Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - January 21, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

It is feeling more like winter again today as it cools down toward what could be our first winter storm of the season this weekend and a blast of deeper cold too.

As for our personal adventures, we had fun last night with the studying, dinner, and co-ed sleepover at Naomi’s house – though we did a fair bit of work along the way too that included everything from major tutoring to cooking and cleaning on either side of dinner.  Sophia and Aaron ended up joining us for the co-ed sleepover, so that was great for all of us too; and then we had the bonus exercise buddies for indoor Tai Chi this morning.  The teens in the house cooked and cleaned again for breakfast; and then we were off and running to day two of our mid-terms.  They went well, and while we were busy with that, Mom got home by lunchtime from Crystal Springs with fast food for Aunt Leanne and their lunch break at the office.

Ethan and I only had time for a quick visit and recap with Mom after school because we needed to get to Caroline’s house for our study session and dinner there.  We did find out that Anna Marie had a happy birthday dinner and kept Cal for a five-star sleepover at the hotel; and we’re okay with the lack of details for the rest of the night for our parents!  While Mom was on her own for dinner and while we were busy studying with our friends, we had a Pizzeria pizza meal with some finger food sides; did as much tutoring as studying again; and then we came home by nine-thirty because we were getting tired and only a few of our friends stayed later to work with Caroline, Jennifer, Miles, and Joshua.  We walked Aiden and Naomi to their homes along the way; Mom did a Magi lesson with us after we got home and before we moved on to bath or Jacuzzi time; and now we’re winding down fast toward nap time.

Cassie and Michael are not winding down their adventures in Bangladesh – they’ve moved on from the Capital and headed south to the Barishal region.  They already knew that getting around the country is quite different from home as far as travel times go; and it took about twice as long as normal for home to cover the ninety miles or so between the two places.  The added travel times take away from the time they have to work; which is why they’ll only get around to a small fraction of Bangladesh when they only have a week booked in the country.  They are still doing what they can to help with projects and partners around the country, and doing that is a challenge too thanks to the transportation and connections limitations.  We should note that as we’re writing this, they’re already starting their Thursday; and they will be moving around a lot as they meet with business and charity partners and do three site visits.  They’ll have a lot of that work done by the time we wake up in the morning; so stay tuned for the latest from them with our next report.

On the world news front, our military pirated another oil tanker because we need to do more to destroy our credibility with the rest of the world, but don’t look there because peace is imminent thanks to new talks coming up with Russia that will go nowhere but make for pointless media sound bytes.  Greenland is still in the news despite how pointless that story is to the actual future of the world; and we’re trying to ignore everything about the peace council that President Trump appears to want to lead forever with no way to ever lose his ‘chairmanship’ of the committee.  Add that one to the list of pointless diplomacy; since that council would do nothing to actually help the Palestinians when the goal is to take over and exploit the land for power and profit.  We’ll also hope that the pay-to-play stories aren’t true – though we wouldn’t be surprised to find out that each member of the council really did have to pay a billion dollars to get in on the pillage and plunder!

Let’s stop there instead of ranting on all of the bad news in the world.  We still have two days of mid-terms to deal with and one more study night; so we’re going to try to be happy and get back to full power by morning to be ready for all of the work and fun.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - January 20, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Welcome to the Witch Falls family, Robyn Reynolds!

Congratulations, Daphne, Mark, and the rest of Robyn’s family and their friends!

Happy 27^th Birthday, Anna Marie Jennings!

Happy 17^th Birthday, Eddie Johnson!

Robyn was born yesterday, but we didn’t get that news until after our last update; so we saved the story for tonight.  Ethan and I weren’t involved in Anna Marie’s or Eddie’s birthdays today, but then Anna Marie met up with Dad in Crystal Springs for work today; so her birthday celebrations are mostly still ahead of her tonight and we’ll leave it up to Cal and others to make her day awesome!

As for our adventures since the last update, I’ll mention that Indiana won their first national championship for football over Miami; most of the guys watching the game with us seemed happy with that; and the girls mostly ignored the game and kept ourselves entertained with music and chat time.  We kept our best friends for a co-ed sleepover after the game and once the rest of our guests left; and we went off to sleep fairly-soon after that to be rested up for the first day of mid-terms today.

We’ve had a good day even with those first exams; we aced them; and most of our friends are at least content with how they did today too – if not certain about the actual grades.  That’s pretty much been all we have for today-so-far; and this is another early update because Mom is in Crystal Springs for Anna Marie’s birthday dinner and to stay the night with Dad; so we’re home to pack overnight bags before we got to Naomi’s for the rest of the day.  She’s hosting the dinner and study evening; and we’ll be doing another co-ed sleepover that will include Aiden and might include Sophia and Aaron too.  We’ll have the rest of that news for you with our next report, but we need to get going now; so let’s wrap this up.

The Cassie and Michael report will be short, but only because Ethan and I don’t have any news from their Tuesday yet.  We know this was their last day in and around Dhaka and they’re heading out on a tour of the rest of the country with a focus to the south and the river delta regions.

