Cassie's Journal - June 3, 205

The Malloys headed home again early this afternoon once Terry was finished with this round of meetings and field work for the bridge; and life is returning to normal here at home – though normal is going to still include having lots of teens around after school and in the evenings between now and the end of exams.

That work is keeping me busy, and I’m missing out on pretty much everything else that’s going on with my family; but my friends need me to help with getting ready for exams more so I’m okay with skipping things like the coed baseball practice tonight.

I don’t really have anything major to report from school or the studying; since it really has been more of the same for a third day with the only changes being the dinner guests and the lack of parents here while they were busy playing with their friends.  The study subjects are only changing a bit; but we’ll get more focused starting this weekend as we switch to focusing on exams in the order we’ll be writing them instead of working on the tougher subjects as we mostly are doing now.

There’s no point in boring you with the study details; Mom and Dad only had Michael, Sally, and Joshua for dinner extras while everyone else either ate at home or went to the Inn before returning for the evening study session.  We worked until ten o’clock, and once everyone had left; it was time to get back to my Magi lessons with Mom.  Ethan and Ehlana were already in bed then because they were playing ‘normal’ kids with a house full of teens; so I spent a bit of time with them too; which is why it was after eleven-thirty by the time I got up to my room and started on my real studying and family business work.

That’s kept me busy since then since I had all of my usual Wednesday night work to do even though I couldn’t do that after school or in the evening; and I’m going to miss those extra hours of sleep tonight too.

I can still have a couple of hours or so of down time if I hurry, though; so let’s just wrap this up and call it a night.

Until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - June 2, 2015

It’s been another very long day, so I’m going to keep this as brief as possible; and then get on the couple of hours of nap time I’ll manage before getting started again on another big day of work and studying.

Most of my day has been spent studying, including at school; and at home both before and after dinner.  The main breaks in all of that were during Tai Chi and three meal breaks; and then a little visit with the parents, Violet, and Dillon before bedtime.  My language studies and family business work hasn’t been a break – just a change in study subjects that were also quite a bit more challenging.

The fun highlight of my day was definitely dinner; and that’s because Mom and Dad had invited Michael’s family – mostly so that they could all spend that time with Michael on their day off; and also with Violet, Dillon, and the rest of our family.  That made for a fairly diverse dinner conversation that ranged from weddings and the Inn expansion project to bridges and engineering.  For some reason, there wasn’t much talk about law; but Dad and Angela are used to that anyway – and she was happy to talk about babies and kids instead anyway.

Speaking of weddings, the work and planning continues for Jake and Stephanie’s wedding; though Rebecca and I are not involved in any of that again until after our exams are finished.  We do feel a bit left out, but can’t do everything; and Miranda hasn’t given us any choice anyway.  We’ll still have nearly two months available to help out starting the weekend after next, though; and we will be getting more involved.

There has been a lot going on today that I’ve been out of the loop on, and while I’m not going to get too much into the details; let’s cover the basics.  Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana have been busy entertaining Angela and the kids, but they spent some time at the lab today too; and then spent the rest of the day playing – including some ‘fun’ shopping, lunch at the Inn with the Dads, and an afternoon visit to the park.  All of that was probably more fun than Dad’s work in the office or Terry’s meetings and mucking around at the river, and while their work was more important; I’ll spare you the boring details.  On the bridge project side of that, the only important news is that the town officials are happy with Terry’s work so far; and the prep work is on-schedule.  Dad’s work news would just put most people to sleep, but while I don’t mention it often enough; he does take care of all of those little legal details for everything we’re doing around here through the family business – and making sure that we don’t get bogged down with legal or government red tape.

Okay, I really do want to keep this short, and there isn’t anything else particularly important to add tonight, so that’s all for now; and, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - June 1, 2015

Happy 15^th Birthday, Allen!

There has been so much going on today, but even though Allen’s birthday isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things; let’s start with that anyway.

