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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 1^st Birthday, Aaron Landry!

Happy 27^th Birthday, Paul Sparks!

Note to us – do not sign up for Halloween night babysitting in the future if that also comes with the annual fall time change!  Yes, we can deal with a one-hour time adjustment, but we really didn’t get much sleep last night; and we are sure that the parents of the kids we took care of really appreciate our help with the first night of sugar overload that kept their angels bouncing off the walls until the wee hours of this morning.  Don’t take that the wrong way, since we had fun with the kids – from the trick-or-treating time when we were handing out candy to the video gaming, Halloween movies, and play time we had with all of the kids that spent the night with us.  Mom and Dad had fun at the pub after the trick-or-treating; got home before the time change – even after helping with designated driver duty; and were sleeping more than an hour before the babysitters in the house got started on nap time.

The kids were up early this morning despite the late night, and while that helped a bit with getting ready for church and feeding our overnight guests; it didn’t really help that it felt like it was an hour later than it was by the time we got to church and handed off the kids – so it was probably a good thing that we had Sunday school today; since we might have fallen asleep during Pastor John’s sermon.  That might be an exaggeration, but we can assure you that some naps did happen during the sermon; since we heard all about those stories at lunch with Mom and Dad.  Ethan and I were on our own for that meal with our parents; and then we opted to head for the lab to work-play with our books or beakers – even though it was a really nice, sunny afternoon; and many of our cousins and friends went out to play while we were working.  We used time phasing to do more work; came home in time for a late dinner; did a bit of work and a Magi lesson in the office; and then we moved on to an early bath or Jacuzzi break before getting around to this journal update and the rest of our usual nightly computer checks and twin chat fun.  We’re getting tired, since the lack of sleep last night, the time change, and the extra hours we’ve had thanks to the time phasing are all adding up on us; so let’s get to the travel and world news updates and then call it a night.

Cassie and Michael are starting their Monday as we’re writing this, and while we haven’t mentioned the time zone gap very much; they have been jumping time zones as they’ve crossed Africa from west to east.  Adding in our fall time change; and they’ve now jumped several hours from where they started on the west coast.  Along with the work and driving they’ve been doing; Cassie and Michael did a bit of sightseeing on Sunday that included visiting a wildlife sanctuary that our family business and charities help to support.  Yes, that was work too, but unofficially; since they didn’t reveal the connection and wanted to get the ‘real’ look at the place without any staging for promotional or fundraising purposes.  They got to see quite a few of the best-known African animals in the wild; and no, Cassie did not try to use her Magi talents to play with the big kitties or other wild animals!  They’ll be continuing their work in Kenya for a few more days with a lot of that work happening around Nairobi; and then they’ll work their way north toward Somalia and Ethiopia as they head into the weekend.

On the world news front, the protests and riots in Europe have gained a lot of attention as they continue to spread; and Germany was added to the list of countries dealing with the damage being done by the mobs that are protesting bad governments and the deepening economic crises.  The destruction in Ukraine continues and is far-worse, but getting less attention in the western media because ‘our’ side can’t admit just how badly the war is going for Ukraine.  Over the weekend, the Russian attacks rolled on with more bridges being hit and more ships trying to haul weapons and other freight for Ukraine being targeted in the Black Sea.  We’ll guess that those ships were mostly dealing with weapons; since shipping companies should be staying far away from Ukraine when the risks to their ships and cargoes are so high.  Ukraine’s leaders continue to cling to their delusions of grandeur while their country literally burns; so the peace talks will still be going nowhere as long as they continue to believe that they can continue to enrich themselves at the expense of their citizens.

There isn’t much news out of the Middle East, but everyone is waiting to find out whether the hot war with Iran will resume or not this week.  The odds of that happening before the midterms are going down the closer we get to Tuesday while a big loss for the Republicans might increase the risks after them; since President Trump will have nothing to lose when he can’t run for a third term.  We can only wait to see what will happen and be ready to help where we can regardless of how badly our world leaders mess up our economy and world.

As for our own lives, we’ll be transitioning from Halloween and fall fun to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The football playoffs begin on Friday and our opponent with be Three Rivers; we have home team advantage at least for the first couple of rounds; and our team is going to be ready to play our best by game day.  That will keep us busy along with everything else we have on the go; so we expect to have long, full days through to the end of the year.  Stay tuned; since we hope that this will be another best-ever-so-far kind of holiday season!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 31, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 1^st Birthday, Natalia Ayres!

