isn’t something we’d have as much fun with in a parade that’ll be about an hour-and-a-half from start to finish.

 

We’re all very sure that the ‘work’ will be worth it, since we know that nearly every adult in town and out in the country donated treats; so every kid and teen will be on sugar overload – probably through to when the Christmas treats come out at Thanksgiving! ;^)

 

If we’re not in sugar comas by tomorrow night; we’ll write all about the rest of our Halloween adventures then, but that’s all for today; and we’ll soon be out of here and on our way to get started on all of that fun.

 

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 - October 30, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

The Halloween fun at school was different this year with just half the class and not much interaction with the other classes, but we still had a blast.  The bit of work we did was holiday themed; we watched a movie; listened to Halloween music; and had our party in-class.  The haunted house in the gym was socially-distanced and set up differently than normal, but still entertaining; and that was the fun highlight of our day at school.

 

A sunny, warmer day had everything to do with why we went biking on the trails after school, but we didn’t stay out as long as normal; and just finished up our last band practice before Halloween.  Naomi and Aiden have gone to get overnight bags for our sleepover; and we’ll all be here for family-and-friends’ dinner-and-a-movie fun night.  Our aunts, uncles, and cousins have been busy too, so they’re just starting to get here.  We’re multi-tasking this update with getting the lounge ready for the night; and then we’ll be on kid control until dinnertime – which will likely be late since it is Friday and the clinic rarely gets closed on-time heading into the weekend.

 

We’ll cover the rest of the news for today with the next report, but we’re going to focus on the fun for the rest of the night; and put our computers away for the rest of the day.  That isn’t a Zack-and-Eli joke – though keeping our most-expensive toys away from their pranks is a good idea! ;^)

 

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 - October 29, 2020

 

Naomi and Ethan:

 

Happy 9^th Birthday, Aiden!

 

We’re doing this update so that Aiden gets to have extra cuddle time with Ehlana for his birthday – you’re welcome, Aiden! ;^)

 

A home school day allowed us to have more birthday fun than we would have had at school, so that worked for Aiden; and he still got to see most of our friends at his party too.  That entertainment was the highlight of our day, but while we were having fun at home; the students having a school day had their class parties and the Haunted House in the gym fun today; since they have a home day tomorrow.  We got to hear all about that from our friends that were at school today when they came over to Aiden’s house – most of them doing that straight from the school.

 

That’s why we wrapped up our Halloween-themed work by early-afternoon; and then headed over to Aiden’s house too so that we could help out with the party set-up.  His parents both took the afternoon off and left others to run the bakery for the rest of the day.  We had fun with that, and since the weather was at least sunny, if not all that warm; we had some of the birthday fun outdoors – including a bike ride for anyone that wanted to do that.  We needed  to get a few extra bikes from home for some friends, but then that ride didn’t last all that long before returning to Aiden’s house for some video gaming and other fun.

 

We won’t write about every moment of the party, but one of us wants to comment on the scariest moments – for the girls.  That had everything to do with Miles and Joshua being at their Halloween-scary best today; and how thoroughly they annoyed most of the girls in the house.  Those efforts included pranks that they brought along to spring on us; food and drinking games that were especially-disgusting at dinnertime; and one intentional mess that left Carolyn in tears and required a change of clothes.

 

Writing about the rotten parts of Aiden’s party might not be fair for our best friend, but maybe it’s good to point out that we have the same problems as any non-Magi kids.  There were more happy moments too – if not for everyone; and we’ve really had a good night since the rest of our friends headed home.  They did that early because Aiden’s father still needs to go to bed early most nights.  We got ready for bed once we were on our own; had a bedtime visit with Hannah – Hailey went home with Leah after dinner because they couldn’t take the nonsense from Miles and Joshua.  We’re watching a Halloween movie to go along with the cuddle time now, and while we have a school day tomorrow, it will all be Halloween play time; and we’re okay with staying up late.

 

We haven’t had an official band practice, but we practiced the vocals a little while ago before starting the movie; and we’re ready for any performances we might end up doing tomorrow at school – and during the parade on Saturday evening.  There is going to be a co-ed sofa sleepover tonight – a last birthday gift for Aiden that we all love a lot; and that’s pretty much all we have for our own news of the day.  The world news can wait again – though we should at least mention that we’ve topped forty-five million confirmed coronavirus cases; and the daily totals have now topped a half-million for the first time – two days in a row.  Being proved right about our expectations for the fall with the pandemic isn’t something to be proud of – especially when we know that it didn’t need to happen this way.  That isn’t a commentary we want to get into tonight; so we won’t go there.

