Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 2, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 2^nd Birthday, Jeremiah Fletcher!

This is another early update because we’re going to be busy for the rest of the day and don’t expect to be doing any computing later tonight.  Since our last report, we had fun with the barbeque dinner, park play and babysitting with the next-gen kids, and our respective co-ed sleepovers with Naomi or Aiden.  Ethan and Naomi got to start the day with Mom and Dad, but Aiden and I managed to have fun too thanks to Tai Chi by the river with Cassie and Michael and then breakfast with Hailey and Leah.  We all got together for the rest of the chores we needed to get done ahead of the holiday weekend.  The work wasn’t newsworthy beyond getting it done; and then we’ve been playing this afternoon along with setting up tents for a camping night that we’re hosting for a large gang of teens and kids.

We have a fair number of incoming weekend guests arriving today and tonight; more will be arriving tomorrow; and we’re going to help out with the entertainment for the teens and kids.  So far today, Jayden has arrived with his parents; Chris and Sadie are here already too for some work they have planned for today and tomorrow; and the Malloys are inbound and will be here by dinnertime.  The top news for guests so far, though, is the arrival of Uncle Mark’s family.  Mom and Aunt Leanne helped with the airport run for them; since they needed passenger room for eleven.  They are here now; Uncle Mark’s sister and her family are staying in our family cottage while here; and his parents, brother, and his family are staying with him.  Kellum is the oldest of the ‘kids’ at nineteen, so he’ll likely hang out with Kaitlyn, Jeremy, and the other collegians, but we expect the four younger teens will hang out with us and our friends.  We’ll have more on that as we go along over the next four or five days, but we’ve barely talked with them so far – though they have been invited for the camping and we’ve set up the extra tents already too.

That brings us up to now and we’re really only inside to grab our camping gear before heading outside again.  The weather has been great, and while it is a bit hot right now; it will cool down into the mid-seventies tonight and be comfortable for the camping.  We’re waiting to vote on our evening entertainment, but expect outdoor movies to win out over a campfire; and are ready for either option.  Ethan and I do need to help out with either pre-cooking or kid-control now; so let’s wrap this up with just a quick world news report.

Ukraine was in the news thanks to a major missile and drone attack on Kiev and other cities across the country with widespread damage.  There were attacks into Russia too, but not to the same extent; and the escalations on both sides are bad news for everyone.  The frontlines news is terrible for Ukraine too, and if nothing changes soon; we will not be surprised to see Russia push far beyond the Donbass region – just as they’ve repeatedly warned over the past couple of years.  Western countries are definitely helping out more with the deeper strikes into Russia; and they are literally playing with fire as they anger more and more Russians and risk direct conflict and retaliations into their own countries.

The Middle East continues to be a disaster with no good news to offer, but western leaders and media don’t care about the truth and roll along with the never-ending cheerleading – whether that’s about peace talks that aren’t really happening or war-mongering.  We don’t need to rant on that this afternoon, but we continue to keep up with the news and sift through the nonsense; and hope for better while expecting the worst.  Venezuela is not in the news anymore, but the disaster recovery needs continue and are immense; and our family businesses and charities will continue to send support where we can.  We’re also keeping an eye on our own country this weekend for everything from economic impact for tourism and holiday travel to risks of violence during holiday events across the country.  We’ll again hope for the best, but recent history needs to be respected; since there have been significant attacks over most major holidays.

That isn’t a happy note to end this update on, but we need to get going now; so that’s all we have for today.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 1, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 26^th Birthday, Darryl Watts!

Happy Canada Day to all of the Canadians we’ll be meeting starting next week!

Let’s start with an admission that we haven’t been involved in Darryl’s special day – though Cassie, Michael, Rowen, and Tim did a joint breakfast vid-chat with their college friends and sent gifts.  The Canada Day best wishes are just for fun, so while we hope that Canadians have fun with their own national birthday celebration; we don’t think about many country-specific holidays for anywhere else other than our own country.  Don’t take that the wrong way, since we do know those details for most countries in the world – we just don’t try to keep up with those events everywhere.  We already have enough on the go just keeping up with local family-and-friends’ birthday and anniversary celebrations!

