Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - April 6, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

We had fun last night with Mom, Dad, Naomi, and Aiden; and the highlights included our dinner, the movie and cuddle time, and the co-ed sofa sleepover.  It was cold and still damp this morning, so Tai Chi was indoors; we had a hot breakfast; and then the church service and Sunday school included Easter-themed messages and work to get ready for the teen-led sunrise service.  It warmed into the mid-fifties this afternoon, but Ehlana and I still opted for play-work time at the lab or archives; and our best friends had other plans for the rest of the day too.  We had fun all afternoon; went home in time to help with making dinner; and enjoyed that meal with Mom and Dad.  They had their work done for the weekend by then, so after we took care of the clean-up; Mom did a Magi lesson with us; we watched a movie; and then came upstairs for bath or Jacuzzi time.

That brings us up to now.  We’re clean, ready for bed; and winding down with our computer checks and twin chat time.  Starting with a Cassie and Michael update, they are not quite finished with their work in California, but they did start heading east from the coast after dinner; and they will quickly work their way out of the State and spend most of the coming week in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.  We’ll keep you posted on their progress; and all details of their work and travels re available in their personal and work sections of the archives.

On the world and political news fronts; we have no good news for the wars – and the stories seem to get worse every day.  The killing and destruction continues in all of the conflict zones; and it is both good and horrific that so many of the atrocities are being caught on videos.  We are also not surprised to see that peace talk has mostly been replaced by threats of more sanctions, more weapons, and more troops thrown into the war-grinder.  On the political front, tariffs continue to cause turmoil, but while some countries retaliate; others are offering to negotiate and work out deals – which is likely what President Trump hoped to accomplish with his hard-line policies.  As with all political pandering; we’ll wait and see whether the talk leads to actual improvements – which for our country would require significant rebalancing of our trade deficits problem that last year was around a half-trillion dollars.  Other top issues including immigration and government efficiency continue to be fought over, but while some progress is happening; we’ve also noted that government ‘sacred cows’ are not getting very much attention from our so-called efficiency experts.  We’d take the process more-seriously if our government started taking a chainsaw to the military budget and the other most-expensive programs and government costs.  No, that isn’t likely going to happen; so all of the smaller battles will continue; keeping the theatre going for the entertainment of the masses; and our path to self-destruction will continue.

That’s a dismal assessment, but until we see true evidence of better from our world leaders; we’ll continue to hope for more while being prepared to do what we can to help Mom and the others with helping where we can to mitigate the disasters happening around the world – whether they are natural or man-made crises.  To be ready for that – or anything else that comes up for us tomorrow, we should go and get some sleep, so stay tuned for our next report; and we’ll re-charge and then get on with living those adventures we’ll write about tomorrow night!

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - April 5, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Hailey’s birthday party and then the sleepover for her girlfriends was a hit last night; and we were happy to do our part with the work that made that possible for Ehlana’s future sister-in-law!  While the weather didn’t really cooperate, the indoor entertainment included video gaming for the guys; music videos and movies and more for the girls; and the work crew volunteers provided bonus entertainment while being supervised for the cooking, cleaning, and other party-related chores.  We also provided a bit of ‘live’ music that some early cross-over couples danced to, but we couldn’t exactly let the party get too-loud once Aiden’s father needed to go to bed ahead of his normally-early wake-up call for bakery baking.  The boys at the party headed for their homes by eleven o’clock; the girls took over the family room for their sleepover; and Ehlana, Aiden, Naomi, and I settled into the living room for our co-ed sofa sleepover – once we’d made sure that Hailey and her friends had everything they needed for the rest of the night.  By then, we were tired out; so we were all sleeping before the girls in the family room were – and we know that for sure because Hailey and Leah took pictures to prove it to us at breakfast.

Since they had stayed up late, the girls were also late getting up; so we needed to take care of making breakfast for them after our Tai Chi workout and after Aiden’s Mom left for the bakery.  That was another adventure and a fair bit of work by the time we had the kitchen and house cleaned up again; and then Ehlana and I headed home for our own chores around the house and yard.  We’ve had another wet, cool day, so the outdoor chores were not fun; we had a snack lunch with Mom and Dad; and then we’ve spent the afternoon until now at the lab or archives.  We’ve had fun with the work-play with our books or beakers; and now we’re getting ready to host a co-ed sleepover with Naomi and Aiden.  We invited Sophia and Aaron too, but they had other family plans and weren’t given the option to choose by the parents with veto powers.

We are planning on having fun with Naomi and Aiden for the rest of the day; so another early update will have to work for your future reading entertainment too.  As always, we’re tempted to ignore the world and political news, but shouldn’t do that for three days in a row; so here’s a quick update – all is not well with the world!  Okay, to be a bit more specific, President Trump’s worldwide tariffs are going over badly; retaliations have begun; and the global stock markets are taking a hit.  All of that was to be expected; and it will take time to sort out – whether that means working out trade deals through diplomacy or escalation into a full-blown trade war.  Either is possible at this early stage; and the latter is the more-likely outcome if the rhetoric is to be believed.  The actual, physical wars continue to drag on as casualties and destruction levels mount every day.  The threats continue to ramp up too, and our world leaders appear incapable of understanding what true diplomacy is and have forgotten how to de-escalate conflicts.  At the rate they’re going, the only way these wars will end will be when one side or the other is utterly defeated – and that really should scare everyone when nuclear weapons are options for quite a few of the participants in the two-largest conflicts.  That is likely because there are so-few people still alive that were around for the first usages of nuclear bombs in war; and reading history isn’t the same as witnessing the horrors.

Let’s all pray and hope that we don’t repeat past mistakes – even as we seem to be on that same path.

