Ethan and Ehlana:
We’ve had another busy day and more fun ahead for the rest of tonight, but let’s cover the news from the end of our last report and try to keep the story in order.
Getting a bonus round of holiday fun with our family and friends last night was awesome, but while the dinner, play time, campfire, and camping combined to make for a really great night; we should likely comment on some of the more-personal news for some of our cousins. Closest to us should be the new interest that some of our friends apparently have in Jayden this year. We were expecting that to be true for some of our older cousins, so we weren’t surprised when Jeremy Green spent some time with Kaitlyn starting before dinnertime and Micah Byrd stopped in to see Jaimie and then stayed for the campfire, but we didn’t expect the extra friends that either wanted to hang out with us more than usual because of Jayden – or because of the girls that are showing an interest in him! ;^)
We also haven’t had any drama so far with our friends of a guy-girl nature; didn’t expect that sort of thing for another year or two; and at least one of us may have a different opinion over having that be an issue for Jayden while not feeling the same way about it for Jaimie, Kaitlyn, or the rest of our teen-girl cousins. Ehlana and I do find it funny – if in different ways; and I probably shouldn’t offer more on the subject; since my opinion might be very different if Naomi was one of the girls taking that kind of interest in our cousin. Jeremy and Micah may be spending a lot of the next two weeks around us since neither of them are currently dating anyone else, but that will be different this year too; since they’re older and have summer jobs to work around while trying to hang out with our cousins.
That will be news to write about as we go along, but we can tell you that they managed to spend a few hours or more with Jaimie and Kaitlyn today too; and they may be among the campers tonight as well. As for the camping last night, we ended up with extra kids and teens being added through the evening – including those friends of ours that want to spend time with Jayden. That didn’t lead to extra guests for the barbeque dinner at our house, but we still had a fairly-large gang; and then the extra friends joined in on the evening play time and campfire that kept us busy through until near-midnight. Our camping did not include any co-ed tents, but Aiden, Jayden, and I didn’t have any junior tent mates; and Ehlana and Naomi had fun with Brianna and Faith in their tent while our cousins and all of the friends split up among a total of ten additional tents. The campfire was put out by midnight, but we stayed up talking or playing until as late as two-thirty for some of the teens; and then our Friday morning began too-early for those of us that got up for Tai Chi by the river with Mom and Dad.
Our day through to now has been very busy. Breakfast was an adventure with so many kids; we had some chores to deal with for the first half of the morning; and then we’ve spent the rest of the day playing and biking with our cousins and friends. We weren’t together with the full group all day, but we usually had a dozen or more in the group with us; and we were part of the bigger groups off-and-on too – whether that was for meals, snack breaks, play time, or swimming in the river. Lunch was a picnic in the back yard; the barbeque dinner was at the Carringtons’ house tonight; and the campfire will be starting soon at our house – mostly because we’re also going to be hosting the camping every night over the weekend so that we don’t have to move the tents around just to have the parents take turns with that part of our fun.
Our weekend guests have continued to arrive today and we still have more on the way, but other than helping out with kid control; we haven’t really needed to help out with much of the work for unloading vehicles or with cooking the meals. Taking care of our younger cousins can often be more work than the chores, but that is also usually more-fun too; so we can’t complain about that at all. The details for our play adventures so far today don’t really matter, but the weather is getting even better; so we’re really happy to start the holiday with lots of sunshine and warm – especially after so much rain over the past week and more.
We’re only taking a break and getting cleaned up ahead of the campfire, so that’s pretty much all we have for today; and we need to get back outside again soon. Another late night is probable, but we also have a lot on the schedule for tomorrow too – starting with the holiday weekend ballgames; so at least some of us should try for more sleep to be ready for those baseball battles. That – and news for the rest of our adventures over the next day or so – can wait for our next report, though, and we really should get going again soon; so, until next time...
...this is Ethan and Ehlana Proctor; live from the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