First up with his big day is the teen drama that won’t be big news for a little while yet; but will be on the teen gossip network before too long.  I’m in the loop for that because I just happened to be in the vicinity when Marcie rather emphatically explained to Allen why his birthday wish should be to get her for a girlfriend.  Part of her little chat with him was non-verbal, but from the expression I saw on his face later; I’d say that he got the message loud and clear! ;^)

Yes, he and Karla did just break up, but with fewer appropriately-aged choices for boyfriends and girlfriends; I’m not surprised that Marcie didn’t wait longer to make her move – especially since she really does like him a lot.  They may or may not wait a little while longer before officially doing any dating; but I’ll guess that they will be a couple before the next holiday weekend.

While that bit of teen drama might end up being the best part of Allen’s birthday, I’ll guess that getting his driver’s license was up there too.  He didn’t have a birthday party because we’re all getting ready for exams now; but he did go home for a birthday dinner with his family and best friends between the after school and evening study sessions at my house.  We also did a birthday lunch for him at school that was fun too – even if it was fairly short due to the football scrimmage that Tim talked most of the guys into having for the second half of that break.

Our classes today were all about exam preparation; and that’ll be the case all week.  I wouldn’t say any of the work was particularly exciting; but most of us still managed to have fun.  The study sessions at my house were good too – at least from my perspective.  I won’t say that everyone was having a blast; since that’s impossible when the main study subjects are math, science, history, and the other core classes.  For some reason, some of my friends don’t find all of that memorizing and playing with formulas fun at all.  They do appreciate the tutoring that’s primarily from Michael, Rowen, and me, though; so they’ll keep coming back for more.

Having a gang of teens over made things a bit crazy at our house tonight.  Mom, Dad, and the twins were busy with the Malloys too; and Violet and Dillon were in the mix for dinner and the evening too – once they’d finished work at the lab for the day.  I missed out on most of that except for dinner, but even then Michael and I were also entertaining Rowen, Tim, and most of our ‘farm kid’ study buddies because they stayed for dinner too instead of heading out to their farms and turning around and coming back in again.  Mom was prepared for the extra mouths to feed, and went with grilling burgers and jumbo hot dogs plus a half-dozen cold salad and veggie sides.  That worked for us because we had more time to study – and because Michael, Tim, and some of the other guys had to get to their baseball practices right after dinner too.  That made the tutoring part of our night easier for Rowen and me because we worked with some of the girls while the boys were gone; and then mostly just had the guys to help after they got back from the park or school.

I won’t bore you with those details, but there has been a lot more going on around here today; so let’s get to the bigger news stories now.

At the top of my personal list for that is the official announcement that Jacob and Miranda have closed the deal with Uncle Nick’s father and they’ve bought the Haberdashery building.  Grandpa Ayres will spend the summer getting ready to move to his new store location down the street, and once he’s in the new place in September; Jacob and Miranda will start working on the major renovations of both buildings that they plan on having finished by the time that Jake and Stephanie graduate in just less than two years.  That sounds like a long time, but it isn’t; and it’ll take that long to do all of that work – especially when they’ll be sharing construction crews with all of the other projects going on around town.

While I’m on the construction line of thought, let’s do a quick update of some of those other projects.  I haven’t mentioned the church addition in a while; and the work there is coming right along.  The foundation is in, and that project is on-time to have the outer shell finished and closed in by Thanksgiving.  As with most of the other big projects here; that’ll allow the crews to do the indoor work through the winter – and eventually knock out some walls to make it one big, happy church!

There isn’t anything new since my last update for the med center; though it is pretty much a done deal that the official opening will be during the last full week of June.  That’ll be nice timing, since school will be out, and even more importantly; Aunt Leanne will be due anytime after that – even though her due date is in July.  I’ve already mentioned before that Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne are getting teased about that being the main reason for the timing on opening the med center; but I expect an uptick in those jokes as Aunt Leanne gets into the last weeks of her pregnancy.

The new apartment building will be open for early move-ins that week too; and Aunt Leanne and Claire have all of those new rentals pretty much dealt with already.  As with the first apartment building opening, that’ll leave a glut of older apartment rentals available; but that’ll work out for upgrades and remodels anyway – like the one that’ll be turning the apartments above the Haberdashery into suites for the Inn.

Finally, I’ll also mention that the Solar-Wind farm project is getting closer to completion too; and it should go online in August.  That may be one of the least-exciting projects on the go around here for everyone except those directly involved; but it will be one of the most important long-term infrastructure developments we’ll ever do here.