As for our own news of the day-so-far, we’ve been busy with chores all day ahead of the holiday weekend because our first incoming guests start arriving tomorrow and we’ll be busy through the holiday weekend and until we head out on our own trip.  The afternoon update is because we’re going to be busy for the rest of the day and then I’ll be with Aiden tonight and Naomi will be here with Ethan after the co-ed ball practices and next-gen babysitting we’re booked to do after the park play time.  We’ve skipped over the Tai Chi by the river, breakfast, snack lunch, and two swim breaks with our friends and cousins; and the actual chores details are not exciting or newsworthy so we won’t bore you with those stories!  We didn’t quite get everything done today, but needed to wrap up and get ready for the rest of our day; and we definitely are ready for some fun – even when that will include the babysitting work.  We’ll have the rest of our news from today included with our next update, but need to get going to help out with dinner prep work; so let’s wrap this up with a quick world news report.

That won’t take long because there isn’t any news that we want to write about today.  The Middle East and Ukraine remain horrific messes with no end in sight; financial markets continue to have little connection to reality; the global economy is still being decimated as shortages spread across supply chains; and our leaders and media pundits can’t stop being idiots – whether intentionally or not!

Ethan and I really do need to go now; so that’s all for this report.  Stay tuned, since our holiday weekend adventures start early and tomorrow; and we are going to do our very best to have another best-ever-so-far Fourth of July!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - June 30, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We definitely feel as though we are transitioning this summer toward a more-responsible future because we chose to work with our books or beakers all day while our younger cousins got to play all day.  Tai Chi by the river and breakfast made for a good start to our day; we got a lot done in my lab or Ethan’s archives; and then we only stopped in at home on the way to the ball practices Pizzeria pizza picnic dinner that we joined in on with family and friends before we then needed to move on to our teen praise team practice at the church.  This was our final practice ahead of the holiday weekend service – and the parade; we did a full run-through of the service including skits and bible readings; and then Ethan and I came home without company again tonight so that we could do some work and a Magi lesson in the office.  We used time phasing to get more done; the Magi lesson was mostly an experiment in alternatives for digital equipment manipulation.  Even with the time phasing, we still worked until a bit after eleven o’clock; bath or Jacuzzi time was wanted if not as-needed as the showers were yesterday; and that’s why it is again getting late – or early; since we’ve already switched from June to July.

The calendar transition hasn’t led to any changes for our world news report – though we can dream of seeing the impossible happen by morning!  There certainly weren’t any signs of actual good news for any of the major war or economic stories, and if anything; lines consider to harden on both sides regardless of the political or diplomatic talk to the contrary.  Since there isn’t news worth writing about from the Middle East or Ukraine; let’s comment on some other stories of the recent couple of days.  The disaster in Venezuela is unsurprisingly becoming a publicity opportunity for political messaging, and one story that annoyed us tries to link socialism with the collapsed public housing complexes that are among the buildings that were destroyed in the earthquakes.  We do not doubt that those buildings were sub-standard for an active earthquake zone, but we are also sure that socialism had little or nothing to do with why cheap housing was built at all when we know that most of the economic stresses in Venezuela have been caused by American sanctions and trade restrictions that have been in place for more than twenty-five years.  For a reminder, Venezuela has been ‘punished’ because their leaders had the audacity of demanding fair payment to their own people for their natural resources after previous decades of total exploitation.  Our advice won’t be heard by any of those politicians or journalists, but we will still suggest here that those leaders should try shutting up for a while and spend that time reading a few history books!

The heat wave in Europe isn’t the only reason for rising temperatures across the region, and while potential war expansions and economic stresses are causing problems too; the mass immigration that has been continuing for upwards of twenty years now is creating stresses that are tearing at the social fabric in all European countries.  Drastic changes to demographics are only statistics, and while the data is also a bit shocking; we are amazed by the politicians and ‘experts’ that are apparently clueless – or complicit – to the dangers that are ready to explode around them.  For example, one well-know feminist leader in Germany has suggested that Europeans stop having kids and embrace more migration.  We suggest that this woman go and live in one of the countries those migrants are fleeing for at least a few years; and let us know how that works out for her.  We’ll predict that a feminist extremist will not fare well in countries like Syria, Afghanistan, or any other country where women have second-class rights and citizenship.  On the other side of the immigration story, anti-immigration demands are rising in a lot of countries, and those efforts range from cutting or ending support subsidies to mass deportations.  With all of the unrest in the Middle East and in many African countries too; Europe should be more-worried about a new wave of mass migration – especially as basic resources become a bigger problem thanks to the war and impending food security problems that will be coming over the next year or two.

