Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - March 3, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

This has been a damp, rainy day, but we’ve also been indoors most of the time too from Tai Chi and breakfast through our academic adventures and beyond to our school band practice, dinner with Mom and Dad, and our teen praise team practice.  We’ve done some charity work in the office tonight after getting home from the church; and we mostly managed to stay dry during the walks between home, school, and the church.  Ethan and I have had fun with our family and friends whether working or playing with our music; but we’re also continuing to feel heartsick over the death and destruction happening across the Middle East.  That tells us something about ourselves; since we’re becoming numb to the daily horrors in the Ukraine war while the latest focus on Iran and the Middle East are ‘fresh’ because we’re being bombarded daily with the images and videos that just aren’t being shown from Ukraine anymore – or from Gaza and the West Bank either.  We do not want to start in on another rant again tonight, but we need to at least mention that this war is expanding quickly; Iran is not the only country being destabilized as the bombings engender more hatred against Israel and America; and people that have been exploited by the elites and royals are venting their anger on their own leaders as well as the western militaries and politicians.

Moving on, along with our work in the office, we did a vid-chat with Cassie and Michael.  They’re already half-way through their last full day in Hanoi – their Wednesday; and they are traveling around the area doing several site visits and a bit of sightseeing that will keep them busy until late tonight.  They also won’t get much sleep before they head out to Ho Chi Minh City early on their Thursday morning; and they’ll have finished that move before we get to our next update.  While we’re thinking about their trip and the Iran war; let’s also mention that Cassie and Michael have issues with building trust because of distrust that still exists after the Vietnam war, but Vietnam people also have a very different view of ‘religious’ wars; since the ‘major’ religions of the rest of the world are all minorities in Vietnam.  That does not mean that they don’t have opinions about what is happening in the Middle East, but those views are not colored by religious bias.  They definitely relate to what the Iranians are going through now; and our leaders ought to remember how the Vietnam War ended because we could be seeing history repeat right now.

I’ve managed to get into a mini-rant anyway; so let’s stop there and wrap this up.  Ethan and I need to get some sleep; since we want to be ready for the rest of our school week and weekend.  Ethan and I are going to have another work day tomorrow, but then we might end up playing a lot on Thursday and Friday if the forecast holds and we get a couple of high temp days in the seventies!  We’ll keep you posted on that, but we’re done for tonight; and off to dreamland very soon.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - March 2, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Let’s begin with our own news of the day.  That won’t take long, since we’ve mostly work-played at school, the lab or archives, and at home in the office tonight.  We skipped a play and biking afternoon with our friends to get work done at the lab while we can; and we wanted to work on charity and family business projects with Mom after dinner – though we still can’t help much in the Middle East while the war rages on.  We still managed to get a lot done, so that feels pretty good; and we can report that Cassie and Michael have been getting a lot done in Vietnam – including with the site visit they are busy with right now on their Tuesday.  They also reported a cooler day and only expected the high to be in the low-seventies for the rest of their visit to the Hanoi area, but that’s still awesome from our perspective; and Cassie and Michael are enjoying the break from the heat that will only last until they head to Ho Chi Minh City for the second-half of their week in Vietnam.

Moving on to the world news, the war with Iran rolls on with continual attacks on both sides.  The destruction and casualties are horrendous on both sides; and we continue to be disgusted by the cheering on both sides when we think that everyone is losing; and the risks of escalation grow as more people are affected and stresses rise.  We’re sure that is happening, since the attacks on both sides are spreading beyond political and military targets to economic and infrastructure.  Energy production and transit is grinding to a halt in the region; nuclear plants have been attacked in Iran; oil tankers have been hit; and we don’t want to even think about consequences should both sides start attacking critical systems like desalination plants that would leave people without access to clean, drinkable water.

While the Middle East burns, the war in Ukraine continues and is just as awful whether the rest of the world notices or not.

There are so many world news stories that we can’t cover them all, but there are a few that we want to mention that could be important into the future.  One that we really didn’t like was from the President of France, and he has declared that France is going to build up their nuclear missiles and bombs stockpiles and will no longer report quantities or capabilities.  News flash, if western countries stop reporting and begin a new build-up of nukes; Russia, China, and other countries like North Korea, India, and Pakistan will do the same in response.  Another arms race is a very bad idea – especially when many of the same western countries also have degraded manufacturing capacity and are also among the most-expensive manufacturing in the world.  That isn’t a guess, since our next news story is about new tariffs from Europe against China that are entirely because European countries can’t compete ‘fairly’ against China-made products.  That will not end well for western countries, since there will be trade retaliations; and China is already working hard on developing other trade partnerships to eventually replace western markets with people that don’t have a problem with buying their goods in trade for their goods and services – like rare earth minerals and agriculture products!  Finally, we want to comment on the complete lack of attention being paid to the problems in our hemisphere while nothing has been fixed here in our country, in Mexico with the cartels retaliations, the Cuba embargo and economic warfare, or in Venezuela and neighboring countries.  The stresses are growing here too; and it really wouldn’t take much to have all of those tinderboxes explode.  That’s true elsewhere in the world, since Pakistan and Afghanistan are fighting each other; Pakistan can now add the rising tensions among the local Shia Muslims as they vent their anger over the assassination of the Ayatollah; and that murder has led to tensions in India and elsewhere too.

