Ehlana and Ethan:
***RESTRICTED UPDATE***
It is Sunday for Cassie and Michael; and we have a nearly-complete story for their post-fight work to recover Sabre’s fortune from the wreckage of his yacht. While his evil deeds might not reach the levels of the biggest Dark Magi families, Cassie and Michael estimate that they’ve recovered tens of millions of dollars worth of precious metals and gems, and expect that there was much more that they won’t be able to access through banks and other options that might even include physical treasure hoards. We will use what they have recovered for our charities and businesses, and that will at least be some good; since Sabre didn’t even try to take the opportunity to save his soul.
Cassie and Michael will include all of the details surrounding their confrontation with Sabre, but we’ll mention that he was along on his yacht on Friday night while his small crew was on shore leave. Cassie and Michael will be out of the area before they return; and that won’t be a problem for them once the wreck is found. Let’s also mention that Cassie and Michael shielded the area around them during the fight and the destruction of the yacht; so nobody in the area saw anything; and they ‘dissuaded’ anyone from wandering along that part of the coast while busy with their Magi-powered treasure recovery mission. Check out their archives for the rest of the story; and that’s all we have for this part of their Australian adventure.
***END OF RESTRICTED UPDATE***
Ethan and I are having a quiet evening here at home, and since we stayed up a bit too-late last night while hanging out with our friends; an early night with extra sleep works for us too. We had an awesome night at Naomi’s house last night! We cooked up a pasta and sides storm with Naomi’s Dad; he took a dinner order over to Liz and Vicky; and then we enjoyed that meal – even with Zack and Eli adding in some of their kind of fun; we took care of the clean-up; and then the boys played video games for a while before we had our band practice. Zack and Eli did not want to even try messing with us while we practiced Valentine’s Day themed songs – especially the ballads, but Philip enjoyed the entertainment; and Liz got home in time to dance with him for a couple of those ballads that we played especially for them. There was more video gaming for the guys after we packed up our gear while the girls in the house had some chat time in the kitchen; and then we – the tweens and teens – took over the living room for our movies while Zack and Eli stayed in the family room and continued their gaming.
They still made time to annoy and prank us too, but we mostly ignored them; they got bored with the attempts; and left us alone by sometime after midnight. We loved the co-ed cuddling and chat time that went along with our movies, and as already mentioned; we stayed up too-late – though not as slate as Zack and Eli did; since they were still half-awake and playing video games when we got up this morning for Tai Chi. They didn’t stay awake until breakfast was ready, so we had a quieter meal with Naomi’s parents; and then we took care of the clean-up before getting to work on chores at a handful of homes. Sophia and Aaron moved on then to do that work at their own houses, but Ethan, Aiden, and I worked with Naomi as a crew and we moved from house-to-house while getting our collective chores lists finished. Our house was the last stop; we had lunch with Mom and Dad at around one o’clock; and then we were set free to play for the afternoon. It didn’t really get all that warm today – barely above forty, but that was still enough for us to go biking around town; we did a bit of shopping and had a snack break at the Galleria; and we had some hang-out time with some friends we collected along the way.
We all had our own plans for dinner and the evening, so we split up in time for us to help Mom with another round of cooking. That meal was much-quieter than the one at the Seager’s house last night, but we enjoyed that time with Mom and Dad. They had their work finished for the day by the time we cleaned up from that meal; so Mom and Dad joined us for a movie in the lounge; we followed that up with bath or Jacuzzi time; and now we’re winding down toward nap time with the usual twin chat and computer checks. Cassie and Michael are enjoying their Sunday with a mix of just a bit of work and some coastal sightseeing to the south-west of Melbourne. They’ll be back at their hotel in the city for their Sunday night; and will fly to Perth in southwestern Australia on their Monday morning. That’s going to make for a very long start to their next work week because they’ll be ‘gaining’ three time zones; so their four hours and change flight will have them arriving in Perth an hour or so later in local time. That’s why they are traveling in the morning instead of on their Sunday; since they’ll be in Perth in time to go straight to work from the airport. We’ll have more on that as their adventures continue, but they’ll be spending next week working their way up the west coast of Australia; and they’ll have more business deals related to natural resources and clean energy projects along the way. They have charity projects in many of those areas too, but most of them are smaller – or integrally-linked with business deals.
Moving along, world news continues to be a challenge for us to keep up with when there seems to be few signs of any leaders trying to calm the tensions in any of the hot spots. Sure, one of the international courts semi-ordered Israel to ensure the safety of civilians while fighting Hamas, but there isn’t any real indications that they will comply; since there probably won’t be any consequences for the leaders anyway. That dubious bit of ‘good’ news has also been offset by growing tensions in Africa; and the last thing the world needs is more war! I am not going to get into a rant about Ukraine or the rest of the tensions happening around the Middle East; since I might not get much sleep if I go there – even if I used a time phase to do it. We’ll keep praying for peace – and be ready to help out with our family businesses and charities to do what we can when that doesn’t happen. Let’s add that getting help to those hardest-hit areas of the world is a serious challenge, but we do what we can; and accept our limitations.
Speaking of limitations; some future readers might wonder why Cassie and Michael don’t make their own travel priorities those world hot spots instead of generally-peaceful countries. The simple answer is that they can’t do enough good in those war zones to take on the risks. For example, they could get into Gaza if they wanted to do that and couldn’t be stopped, but what good could they do then? Sure, they could use their Magi talents to shield civilians from a handful of bombs, but that would only last until they exhausted themselves; and then they’d likely just end up getting killed for no real gain. We don’t need to offer other scenarios for this – the bottom line is that we – the Magi of the Light – are not powerful-enough to stop wars, natural disasters, or any other problem on those scales. Maybe we will be that strong sometime in the future, but as we’ve mentioned before, we do what we can; and try to stay confident that we are heading toward a much brighter future.
Ethan really wants our immediate future to be a bit darker – as in lights out and dark-enough for sleeping; so I’ll go along with that and wrap this up. Stay tuned for more, since as we head into the last few days of the month; we’re also going to get some warmer weather that we definitely plan on enjoying with our friends whenever we can over the next week or so. With a bit of luck, maybe we’ll even get to stay warmer at least through until Valentine’s Day – though whatever the weather brings; we’ll still have a lot of warm and happy fun with our favorite Valentines!
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