 

Cuddling and finishing the movie and best-friends’ chat time is more-fun too; so we’ll get back to that now.  Stay tuned; since the fun level is going to stay high through to the end of the month!

 

This is Naomi (still nee Seager) 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 - October 28, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

It is no surprise to us that all signs of the first snow of the season will likely be gone by morning already, but the rain today is helping out with that; and we didn’t really want to spend time outdoors once the rain hit this afternoon.

 

Our school day included some outdoor time, but that was before the rain started; and was still on the cool side; and the school yard and playground were already slushy and messy.  We had fun with our Halloween-themed lessons, but with the big day so close now; it was tough for the teachers to keep the kids and teens focused.  Thanks to the rain, we headed for Aiden’s house after school to have our Naomi and the Phantoms practice; and then we headed for the lab or archives while Naomi and Aiden headed home or to the bakery.

 

We haven’t written about our work at the lab or in the archives in this journal very much lately – mostly because we don’t really have anything to report on our research; and the rest of Ethan’s archives work is really boring for everyone except him.  There is some news today; though not a breakthrough or vaccine for coronavirus.  We haven’t conceded defeat on the project, and don’t want to understate the seriousness of a virus that nobody had immunity from when it broke out, but we know enough about it now for the treatments to be available that are good-enough to seriously-reduce the fatality rate.  What that means for us is that we needed to look at the time and resources we were putting into it compared to the research we’ve put on hold for most of this year; and we’ve decided to get back to our work on cancer and other projects.

 

That probably seems wrong when daily and weekly new cases are so high and still growing, but even if we could develop a cure – not just a vaccine; it would take years to make billions of doses.  The vaccines that are being tested now, by the way, have the same issue; and that’s just one of many problems involved in the process.  None of that minimizes the seriousness of the pandemic, but our research can’t change what’s happening now – or the fact that the countries with the worst results could be doing much better now if they would just make better choices and use all of the knowledge we have now to help their people.

 

For our lab, and in the specific case of our ongoing cancer research; we have to focus on priorities.  While the total deaths for coronavirus are closing in on one-point-two million – at least for the confirmed numbers; worldwide cancer deaths will be around ten million this year.  We want to do the work where we think we can do the most good; that’s why we were focused on the projects we’ve put on the back burner this year; and now we’ve decided that it’s time to get back to those priorities.  We’ll still keep thinking about a way to cure coronavirus and keep up with the latest research elsewhere, but our daily research and experiments will be wrapped up by the end of the week.

 

That was one of the reasons for why we stayed late at the lab today, so we had a late dinner when we got home – Mom saved the leftovers for us instead of waiting for us this time; and then we did a Magi lesson with her after we cleaned up after ourselves.  We didn’t do anything else tonight; so this update is ahead of an early bedtime that we expect that we’ll need; since the rest of the week is going to be very busy.  This had been a busy day too, but the next three days will be all about having fun; and we’re going to be ready for those adventures – just as soon as we get a full night of sleep that we’re going to start on right now! ;^)

 

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 - October 27, 2020

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

 

Our home school day didn’t include anything newsworthy; though we had fun.  That’s true for the rest of our day too.  Once we had our online lessons and assignments done, we opted to stay indoors for a band practice and other Halloween fun – mostly because we’ve had some wet weather this afternoon that included ice pellets and wet snow.  There is still some snow around despite how warm the ground has been for the first snowfall of the season, but it’s a slushy mess now that we didn’t really want to play in anymore.

 

Naomi and Aiden headed for their homes in time for dinner, so it was quiet around here; and that trend continued with our work or study time in the office.  Dad wasn’t loaded down with work tonight, so a time phase wasn’t needed, but we still worked for a couple of hours before heading up to our rooms – or to the living room for Mom and Dad; since they wanted to watch a show and have some parents-only cuddle time.  We won’t comment on that – or really anything else; since that’s pretty much all we have for today.  We still have a few days before Halloween, but after tomorrow, our school time at home or school will be Halloween fun and not much else; so the fun level will start climbing again soon.  Stay tuned; and we’ll write about all of the best Halloween moments through the rest of the month!

 

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!