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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 10^th Birthday, Faith!

Before we get to the birthday adventures stories-so-far; let’s cover the football news of the weekend!  Our rematch against Hillcrest was a definitive statement that we are still the team to beat this season.  The fifty-five to sixteen score was obvious-enough, but then that was true throughout the game from start to finish.  Miles is happiest about that for his debut as Quarterback, and he played well-enough with only a few mistakes; so he has reason to be proud – though his ego is a bit larger than life!  Ethan, on the other hand, is so modest that it’s amazing that anyone noticed just how well he played last night.  Yes, he earned three of the seven touchdowns for our team and gained a lot of yards running after the catches, but he intentionally shares the credit with his teammates – especially the guys on the offensive and defensive lines.  They deserve that credit; and they really appreciate Ethan for pointing that out very publicly.  As for the team scoring, Aaron had two running touchdowns; Aiden had one passing touchdown; and we coasted to the win in the fourth quarter.  Miles had two turnovers that led to ten of Hillcrest’s sixteen points, but that really just emphasized that while their defense is still pretty good; their offense did not have a good night.

While our favorite boys were having fun out on the field; we had fun with our cheer squad adventures on the sidelines and during half-time.  The weather was perfect for a summer evening; so we could also throw in all of the tricks we have without needing to hold back due to rain or wet conditions.  We’ll never be able to compete for skills with the big high school or college squads that have the talent and numbers for the best tricks, but we still do pretty well; and I’ll modestly mention that Naomi, Sophia, and I lead the way for the most-difficult gymnastics.  Our halftime routine was a hit with the crowd, and that was entirely because Naomi, Sophia, and I put together a Raiders’ version of ‘Golden’ with our own lyrics and vocals to go along with the physical routine that included martial arts inspired dance and some very cool, if minor, aerials and throws.

Thanks to the win, the party that Ethan hosted for the team was more-fun; it is scary to see how much food an entire football team can consume; and we will not comment on the bill for the Pizzeria that Mom and Dad paid for those stacks of pizza!  The campfire was great too; and that included a Naomi and the non-Holiday Harmonies doing an encore version of that Golden song along with the rest of our musical contributions to the fun.  Our guests headed for their homes or elsewhere by one o’clock; and then we had some clean-up work to do before we could get around to our co-ed sofa sleepover in the lounge with our four best friends.  That brings us up to today, but before we got to the start of Faith’s birthday adventures at Quarry Lake, we started the day with Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom and Dad.  Okay, we actually started out with a round of Magi-powered fatigue healing for all of us because we were still tired after the game and late night, but that was fun too!  After the quiet start to our day, Sophia and Aaron and Aiden all moved on to help their own families at their homes or the bakery; Naomi stayed and worked on chores with Ethan and me; and we kept busy with that until we needed to switch to loading up vehicles for the trip to Quarry Lake.  We were out there and had our day camp set up by eleven-thirty; and then the fun was on as we helped out with junior kid control; led some of the activities for ‘our’ group that included the rock wall and zip line; water slides and swims; and play time on Aqua Bikes and paddle boats.  We were in charge of a group for lunch too; so we were on the go non-stop pretty much from arrival to departure by late-afternoon.

Faith’s party rolled on once we got back to the Everetts’ home, and we had more work to do – including helping with setting up tents for Faith’s girls-only camping night.  There were other volunteers for cooking dinner, but we had next-gen kids to take care of during that meal; and then we helped with the clean-up while the back yard fun included games, swimming, and canoe rides.  That brings us up to now; and Ethan and I are taking a quick break at home to get cleaned up and ready for the rest of our night.  Outdoor movies will start at dusk for Faith’s party, and Naomi and I have agreed to stay and camp with the girls – mostly to help with the next-gen girls that want to do that with Faith and her friends.  Ethan will miss the co-ed nap time with Naomi, but will love the earlier bedtime and getting more sleep that we’ll get tonight!  That’s also all we have for now and we need to get back to the party soon; so here’s a quick world news report and then we’re out of here and back to the birthday celebration.