We’d better stop there.  It is getting late; we used some time phasing to get more done; and we’re tired and ready to get some sleep – so we will.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - March 1, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Let’s begin this update with a Cassie and Michael travel report.  As we’re writing this, they have moved from Cambodia to Vietnam; they are now in Hanoi; and already busy with first meetings with business partners.  They are going to be very busy as they split their week in the country between the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City regions; and they won’t have time to travel far beyond the two cities on this trip.  While they won’t get to any other parts of the country, those cities are the political and economic hubs of the country; and the projects and partnerships they are working on this week will affect people throughout the country.  We’ll have more on that work as we go along this week, but Ethan and I are also counting down to Cassie and Michael’s return; since they are going to be here by the first Saturday of our March Break!

The ‘new’ war with Iran remains the top world news story of the day; and it is tough for us to write about many of the stories in the media – especially when it comes to anyone cheering on the death and destruction that is happening throughout the Middle East.  Western leaders certainly don’t seem concerned about the precedent that has been set now that killing the leaders of other countries is now acceptable despite international laws and agreements that were, for the most part, created by those same western countries in the aftermath of World War Two.  We should add that it is now confirmed that the Supreme Leader of Iran was ‘successfully’ assassinated during the first waves of attacks on Iran; and we now have no idea what the long-term consequences will be – though we will add that this would be the equivalent of assassinating the Pope for Christians; and there are somewhere between two and three-hundred million Shia Muslims that have just lost one of their most-revered clerics.  It only takes a tiny fraction of that number of people to be radicalized for that to become a major future problem; and that dynamic has now been put in motion with no way to know what will happen.  What we think is as-bad is the apparent plan to simply replace the current Iranian government; leading to another outcome like we’ve already seen in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and too many other countries.  That is not a ‘best-case’ from our perspective; and we do not want to see millions of people killed and injured as we’ve been seeing happen over the past four years in Ukraine.  This is a story that will not end even if we get a near-term end to the attacks on both sides; and we are sure that a western ‘victory’ might be worse for the world than a loss; since our leaders would just move on to their next target of neo-colonialism.

Speaking of next targets, Russia is not happy with what is happening in the Middle East; and they should definitely take that into consideration with their own ‘peace talks’ with the United States and Ukraine!  They could definitely be next for regime change operations; and ‘our’ leaders seem to be sure that they can do whatever they want with impunity.  They are not waiting for that to happen; and the war in Ukraine is definitely not going well for Ukraine as the bombings continue; the front lines are a disaster for Ukraine; and the attack on Iran gives Russia a lot of incentive to keep fighting in Ukraine until they achieve their objectives.  That said, we can’t discount the possibility of NATO and the United States opting to escalate the war in Ukraine too; and we’ll hope for better while expecting the worst because that’s all we’ve been getting from our world leaders for far-longer than we’ve been alive.

Let’s take a tiny break from the rant, since we haven’t offered our own news of the day.  The top local news is that it got cold again today; we’ve had some rain and a bit of wet snow; and that’s why we stayed indoors most of the day.  We had a good morning at church and Sunday school with more work on getting ready for the Easter weekend services instead of a Sunday school lesson.  Ethan and I went to the lab or archives after lunch; had a couple of meals with just Mom and Dad at lunch and dinner; and we worked in the office for a couple of hours after dinner and before Mom sent us upstairs for bath or Jacuzzi time.  Now we’ve been at the twin chat and computing fun part of our day – though fun isn’t the right word when so much of the news is awful this weekend.

Instead of resuming the rant; let’s just stop here and we’ll go and get some sleep soon.  There are literally hundreds of stories out there related to the Iran attacks and retaliations, but the fog of war is making it tough to sort through the truth and lies; so we’ll have better information in the future that we can wait for – whether that takes days or weeks or longer.  We do want to repeat that these attacks on Iran are doing at least as much political damage as real, physical harm; and the last thing our leaders should have wanted was to have even more people hate them for personal reasons.  While there are sure to be economic impacts too; we’ll save up that commentary for later too – after this first round of volatility settles down and we get a better handle on what will be the costs beyond the destruction and short-term reactions to the war.

