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

Ehlana and Ethan:

We’re free!

Okay, we aren’t, but our summer break has officially begun; and we’re only writing this quick update now while getting ready to head out and play with our friends and family for the rest of the day.  Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom was great; our half-day at school was entertaining as we pretty much just played and wrapped up with a Pizzeria pizza party.  Now we’re going to head out on our bikes and mix in some swimming too; and then the rest of our plans for today include a barbeque dinner that Mom and Dad are hosting; a major camping night; and either an outdoor movies or campfire time after the ball game that I have tonight with Naomi, Sophia, and the rest of our team.

The rest of our story for today – the best parts – can wait for our next update, but before we get started on all of the fun; let’s cover the top world news highlight.  As we’ve written about every day over the past week, today was supposed to begin a sixty-day negotiation for peace starting with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States.  That did not happen at least so far today; and that’s because Israel attacked Lebanon again; Hezbollah retaliated; and Iran didn’t send their delegation to Geneva because an end to the attacks on Lebanon was part of the deal.  Since then, there are reports of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, but that is just the latest of many ceasefires that Israel has broken; so trust is not there at all.  Iran announced closing the Strait of Hormuz again, but that report came out before the ceasefire report; so that could change – and we’ll see whether the peace deal is only delayed or cancelled.

There is more news out of Ukraine and Europe too, but other than a report about the United Kingdom has announced that they will send 150,000 drones to Ukraine to use against Russia.  If they can actually do that, it would only extend the war and destruction; so that just proves that the European leaders continue to have no care at all for the Ukrainian people; since that ‘help’ will just lead to the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands more Ukrainians and more destruction of their infrastructure and loss of more territory.  We really do need to get going now; so that’s all for this last report of our school year!

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

 

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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 31^st Birthday, Violet!

Our cousin’s birthday dinner was a highlight of our day, but everything was pretty good from Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom through our play day at school and on to that dinner and the final game night at the Inn ahead of the summer break.  Some of our favorite parts of today included spending a bit of time with Cassie and Michael as they volunteered again to run the football toss game for the afternoon; sharing the competition with Naomi, Aiden, Sophia, and Aaron; and winning the overall team title with our best friends!  Violet’s dinner was at the Inn so they could do that with Jake and Stephanie too; and the game night highlights included the annual win for Miranda with Mom’s help and the bonus that has the junior title with our family too!  If you’re guessing that Ethan helped Naomi to earn that win, I’m happy to disappoint you because Aiden and I managed to best them – and they actually finished in fourth place this week.  Naomi loves me anyway; and they had fun even without the second team title win of the day.

We came home from the Inn with a stop to collect Silkie for a walk along the way to seeing Naomi and Aiden to their homes; bath or Jacuzzi time followed that walk; and now we’re ready to get some sleep to be ready for our last school day and start to our summer break.  Mom is still doing a bit of work in the office after helping out at school all day, but that is partly because she’s working with Cassie tonight too and some of our international partners via video conferencing.  We’re out of the loop for that, but know that they are all planning and preparing for all contingencies they might need as the situation in the Middle East develops – whether that is a move toward peace or not.

The anticipated deal-signing in Geneva is now just hours away if it happens, and we will welcome a real de-escalation, but the war talk continues from the hawks in Israel and elsewhere; so only time will tell if the fighting actually stops in the region.

We also see stories about President Trump pivoting from the Middle East to ending the Ukraine war, but Russia doesn’t trust ‘our’ side at all; and those stories about putting peace in Ukraine back on the front burner are countered by war-mongering news out of Europe and more attacks on civilians in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia that requires ‘western’ help for targeting and other tech support.  Russia pushes on with their attacks all along the frontlines in Ukraine; and the missile and drone attacks continue across Ukraine.  Our commentary may seem biased to the Russian side, but it really isn’t; since we distinguish between legitimate war targets and civilian targets.  We are sure that Russia has caused civilian casualties in Ukraine too, but we don’t see any verifiable information of intentionally doing that while the opposite has been proved hundreds of times now for Ukraine attacks on ‘soft’ civilian targets.  That isn’t popular among western leaders and media, but it is still true; so pretending otherwise is pointless.