We do not want to get into the war stories today; since that news continues to be bad every day.  There are other reports ranging from the stupid to the unbelievable.  For the former, President Trump has declared that Lake Ontario is now Lake America in ‘retaliation’ for trade threats made by the Premiere of Ontario – the equivalent of a State Governor.  We’re sure that change will be as-popular as the Gulf of America has been for the people crazy enough to think that this kind of playground nonsense is important!  For the official journal record, no, Ethan and I never claimed ownership of the playground; and there has never been a Fort Proctor that needed defending from all enemies foreign, alien, or domestic! ;^)

The other story we’ll cover tonight is President Trump’s announcement that he’s doubled America’s oil reserves with a deal to ‘control’ sixty-five billion barrels of Venezuelan oil!  We have absolutely no doubt that the Venezuelan people will not at all mind the total exploitation of their resources and stand by and do nothing – and yes, that is extreme sarcasm!  Along with all of the inevitable geo-political problems; let’s also add that the oil reserves in question will also be among the most-expensive in the world to access; so that will not be a deal at all if it costs more to get out of the ground than it can be sold for on the market!  When we start making those cost calculations; let’s make sure we include how much money we’re spending on the combined military forces needed to ‘protect’ those resources that we believe should be ours despite the fact that they are inconveniently located in another, not-really-sovereign country!

We really do need to run, but I can’t resist just one meme story that we find very funny.  President Trump may have started an unintended consequence with his claim of the Strait of Hormuz being an American territory; since the jokes are already going viral of Iranian and Omani women claiming American citizenship for their babies born in that new territory!  All Iranian pregnant women should definitely flock to the coastline to give birth so they can get in on that deal – and we couldn’t possibly have any problems in another eighteen or twenty years when those Iranian-American citizens will be old-enough to vote!

That is a fun, silly wrap-up to this update, so we’re out of here and back to the birthday fun for and with Faith and her cousins and friends!

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

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

 

Ehlana and Naomi:

My best friend is sitting in for Ethan today while we have the afternoon off from cheer squad and he’s still working with the football team to get ready for the game tonight.  We’ll mention that they are not doing any major physical training this afternoon, but they are doing meetings to go over game plans and plays; they’ll do more of a run-through of those plays before the end of the afternoon; and then they’ll get a break before needing to be back at the school for the home game rematch of last season’s championship game!  Naomi and I had our workout this morning; we’re ready for the game already; and we’re enjoying another sunny afternoon without the extra work – though we might do a few chores if our parents want the help.

As for the rest of our day, we weren’t together for Tai Chi by the river and breakfast, but we did have lunch with Ethan and Aiden and some of our friends; and now we’re doing this update early because we’re going to be busy for the rest of the day.  Along with the game, Ethan will be hosting what we hope will be an after-game party here at our house; and then we’ll keep our four best friends for a co-ed sleepover – not a camping night.  That choice is mostly because we don’t want to do that extra work, but we’re also saving up for the holiday weekend when camping is likely if the weather cooperates.  We’ll host dinner here before the game too, but that will be early and with a smaller group than Mom and Dad will have for family and friends ahead of the game but after we’ll need to be at the school.  That’s about all we have for our own news so far, but Naomi wants to take the opportunity to include some information that Ethan and I don’t mention about ourselves in our journals very often.

Ethan is my brother, so my opinion is different, but Naomi assures me that he is the hottest player on our team this year.  I’m tempted to get her list for hottest players for the past few – or fifteen – years, but maybe she can add top-ten lists to her own journal in the future.  One of us has mixed feelings about Ethan being taller than us now, but then that’s true for Aiden too; and I don’t mind that so much – and Ethan likely prefers being taller than I am now compared to the recent years when I was taller than him!  For the record, Ethan is currently five-foot, eleven inches; Aiden is an inch shorter; and Naomi and I are currently five-foot, six-inches and significantly slowing down on our annual growth rate!  I still have some catching up to Mom and Cassie, but Naomi is happy that she’s already taller than her Mom!  I’ll also concede that Naomi isn’t wrong about Ethan being handsome, but then she’s a bit inconsistent on that; since she also doesn’t want other girls to notice that fact while appreciating him a lot!  He is going to be a future librarian, though, so that might offset the attention he is sure to get during the football season!  We don’t want to spend too much time on this update; so here’s the world news of the day and then we’ll get back to the fun parts of our afternoon and the rest of the day!

