Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 11, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 4^th Birthday, Hannah Sinclair!

We weren’t really in on Hannah’s birthday fun today, and we have a lot to write about; so let’s get to the rest of our festival weekend news.

Ethan and I had a lot of fun from dinnertime on Saturday that we did with a gang of family and friends through the dance and our co-ed sleepover that really didn’t end up including Jayden and Lori for the co-ed nap time – though they had fun with the co-ed cuddle time, teen chat, and music videos that we had fun with through until we were ready to sleep.  The family dance and more rounds of thrill rides and games and snacks were all great; and it was sharing everything with our favorite people that is most-important – as always.  We haven’t specified many of the details for all of the cameo moments that go into the overall fun, but we really can’t write about everything; since that would fill books to do that all of the time.  We’ve joked about just turning our memories into videos, but nobody would have time to watch all of our memories all of the time; so that would be very impractical – not to mention very expensive if we all did that for our journals!  That would be a lot of data storage space; so we’ll stick with the written reports.

That got a bit off-track, so some of our personal highlights from those cameo moments included fun with the next-gen kids; our grandparents; and Cassie and Michael.  We haven’t mentioned it yet, but Grandma and Grandpa head for Arizona tomorrow too; and we definitely didn’t get to spend enough time with them while busy with everything else we have on the go.  We do, by the way, see them fairly-often, but those are mostly cameo moments around town or home; so they don’t get mentioned in our journals very often right now.  After our co-ed sleepover; we woke up at normal time for Tai Chi by the river; Lori didn’t join us, but was awake and enjoyed the show from the sunroom with Jayden; and then we had a hot breakfast that the teens helped to cook and clean up after while taking turns getting ready for church.  Jayden and Lori went along with the rest of us when we needed to be at the park for the service set-up; and we can report that Lori both appreciated our music and has musical talent too; since she played along with us a bit during set-up and warm-ups.  Jayden loves music, but isn’t really interested in learning to play an instruments and only sings for fun; since he is more-focused on his art talent that will help him a lot with his future plans to be an Architect like his Dad.  Since we’re writing about Jayden, let’s again mention that he also isn’t interested in high school sports teams, but is a decent athlete; and plays some court sports and golf and swimming and more – just not on any teams.

While we helped with the music for the service, the teens didn’t do a full holiday service with skits and more; so Pastor John led more of the service and his message was a mix of harvest thanksgiving and celebrating our blessings.  We moved on from there to some midway play time; lunch was not a sit-down event and we snacked while we played and shared more cameo moments with family and friends.  Ethan and Naomi took one turn at the fundraiser booth; Aiden and I took a different time slot; and we had some next-gen kid time when not all together – including helping Cassie and Michael with the nieces and nephews they’ve entertained a lot this weekend before they’ll be gone for around six weeks.  The weekend guests at cottages or elsewhere headed home by late afternoon – unless they stayed for the early buffet, but we came home and helped Mom and Dad with cooking a family dinner that was mostly for Cassie and Michael and Grandma and Grandpa before they head out tomorrow.  Since they’ll be gone, we multi-tasked an early birthday celebration for Zack; and we mostly did that with the kids and teens in the sunroom while the adults were mostly in the dining room to have room for everyone.  That meal was a highlight for all of us; the clean-up was not as much fun; and we didn’t have a lot of help for that; since most of the dinner guests headed home soon-after the meal.  Cassie and Michael needed to get their next-gen kids to their homes – including a drive out to the Norton farms.  Grandma and Grandpa headed home to finish packing for their trip and get to bed early; and after the clean-up; Ethan, Silkie, and I walked Naomi and Aiden to their homes for a last blast of fun with them before we moved on to bath or Jacuzzi time.  Mom didn’t want to do any family business work or a Magi lesson with us tonight, and while the fun level will drop a bit for us next week; we’re still going to be busy – and busier; since we’ll be adding in help to take care of Cassie and Michael’s house while they’re away.  That’ll be true for Grandma and Grandpa’s house, but that isn’t much work for us by comparison; and they don’t have the added help needed for pets.  The clean-up time was needed by then; and we’ve been doing a longer computer check tonight to go along with all of the twin chat that has included a weekend recap and plans for the coming week.