That all adds up to a lot of depressing news, and we want to have happier thoughts to go off to sleep with; so Ethan and I are going to wrap this up; turn our attention toward happier things like an amazing holiday weekend; and head off to our beds right now.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - June 29, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

We may be officially getting too-responsible and boring for our younger cousins to hang out with us!  Okay, that isn’t actually true, but we do have a gang of younger cousins camping with friends tonight while we’ve worked in the office with Mom and Dad after our ball practices; and didn’t want to join in on the camping fun tonight when we already have a lot going on every day this week.  For today, that started with Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom and Dad; we work-played at the lab or archives for the rest of the morning through to around one o’clock; and then we came home and met up with some friends and cousins for a few play hours this afternoon.  We made a picnic lunch; headed out on our bikes; and split our time between riding the trails, swimming, and just hanging out in the shade of a tree for some quality teen chat time.  Our four best friends were with us for dinner with Mom and Dad; we moved on to those ball practices we already mentioned; and then Ethan and I were on our own when we came home.  We’ve had another triple-digit high today, so getting into the cool of the house worked for us, but Mom had us get cleaned up first before joining our parents in the office – a not-at-all subtle statement of necessity over being polite; and the work and Magi lesson that we did after the showers was definitely more-pleasant for everyone in the room! ;^)

Our work on charity and family business projects mixed in again with world news; so let’s combine the two as we wrap up this report.  The disaster response in Venezuela is getting less media attention as usual for any story cycle, but the work is really just getting started; there are hundreds of thousands of people that will need extended and ongoing basic support for months or years; and the rebuilding will definitely take years after losing hundreds of buildings in the hardest hit regions.  There are other stories that we are watching and don’t like – including the ‘boots on the ground’ reports that suggest an ongoing American military presence in the country.  That is another very bad idea from our leaders if they are planning a back door invasion; and we definitely do not need to start another war or even an unwanted occupation.  Mom and Cassie have led some new work in Europe related to the heat wave there, but we have limits on aide when the problem is so widespread and also dispersed on an individual level for the most at-risk people.  We can help with low-income medical clinics and supporting groups that work with the elderly, children, or sick; and can only wish that we could do more for all of the people that don’t have the kinds of support they need and have to try and survive on their own.  The death toll attributed to the heat is now in the thousands, and that really does bother us when most of those deaths – and injuries – are preventable.

That brings us up to the wars report; since many of those other problems could have been solved if money had been spent on population support instead of military and weapons of all kinds.  Let’s include the earthquakes disaster for that, since all of those buildings that were destroyed could have been built better if Venezuela hadn’t needed to spend so much time and money on trying to defend itself from the United States and the economic, political, and military destruction that has been imposed on them for decades.  I feel a rant coming on, but don’t want to go there; so let’s move on.  We are hearing a report out of Ukraine that we hope proves to be wrong about nuclear materials that were sent there to be weaponized – and that Russia tracked and then bombed and destroyed.  If true, that is a horrific escalation by Ukraine and their western backers; we hope there isn’t any significant radiation risks in the area; and it is truly insane for any leaders to think that adding in nuclear dirty bombs or ‘tactical’ nukes into the war mix would be a good idea or have any chance of changing the outcome for what is happening in Ukraine.  Okay, they could make things far-worse, but you know what I meant; and best-case for us would be finding out that this story is just more propaganda.

As for the Middle East, the horrors inflicted by Israel on Gaza, the West Bank, and too-many of its’ neighbors rolls on; they really believe that they can kill and bomb their way to victory and the Greater Israel project; and the rest of the world continues to let them get away with never-ending genocide and war crimes.  We aren’t going to add individual stories to highlight those horrors tonight, but they are out there – if not in our own major media outlets; and we can assure you that God does not approve of what is happening in and around Israel.  Depending on the moment or latest report, the Strait of Hormuz either is or isn’t open; Iran and America continue to exchange fire and rhetoric as peace talks falter – again; and none of our leaders seem to be seriously trying to stop the still-growing and developing economic crises that are spreading across the world.  Ethan and I are not amused by inflation, but we did laugh at serious commentary about Apple product price increases related to raw materials shortages and price hikes; since that was getting more attention today than price increases on basic groceries and supplies that will be far more costly to daily budgets for most people!  For the record, we have those price pressures here in our little town, but we also do what we can to help everyone through our family businesses and charities; and we also have advantages in a small farming community that aren’t possible in cities – especially when it comes to local food; our solar and wind farm; and our ability to work together as a community.

