Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - November 20, 2024

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We are not enjoying the colder weather, but staying indoors for most of the day was an option; so we’ve also stayed warm most of the time.  Our day began with indoor Tai Chi at Naomi’s house followed by a hot breakfast.  Academic adventures kept us busy while at school with indoor breaks that included a music practice at lunchtime instead of going outdoors.  Mom got home around lunchtime with the usual fast food for Aunt Leanne, so we had a little visit with her between school and going to play at the lab, but then we play-worked there until ten-thirty.  Mom brought a picnic dinner to us; stayed and played for a while with each of us in my lab or the archives; and made sure that we went home as soon as I got my experiment finished – though I’d have been happy to stay longer and keep the fun going!

Since getting home, we’ve gone straight to the bedtime twin chat and computing, and we are not happy with the top news story; since our leaders seem to be determined to escalate the various wars right now before policies might change with the new administration taking over in January with President-elect Trump.  We have no idea whether that will actually make a difference, but it definitely won’t matter if we’re in a world war before then!  Our current president is now allowing use of long-range missiles to be used to attack targets inside of Russia – which requires our military to basically do everything except choose the targets that they might also be choosing too; and now he’s also sending anti-personnel mines to Ukraine because we apparently still haven’t figured out how horrible those weapons are and why they should never, ever be used again!  Add in news that Israel wants to basically annex the West Bank and Gaza and deport all Palestinians to other countries; and we’re on the verge of wider wars in at least two regions.  Finally, a damaged fiber-optics line between Denmark and Germany has apparently been cut; and initial claims are suggesting that China was involved in the incident – a claim that could lead to a conflict between China and Europe.  News flash to all world leaders – these escalations don’t end well; and those of us that are still really just getting our lives started do not want world war three; so cut it out!

Cassie and Michael are in Chicago tonight and will spend another day with Madelana and Stefan; and then they’ll be home on Friday.  Yes, that isn’t news; since we’ve covered their progress and plans every day, but I’m adding that to this update again because we really are looking forward to having them home again – even though we’ll need to share them a lot over the coming week or two – especially with the Thanksgiving holiday next weekend.  I was about to add that we’re glad that they’re home safely after so many dangers in Africa, but then they are in Chicago; so fingers crossed and we’ll continue to hope for the best! ;^)

Okay, that was silly, so I’m obviously in need of some sleep now; so that’s all for this report and 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 - November 19, 2024

 

Naomi, Ethan, Ehlana, and Aiden:

Happy 9^th Birthday, Yvonne York!

My cousin has had a happy day, and while we – my family – did a vid-chat with her this morning at breakfast and sent gifts; we left it up to her parents and friends to help her out with celebrating her special day.

Here at home, I’m taking over this journal for the night while also hosting three of my best friends for the night because my future mother-in-law is in Crystal Springs for the night; and we might need another year or two to convince our parents that we can be left at home for a night without parental supervision now and then without getting into trouble!  Sure, that isn’t actually a worry for them, but let’s not let facts get in the way of those jokes!  We’re happy with a mid-week opportunity for a co-ed sofa sleepover; and we’ve had a good night too.

Our school day was busy, and for me that included a test and a quiz; and then our school band practice was bigger and better as we were able to add a few football players – including Aaron.  Sophia appreciated that more than the rest of us, but we only have weeks left to the first Christmas parade; so having most of the band members available for practices helps us to get ready for our holiday performances.

Ethan, Ehlana, and Aiden stopped at their homes to grab overnight bags and Silkie on their way to my house; Silkie ended up being dropped off next door for her own special sleepover with Brianna and Lady; and then our adventures here started with getting our homework out of the way.  We helped Dad with making dinner; enjoyed that meal even with Zack and Eli teaming up to try and annoy the girls in the house; and then we’ve spent the evening practicing music for our classes, the school band, and with our own band and some Christmas music that we might get asked to do at school or church.  While we didn’t want to play at the school Halloween dance because of how busy Aaron and I have been during football season; we are considering accepting an offer to play at set or two at the school Christmas dance.