Congratulations, J.J. Johnson and Taylor White – You’re Married!

Let’s begin by thanking Naomi for writing the last two updates for us – though she did have ulterior motives for doing that while with Ethan on Thursday night and didn’t actually give me any choice on Friday afternoon.  Her perspective isn’t really all that much different from mine, but the break from my focus on more-serious topics is worth showing in our journals now and then.

Our adventures since that last report have included some amazing experiences – some of them all-new to us.  The top news is that our team won the game over Pinehurst and completed the undefeated regular season.  Ethan led the way with four of our eight touchdowns; Aiden and Aaron each had two of the other four touchdowns; and our defense improved quite a bit from a week ago – though Pinehurst still scored two touchdowns and two field goals.  The ‘first’ for us was after the game when we went to the Pinehurst high school Halloween dance.  Yes, we’ve had other school students attend dances at our school – or at the fall festival; but being on the other side of that was different with extra entertainment thanks to the fact that our team won the game.  The Pinehurst students only had a bit of scary fun at our expense, but there wasn’t anything malicious about that; and we went along with the jokes and faux-threats that were all related to Hollywood horror movie themes where unsuspecting teens came to bad endings.

There was a time limit for staying at the dance – including for the teens that needed to get rides home.  In my case, Mom and Dad went out with some of the other parents to a Pinehurst tavern while waiting for their kids; and then I got to drive home – though that was not as a designated driver; since Dad did not have any adult drinks.  We still got home ahead of the team bus; so Naomi, Sophia, and I had the lounge set up for our co-ed sofa sleepover by the time our boys caught up with us.  Mom and Dad only joined us for a bedtime visit; we stayed up way too late with a Halloween movie, teen chat, and co-ed cuddling; and only had time for a very short nap before we got up again today as normal for Tai Chi by the river.

Fatigue healing was needed – including for Mom and Dad; so we did that as a group before heading outside for that workout.  We had a hot breakfast; and then cleaned up and got started on the fall clean-up chores day.  That’s what we’ve been doing since then to now with one break for a snack lunch; and now we’re getting cleaned up and ready for the Halloween trick-or-treating.  We worked at five homes and two cottages; a lot of the work was done on lawn tractors with various attachments; and we should mention that while we’re doing the work for Cassie and Michael at their house; they have added some lawn equipment tech that makes our overall work easier – including a double mulcher-bagger vacuum attachment for their lawn tractor that adds to our abilities for getting leaves cleaned up and bagged with minimal raking required.  Naomi and Aiden worked with us while Sophia and Aaron worked with their families; attending his cousin’s wedding ceremony; and they will be doing their own thing for the rest of the day too.

Aiden and I are going to be handing out treats at Cassie and Michael’s house tonight; Ethan and Naomi will do the same here; and then we’ll be babysitting a gang of kids here while most of our favorite parents go out to the Halloween party at the pub that will start around the same time that the trick-or-treating ends.  We’ll be keeping most of those kids overnight; and we do not need to comment on any kid-free nights that some of those parents will be getting while we’re watching over their little angels!  We’ll choose that over the Halloween gaming night Zack is hosting for the tween guys; and Leah is hosting a girls’ night at her house that isn’t only to ‘save’ Brianna from being at home with Zack and the other guys.  Those stories can wait, but we need to move along; since we will be having a Pizzeria pizza dinner soon before the kids will be hitting the streets en-masse in search of the treats that will keep them in sugar overload heaven through to Thanksgiving.

Before we move on to the travel update for Cassie and Michael and the world news of the past few days; I want to include a few local details that didn’t get covered by Naomi.  Since she didn’t mention game night at the Inn, you know that we didn’t go while at Aiden’s party instead, but that was also true for most of the teens that do go there regularly; and that helped Brianna and Faith as they moved up the ranks and won the junior title for the week!  Brianna was very happy about that; and enjoyed teasing Naomi and Ethan about whether it was worth the trade-off to miss out on the championship opportunity.  Naomi assured her that it was definitely worth it; and suggested that Brianna might be able to relate sometime within the next few years!  I also want to mention that while Aiden and I were very happy by Friday morning and there really were jokes about him being messed up ahead of the game; Naomi and Ethan had more fun with their alone time on Thursday night and we don’t need to detail why.  She did mention that Aiden and I got to have the better breakfast, but while the assumption by our friends would normally be that we had bakery treats; the real reason is that we cooked up that special breakfast – and then needed to deal with the bigger clean-up too.

