Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 26, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 1^st Birthday, Dane Wildes!

We had zero involvement in Dane’s special day, but he will be part of the future school gang for some of our favorite next-gen kids; so we hope that he, and his future friends, all have fun today!

Our adventures weren’t that exciting – or maybe they were better; and we won’t write about that part of our co-ed sleepovers last night! ;^)  The Pizzeria pizza picnic and ball practices last night were good; we went for a river swim to cool off after that; and some Magi healing was used to help us recover from the various workouts and practices of the day after we got home.  Mom did a group Magi lesson with us; bath or Jacuzzi time followed that time and a bit of family business work in the office; and then we wrapped up our day with quiet co-ed cuddle time that included some teen chat and music videos.  The two teen couples in the house split up for a while for a little bit of fun that we aren’t going to report here; and then we eventually got around to the co-ed nap time.

The top news from tryouts today is that Naomi, Samantha, Sophia, and I are back on the cheer squad this season; and the Grade Nine additions include a Burroughs’ cousin that we don’t know very well and a ‘new’ girl from one of the construction crews’ families that we’ll get to know better this fall.  The ‘new’ part of that sounds funny, but we do have quite a few families that have moved here since the start of the major construction projects; some of them chose to stay; and upwards of fifteen years now isn’t yet long-enough to count them the same as the families that have been here for centuries!  Ethan and I should probably get half-counted for that, since Mom and Cassie have only been here for a few years longer than that, but the last name changes that for us; and maybe that will be true for some of those new kids if they start marrying into the ‘old’ families!  For the record the cheer squad adds are Cindy Wilson and Tina Burroughs; we like what we’ve seen from them so far; and they are definitely fired up and happy to have made the team!  Those picks were made this morning; and we spent the rest of the day working on the routines we’ll be using during the game and half time on Friday evening.

As always, the football team tryouts take a day longer; those picks will be announced tomorrow; and then the boys will focus on getting ready for that game too.  They had a good workout; we brought our four best friends home with us for dinner and a round of Magi healing; and then we headed to the church for another teen praise team practice.  We still have one more practice to go before the holiday weekend, but Ethan and I need to find some time to practice that music too; since we’re starting to lead more of the music with Naomi and Aaron – and Aiden and Sophia too; so we really should do our best for the holiday weekend congregation!  We had fun with the music and the rest of the service skits, readings, and more that we worked through from start to finish; Ethan and I walked Naomi and Aiden to their homes with supervisory help from Silkie; and now we’re winding down fast toward bedtime after our bath or Jacuzzi breaks and the short visit with did with Mom and Ad on our way up to the third floor.  That’s all we have for our own news; so let’s cover the world report and then we’ll get started on the nap time that we’ll need to be ready for another busy day of football and cheerleading practices!

Our pick for top news of the day is from Israel, where their leaders are not just terrorizing and killing people in the West Bank, but now they are openly claiming that the entire West Bank will only be Israeli territory.  That’s basically declaring that they are going to get rid of all of the Palestinians – extending their genocide plans to include another three million people.  It really makes us sick to watch the world leaders stand by and do nothing while this is happening; and the Israeli people should be ashamed to have forgotten their own history and become the oppressors of millions of innocent people!

While that story is being ignored in western countries, the national media frenzy has been all about ‘Operation Outcast’ and the plan to destroy Iran’s economy, which ‘we’ somehow still need to do despite the fact that we won the war and have full control of the entirely-open Strait of Hormuz!  We are also, apparently, giving the rest of the world time to comply so that we don’t destroy the global economy by immediately cutting non-compliant countries off of the dollar system because it is much better to wait a week or month or two and then destroy it all then!

In the Ukraine war, Russia continues to pound Ukrainian ports, transportation and power systems, and manufacturing sites; the front lines are a mess for Ukraine; and in retaliation, Ukraine’s leaders and drone operators can be very proud of themselves for attacking a daycare center and killing toddler and hitting a civilian bus and killing and injuring a lot of the passengers.  Yes, that is sarcasm, and yes, there are civilian casualties in Ukraine too, but that’s happening more-often now because Russia is hitting back harder now because of all of the attacks on civilians in Russia that have obviously been intentionally targeting women and children.  One story that we took note of was from a Ukrainian village where evacuations were ordered due to a massive explosion that destroyed quite a few homes, and while details are not getting out yet; the video clips we saw strongly suggest that one or more of those homes might have been used for building drones and bombs; since there were a bunch of smaller explosions before the big one that caused most of the destruction.