Western leaders and media are focused on President Trump’s latest claims of an ‘energy ceasefire’ for Ukraine on top of the previous ‘diesel deal’ he’s claimed to have made with Russia.  We’ll predict that this is another nothingburger, since Ukrainian leaders are claiming that no such deal has been made; and European leaders are continuing to back Ukraine while denouncing any American deals with Russia.  That news might move market prices for a while – we’ll see, but we think that the bigger story from the top two wars is the Ansar Allah missile attacks on Riyadh’s international airport that have now targeted two of the passenger terminals with at least twelve people killed and hundreds wounded.  That will only lead to more escalations in that part of the Middle East war; and the people in the region will continue to suffer more and more for however long it takes for the leaders to figure out that they are only destroying their own futures – as well as the futures for everyone in their countries.  More tankers are being hit in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend; and claims from American leaders about total control of the strait are obviously nonsense and flat-out lies.

While the wars continue to get top headlines, there have also been a lot of natural disasters over the weekend too.  We’ve mentioned the Hurricane that hit Florida and the remnants of that storm continue to dump rain on the eastern States; the Panama earthquake and aftershocks have been worse; and now we can add major flash floods to the mix in Chile and Nepal.  In Chile, rivers of mud blasted through a suburb of the Capital, Santiago; and the videos coming out are wild as cars, trucks, and buses were shoved down the streets in torrents of water and mud that blasted down out of the Andes mountains with little advance warning.  They are heading into spring in Chile, so we really hope that won’t be a first of worse to come over the next month or two as the usual spring melt in the mountains begins.  The last thing Nepal needs is more flash flooding, but even with winter on the way; they are apparently still in danger of more glacier collapse and rock slides and flash floods; and the devastation for the locals will only make winter much harder for them.  Mom will be looking to send more help that way, but even with our resources; we still have limits.

That is far from all of the news of the weekend, but we’ve thought about all of that enough for tonight and really want to get a good night of sleep; so we’re going to wrap this up and get to the nap time right now.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 10, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

This update is coming to you during an afternoon break so that we can get ready for dinner and the evening at the park, and we’re also getting the third floor ready for another teen night that will only be co-ed for some of us; since we’re sure that Jayden and Lori will not be joining in on the co-ed naps whenever we get around to those adventures.  We have a lot of news to cover since the last report, though, so let’s get started.

Ethan led his team to another win last night over Westburg with three of our seven touchdowns and a lot of yards after his catches.  Yes, Miles threw the five touchdown passes, but he doesn’t need help with his ego; and has his record thanks to very talented receivers.  Aiden had the other two passing touchdowns; Aaron had two more on the ground; and our team coasted to the end of the game with four field goals while Westburg only managed one touchdown and two field goals.  We loved the great game-time weather; had a decent turnout despite the fall festival action; and then we wrapped up at the school as quickly as we could so that we were at the park while the teen dance was really just getting going.  There were a lot of Westburg teens there too; we mixed in some dancing with another round of midway thrill rides; and there were a lot of cameo moments – especially for the football stars on our team.  Ethan got more attention that Naomi liked, but then she’s very popular too; and Ethan is very glad that he will never have to worry about that sort of thing – even when Naomi appreciates the attention from some of those guys with no problem related to her personal double standards!  We stayed until the park closed for the night; and then we brought our four best friends home with us for a co-ed sleepover.  We watched a Halloween movie and wound down with some teen chat and cuddle time first; didn’t get to sleep until very late; and were tired when we woke up this morning.  Magi healing was an option, but we should mention that Jayden and Lori stayed at his family cottage last night; since we didn’t get around to inviting them to join us until after they already had their own plans.