Let’s stop there.  It is getting late, since we did put in a few hours of work in the office plus some time phasing; and we’re tired and ready to get some sleep.  There is only one day left in June, and we would like it to be a good one; so we’re out of here and off to rest up so we can be ready for all of the fun.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - June 28, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 26^th Birthday, Joshua Parker!

Cassie and Michael helped their friend with having a special day, but we only offered best wishes while at church; and had our own adventures for the rest of our day.  The top local news is the return of summer-hot weather with a high that topped triple digits for a few hours – though not quite soon-enough to have a heat-shortened church service.  Tai Chi was by the river; Ethan and I helped with the cooking and cleaning around the food fun with Mom and Dad; and then our time at church and Sunday school included prep work for the holiday weekend service that the teens will lead next Sunday.  By the time we came home, we had plans for a bike ride to Quarry Lake, so we got changed, packed a picnic lunch and other day camp gear; and met up with a gang of family and friends for the bike ride to our favorite local campground.  Thanks to the upcoming holiday weekend, Quarry Lake has a lot of campers staying for the week on vacation and the hot weather brought out a lot of day campers; so we didn’t even try to do as much this afternoon as usual to avoid line-ups for favorite activities.  We did have fun with a lot of water play; shared some of the fun with next-gen cousins and other kids that were brought out by parents or other adults to get a little break from the heat too; and then we eventually biked home in time for dinner.  Some of our gang were going on to the Inn for one of the buffets after we got back, but Ethan and I had another quiet meal with Mom and Dad.  We traded campground stories; the teens in the house pretended not to sense how much Dad still loves quality time with Mom in a swimsuit; and we were glad that there weren’t any jokes today about Michael getting Cassie and Mom mixed up because he wasn’t there today at all while busy with Joshua’s birthday celebration and some of his nieces and nephews.  We all pitched in for the clean-up; did some work in the office that was again mostly related to disaster relief in Venezuela; and then it was bath or Jacuzzi time for at least three of us – and we’ll again pretend that we don’t know that Dad lost all ability to concentrate on his own work and went to ‘help’ Mom with her Jacuzzi break!  That is definitely too much info for their kids; so let’s wrap this up with the world news update.

Peace was definitely off this weekend, but we expect regular flip-flops on that as long as insiders can continue to front-run the markets and make hundreds of millions of dollars on the wild price fluctuations.  That’s very cynical, but there really doesn’t seem to be many leaders that care about what is actually happening around the world – whether the disasters are natural or man-made.  No, Ethan, I am not being sexist – there are no woman-made disasters because we can always find at least one man to blame things on!  He was only thinking that, but I couldn’t resist commenting too.

Moving along, there have been more exchanges of missiles and drones between Iran and the United States; the fighting in Lebanon continues; and none of this surprises us when we didn’t expect the peace deal to work at all with so many forces working to undermine and destroy it.  The Ukraine war continues to be ugly too; and there have been some terrible stories coming out about how badly the Ukrainian soldiers are being treated by their commanders – including reports of deaths in training camps; lack of basic food and supplies on the front lines; and the horrific tactics being used by the press gangs to kidnap – draft – new recruits.

While all of that is going on, most western countries have leaders and media focusing on trivial or idiotic stories to distract the masses from reality.  Okay, that isn’t totally true, since there are some serious issues getting attention too – like the heat wave in Europe and the Venezuela earthquakes, but there are all of those pointless distractions too; and we mostly mention that because we are stuck wasting a certain amount of time every day sifting through the trash to get to the truth for the news that actually matters.  A lot of people joke about having A.I. take over for reporters and politicians, but if they’d let Mom program all of those digital leaders and media personalities; we’re not totally opposed to the concept! ;^)

Okay, we are obviously getting too-tired to continue this report; so that’s all for tonight and the weekend.  We have a very busy week ahead leading up to the holiday fun; so we definitely want to rest up while we can to be ready for all of those adventures.

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