Ehlana and Aiden:
Happy 8th Birthday, Amelia Spencer!
Brianna and Faith are helping their friend with the birthday celebration; and we’ve left it up to them – and Amelia’s family and the rest of their friends – to take care of making this a special day for her. We offered best wishes and a little gift, but that was our only involvement in Amelia’s birthday adventures.
In case you missed it, Aiden is my official co-author for today’s journal; and that’s because he’s here with me in the lounge tonight while Ethan is with Naomi at her house. I could have included them, since we’re also doing a vid-chat with them right now, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun! Naomi is also teasing us for being here on our own, but Mom and Dad are here; so the only difference is that there are a couple of floors between us and where they are right now in the office. I’ll admit that it does feel different to be in the lounge without other tween couples, but that really is perception; and not really different from the last sleepover I did at Aiden’s house with just the two of us. Instead of staying on that topic; let’s get to the news of the day – and last night.
We had a blast at Sophia’s house; and her parents had at least as much fun as we did – including sending a lot of teasing our way even though last night was far from their first experience with co-ed sleepovers. We know that for sure because Jessica and Patrick were there and got teased about precedent-setting for us; and Ryan enjoyed getting to stay above the fray because he hasn’t done that yet – or had any serious girlfriends. Ethan and I know why he hasn’t done that yet, but that is a story that needs to wait for our future; so we won’t go there tonight. Sophia’s Mom cooked up a great dinner with help from Jessica; the tweens in the house were on clean-up duty after enjoying that meal; and then our evening included a couple of hours of music fun; two movies; and a lot of chat time with rotating groups of parents, teens, and collegians. We stayed up way too late; the co-ed sofa or floor-nest sleepovers were in the combo family-games-music room; and we still got up early-enough for Tai Chi that included a lesson for Sophia and Aaron.
Sophia’s father and brother were at the gas station by then, but Sophia’s Mom cooked up a special breakfast for us; proved that she’s a lot like the rest of our Moms thanks to the pictures she took after we were asleep earlier this morning; and had a lot of fun sending them around to the rest of our parents and some friends! Jessica and Patrick had breakfast with us too, but then they headed to the computer store to work with his parents and sister. We stayed and helped out around Sophia’s house for a couple of hours; four of us moved on to do more work at our own homes; and then we really weren’t very interested in spending much time outdoors because it has been cold and sullenly-cloudy. We’ve also been getting a dusting of snow, but nothing significant; so not even enough to play in – at least so far.
We are supposed to be getting another polar vortex coming our way from the north – what our grandparents used to innocently refer to as normal winter weather, but that isn’t scary-enough for our generation; and we really love making up awesome names for no reason beyond trying to scare each other! Alaskans must have a lot of laughs over our freak-outs anytime it gets cold here – especially when they’d consider thirty-two degrees to be tees-and-shorts weather!
Moving along, we mostly stayed here in the lounge this afternoon, but we also had some extra friends over to hang out with us. The guys played video games; the girls listened to music and chatted and played board games; and then everyone headed out ahead of dinnertime – though Aiden was only gone long-enough to pack an overnight bag and check in with his parents. Ethan packed for the night with Naomi; I helped Mom with making dinner-for-four; and then we enjoyed that meal with Dad and Aiden; took care of the clean-up; and then we all worked in the office for a while and Mom did a Magi lesson with Aiden and me too before we moved on to the lounge an hour or so ago.
There wasn’t, by the way, any special reason for Ethan being at Naomi’s house tonight other than Naomi wanted to do that and could because Eli’s at Zack’s house tonight while Brianna is away and busy with the birthday party. They didn’t get to have Naomi’s parents to themselves either; since her Mom was busy at the salon until closing; and was tired after a very long work day. I should mention that Naomi, Sophia, and I did not bother with back-to-school haircuts, but that has apparently been popular with a lot of girls this week – even though many of us got our hair done in the weeks leading up to Christmas. That’s something else that Ethan doesn’t really pay attention to for our journals; but I’ll try not to scare you with updates that will include ‘girly’ stories like visits to the salon or Abby’s back-room fittings for underwear. Yes, Aiden is blushing at the last part of that comment; Ethan might be doing the same; and I also don’t have a problem with reporting that neither of them have a problem with the underwear choices that their girlfriends have made so far! ;^)
Now that Naomi and I have scared the boys and she is still teasing them about that; we can get back to our news of the day. Aiden and I have been listening to music that we might want to use for the next school dance at Valentine’s Day – or possibly for the seniors’ luncheon if we get another invitation to play a song or two for that little party. The vid-chat with Naomi and Ethan will be wrapping up soon because Naomi’s been hinting at that for a while already; and I’m also getting teased about another longer update compared to Ethan for a day without much of anything exciting to write about from our actual adventures with family and friends. I’ll let you know if they ever get bored with those jokes, but it hasn’t been a week yet; so it might take a bit longer for that to happen. There actually is life happening outside of our tiny little personal universe too, and while most of it might not affect us directly; we keep up with local and world events; and have our own opinions while wishing we could do more to stop the never-ending idiocy of our world leaders and others in power. Naomi is saying goodnight now; so apparently she is going to find something better to do with Ethan instead of helping out with this update! Aiden obviously thinks that she is right about that; so I’ll keep writing and then make it up to him later!
Seriously, though, I just can’t resist offering a bit of New Year commentary for at least some of the stupid that is going on around the world. Ethan and our friends might not agree, but I can do an overview of that concisely. Let’s start with the Ukraine war, and all that needs to be said about that is that it is past-time to end it and stop the pointless killing. I know that some people really hate the fact that all of those awesome natural resources are inconveniently under the control of the people that live there, but war is not the answer. Ditto that for the conflict in Israel; and will be true if that gets even-worse and the conflict widens to the entire region. We have still other – or the same – leaders working on a next war in Asia against China with all of the political nonsense there; and I even saw a story today that is setting up to add India to the group of current ‘bad guys’ along with China, Russia, Iran, and others. Making enemies of half the world might prove to be a very bad idea for ‘western’ countries – especially when the majority of current countries in the world also have too-much previous experience and history of colonialism and exploitation that they are collectively sick and tired of allowing – whether that is done by force or economic coercion.
Future readers might consider my perspective to be hypocritical when I am blessed to have the life and lifestyle that I get to enjoy, but I don’t think that’s true. There is a place for war – we’re currently getting started on one against the Dark Magi. That is very different from wars over control of resources – or getting them as-cheaply as possible. Getting back to our personal privilege; we are different because we want that for everyone – not have it at the expense of anyone else.
I have already proved that I’m wrong and can’t even offer a short summary of world issues, so it is definitely time for me to start making that up to Aiden. Stay tuned for our next report that will not have any details about the rest of our night! ;^)
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