Naomi is going to dictate that for me today; and she is going to keep this short because she can!  Being very specific, Naomi would like all future Magi reading this to know that our current National and World leaders are insane idiots, narcissistic, power-hungry, billionaire crooks – or both!  They don’t care about anyone else; and the solution is for us to take care of ourselves and show everyone else how to do that and create happy, joyful lives full of love instead of the selfishness and hatred that our leaders use to divide and steal from the rest of us!  As for all of the bad news we see every day – including with our check today; Naomi wants me to report that life is amazing here in our little corner of the world; we do not have any wars or tariffs or economic sanctions or blockades here; so the rest of the world should look at what we’re doing right and do the same!  She’s right and that won’t happen; so let’s stop there; be grateful for what we do have here at home; and get back to enjoying some of those blessings – including the time I get to spend with my amazing best friend! ;^)

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - August 27, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

The football team picks have been made; and nobody was surprised that Ethan, Aiden, and Aaron all made the cut!  Miles, Joshua, and Seth all earned spots on the team, but then there were more of our classmates that included a couple of surprises.  Steven Cassidy, Blair Benton, and Nolan Parker rounded out the Grade Ten guys; and that’s a fairly-large contingent.  There were Grade Nine surprises too, since we rarely see more than two make the cut; and we had three this year.  Brandon Green, Mike Morris, and Collin Sparks all earned Coach Robinson’s approval; so they are very happy tonight!  We don’t need to list the rest of the returning players, but will mention that Craig Robinson has been named team Captain, and while he is the coach’s son; he is also the most-qualified to take the job and all of the guys like him as much as they like his father!  Those picks were announced first thing this morning; the other hopefuls were sent on their way – though many of them stayed to watch the practice anyway; and the team workout was all about getting ready for the game tomorrow night.

While Ethan was busy with that; I still had a full day of cheer squad practice.  We have our routines chosen for tomorrow night and we’re pretty much ready to go too – though we are going to do a half-day of practice tomorrow morning and then rest up for the game.  The weather was again great for our practices with sun and warmth without too-much heat.  After being set free from the school this afternoon, we took the time for a cool-down swim with cousins and friends; and then we got to work on some yard chores that we might not have as much time for this weekend.  We worked through to a late dinner break; did a bit more after that until near-dusk; and then we have been wrapping up our day with a short Magi lesson with Mom; bath or Jacuzzi time; and this update and bedtime computer checks and twin chat fun.  Mom wants us to get the extra sleep tonight ahead of the big game, so let’s do the quick world news report; and then we’ll move on to nap time!

Our top story for today is from the Nepal-Tibet border, and as news gets out; the scope of the disaster there is becoming clear.  The most-cited explanation for the massive mudslides and flooding that have wiped out entire villages and towns is that there was a major glacier collapse.  Whatever the cause, hundreds of people have been killed; thousands are missing; and the region has been declared a disaster zone.  Ethan and I haven’t helped out with directing help to the region through our charities and family businesses, but Mom and Cassie have been doing what they can to help.  From our perspective, we wish that world leaders would pay attention to the real problems we have without the man-made disasters and choose to stop the wars and use those resources to help and build instead of destroy.

That isn’t happening today, and nothing has changed for the better in either of the \top’ wars of the year – or decade.  Tensions are definitely rising between Russia and the western countries; and Russia is seriously fed up with the direct involvement in the attacks on them that everyone knows Ukraine couldn’t do without systems basically being operated by western militaries and personnel.  The warnings are being ignored; so we can only hope that Russia does not retaliate directly on United Kingdom targets or anywhere else in Europe beyond Ukraine.  For the record; doing that would be within their rights of self-defense; and our military and leaders wouldn’t have waited this long if the same attacks had been done to us!

We’re going to stop there.  Ethan and I really do need to get the sleep while we can; so we’re out of here and off to dreamland right now.

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

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!