After the fatigue healing session, Tai Chi by the river and a hot breakfast worked for us; we did some morning chores, but just the minimum needed to get us through to next weekend; and then we’ve spent the rest of the day at the festival with family and friends.  We’ll add that Aiden was at the bakery for those chores hours; since they are having a busy weekend at the store and he’s back there while we’re doing this too – though he isn’t being drafted for full-time weekend work yet.  That will likely change after football season, but we’ll let you know about that if he starts working there the way that Cassie and Michael used to work at the Inn when our age.  As for the actual festival fun; we checked out the exhibits tents; caught two stage shows; and spent the rest of the time with thrill rides and midway games.  There was a bit of kiddie rides time with next-gen kids, but we haven’t done as much of that this year; and we also spent an hour at the marching band fundraising booth.  We’ll be doing another hour tonight during the family dance, but we’ll still have lots of time for more rides, dancing, and cameo visits with family and friends.  Those stories can wait for our festival weekend wrap-up report tomorrow night, and need to get back to the park soon; so let’s do the world news report and move on.

Western media seems to have chosen the ‘diesel deal’ between Presidents Trump and Putin as the top story of the weekend, but we think that will be a nothingburger – especially if Ukraine continues to attack Russian refineries and ports and tankers as they continued to do just hours after President Trump announced that deal.  We think that the Ukraine and Middle East wars are still bigger stories; Hurricane Isaias is leave a mess behind as it blasts through the southeast on its way to the northeastern States; and the major earthquake in Panama and severe aftershocks have devastated yet another Central American country as the entire region has been an extremely active earthquake zone this year.  Add in the protests and riots in France and Europe and all of the economic and social stresses that continue to grow around the world; and it really does seems silly for our leaders and media to make such a big deal over a deal that is also for amounts that are relatively-small compared to world daily demand while also being contingent on capacity to deliver when the refineries and infrastructure are under attack every day.  Let’s also add that Ukraine couldn’t launch those attacks without the support of America and the rest of their western allies; so the entire story could just end up being another political game and attempt to manipulate markets instead of actually solving any problems.

That’s cynical, and we need to get back to being happy; so that’s all for today.  Stay tuned, since there is still a lot of fall festival fun to be had; and we’ll get back to living those adventures!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 9, 2026

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 4^th Birthday, Emma Jacobs!

Our cousin is definitely having a happy day at the fall festival, and while we’ll miss out on her birthday dinner at the park; she has lots of support from family and friends; and will be having a sleepover later tonight with her friends after they eventually leave the park and festival.  We might see her again after the football game, but that’ll depend on whether they run out of energy before or after the game.

As for our adventures, Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom and Dad made for a happy start to our day; and we’ve been playing at the festival since then – even while we took turns at the marching band fundraiser booth.  The thrill rides and midway fun kept us busy for most of the rest of the day until now; and we’re home to change and get ready for the football game.  We’re playing Westburg; they’ve been here with a few bus loads of fellow students and fans to take advantage of the fall festival opportunities; and we’re glad that they’ve had some fun; since we’ll try to make sure that they don’t have too much fun at the game!

We’ll have more on the festival news over the next few updates, but we need to get to the school soon; so we need to get this update written and move on.  We do want to mention that we spent some time with Emma this morning; only had a couple of cameo visits with Dawn and David; and that was a trend for a lot of our time with family and friends.  Dawn and David will be heading back to Woodvale before we’ll get back to the park, so we won’t see them again until whenever they get back to town again – and that might not happen before sometime around Christmas.  We will spend more time with the Malloys and our visiting family; and that brings us to a teen drama story for Jayden.  He’s brought a girlfriend home for the first time, and we’ve had a decent first impression of Lori – Lorelei – Griffin while the drama is coming from at least a few girls around our age who might have been wishing that Jayden was still single!  They haven’t been dating for long – just a few weeks, but Jayden does obviously like Lori a lot; and the feeling is obviously mutual.  We’ll have more on that story too, but let’s also add that spending the extra day here was really all about mixing fun with work for Uncle Blaine and Uncle Terry; and they had meetings this morning and afternoon that were mostly about the newest construction projects and plans for work that can still be done or prepped for during the winter months.