The music play time was awesome, and I especially-love duets with Ethan, but we were also ready for some quality cuddle time by nine-thirty; so we’ve been watching a movie and winding down toward our co-ed sofa sleepover.  Ethan and Ehlana have been multi-tasking their usual bedtime computing, but keeping Ehlana from offering a rant or commentary on one or more world news stories is part of my motivation for taking over their journal tonight; and we’re happier not dwelling on the stupidity of our world leaders and politics in general.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t care about what is happening in the rest of the world because I do.  I suppose that we should also all include current events in our journals, but we also need to make sure that we don’t let all of the bad news mess up our personal love and happiness – especially when we can’t do anything about the wars and other problems that politicians only seem to manage to make worse instead of solving.

Ehlana does want me to include a Cassie and Michael update, so I’ll do that; and then get back to cuddling with Ethan – though yes, he is still cuddling with me while I multi-task this little job.  They’re in our country now and have been spending the day with Serena and Shayne – after having a nap at their hotel to make up for the sleep that they didn’t get during their overnight flight.  They’ll be flying to Chicago early in the morning; and then they’ll spend two days with Madelana and Stefan.  Some wedding planning might be on their agenda while there; since Madelana and Stefan are getting married next summer and Cassie and Michael are in the wedding party, but I’m sure that those stories will be available in Cassie’s journals; and we don’t have any news about those plans right now anyway.  Cassie and Michael will be home by Friday afternoon; and we are all looking forward to having them home for the holidays.

On that thought, let’s also add that this Thanksgiving is a ‘home’ holiday for the Proctor-Rice clan, and my York cousins will be here too; so we’re going to have a busy long weekend.  It is also an away holiday for the Johnson-McEwan clan, and that’s probably for the best; since having everyone here might be getting to the point of being too-much for my future families-in-law to handle as they are growing the next-gen cousins’ population.

I’m sure that my favorite twins will have more on those stories next week, but that’s all we have for tonight; so I’m going to get back to co-cuddling with Ethan and then eventually enjoy our co-ed sofa sleepover!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - November 18, 2024

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 5^th Birthday, Jordan Taylor!

Ethan and I didn’t have anything to do with Jordan’s special day, but Faith is supporting his sister, Trinity, and ‘saving’ her from Jordan and his buddies as they have a birthday sleepover tonight.

Our top news of the day is that Cassie and Michael are on the way home; they’ll be on the east coast by the wee hours of the morning; and then they’ll be visiting friends there before the next hop to Chicago to spend a couple of days with Madelana and Stefan.

Here at home, it has still been warm today but also rainy; so we’ve spent most of our time indoors.  We had a good day at school; we picked up a picnic dinner on the way to the lab; and then we work-played there for a handful of hours – or half a day if you include the time phasing!  My work is going great and most of my experiments are succeeding as we test our cancer cure against different cancers and using different delivery systems as needed.  Ethan isn’t quite as motivated about his current projects, but he still loves the opportunities to play with his books.  We came home at ten o’clock – after Mom came to hang out with me for the last hour or so of my work and to make sure that we didn’t stay longer; and we’ve been dealing with our bedtime twin chat and computing since then.

There is a lot that I can comment or rant on tonight, but I won’t try to cover them all; and will only pick two stories – including the one that is getting attention from the teens at our school.  The more-serious story is the policy change from our current president that will apparently allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles that we supply to them for use against targets inside Russia.  This is a serious escalation that Russia has warned us would be perceived as a direct act of war from our country; and we think that it is an incredibly-stupid move from our leaders.  Let’s hope that the leaders on both sides don’t start a world war before our president-elect takes office.

The other story is about a campaign to get women to basically disown the men in their families and stop having physical relationships with all men because of the election results.  You won’t be surprised to find out that this is a gossip topic at school, but while the girls are having fun with jokes about the idea; we mostly find this story amusing for several reasons.  We don’t understand how this plan is supposed to counter the evil, far-right men when they’re also supposed to fully-support abstinence outside of marriage!  That’s quite a transition from ‘sexual freedom’ – though yes, the women getting behind this movement are welcome to choose abstinence!  Our next thoughts on that are related to one of the professed issues for these women – personal autonomy and abortion.  News flash, ladies – if you don’t get together with any men; it doesn’t matter what the laws in any State say about abortion rights – you won’t need those services!  Finally, for tonight, love isn’t conditional on anything – and certainly not based on insisting that you will only love people that agree with everything that you believe to be true.  We’re not trying to minimize the complexities that go along with love and relationships of all kinds, but we also can’t comprehend how anyone could choose walking away from loved ones over the outcome of an election – an event that recurs every two or four years for our presidential or mid-term elections.  A little perspective and soul-searching should be considered; since that ‘love’ seems very superficial.