Cassie and Michael are in Kenya now as we’re writing this; they really did blast through Uganda with a lot of work stops and hours of driving time that kept them going from before dawn to late each night.  They haven’t really allowed much time for sightseeing, but do plan on a bit of extra fun while in Kenya.  The daily sun-rain cycles continue, and while it is still warmer there than here; it is a bit cooler than it was when they started the trip on the west coast of Africa.  They’re about half-way through this trip now; so we hope that they will try to get a bit of rest over the next few days before they’ll get back to the non-stop, heavy work schedule.

On the world news front, maybe we should think of current events as being Halloween-worthy nonsense; since our political leaders seem to be stuck in a groundhog day scenario where they just repeat every day and try to fumble their way toward breaking the repeat-loop and find a way past the wars and other challenges that are only getting worse with every bad decision.  In Ukraine, peace has been on and off every day depending on who you listen to on either side; and the death and destruction continues with the most-serious damage continuing to be on Ukrainian infrastructure.  Russian refineries and other targets are still getting hit too, but while that is serious; it is also minor compared to what is happening to Ukraine.  The same is true in the Middle East – though most of the talk is about an imminent resumption of the ‘hot’ war with Iran and the threats being issued on both sides while no serious peace talks are happening at all.  Doing that attack on Iran will only make things worse; and this terrible ‘loop’ will continue.  That could also still happen before the midterm elections; and there is more speculation about that since President Trump canceled a major appearance for an election rally in one of the swing States that has pundits speculating that the attack on Iran is imminent.  If that happens; we’ll predict that it won’t be helpful to the Republican candidates – especially if that leads to major civilian casualties and a major retaliation from Iran.

Ethan and I really need to get going to have that pizza dinner with Mom, Dad, and the little gang they’re hosting; so that’s all for this report.  Let’s hope that our insane leaders do not try for any Halloween ‘tricks’ with our military forces; though we certainly won’t be surprised by any even-lower depths of despicable from our President.  We won’t have any serious trick risks here at home tonight, but we do hope to have fun with all of the kids and teens that we’ll share the fun with either while handing out treats or taking care of the next-gen kids after that.  We’ll have all of those stories for you sometime tomorrow night; so stay tuned for that while we get started on living the scary-fun adventures.

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

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

 

Naomi and Ehlana:

Yes, I’m back for a second update in a row – and that’s entirely to make sure that Ehlana doesn’t spend much time on this today.  We need to head to Pinehurst soon, and her parents are driving us – and Sophia and Samantha; so we don’t have much time for this break anyway.  As far as I’m concerned, the top news of the day is that Ehlana and I did very well with our respective co-ed sleepovers; and our friends teased us about getting into trouble if our boys are too-dazed to play well in the game tonight!  I think that’s an awesome compliment – even though we know that Ethan and Aiden will be ready to play tonight and won’t be affected by the late night and lack of sleep.  Okay, we each used some Magi-powered fatigue healing this morning, but why let that get in the way of the entertainment?

Before we wrap this up, I’ll add that we did our own Tai Chi workouts this morning – and with parents for Ethan and me; Ehlana and Aiden had the better breakfast; and our school day was great with the highlight being the class Halloween parties; the Haunted House in the gym, and the work we helped with all morning for the haunted house set-up.  We did not help with actually working in the Haunted House this year, but we did help with some of the younger kids; so our time at the class party was mostly just during the pizza lunch break and another snack break near to the end of the school day.

That’s all for this report.  Sophia and Samantha will be here soon and we want to be in Pinehurst in time to have dinner before the game; so all other news can wait for tomorrow – or Sunday; since we’re going to be busy all day on Halloween too.

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

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

 

Naomi and Ethan:

Happy 15^th Birthday, Aiden!

Ehlana is hopefully having fun celebrating the rest of Aiden’s birthday with their co-ed sofa sleepover at his house!  I have plans for that sort of fun with Ethan; so we will only be offering a few of the news highlights for today and then I’ll make sure that Ethan has better things to do!