Ethan and I really need to get going soon; so let’s wrap this up with a quick world news report.  In the Middle East, the top stories are Houthi attacks on Saudi airports and energy infrastructure along with reports of them mining the strait to keep ships away from Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea while Iran is hitting more tanker ships that don’t have their permission to transit the Strait of Hormuz.  In Ukraine, the war continues with the heavy attacks on Ukraine, the drone attacks into Russia, and terrible conditions on the front lines for all involved.  The protests in France and Europe roll on with anger and rage building as the crackdowns by governments and police infuriate the people.  Finally, for today, Hurricane Isaias will be hitting the Florida panhandle on the Gulf Coast tonight, and while it might be a bit stronger than forecast; it will also likely weaken fast tonight as forecast too; so we can’t predict how much damage will happen along the path of the storm through the weekend.  Mom and Cassie have done some work to position some aide to the region, but then that hasn’t been a major challenge, since we have charities and networks prepared for far-worse storm seasons than we’ve had this year; so those resources should be more than what will be needed when that’s true for all groups involved in hurricane relief work.

We’ll have more on that story this weekend too, but that’s all for this afternoon; and we’re out of here and back to having fall festival and football fun starting right now.

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

 

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 8, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

This has been a long, busy, and un day, but we also need to get some sleep to be ready for the fall festival weekend and the football game tomorrow night; so this will be a short update – unless I drag it out with another commentary rant that I really want to offer tonight as world leaders seem to get dumber every day!

Instead of starting in on that, Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom and Dad were good; our lessons and studies were better thanks to some bonus outdoor time; and then our football and cheer squad practices went well and were better with another mid-eighties high and lots of sunshine.  We’re ready for the game tomorrow night, and we’re glad that it is a home game; since we will still get to spend a lot of time at the park and festival – including after the game for the teen dance.  The rest of our day since those practices included a family dinner at the Inn that was mostly for Dawn and David; since he won’t be here for a Sunday buffet; and he did get to try a Jake Stone specialty that more than made up for the missed buffet that they can’t do because they’ll be back in St. Louis by Sunday night.  We had fun with the bonus meal at the Inn; stayed for game night; and Naomi and Ethan won the junior title.  For the record, Dawn and David only managed to finish ninth for the senior competition.  We collected Silkie along the way to walking Naomi and Aiden to their homes; Mom didn’t want to do any extra work or a Magi lesson tonight; so bath or Jacuzzi time followed soon after we got home with Silkie.  Now we’re wrapping up the computer checks and twin chat time; so let’s wrap this up with a short world news report.

Both wars continue to go badly, but President Trump claims that he will not attack Iran again before the mid-term elections.  We – and Iran – should not believe that; since he lies about nearly everything and this could be another fake-out attempt as has been done in the past.  Instead of ranting on those wars; let’s mention that the protests and riots in France and elsewhere in Europe are growing and worsening; and that could become a bigger problem as governments and police continue to crack down.  Examples of stories that are infuriating people include a teen that has had an eye shot out by a police rubber bullet and another teen that got a hand blown off by some kind of police grenade.  There are a lot of stories to explain the outrage, but another one that caught our attention was from Spain and an old woman who died after losing a years-long battle to stay in the rent-controlled apartment she’d lived in for over seventy years and was forcibly evicted strapped to a stretcher last month.  That will not likely end well for the greedy real estate developers involved, but maybe we’re wrong about that; since that person could have all of the heartless qualities needed to be the leader of Spain.  That worked for President Trump!

Finally, before I do change my mind and go ahead with a rant; we’ll mention that ‘we’ are getting our first Atlantic Hurricane of the season heading toward the Gulf Coast, and while it isn’t likely going to affect our weather here at home; this is going to be a bad-weather weekend for that area and then up through to the east coast as it blasts through toward the northeast.  Forecasts are still a bit divergent, so it could be another day or more before we know for sure where it will head once it make landfall Friday night or early Saturday morning.  The other weather story for our country is form the northwest, and after near-record highs this week; a cold front is on the way and some places could see snow by Sunday or Monday to go along with forty or fifty degree drops in temperatures.  We’ll get a cool-down too, but not until late next week; and not to the level of winter weather.  This current heat wave is unusual, though, so we’ll enjoy it while it lasts; and be okay with the more-normal fall weather as it returns to our area.

