Ethan and Ehlana:
Depending on how you want to count them; Day 3 of Naomi’s birthday weekend getaway was awesome for everyone involved. We began our day with Tai Chi for the kids without parents for the second day; followed that up with a group breakfast at the Grill and Griddle; and then we went to Cassie and Michael’s church for the Sunday service. We’ve been to their church a few times, so the only comments we’ll add here is that their Pastor is becoming more polished with experience; and their praise teams have exceptional musicians and singers that is at least partly thanks to a local college with a very good music program. Cassie, Michael, and Rowen haven’t tried to join any of the praise teams at their church, but that’s entirely because they just don’t have time to add more to their schedules.
We split up after church to get changed for a snow play afternoon; picked up fast food to go when we were ready to meet up and hit the road; and then we headed for the nearest ski center that isn’t far from Eagle Gorge – our favorite local outdoor adventures campground. As we’ve already mentioned, we had a blast today, but while the snowboarding was a lot of fun and better than anything we can do back at home, the snow base wasn’t great, and the slopes weren’t even as challenging as at Blue Ridge; so we couldn’t take our snow play to any major extreme levels. Actually getting to go snowboarding was still the highlight of our day, and after four hours of play time; we all headed back to Cassie and Michael’s townhouse for a take-out dinner and movie night. Even Zack and Eli had fun tonight with the food and action flick, but then they’ve been on their best behavior all weekend.
We headed back to the hotel comparatively-early – partly because Dad needed to get work done ahead of his upcoming week in the city; but also because Cassie has been putting in extra hours every night for her T.A. prep work and on her family business responsibilities – after playing with us all day. Yes, she can self-heal and get help for that from Mom or us if needed, but we really don’t want to tire her out right at the start of her next semester.
Since getting to the hotel, we haven’t done much more than take turns getting ready for bed – including showers or baths; we’re not adding another movie to our bedtime schedule; and ending our day with some chat and cuddle time works for us. That is also pretty much all of our own news for today; so let’s resume our college friends’ update; and then we’ll wrap this up and wind down toward nap time.
We won’t offer news about every collegian that Cassie and Michael have ever spent time with, and they haven’t or won’t remain friends with all of them anyway, but we know that our favorite collegians have made an impact on each of those people – if not always in a good way. It isn’t a surprise that Chloe Clare has remained one of Cassie’s friends, but the fact that she’s apparently met her match in Vic Miklov is one of those connections that Cassie didn’t get any foresight about when she first met each of them. Vic is serious-enough about Chloe that he’s added summer sessions to catch up with her; and they’ll both graduate with their Master’s degrees after the summer session this year. Cassie is quietly helping them out with permanent jobs through our family businesses, but Chloe and Vic also want to stay and work here with options for international travel assignments once that gets easier to do again after the pandemic; so working all of that out for them will take a bit of time.
Michael, Tim, and Rowen continue their best freshman year friendships, and it might surprise some people to know that basically all of the couples that got together early among their friends are still together. We’ll begin with Serena and Shayne for this next group because they’re still the most-surprising match. Cassie and Serena are still friends too, but they stay in contact more because of Rowen’s connections to Shayne and their section of the overall study group. That’s mostly because Serena is always busy with sports in addition to her studies while Cassie has been tied up with her T.A. duties – especially while working with the football team and cheer squad during the past semester. Serena is still looking to play in the political games in Washington after graduating, and thanks to her successes in collegiate sports; we have no doubt that she’ll get very good government offers while Shayne will certainly be able to work anywhere as one of the top computer geeks at their school. They still have time to work all of that out, and Cassie will help if possible or needed; so we should only add that Serena will continue to do well with her sports teams; and is now also among the senior leaders as well as one of the star, multi-sport athletes. Shayne continues to run with her and is a good athlete too, but doesn’t want to do any collegiate sports; since he just likes to have fun without the serious competition.
Wendy Gallagher and Darryl Watts should be next – if only because of Wendy’s sports connection to Serena. Wendy isn’t as big of a star for their school as Serena, but that’s mostly because golf and tennis don’t get as much attention as the team sports. Wendy also doesn’t win top individual awards, but she does help the overall golf or tennis teams to place highly in that part of the scoring for tournaments. Wendy and Darryl are still considering options for their future jobs, but are engaged; so whatever they do it will be together for sure. They are also closer friends to Tim and Rowen than Cassie and Michael, but that works for all of them; since there are entertainments that Rowen and Tim enjoy more that they can do with Wendy, Darryl, and some of the other couples – like attending college parties.
This is getting long again, so let’s finish this up with an update for two of Rowen’s best friends – Kasey Roberts and Jeremy Fletcher. The top computer geek’s couple in their group is a good pick to write about this time because their big news of the year is their upcoming wedding in May. They decided not to wait until after their final year of school – or later; and can afford to do that thanks to the part time jobs they’ve been working on through Rowen and the family business. We’ll likely have at least another note or two about them around the time of their wedding; since that will be a weekend away for some of our own favorite collegians. Kasey and Jeremy continue to be the quietest members of their overall group – especially compared to Tim and his football exploits, but they are also kind, fun, and we loved getting to spend a bit of time with them this weekend.
Okay, that really is enough for this report. We’ll be back home tomorrow night, but still have an interesting day ahead of us because we’ll be on-campus for the Martin Luther King Day events. We’ll have all of that news with our next report too, but should move on and get some sleep so we’ll be ready for that – and the long drive home; so that’s all for tonight.
Until next time, this little blast from your near or distant past is written for you with love from Ethan and Ehlana Proctor – twin junior Magi Masters of the Light!