Finally, for tonight, we want to mention the CIA Director’s visit to Moscow.  The truth for the reason behind that visit won’t likely get released anytime-ever, but considering all of the awful things our CIA has done or tried to do to Russia; that really seems like a pointless trip – especially if he went there with a list of demands and threats.  Russia certainly has no reason to trust any of our leaders – and that’s especially-true for any of our intel agencies.

Okay, that’s enough for tonight.  We’ve had a long day; we need to recharge to be ready for another busy day; and that’s why we’re off to dreamland starting right now.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's journals - August 25, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Day two of our football and cheer squad tryouts has been awesome, and this update is early because we need to get to the park for our Pizzeria pizza picnic dinner and ball practices; and then we’re going to bring our best friends home with us for the rest of the night and a co-ed sleepover.

Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom and Dad had our day off to a great start; the weather was perfect again except for a short afternoon shower that we actually appreciated for the cool-off opportunity; and I’ll report that Ethan was the top player at the football tryouts – to the minor annoyance of the older players.  The cheer squad tryouts were good too; and we’re sure about the picks that will be made tomorrow morning.  That is pretty much all we have for our news so far, but we’re expecting the rest of the day to be really great too.  We don’t have much time left to get to the park, though, so let’s do a quick world news report and then we are out of here.

Tariffs and economic sanctions continue to be the story of the week, and while the threats escalate to include cutting countries off from the U.S. dollar systems for any country that defies our demands; the markets fluctuate on every news report whether true or not; and it is like watching bad jugglers trying to keep all of the balls in the air and waiting for the total collapse.  The trade war with Canada is escalating fast; President Trump added fifty percent tariffs on Canadian-assembled cars; and he is apparently clueless because doing that will do as much damage to American parts suppliers; since that industry is integrated to a high degree with our own auto industry!  Customers certainly would not be interested in the price increase at the dealership level, and while that production could be transitioned to American factories eventually; it would literally take years to resolve that one issue; and that doesn’t get into the retaliatory options that Canada has available to them.  One threat that already has been voiced is shutting down electricity transfers to the United States; and that is a significant; comparatively-inexpensive energy source that helps to power the north-eastern States and cities.  Shutting down oil sales would be bad too – and we are sure that China would be more than happy to buy those millions of barrels per day from Canada instead!  We don’t need to get into any details, but will point out that it really is getting hard for our allies to distinguish the difference to how they’re treated compared to America’s enemies!  Before we move on, though, let’s add that Canada also holds a notable amount of our government debt; so selling that off would be an option for them too and a serious fiscal danger to our government finances.

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East haven’t changed very much, but in Ukraine; they’ve been celebrating their thirty-fifth birthday since gaining independence from the former Soviet Union.  We couldn’t watch those reports with any seriousness; since the supposedly-independent Ukraine is entirely dependent on their western backers because they are bankrupt and spend around one-hundred billion dollars per year – or a lot more – of funding from Europe and the united States; they’ve taken on huge debts that they will never repay; and even if the war ended today; they would then need trillions more to rebuild their country and decades to do that work.  Compare that to when they were ‘set free’ by the Soviet Union when they left without any debt on the government books because all Soviet Union debts were forced on Russia.  How is siding with the west looking for the people there now?

