Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 20th Birthday, Wendy Gallagher!
We’re only mentioning Wendy’s special day in this update because Cassie and Michael are helping their friend out with celebrating around all of the studying they’re doing for final exams. Compared to that work; our day has been fairly-awesome!
The family-and-friends’ fun last night was amazing too – even with having Zack and Eli around to lead the younger boys in efforts to annoy us – with that ‘us’ being the girls in the house more than any of the other boys. At our age, the Santa Clause movies are classics, but they are annual holiday favorites for the entire family; and we get to have added entertainment thanks to having a lawyer in the house! ;^)
We only had everyone with us for the first movie in the living room; and then some of the parents went out for the rest of the night – the parents getting a kid-free night. We – the kids – moved the movie marathon up to the lounge; settling in on the sofa, in the window alcove, or in sleeping bags on the floor. Six of our youngest sleepover guests didn’t last half-way through the second movie; so Mom and Dad moved them into our bedrooms – the boys in Ethan’s room; and the girls in mine. The rest of us ended up camping in the lounge – though other rooms were available. We didn’t technically have co-ed sleepover buddies, but Naomi and Ethan were close-enough all night that they may as well have been sharing one sleeping bag. Half of us lasted through the end of the third movie, but we were tired by then; and didn’t stay up for long after it ended.
Morning came early – or it felt that way to us. Tai Chi was by the river but near-freezing; and then our morning got busy as we helped out with feeding our gang of overnight guests with help from some of the parents. We had our video chat of the day with Cassie and Michael at breakfast, since they were going to be busy all day and evening; and that felt weird because they were home for the holidays by now during their first two years at college. We haven’t written about it, but that should give you a clue that something else is different this year – no group Christmas shopping trip to the city for the kids and teens – or for the Moms either. Sure, there are still shopping trips happening to the city, but no group events were set up this year; and a lot of our neighbors are just doing a combination of local and online shopping this year. We might still do a trip to the city before Christmas – or not, but either way; we’ll be ready for Christmas thanks to some help from our parents, Cassie, and Michael.
The weather stayed cold today, but we can’t complain at all; since we just finished a nice little blast of warmer weather; and we are closing in on mid-December. We had some chores to do after our cousins and friends headed for their own homes or elsewhere, but the outdoor fall chores are done, and using our Magi talents was an option; so we had that work done by eleven o’clock. Dad has his week in the city coming up, so he opted to work this afternoon; and we ended up going to the lab to play while our best friends were busy with their own families and holiday-themed fun.
I was especially-happy for the lab time while Ethan played in the archives – and that was entirely because I played around with the new coronavirus samples we have from the local cases. There have now been five of them, but not of those patients are suffering the more-serious complications; and there is a good chance that this first outbreak is contained. The source of virus samples isn’t really a big deal – except for noting mutations from other places, but the local connection makes the work more-personal. We don’t know what your perspective will be in our future when it comes to the pandemic, but while we’re keeping up with the research into treatments and vaccines; we’re still not convinced that rushing untested vaccine technology into mass use is the right thing to do. Juggling those unknown risks against the known certainty of billions of people getting sick and millions dying from the coronavirus is a tough call; so we’ll pray that we won’t be writing about any worst-case vaccine problems in another year or two. We didn’t come up with any cures of our own this afternoon, but did get some ideas for directions to take our research; so it was a productive afternoon.
Our evening here at home has been quiet; Mom and Dad watched a Christmas show with us; and then we moved on to bath or Jacuzzi time by nine o’clock. Ethan had a solo music practice while waiting for me to finish my soak in the tub; and we’ve been listening to Christmas music while multi-tasking this update, our twin chat, and getting my hair dry and brushed. We’re not ready to crash and nap quite yet, but that’s all we have for tonight. Our Christmas music pick for today is another Disney favorite – this time from one of our favorite Princesses!
Let Love Light The Way – Elena of Avalor
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!