Ethan and I are ready to get started on our nap time now.  We get the annual short school day tomorrow; so we want to be ready for all of the play time that we’ll get to have for our first weekend of our summer break!

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

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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

The highlight of our news today was all of the time we spent with our best friends and Cassie and Michael.  The Pizzeria pizza and sides dinner was quick and entertaining; the teen praise team practice included a run-through for the holiday weekend service; and then the rest of our evening included movies, lots of chat time, and a midnight snack that included leftover pizza.  Yes, you can be shocked with the news that there were leftovers after feeding dinner to two teen guys, but it happened; and we were all happy to finish off the food while we watched the last movie.  We stayed up too late; only had time for a nap; and then we used some Magi healing to deal with the fatigue this morning.  Tai Chi by the river was followed by a hot breakfast; and then our last ‘real’ school day was all about a final round of work to close up the school before our play day tomorrow.  Ethan and I helped with the music room and getting gear together for the parade that we staged so that it won’t take long to get everything out to the float on the Fourth of July.

Ethan and I opted for play-work with our books or beakers after school; we had a quick dinner with Mom after that; and then we all headed to the park for the co-ed ball practices.  Naomi and Aiden met up with us and we were assigned kid control duty for next-gen kids.  While some of our favorite parents played or watched baseball; we kept the kids entertained at the playground and took them for a swim because it was still hot out – though cooler than the near triple-digit high we hit this afternoon.  That was fun; and then we came home without any requests for babysitting because we do have that school play day tomorrow.  We know that some of the ball players went to the pub after their practices, but as far as we know; no teens were recruited to help with the kids – at least for the family-and-friends’ kids closest to us.  Mom wouldn’t let us do any work or a Magi lesson tonight, so bath or Jacuzzi time followed soon after our return home; and now we’re ready to wrap this up and get some sleep so we’ll be ready for all of the play day fun tomorrow.

The world continues to wait for Friday and the peace deal that is supposed to lead to an end to the Iran war.  As details come out, though, if what we’re seeing is true; we don’t see how this can work when Israeli leaders continue to insist that they are not part of this deal at all.

We aren’t going to get into a major update for the Ukraine war, but we do want to mention one ugly story that feels personal to us because it again involved students.  This time, a Ukrainian drone targeted a school bus of Belarusian student-athletes while they were traveling through a western-Russia region.  One woman was killed and there were injuries too, but what is so ugly about this story is that Ukrainian drone operators are apparently intentionally targeting civilians and children – just as they did when attacking that school dormitory a few weeks ago.

That’s enough for tonight.  We really do need to catch up on our sleep; and I’m not just writing that because Naomi will not be happy with Ethan if he isn’t ready to play his best tomorrow!  Stay tuned; and we’ll have those adventure stories for you sometime tomorrow night.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - June 16, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 10^th Birthday, Trinity Taylor!

We left it up to Brianna, Faith, and Trinity’s family and friends to make her day special – though we did have a little group gift and card that we gave her at school this morning.  While she was busy with her first double-digit birthday fun, our day started with indoor Tai Chi due to a bit of morning rain, but that moved out of the area before we went to school; and it has been fairly-awesome out since then.

Mom headed to Crystal Springs this morning, so that was more-newsworthy than our own, non-academic adventures.  This was clean-up day two, so other than bonus outdoor time; we really don’t have any stories to tell about clearing out lockers, cleaning up classrooms, and getting the school ready to mostly be closed up for the summer.  For the record, there actually are specific chores that need to be done for more than appearances and cleanliness.  Only parts of the school are air conditioned while closed, so sensitive equipment gets moved to those zones or storage rooms; plants and class pets obviously need to be taken care of all summer; and everything that can be powered down is turned off to save energy.  While we haven’t written about that very much in the past; high school students get drafted for more of the technical work and heavy lifting when needed; so we have more to do this year than ever before now.