Okay, we really need to get to the park and I took that further than planned – as usual; so that’s it and we’re out of here and back to all of the fun and adventures with our family and friends!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 24, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Football season is here; and that is our top story of the day.  Most of the Grade 10 boys showed up for tryouts today – along with a smaller gang of Grade Nine guys, and while most of the younger boys won’t make the team; Coach Robinson could be in for a very good year for our class!  Ethan and Aiden were definitely the fastest players on the field today with Aaron very close behind them; while Miles and Joshua are further in the pack.  Miles is aiming to be the team quarterback, though, and while he might not be the fastest player; he does have some talent for throwing the ball accurately.  As for the cheer squad, the Grade Nine girls have the majority for new hopefuls, and while we do get some competition to defend our spots in the higher grades; that is really mostly for the girls that want the training and workouts to get ready for the basketball cheer squads that we don’t do too.  Danielle Sheldon is our squad Captain this year; we like working with her; and expect to have an awesome season!  The weather was good all day with just a brief shower this morning that rolled through and didn’t slow us down at all and it didn’t get so hot that our workouts became grueling at all.  We did still work hard, though, so we brought our four best friends home with  us and helped them out with a round of Magi healing so they wouldn’t be sore and stiff later tonight.

While hanging out with our friends would have been awesome for the rest of the day, Ethan and I didn’t do that – we sent them on their way after the healing and a chat with Mom; we eventually had dinner with Mom and Dad; and then we headed to the lab or archives to play with our books or beakers for a few hours – or more like nine if you include the time phasing!  We need to keep working when we can; and that will get harder to do as we rush toward the end of summer and the start of school.  We wrapped up at the lab at eleven o’clock; came home to a short visit with Mom and Dad followed by bath or Jacuzzi time; and now we’re winding down fast toward nap time.

The world news continues to be bad from the Middle East and Ukraine war zones; and the consequences from around the world continue to build and become more unpredictable beyond the surety that more trouble is coming.  Instead of going into the details for the fighting in either region; let’s cover a few stories that did get our attention – while being ignored by western leaders and media.  Verifying the stories is challenging, but there are indications that the ‘Middle East NATO’ that was supposedly aimed at Iran might have a different purpose; since the story we’re seeing is about Pakistan sending a military leader to Iran to invite them to join that pact with Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.  If true, then that deal isn’t about Iran – it is about an alternative to dealing with America and Israel.  Details include more than just joining the pact – there might be economic partnerships; and China could be part of the trade side of that offer.

That leads into the talk that is building for the upcoming visit to the United States by the Chinese President next month.  ‘Our’ leaders and media are talking that up as a major event, but we expect it to be nothing more than theatre; since President Xi has no reason to trust President Trump – especially when we are constantly threatening them and imposing trade sanctions and restrictions – not to mention the warmongering and never-ending military build-up in Taiwan and the entire Asian region.  China is not going to change their long-term plans that definitely include diversifying their trade partnerships to move away from dependence on American and European customers; and they are definitely focused on advanced technologies.

Our final story for the day connects there because we’ve kept an eye on China for tech; and they’ve been holding humanoid robot games that make our focus on A.I. data centers look stupid by comparison.  Chinese robotics companies are leading the way for this tech; and the results are astonishing from faster-than-human one-hundred meter speeds to humanoid robots that play sports like tennis.  For some context, the World Humanoid Robot Games were held for the first time last year, and in just one year, they’ve expanded four-fold to more than two-thousand humanoid robot ‘athletes’ competing in more than a thousand different challenges.  These humanoid robots set better-than-human world records not just for funning races, but also for other activities like the standing high jump – and not just by small amounts!  The fastest robot for the half-marathon destroyed the human record by around six minutes!  We are not suggesting that robots are about to take over the world, since those games also showed how far the tech still needs to go, but it is amazing; and we are sure there is a place for humanoid robots if we use them as tools for helping humanity and our planet and don’t turn them into tools for doing evil – like fighting our wars for us!

Okay, that’s enough for today – though just for fun; let’s tuck in a long video from those robot games so you can see for yourselves where the tech was in our now and your near or distant past.  This should be a quaint, nostalgic look at ancient history for Magi readers a century or more from now – with the good news being that we do expect there to be Magi of the Light reading our journals in the coming centuries and Millennia!  Have fun with that while we go and get some sleep!

 World Humanoid Robot Games – China 2026

 

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 23, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 1^st Anniversary, Darryl and Wendy Watts!

We didn’t have anything to do with that celebration, but Cassie, Michel, Rowen, and Tim sent a gift and did a vid-chat with their college friends.