Having the new bridge that Terry’s doing the engineering for is definitely a bigger deal here, and while I’m not in the loop for that project either; I did get to hear a bit about how it’s going so far while talking with Terry and Angela tonight.  The start of construction may still be a few months away, but there’s a lot that goes into building even a comparatively small bridge; and this one is definitely being designed and built to last.  Terry isn’t getting to have as much fun while he’s here as Angela and the kids are having; but Mom and Dad are doing their best to help him enjoy the visit even with all of the work he’s doing.

Speaking of work, I’ve been doing lots of that since coming up to bed tonight – and I didn’t get around to doing that until nearly midnight.  It’s late, and that part of my night was fairly standard studying and family business work; so let’s just skip that part of the update and call it a night.  Tomorrow is going to be more of the same except with slightly different dinner plans and no baseball practices; so I’d better get whatever sleep I can – which in this case will be a bit more than two hours.

I foresee some self-healing before Tai Chi to make up for the lack of down time; but I’ll probably be dealing with that little downside of being too busy for most of the next two weeks.  Instead of thinking about that too much, though, I’m going to put my computer away and get to that nap right now; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - May 31, 2015

As promised, it’s double-update time; but I’m also going to keep this short because I’m tired and it’s getting late.

I had a blast with Michael and the rest of our friends last night – and especially with Michael!  As I mentioned last night, the fun really got started when we wrapped up our study time and then got to work on setting up our tents by the river.  The fact that there were five tents and five couples didn’t go un-noticed by my parents, but they let us stick with the fiction that the majority of the teens in our little group weren’t thinking about tent mate swaps while choosing the number of tents to set up.

Dad grilled chicken and ribs on the grill to go with Mom’s salads, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob; so dinner was a hit with my friends.  The Olde Bakery dessert was a bonus too; and made it fairly easy to even convince the guys that the meal was worth the teen-drafted clean-up that followed.  Mom and Dad got ready to go out while we did that, and while they were going to hang out with Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne at their house, along with some other friends; they went to the pub for a while later too.  While they were busy doing that, we had our campfire; and I loved getting to hang out with my friends; cuddle with Michael; and share some music and stories to go along with the chatting and random acts of fun.

We didn’t overtly discuss the tent mate swap, but there were jokes about doing that during the campfire, and as I mentioned already; most of us were thinking about it pretty much from the time we opted for camping instead of an indoor sleepover.  That might have gotten awkward when we did get around to the going to bed part of the night at a bit after midnight; but I took care of that potential problem for all of us.  After putting out the fire, and once we’d moved over to the tents; I grabbed my bag and gear out of the tent I was supposed to share with Rowen and Rebecca; put it in Michael’s tent; and summarily evicted Tim by tossing his things out for him and Rowen to take turns catching.  The other couples took the hint almost immediately once they’d finished teasing me about it; and we were all very happy campers by the time those moves were done and we were all ready for some quality cuddle time with our respective boyfriends or girlfriends.

I can take an educated guess that getting ready for bed after that was different for each couple, since most of us went into the house for washroom breaks and some of us took overnight bags along; but Michael and I had fun with the getting changed part of our night together.  If there are any Magi parents getting freaked out by reading that; get a grip – it’s not as if clothing-optional play time for two is unusual for teens our age and Michael and I do always stick to our self-imposed rules.  It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned that in my journal, so I’ll remind you that if you can trust your Magi teens to control our talents; a little physical self-control is easy enough – even if making that choice isn’t always easy.

Moving along, Michael and I had a fairly hot start to the sleeping part of our night that didn’t involve getting any sleep for quite a while.  We did eventually snuggle close in the sleeping bags we’d zipped together and get a few hours of nap time; but then we were up again – awake – before dawn.  We had a bit more play time then too; and then we got ready for Tai Chi by the river with Mom and Dad.  They were amused when they met up with us; but then they’d obviously had a fairly happy night too.  None of our friends came out of the other tents until after we’d finished exercising and my parents went indoors again, though if they thought that the co-ed camping wouldn’t be noticed by anyone; they apparently didn’t notice the observers from inside several houses along the river – including mine.