Our final band practice of the school year followed the school work and play; we’re ready for the holiday parade; and Ethan and Naomi practiced with us even though they’ll be with the church teen praise team for the parade.  Since Mom is away, we’re doing this update between practices and only stopped at home for our overnight bags.  We’ll be meeting up at Cassie and Michael’s house with our four best friends; they’re going to feed us some Pizzeria pizza and sides; and then we’ll move on to the teen praise team practice at the church.  The six of us will be staying with Cassie and Michael tonight, so while we get back to all of the fun; stay tuned for the rest of our story for today that should include all of the best fun!  That could be true for Mom and Dad too, but let’s not go there; and we definitely won’t have those stories for you here in our journal.

The bits of world news headlines that we’ve kept up with today continue the peace talk for the Middle East, but we are still waiting to see actual changes on the ground; and details continue to be contradicted while Israeli leaders declare that they are not part of the deal at all and will do what they want for military action in the region – including attacking Iran again.  Since stopping the bombing of Lebanon and taking all Israeli troops out of the country is supposedly part of the peace deal; that seems to be a bit of a problem.  The Ukraine war rolls on and Russia is definitely changing both rhetoric and goals; so Ukrainian people should be worried – especially since their leaders continue to insist that they are winning and will defeat Russia if they can just get their western backers to send more billions and maybe help out a bit by having NATO join in on the war directly instead of ‘just’ through money, weapons, and all of the rest of the indirect support.

Okay, we really do need to run; so that’s all for this update.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - June 15, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We were up early this morning to see Dad off to the city;  Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom was good; and then our school day was uneventful as we wind down to the end of the school year.  With exams out of the way, while late deliveries of overdue projects are being allowed; none of our classmates have that issue; and we all worked on the usual packing up and cleaning of classrooms and we were all allowed extra outdoor time.  Getting to putter along at that work and have fun with our friends was great, but while it was nice out today too; Ethan and I opted for work-play at the lab or archives after school.  There were only a couple of hours of time for that before we needed to be home for dinner ahead of our ball practices.  Mom had a quick meal ready for us; she came along for the park time while we practiced; and then we all came home by dusk after the baseball play time.  Mom didn’t want to do any work then, so bath or Jacuzzi time was next on our to-do list; and now Ethan and I are winding down toward nap time with the usual computer checks and twin chat.

The political and media circus surrounding the so-called peace deal for the Middle East will likely stay the top story all week, but while oil prices are down a lot on the markets; we don’t see much in the way of details confirmed on both sides; and Israeli leaders are flat-out refusing to any agreements related to their own military choices related to Lebanon, Iran, or anywhere else.  There is no point in offering more on this story until we actually see any good news actually happening on the ground.  That’s true for the Ukraine war, and as we’ve mentioned too-often; the daily news for that war doesn’t include anything about peace.

Let’s mention that the G-7 is meeting this week, but that isn’t really a story anymore; since they don’t really have any useful power anymore and the gatherings are really just a very expensive public relations event.  Those leaders did spend time bashing Russia and fear-mongering to push for bigger military budgets; and that works for a lead-in to a commentary that Ethan and I have been thinking about related to war mongering and NATO and European Union leaders.  Most European countries are saddled with anywhere from three to ten times the debt loads that Russia has; their manufacturing bases are being decimated while Russian industry is still building new capacity and producing more for less – especially when it comes to military equipment.  The bottom line is that Europe would go broke long before Russia would if they actually went to war; so they definitely shouldn’t do that.

Let’s wrap this up now.  Even though we don’t have anything serious to deal with at school this week; we do have a busy Tuesday ahead of us with our last band practice and then our teen praise team practice; so we are going to get some sleep and be ready for all of that fun.

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