Ethan and Ehlana:
Happy 19th Birthday, Benjamin Norton!
We haven’t had anything to do with Ben’s special day, but we’re sure that his family and friends are making sure that he is having a good day!
For this update, we are going to start with Cassie and Michael’s travel update. As we’re writing this, it is Sunday afternoon there; they spent the morning visiting the Great Wall; and we also know that their first Tai Chi experience in China was at a park near to their hotel – and they got to exercise with hundreds of locals and visitors that were at the park for the daily workout too. That sounds both amazing and strange to us; since we can’t imagine having busloads of people coming to our park for morning workouts while gathering for exercising is normal there. We wish that we could have been there for the Great Wall sightseeing, and that’s true for the tour they’re doing of the Forbidden City – another of the amazing historical treasures of China! We may have more details on that with our next update, but by the time they get around to sending next updates; we’ll be sleeping because it is late and we’re tired.
Now, for our news, the barbeque dinner, campfire, and camping last night were all amazing and we loved everything. As usual, our personal highlights included our campfire music with Naomi and Aiden, and while we didn’t get to have co-ed camping due to the usual tent buddies; we had a lot of couples’ time until the wee hours of this morning; and the nap time was barely for three hours before we were up at dawn for Tai Chi with Mom, Dad, and the small gang of campers that joined us for that workout.
The top adventure news for today is the trip to Quarry Lake. We had a blast, but to be honest; there isn’t much point in commenting on any details; since all of the fun was also more of the same from each of our visits to the campground over the past two weeks. Yes, it is more-fun with our favorite adults, but in this case; we also missed not having Cassie and Michael with us for the day. We ended up splitting into smaller groups for dinner tonight. Mom and Dad hosted one of those meals; we helped with the work; and then we needed to get ready for our evening babysitting plans. Many of the adults in our family went to Sheldon’s Pub for a party being put on there for Anna Marie and Cal. They babysitting got split up at a handful of homes too; and we’re happy to report that we got some of the girls and a few of the youngest kids. Naomi and Aiden helped us too, but they’re at their own homes now – mostly because Naomi wanted to be home in the morning for her parents’ anniversary. We’ve ended up keeping Brianna, Hailey, and Leah for the night, but all of the younger kids were picked up by their parents or grandparents; and the three girls have been asleep for quite a while now.
Mom and Dad are home now too, but they were out late and helped as designated drivers for the couple-of-honor and quite a few of their guests. They had fun too; and have bonus donation money for the church thanks to winning two rounds of billiards – including one contest against a pair of disbelieving college friends of Cal’s that shouldn’t have pitted their skills against a math genius! ;^)
Moving along, Mom and Dad checked in with us; they’ve gone to bed; and now we’re winding down and nearly ready to crash and nap too. Our cousins are heading home tomorrow; so we should mention that they aren’t here tonight because they were elsewhere for babysitting; and their last sleepovers are with grandparents or aunts and uncles. They are all ready to head for their homes again, but don’t take that the wrong way; since we are sure that they have all had an amazing two weeks with us too.
We do want to be awake and ready to see them off after church tomorrow – even if we don’t need to help much with packing to go; so that’s all for tonight. The fun level will be changing for us tomorrow, but stay tuned; since our summer adventures will continue – even if we don’t get to have trip-to-China kind of fun! ;^)
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