Stay tuned; since we are sure that this is going to be another challenging week and beyond for the world.  We’ll keep up with all of the news – after we go and get some sleep starting right now.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 28, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

The top world news today is that Israel and the United States attacked Iran early this morning local time – as expected by pretty much everyone that wasn’t lying about what was really going on with the peace talks that weren’t serious on ‘our’ side of the tables.  Iran had been retaliating; and now we can only wait to see whether this blows up into a regional conflict or not in the coming days and weeks.  Ethan and I really hate seeing yet another war being started and all of the death and destruction happening in the Middle East; and that has affected out day here at home because it was tough to think about having fun with all of that going on and at the instigation of our government and military.

Here at home, we had a lot of fun with our friends yesterday with everything from the biking on the trails and park play in the warmth and sunshine to the co-ed sofa sleepover with our four best friends at Sophia’s house.  We had some work too, since we helped her mother with the work on either side of dinner, but the weather helped with that too; and we grilled burgers and hot dogs outside and put together cold salad sides to go along with the grilled food.  Our evening included more outdoor time; ‘live’ music with our friends; and video gaming and movies.  The last movie started after most of our friends headed for their homes or elsewhere; we stayed up too-late; and didn’t get much sleep.

Tai Chi this morning was indoors; we had a hot breakfast; and then we split up for a chores or work day.  Ethan and I spent the morning on chores at home that were a bit chilly at first and got easier as it warmed up.  We finished that work by around one o’clock; had a quick lunch and got cleaned up; and then we headed to the lab or archives.  As mentioned, we didn’t feel much like playing today after getting the war news, but we didn’t make plans with our friends anyway; and Aiden and Naomi are busy with their own families today anyway – including at the bakery for Aiden.  We worked at the lab with our books or beakers until around six o’clock; came home for dinner with Mom and Dad; took care of the clean-up; and then we worked in the office for a few hours plus time phasing hours.  There isn’t a lot that we can do through our businesses and charities while in the middle of a conflict zone, but we did some work to get ready to send help where needed as soon as possible.  The news from the Middle East is already bad-enough with Iran retaliations into multiple countries, and some of their allies are joining in; so this is likely going to get a lot worse before we can hope for any end.  We’re repeating a bit, but want to be clear that the peace talks on our side were just another ruse and delay tactic while the attacks were being prepared.  Calling this ‘pre-emptive’ does not justify what is being done from our side, but it has been clear for a long time that our leaders no longer follow our Constitution or laws such as the War Powers Act – or International law and United Nations agreements.  The damage being done to our national reputation won’t be immediate, but we are sure that destroying yet another country – even if successful – will just lead to more hatred and future dangers.

The ‘new’ war is getting all of the media attention, but the war continues in Ukraine with daily bad news that is mostly for the Ukrainian people; Cuba and Venezuela continue to be hot spots for political rhetoric and economic warfare and embargo; and tensions continue to rise in a lot of other places around the world.  Instead of going on with those stories tonight; let’s wrap up with a Cassie and Michael update and then Ethan and I are going to get some sleep.

Cassie and Michael are wrapping up their visit to the Battambang region and will be driving back to Phnom Penh where they’ll stay the night before hopping on a flight to Hanoi, Vietnam.  Now that’s something to think about this weekend when our leaders didn’t exactly get that war plan right either, but why do something smart like learn from history when it is so much better to repeat mistakes!  That’s too-sarcastic even if true; so let’s move along.  The overall visit to Cambodia has been a success for Cassie and Michael, and while it is far from the biggest impact for their overall trip; what they’ve done will be amazing for everyone involved in the region over the coming years.

Here at home, Ethan and I are feeling a bit weird about having a weekend night without any co-ed cuddle buddies, but we’ll survive; and all of our parents have noted that they’d like to actually spend some time with only their own kids; so we don’t really mind helping them out with that now and then – even when that means a work night in the office for us.  We are tired and ready to sleep now; so that’s all for this update.  Stay tuned; since an anti-war rant is very likely for our weekend wrap-up and first update of March report because I’m feeling the urge to start on that right now and just keep writing it through until tomorrow night.  No, I won’t do that – though it might be fun to find out how many pages of this digital journal I could fill with twenty-four hours of non-stop writing! ;^)

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - February 27, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

This is only a placeholder update because we are going to be hanging out with our friends for the rest of the day; and Sophia is hosting the co-ed sleepover and teen night at her house.  We’ve had a good day so far and fun at school; and now we’re going to enjoy the play time with our friends for the rest of the day.  Stay tuned for the double-update tomorrow; and we’ll get out there and live the adventures!

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