We’ll stop there, since we really do need the sleep now; so we’re out of here and off to dreamland.  The fun level is definitely going to kick up a few notches by morning, so stay tuned; and we’ll have at least some of those stories for you with our next report.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 7, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We are going to enjoy the hot, sunny weather for as long as we get to do that, but should note that hitting ninety degrees a week into October is unusual for our area of the country.  Let’s add that our regional weather reporters are not complaining about the near-record highs and all of the beautiful sunshine; and we’ll predict that they will happily fear-monger any extreme bad weather we’ll get this winter and try to make it sound worse than it is whenever possible!

The weather continues to get a lot of local attention and the farmers are still very happy, but our own top news of the day is that Dawn and David are here and have spent most of the day with Violet, Dillon, and their kids – though they’re staying with Cassie and Michael each night.  We haven’t actually seen them today, but that’s because we’ve been busy with our practices and they’ve been busy with family and friends.  Our day really has been busy from Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom and Dad through our academic adventures and to now after our teen praise team practice tonight that was all about getting ready for the music support we’re going to do at the fall festival Sunday service that is tentatively going to be at the park if the weather forecast holds.  We had our football and cheer squad practices after school; Ethan and I hosted the dinner and studying between practices; and we took Silkie for a walk after the practice at the church that was a longer walk with Naomi and Aiden too because we wandered over to the north side of the river and took that path instead of the shortest way to their homes.

Mom did a Magi lesson with us after we got home; we did a bit of work in the office while Dad was wrapping up his homework too; and then we headed upstairs for a late bath or Jacuzzi break that we just finished before getting started on our twin chat and computer checks.  We’ve had a good day and are tired; so let’s wrap this up with the world news report and then call it a night.

Let’s start with the Ukraine war tonight, since the attacks on Ukraine got a lot of attention because of the targets that Russia hit ranging from more bridges to warehouses and data centers.  Ukraine is hitting back with their drones, but not with very much success by comparison; and the hits they are suffering are doing damage that will take decades to recover from – and that can’t really get started until the war ends.  There are reports of citizens moving out of Kiev ahead of winter, and that’s good news from our perspective; since large parts of that city might be uninhabitable this winter.  The biggest current problem for Ukraine, though, could be those bridge hits, since if they can’t be used for heavy transport or trains; they will have major issues with sending supplies to the front lines.  A collapse of their forces will be inevitable if they run out of ammunition – not to mention the issues with having food and fresh water.  No, we are not predicting a timeline for the end of the war; since we can’t rule out escalations led by NATO; since ‘our’ leaders really can’t accept the reality of what is actually happening and might refuse to accept the defeat of their proxy.

There is news for the Middle East too, but what exactly will happen remains to be seen as Saudi Arabia is demanding that their new Mecca alliance join in on the fight against Yemen.  We’re not sure how much Turkey and Pakistan will actually help them and they may get help from the Syrian forces that took over the parts of that country that Israel and Turkey didn’t take for themselves.  We think that is a dumb idea for the Syrian former-terrorists; since they already have enough trouble in their own country; and this could just give Israel the opening to take over more of Syria.  Then again, those forces are what is left of ISIS and other terrorist groups that wanted to create a caliphate that included Iraq and Syria and more; so maybe they’ve set their sights on the entire Arabian Peninsula!  Our leaders were happy to help them out with taking Syria; so maybe they’d like that plan too.  There is sure to be more to come for the Middle East story, but the tensions are rising and the conflict could blow up if everyone in the region gets directly involved.  Iran didn’t get as much attention today, but that part of the conflict is simmering and on the brink of boiling over; and our leaders should not count on Iran waiting around to respond to the next round of attacks, and with all of the threats directed against them; striking first this time might be in their best interest.  We wish that all sides would back down, but that seems very unlikely; so we’ll wait to see just how bad it will get before there is any chance to have the fighting stop.

That’s enough for tonight.  We’ve had a good day, but it is late; and we really need to get some sleep – especially when we only have one school day to go before the fall festival!  We definitely want to be at full-power for that; so we’re out of here and off to nap time right now.

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