While the start to my morning had been wonderful, we all soon needed to get very busy as we took turns getting ready for church; had breakfast; and did all of the work that went with cooking, cleaning, and packing up our little campground before it was time to go to church.  That was all a lot of fun too; but I was pretty much ready for a nap by the time we sat down in the sanctuary for the start of the service.

I don’t have any major news from church or Sunday school today; though we enjoyed that time with our family, friends, and neighbors too.  Michael had to get to the Inn after we were set free from Sunday school, so I walked with him there on my way home; but took the day off from helping out there so that I could spend the time with my family instead – and have more time for another afternoon study session that Michael joined us for during his break.

Lunch was at Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s house; and Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Mark, Aunt Grace, and Caleb were there with us too.  That was a bring what you have pot luck, so Mom’s contribution was corn on the cob and cold salads; while Dad brought burgers and hot dogs to grill.  The meal was great, but after helping with the clean-up; I met up with Rowen and Tim to get started on our study session at my house while Mom, Dad, Ethan, and Ehlana stayed for a bit of afternoon play time.

We didn’t have as many of our classmates join us to study today, but Sally and Joshua were dropped off for a couple of hours; and we had three other ‘town kids’ join us too.  I had fun with all of that work, and so did my friends – even though all of the guys, including Michael, kept telling us how awful it was to spend yet another afternoon studying instead of playing.  The studying isn’t fun by comparison; but I’ll take a leap and suggest that they will have fun when they do better on their exams thanks to the extra work – and impress their parents.

Michael had to head back to the Inn in time to help with the dinner buffet rush, but the rest of us studied until Sally and Joshua were picked up before calling it a day.  Mom, Dad, and the twins were home by then and had been working in the office; so I joined them there for a while until Mom was ready to get started on making dinner for five.  I helped with that; we had an easy-meal; and then I took care of the clean-up before moving on to spend the rest of the evening with Ethan and Ehlana while Mom and Dad both worked in the office.

We biked to the park; had some playground time that included hanging out with some other kids and teens; and then came home again with enough time to watch a movie together in the lounge before bedtime.  That time with the twins was the best part of my day – not including the wake-up time with Michael this morning, and Ehlana and I ended her night with some sister-chat time after we’d finished tucking Ethan in and doing the bedtime story in his room.  I followed that up with a short visit with Mom and Dad in the office; Mom did my Magi lesson; and then ordered me up to bed too.

That was more than three and a half hours ago; and I’ve been very busy pretty much that entire time between my archive assignment; language studies; and family business work.  This hasn’t exactly ended up being a short update, though, and none of that work is particularly noteworthy; so I’m going to just move on and wrap this up.

I haven’t mentioned Violet and Dillon this weekend; mostly because she’s been at his house or they’ve been busy with their own friends all weekend.  They’ll be back here tomorrow again; and there may be a pattern forming there.  It is easier for his parents to have them here during the week when they’re busy with work; though Violet is going to be here for the next few days because we’ll also have the Malloys here again too.

That’ll be fun; though I won’t have much time to spend with them while getting ready for my exams.  Terry will be here this time as much for meetings with construction companies and town officials as for more work around and in the river; but I’m sure that Angela and the kids will have fun with Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana for the next few days.  I wish that I could have more time to get in on that fun, and I actually could do that without a problem for my own exams; but I’ll be there to help my friends and couldn’t do that without blowing my ‘normal teen’ cover anyway.

The good news is that we’re now less than three weeks away from summer vacation; the school work will be done in two weeks; and that last week of school is all fun and games anyway.  It’s officially June now, and that also means that we’ll have our first baseball weekend starting on Friday.  We’ll have two games this weekend for my family – the coed game on Friday night and Michael’s game on Saturday afternoon.  Rowen and I have our first match a week from Saturday – after exams are finished.  That’ll work out better for us; but I doubt that impending exams will affect Michael, Tim, or the other guys on either team for their match.  They have a good team this season, and while I think that Rowen and I have a better team for the girls’ 12-14 division; we should all be in for a pretty good season this summer.

I’ll keep you posted on that as the season goes along, but that’s definitely more than enough news for tonight; I’m out of here; and, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!