For Aiden, getting to join the driver’s club has been a highlight for his day – though he didn’t get to enjoy that for more than a little drive back to school after passing the tests.  Ehlana went to his house for breakfast this morning, but we didn’t all do that with him; since his Dad was at the bakery early anyway.  Ethan and I did help with more birthday fun at school – including during our lunch break; and then his dinner party couldn’t start until after our cheer squad and football practices.  We all put in a bit of extra work ahead of the final regular season game; since the guys really wanted to keep the undefeated record; and then we headed for Aiden’s house with most of our friends.  Aiden’s parents had extra help for the dinner and party prep work – including from my future mother-in-law; some of our favorite parents were there for dinner too; and the meal and usual birthday fun was all great.  We followed up the dinner with clean-up help for some of us – though not Aiden and Ehlana; and then the party rolled on until around ten-thirty with the entertainment highlights including Halloween movies, video gaming, and teen chat time.

I came home with Ethan; we did a little visit with his parents; and now we’re ready to get started on that co-ed play time and the eventual sleepover.

Cassie and Michael are sleeping as we’re writing this and the world news can wait for a day – or three; so that’s all we have for this update.  We’re glad that Aiden has been having a happy day, and we’ll be busy with football and Halloween through to Sunday; so don’t be surprised if Ethan and Ehlana are too-busy to share much in their journals before Sunday night – especially if I can do my part to keep Ethan too busy and distracted to care! ;^)

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

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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Cassie and Michael are in Uganda tonight and work-drove their way all the way to the Capital – Kampala.  They continue to get a lot done, but we don’t have any specific details from today because we’ve been busy with our usual Wednesday school and practices.  We can report that they are still getting the mix of rain and sun every day – though it is a bit cooler for them in Uganda with the high near to what we’re getting here at home today.

We had some showers this morning, but that didn’t get in the way of Tai Chi by the river; and had moved out of the area long before our afternoon cheer squad or football practices.  Those workouts went well; Sophia hosted our dinner and study session; and then the teen praise team practice lasted for nearly two hours as we went through all of the music we will be sharing with our congregation at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We had a lot of fun with the music and our friends; took Silkie for a bedtime walk while seeing Naomi and Aiden to their homes; and our dog got more hugs and kisses than Ethan or I did – though to be fair; Moms and siblings were involved in sharing that affection!  Bath or Jacuzzi time followed after we got home; and now we’re winding down fast to nap time.

On the world news front, peace is supposedly on-again for Ukraine with those talks in China and others with the United States, Russia, and Ukraine; and we still doubt that anything will change on the ground unless and until the Ukrainian and western leaders agree to most of Russia’s demands that include a believable path to security and NATO backing off from their war-mongering belligerence directed at Russia.  The situation on the ground continues to go badly; and Russian targeting is now very focused on degrading dual-use infrastructure.  They are hitting bridges every day; Kiev is regularly left in the dark with power outages; and there aren’t many places left in many parts of Ukraine that can be used at all for warehousing or manufacturing.  The situation in the country gets uglier every day; and we still have no idea how long that can continue before something breaks that can’t be recovered from – for their government and military.

In the Middle East, news stories include no change or deal yet for the Israeli election – so no new government formed yet; the Houthis are attacking Saudi refineries and other infrastructure again; and war talk for Iran includes rumors of American forces being pulled back out of Iranian missile range to get ready for the next round of attacks on Iran.  Majority guesses continue to expect that to happen after the midterm election, but that if we were advising Iranian military leaders; we would tell them not to let their guard down and be ready for anything at any time.

Finally, for tonight, while there are always other stories that we don’t cover in our journals, we want to mention a high-speed train crash that happened in Spain that had more than sixty fatalities and hundreds of injuries.  Details are still sparse, but there have been several train crashes in Spain; and there appears to be a serious logistics problem that they need to fix; since trains should never crash into other trains on the same tracks – especially when it comes to the high-speed trains.  We’re choosing to mention that story because everyone should pay attention to that kind of tech news because we should make sure that we use advances in what our machines and tech can do but also remember that humans still have many advantages over machines and computers – especially when it comes to things like discernment and being able to tell the difference between true and false data.  Maybe that idea isn’t really applicable to that accident, but we are seeing more reliance on autonomous and A.I. systems; and we don’t want to see a future that is anything like Hollywood often depicts!

Maybe the future will be all about cute little dancing robots or robotic athletes instead of terminator robots.  Yeah, that’s too-much to hope for when militaries are certainly working toward robotic armies.

That’s not a happy note to end on, but that’s all we have; and now we’re going to wrap this up and get some sleep right now.

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