Ehlana and I want to move on and enjoy the rest of the day with Mom, Dad, and our best friends; so that’s all for this update.

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - April 4, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Happy 12^th Birthday, Hailey Draper!

This is another short, early update – this time because Ehlana and I need to get over to Aiden’s house to help him out with hosting Hailey’s birthday party while their parents are still busy with the bakery on a Friday afternoon and evening.  We’ll be staying – along with Naomi – overnight too; so we’ll be busy for the rest of the day.

Our babysitting last night was pretty good – even with some of the food games from Zack, Eli, and some of the other boys.  The Pizzeria pizza and sides were a hit; we kept the gang entertained until taking all of them to the Inn for game night; and eventually gave them back to their parents by the time we came home after the gaming.  Owen’s dinner party was apparently a hit too; so those favorite adults were all happy last night too.  Mom and Dad had some work to do after we got home, so Ehlana and I worked in the office for a couple of hours; and eventually got to sleep sometime after one o’clock.

So far today, Tai Chi was indoors due to rain; we had a hot breakfast; and then our academic adventures included some bonus birthday fun with Hailey.  That might seem weird for some teens, but in our case; Hailey is Ehlana’s future sister-in-law; so she is fairly-important to us!  Her friends helped out with some of the fun too; so we know that she is already happy as we get started on her after-school party.  There are already some of the farm tweens there that went home from school with her; so we really do need to get going.  The world and political news will roll on with or without our commentary or rants that only future Magi will read anyway, so we’ll just catch up on those stories eventually; and just wrap this up and get on with our birthday party supervision adventures!

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - April 3, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Happy 45^th Birthday, Owen Emerson!

Happy11th Birthday, Gerald York!

Happy 25^th Birthday, Jeremy Fletcher!

This is a micro-update because we’re booked to host some babysitting while some of our favorite parents are busy with Owen’s birthday dinner and party.  Naomi, Aiden, and the kids we’ll be feeding and watching will be here soon; Mom is already getting ready to go out; and Dad will bring the Pizzeria pizza order home with him after work.  We need to cook up some sides and get some other work done; so the rest of our news for the day – including the fun still ahead of us for the rest of the afternoon and evening – can wait for our next report.

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - April 2, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Happy 14^th Birthday, Susan Connor!

Happy 5^th Birthday, Cassidy Connor!

This has felt like a different kind of day for us – and that had nothing to do with President Trump’s Liberation Day political theatre.  There were some thunderstorms early this morning, so Tai Chi was indoors; and then our school day included extra fun because Susan wasn’t having a major friends’ party; so we took care of that for her at lunchtime with gifts and Olde Bakery treats.  She also wasn’t having a joint party with her cousin – Susan just opted for spending time with her best friends and closest family.

Ehlana and I should seriously consider doing that for our birthday more-often, but we have time to work on that for this year; so stay tuned for that future story.  As for today, while we would have had fun at a party, we enjoyed our work-play at the lab or archives.  Ehlana and I opted to do that despite improving weather this afternoon tempted us to go biking with friends.  We were also tempted to stay into the evening, but went home in time for dinner with Mom and Dad; and then we worked in the office this evening.  Mom did a Magi lesson with us too; we used time phasing to get more done; and we had a vid-chat with Cassie and Michael that was work-related as they were getting ready for the rest of their week and the work they want to get done while in California.  No, they will not be saving the toons or any other Hollywood-related companies while there, and even partnering with businesses and charities can be a challenge in the State, but there is a lot of need there too; so we will help where we can.  Between the lab time and family business work; we got a lot done tonight, so when Mom had us wrap up at eleven; we were ready to get started on our daily wrap-up of bedtime computing and twin chat fun.

That brings us to the world and political news of the day that was dominated by tariffs talk and speculation through until when the actual news arrived late in the afternoon.  Ehlana and I really do see most of this story as theatre – especially when there are other, more-important stories being ignored – like the not-so-quiet military build-up in the Middle East by our armed forces; the threats we’re making against Iran; and the actual wars we’re waging in Yemen and elsewhere in the region.  The killing and destruction against the Palestinians is escalating again too; yet few leaders if any are doing anything to try and stop yet another round of war in the region.  You’d really think that we’d have learned from the failures of the past twenty-five years and more, but apparently-not; since we seem poised to destroy another country or three with no apparent care at all for the collateral costs to those people or the rest of the world!  It is also appearing more and more clear that ‘our’ interest in ending the war in Ukraine is related, but those efforts are falling apart too thanks to warmongers in other countries that want to keep the destruction in Ukraine going to the bitter end.  While all of that insanity rules; we’re ‘fiddling’ around with tariffs and making a big show of that and other political stories that are mostly meaningless in the context of those really serious and dangerous conflicts and diplomatic nightmares.

Since the tariffs stories are leading the headlines; let’s cover them for posterity and point out that while there may be basis for trying to deal with trade imbalances; it might prove to be a very bad idea to anger most of the rest of the world – both friends and foes.  What we really find craziest about this story is that, for the most part, the new tariffs are basically half of whatever tariffs the affected countries apply against our exports to them.  The exceptions are the countries that only have a ten percent tariff on our goods; and that’s simply because President Trump set a minimum tariff of ten percent.  Yes, there are other trade issues being addressed in the executive order – such as addressing bans on specific product exports, but those items are reciprocal too.

We’ll see what happens next as the rest of the world responds to either accept the tariffs or escalate and retaliate, but we’ll again mention that we really should be focusing on trying to end the wars and de-escalating all conflicts and tensions – including the economic problems.  That probably won’t happen, but we will keep hoping for the best – delusional as doing that might seem!

On that weirdly discordant note; we are going to wrap this up; call it a night; and get some sleep right now.

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