As for the world news, the political focus this week is on Davos and the big meeting of the elite politicians and their billionaire puppeteers.  As far as we know, they don’t actually auction off parts of the world while talking about how to rule their peasants, but we won’t be surprised to see Greenland auctioned off to the United States to avoid going to war over the territory; and there are potential deals being discussed for all of the top, current conflicts including Ukraine, Venezuela, and the Middle East.  The only difference from the norm for Davos this year will be if President Trump publicly offers the truth about what really happens there; since he does have a tendency to say or write the quiet, ugly parts of politics out loud!

We really do need to go and meet up with Naomi and Aiden now; so that’s all for today.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - January 19, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

It’s Martin Luther King Day, and as usual for this kind of holiday; we can’t exactly add a ‘happy’ or other upbeat adjective or sentiment regardless of what the holiday has become for most people in our now.

For us, this has really just been a study day for our mid-terms with our friends – though we’re done with the work for today and will be taking the night off to watch the college football national championship game with a gang of our friends.  Yes, some studying might happen tonight too, but we’re ready for our first exams tomorrow; and we did get a lot done today.

Ethan and I need to get going again soon because we’re doing this update between the study session and dinner; and we’re supposed to help Mom with that meal while Dad’s away too.  We liked getting to have a normal time breakfast with him before he headed to Crystal Springs, but then our friends started arriving even as he was heading out; and we’ve been busy with the studying since then.  It has been cold today – starting out around zero early this morning and only barely hitting double-digits for the frosty high this afternoon; so we’ve been happy to stay indoors all day and warm!  The cold weather had everything to do with why Mom went with crock pot soup and sandwiches for lunch along with hot drinks; and that study break was extended for some of us because we also took care of the clean-up.

Our friends have all headed out now to drop off books and bags and most of them will be having dinner with their own families, but our four best friends will be back for dinner with us; and then they’ll help out with getting the lounge ready for the football watching party that Mom is going to skip while hanging out with a few of her girlfriends.  We’ll share the rest of our adventures with you tomorrow night, but we might end up with a bonus co-ed sleepover with our best friends after the game; so we’re wrapping up our computer fun now – just in case that works out for us! ;^)

Moving along, Cassie and Michael are already finished with their first full day in Bangladesh; they’ve worked in Dhaka all day; and they will stay near the capital again tomorrow before moving on and out into the rest of the country for the rest of the week.  We certainly wish we had their summer-like weather today, but won’t complain; since we have been very lucky so far this winter and don’t want to jinx ourselves into a blast of bad weather or a late start to spring!  We can report that Cassie and Michael had a good day; got a lot done; and they are loving every experience from the work to cameo sightseeing and checking out amazing dining experiences.  We’ll have more from their travel stories soon; so stay tuned for the latest from Bangladesh and Asia!

As for the world news of the day; we really just don’t want to go there.  We’ve read about everything from new peace plans and peace councils that will do nothing but pretend to work toward peace and spend a lot of money without actually doing anything real at all.  The war in Ukraine is worse than ever and the suffering is horrific for all directly involved; and the fight over Greenland seems to be heating up with more talk of sending troops to defend Greenland and threats of tit-for-tat tariffs and other trade restrictions between Europe and the United States.  We even saw a report about a letter supposedly from President Trump to the Nobel Prize committee that we hope isn’t true; since it would be insane to actually suggest that not giving our President the Nobel peace prize would make Greenland a fair trade-off!  That idea is dumb before you even mention that Greenland is a territory of Denmark, not Norway – or Sweden; since the Nobel Foundation is based in Stockholm and it is only the peace prize committee that is based in Oslo!

That bit of insanity seems like a good place to stop before I get started on a rant about our world leaders – though by later tonight; I might prefer that to the football watching!  We’ll let you know about that tomorrow night, but that’s all for this update; we’re out of here; and off to help Mom with cooking dinner!

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - January 18, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 82^nd Birthday, Grandpa Shawn!

Happy 3^rd Birthday, Lyle Landry!

We can report that the weather in Arizona is better than here at home – especially first thing this morning when it was in the low-fifties there and just one degree here around the time that we had our vid-chat with our grandparents during breakfast.  It was even-warmer for Cassie and Michael in Bangladesh, but they hadn’t been there for long when we had that vid-chat; and hadn’t been able to enjoy the sun and warm yet while traveling between airport and hotel in Dhaka.  Grandpa had gifts to open and had the other grandparents wintering down there with him for his birthday breakfast; so our own meal and that chat was a blast of fun with cameo moments that we each took turn with before it was time to wrap it up and move on.  Lyle’s birthday was the top news for the Landry and Green clans, but other than offering our best wishes; we didn’t really get involved in the celebrations for Lyle – though Mom and Dad delivered a family gift that was mostly from Cassie and Michael.