For the record, no, none of the girls at our school are promoting a dating ban or avoiding their family over the holidays, but we won’t advertise that; just in case word gets out and we have a sudden influx to town of lonely city boys looking for anywhere there are girls that will still date them! ;^)

Okay, that’s getting a bit silly; so we should wrap this up so that we can get some sleep.  Regardless of the crazy going on in the rest of the world, life is good here at home; we know how blessed we are; and we’re happy and full of the love and joy that we wish for everyone – especially for the people that need that kind of love in their lives and hearts the most.  While we wish for that for the world, stay tuned for our next update; and we’ll go and re-charge starting right now.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - November 17, 2024

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We had fun with our respective nights and sleepovers with Naomi or Aiden and their families; that includes the dinner and breakfast meals; and was still-true for Ethan and Naomi even though they also ended up having Eli and Zack with the Seagers for the night too.  Sure, Leah was with Hailey last night too, but we always have fun with them; and I love those chances to hang out with them when that isn’t also with a gang of family or friends.  The church service and Sunday school was good too; and we’re helping the teens to get ready for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday services – which for today included first work on Christmas sets for the annual Christmas show that this year isn’t exactly a cantata, but is a show with lots of music to go with the drama segments.

Ethan and I were tempted to play at the lab this afternoon, but it was nice out today with a high in the sixties again; so we ended up playing and biking with friends and cousins – including Jayden – until it was time to go to the Inn for the early buffet.  The parents picked that time this week so that Kaitlyn and her family could still hit the road for home early-enough for a school night.  We actually got to hang out with Kaitlyn, Jeremy, and Jayden during that meal; so we had a lot of fun; and then they headed for home without Jeremy; and we went home with Mom and Dad.  We’ve done some work in the office since then through to bath or Jacuzzi time, but we also used a time phase to get done early; since Dad will be heading to Crystal Springs in the morning with Anna Marie; so we’ll be up early to see them off on their trip.

Cassie and Michael are starting their journey home and have their trans-Atlantic flight on Monday night, but then they are fitting in two visits with friends along the way home before getting here on Friday.  We’re really looking forward to them getting here and then being home for the rest of the year and through the holidays; so the coming school week is just a way to keep busy until then!  We will be busy too; so that’s all for this report.  Another awesome weekend is in the (journal) books; it is time to re-charge now; and we’ll be at full-power by morning – even with that early start to the day!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - November 16, 2024

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 17^th Birthday, Kaitlyn!

We had a lot of fun last night with the family-and-friends’ dinner, the movie, and the teen co-ed sleepover; so that collectively made for a happy start to our weekend.  We stayed up too-late, but were still up at normal time and used some Magi healing to help revive for the day.  Tai Chi was by the river and not too-chilly; we followed that up with a hot breakfast; and then it was time for a chores morning.  Yes, we have most of the fall clean-up done, but we’re still dealing with last blasts of falling leaves; and it wasn’t really a challenge to get everything done before we cleaned up and had lunch.  Kaitlyn wanted to do a trail ride for her birthday, so we got in on that adventure – or four of us did; since Sophia and Aaron had other plans for the rest of today.  We topped sixty again today, so the ride was great; and we ended up being out for nearly an hour and a half because our guides were having fun too and took us on a longer ride than normal.

We’re home now, but will be moving on soon – though not to Kaitlyn’s birthday dinner and party.  Jeremy is hosting that, and while Kaitlyn’s parents and brother will be there along with some other family adults and a bunch of local friends; Ethan is going to be with Naomi for the rest of the day and I’ll be with Aiden and his family.  The rest of our news for today can wait for our next report; so that’s all we have for today – and that includes for Cassie and Michael; since they’ve mostly had a sightseeing day in Morocco with just one project site visit this morning.  Those details can wait to; so we’re out of here and back to having fun with our best friends and their families.

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