Since our last update, we can report the good news that ‘our’ co-ed team – the Witch Falls Wild – won their game last night with help from Cassie and Michael when they were drafted to be stand-in players to still have a full complement of players.  The bad news, though, is that the win was only the second of the season for the Wild; so they will not be playing in the Championship game this year.  We were busy with cheering for our team and Cassie and Michael, but multi-tasked the next-gen kids’ babysitting that included playground time; a swim; and some ice cream snacks.  After the game, we went home with Cassie and Michael; they got cleaned up and ready to go out; and we took care of the ongoing babysitting.  Cassie and Michael only went to the pub for about an hour; came home in time to help with getting the kids into their beds and off to sleep; and then we had a short chat break before they went to bed and we – the four teens left cuddling in the family room – got started on our co-ed sofa sleepovers.

While we weren’t up nearly as late as some of our favorite adults, we were up early this morning.  Tai chi by the river was awesome; breakfast and getting ready for church was an adventure; and we managed to get everything done and be at church with time to spare to return the kids to their parents.  Nap time wasn’t an option, but we had fun during the service; our Sunday school time was spent doing prep work for the holiday weekend service; and then we eventually came home with Mom and Dad where we had a quiet lunch for four while our best friends spent some time with their families at home or at the bakery.  We should also mention that while Sophia and Aaron weren’t with us last night; they were babysitting too and took care of some Bassett and Palmer next-gen kids while their parents went out to the pub after the game.

Naomi and Aiden got back together with us after lunch; we went along with a small group of cousins and friends for an afternoon canoe ride to the whirlpool and back – in-part because Dad needed to work in the office; and we could help by getting out of the way.  Let’s not comment on anything our parents might have also done with the bonus kid-free time!  The river paddling, whirlpool swim, and chat time with the kids and teens around us were all great, and then while some of those same kids and teens had plans for a buffet at the Inn dinner; we were on our own for a quieter meal and evening with Mom and Dad.  We helped Mom with the cooking and clean-up; she did a Magi lesson with us and we did some family business work in the office while Dad finished up his work; and then it was bath or Jacuzzi time by nine-thirty because Mom wants us to get extra sleep ahead of the first day of football and cheer squad tryouts.  We do need to be ready for them, and that’s pretty much all of our personal news of the day, so let’s do a quick world news report; and then we’ll wrap this up and get some sleep.

The top two wars rolled on through the weekend with no changes for the better and never-ending western rhetoric that continues to be divorced from reality on the ground.  Economic consequences continue, and we took note of stories from Finland about how their economy and debt levels have been affected since the Ukraine war started and they chose to join NATO and destroy their relationships with Russia that has cost them a major chunk of their tourist trade and export market.  More migrant headaches are hitting Spain and southern Europe; that will continue to worsen as people become more desperate to gain access to basic food and other necessities like a safe place to live.

The insanity around whether ships are or aren’t getting through the Middle East straits continues; it is clear that some people are lying; and we’ll eventually know the truth because if a lot of ships are getting out of the area with loads of oil and other petroleum products; they’ll show up in ports around the world and supplies will stabilize.  If that doesn’t happen, then our leaders will be shown to be lying idiots.  You can guess which option Ethan and I will pick!  We should also add that Canada walked away from a new trade agreement that President Trump claimed just days ago was a done deal; both sides are blaming the other; and a tariff war is now beginning.  That will end badly for the people in both countries if not resolved; and our leaders better hope that Canada doesn’t decide to sell most of its oil to China or Japan as one of their very-real options for retaliation against our country that would really hurt.  The last thing we need is to start an economic war with one of our biggest and closest trading partners and allies; since many of our ‘friends’ must be wondering whether there is even any difference anymore between being an ally or enemy of the United States!

On that note, we’re going to stop; wrap this up; and head off to our beds.  Stay tuned, since our lives are going to get very busy and interesting as we get an early start to our school year – at least from a football and cheer squad perspective!  We don’t actually have any doubts about making the team or squad, but we will see whether our football team will look better or worse heading into our first game of the season; and we also wish the best for our friends who are hoping to make the football team for the first time this year.  We’ll keep you posted on all of that news and everything else we have going on in our lives, but for now; we’re out of here and off to get rested up and ready for all of that fun!

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