As for our own adventures, we had fun at church and Sunday school; we had a quiet lunch with Mom and Dad; and then we went to Sophia’s for the afternoon study session that she hosted.  Ethan and I did more tutoring than studying; wrapped up by around four-thirty because some of our friends were booked for dinner at the Inn – the first buffet sitting.  We didn’t do that or go to the late buffet either – we had a quiet meal with Mom and Dad; took care of the clean-up; and then had some quiet time with our parents before we all opted for an early bedtime ahead of Dad’s trip to Crystal Springs.  We don’t need to comment on why they thought that was a great idea – I was happy to get the early Jacuzzi time; and we’re both ready for the extra sleep ahead of another busy school week.  Before we move on, though, let’s mention that tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, and while Dad is going to the city tomorrow; the courts are closed for the day and he is doing other meetings without Anna Marie.  She’ll head out later tomorrow or Tuesday to help with the court work; and they are expecting to be home early on Friday – maybe even by lunchtime.

Moving along, we’ve already mentioned that Cassie and Michael are in Bangladesh, but it is also already Monday there and they’ve gotten to work after a handful of hours of nap time.  They haven’t passed along any news yet beyond the appreciation of the warm weather; and they are expecting good weather for their week in the country with lows around sixty and highs in the eighties every day.  That should make the travel and work more fun – and they plan on covering a lot of ground around the country after they spend the first two days in and near the capital city.  We’ll keep you posted on their adventures; and wish that we could be there too instead of writing exams for official records on material we learned as toddlers! ;^)

That brings us to the world news update for the weekend.  There isn’t any good news thanks to our own national leaders.  Thanks to them, Iran is bracing for new attacks from our military – and possibly from Israel too.  The protests there that have been getting so much attention have quieted and that is mostly because counter-protests in support of the government became larger than the protests being supported by western countries and three-letter agencies and their proxies.  The people of Venezuela are having a similar reaction to our military strikes and kidnapping their President and his wife; and there have been protests in Greenland against us too.  Having thousands show up to do that is a big deal in a territory that only has around sixty thousand residents!  Imagine if five percent of our population showed up for a protest in Washington! ;^)

Staying with the Greenland story, other NATO nations are not happy with President Trump’s threats against anyone that tries to stop him from taking Greenland; and getting our allies mad at us is a bad idea.  Yes, the entire idea of taking Greenland is a bad idea too, but our leaders don’t seem to care about any of that – or what the people of Greenland want either.  We’ve already covered all of our reason for why this is dumb; so let’s move on and wrap this up.

Ukraine is a mess and it is getting so bad for the Ukrainian people that the mayor of Kiev is asking the residents of the capital to leave if they have alternate options.  It is cold in Ukraine and they don’t have power for most of every day thanks to all of the infrastructure destruction; and they can’t keep the entire city powered and heated anymore.  Food supply is sure to be an option too, since without electricity; they can’t keep food frozen or cold in the stores or homes.  Evacuating the largest city in the country is a bad sign of things to come in the country; and we haven’t even gotten into the problems on the front lines.  Russia is making gains every day; and the Ukrainian army is having a tough time just trying to keep the soldiers they have as morale plunges and desertions escalate along with all of the soldiers being killed or seriously injured every day.  We still can’t offer an opinion on when the collapse will come, but it is now inevitable; so Ukraine’s leaders should take whatever terms they can get from Russia and end this before they are forced to surrender.  We don’t want to think about what will happen if their western backers try to escalate and send in their own troops; since we really don’t want to see this war spread beyond Ukraine – and it would do that if NATO got directly and overtly involved.

That’s enough for tonight.  We really do want to get the sleep while we can – especially when we’ll be studying with our friends again tomorrow.  We will be at full-power by then, though, and don’t need to get up early for Dad’s departure; since he’ll be able to have breakfast with us before heading to the city for his first meeting of the day.  We’ll have those stories and more for you tomorrow night, but that’s all for now; so we’re out of here and off to dreamland.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - January 17, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 4^th Birthday, Karyn Johnson!

We’d suggest that there is a reason for all of the Johnson clan birthdays lately, but they are a large family; so the recent timing for next-gen kids is probably not directly related to spring and summer visits to Witch Falls! ;^)

As for our adventures here that definitely did not lead to next-gen surprises later this year; we had fun last night with everything from the dinner and studying to the co-ed sleepover at Aiden’s house.  Along with the work, we watched two movies; stayed up late; and enjoyed the quieter co-ed cuddle time after most of our friends headed out by around eleven-thirty.  While we didn’t get a lot of sleep, we were still up early for Tai Chi that was indoors thanks to another blast of winter overnight; we took care of breakfast and the clean-up; and then Ethan and I headed home for chores while Aiden went to work at the bakery and Naomi went home to help her father.

We had our friends over for another study session this afternoon; and then we had no plans with friends tonight.  Mom and Dad had a quiet dinner with us; we did a bit of work and a Magi lesson in the office; and then bath or Jacuzzi time started by nine-thirty.  Now we’re winding down toward an early bedtime; and we’re ready to do that because we’re tired and need to re-charge.  Let’s skip a world news report so that we can get right to the down time; and we’ll save that part of our report for tomorrow night.  Stay tuned for that; and we’ll call it a night starting right now.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!