Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 6th Anniversary, Chris and
Sadie Rice!
We haven’t been involved in the anniversary
adventures today, but Violet, Dillon, and their kids headed up to Woodvale
early this morning; and are spending the weekend there. Ethan and I want to include a pregnancy
update for Sadie too while they are in our thoughts today. She’s around five months along now; due in
early October; and is doing well – if not very excited about experiencing most
of her third trimester during the hottest months of summer. Chris and her family and friends are going to
take care of her, though, so there will be parts of the rest of the year that
could be great too – especially the amazing new baby parts of the story!
Let’s cover the baseball news next. The co-ed game last night was fun, but not of
the winning kind for our team as the Witch Falls Wild lost convincingly to
Sheldon’s Stampede by a score of ten-to-four.
I’ll add that we lost the cheer squad battle on the sidelines too and
report that the Sheldon clan is working on their cheer squad game – though that
might be affected by the latest, younger additions to their team and growing
fan base! Our family teams had better
luck today. Brianna and Faith are on the
same team again this year and Brianna is apparently going to be their primary pitcher
– or should be if the game today was any indication. The Sapphire Scions only managed one run
against Brianna and her Real Estate Rebels while Brianna and Faith led the way
to earning seven runs for the win. For
the record, no, Brianna is not using any Magi abilities to boost her game play,
but she has inherited some serious math and physics skills along with the
athletic abilities to play the game.
Parts of that are true for all Magi, but here in our time, Brianna is
one of the few Magi in our generation that can successfully juggle that kind of
attention with playing great but not impossibly-well. I’ll add that this isn’t the same as Mom’s
perfect record at the pub for billiards – and she did win a match last night –
because Mom never goes out of her way to get that kind of attention and prefers
to be brilliant and amazing from the sidelines.
Leah, Hailey, and their Med Center Mist team won too – eleven-to-four
over the Witch Falls Fog. That game was
closer for the first few innings, but the top news for them was likely the rain
not because they got wet, but because it came while the Mist was at bat and the
Fog gave up four runs because of wet gear related errors. Mother Nature does not prefer mist over fog,
but that didn’t get in the way of the jokes around the ball diamond that we
only heard about because we weren’t there for that part of the game.
That does bring us up to closer to now, but
our Saturday news isn’t that exciting because we’ve mostly worked on chores and
have wrapped them up now because we’re into more rain now that will be with us
through until the wee hours of Sunday morning.
Ethan and I had a very busy morning from Tai Chi by the river and
post-camping babysitting and breakfast through all of the usual weekend
chores. The tents and gear needed to be
packed up too so we did that around all of the rest of the breakfast work and
eventually returning next-gen kids to their parents or others. Naomi and Aiden worked with us at all of our
homes and two cottages; and we really only took one break to catch the end of
Brianna and Faith’s game; the start of Leah and Hailey’s game; and to have a
mini-subs and sides picnic lunch at the park with the family and friends that
were there with us. We added in a quick
cool-down swim before getting back to work, but it was the lawn mowing,
gardening, and the rest that kept us busy – even when we got rained on a bit
during that afternoon shower.
The only other story we still need to cover
for this update is our babysitting and camping and end-of-exams celebration fun
after that co-ed game. While many of our
favorite parents went to the pub for Martin’s birthday party, we had a gang of
kids and teens with us; we opted for outdoor movies that we started as soon as
we had everything set up with snacks, drinks, and bed-ready next-gen kids. The first movie was toddler-rated and
animated; the intermission included time to get those kids into sleeping bags
and at least pretending to be sleeping; and then the second movie was an
action-thriller that the guys picked and was pretty good for the cinematics if
not for the plot and dialogue. The girls
had not expected the guys to agree to a chick flick, but it might be nice to
have them occasionally choose something that doesn’t include fights, blowing
stuff up, or aliens! We stayed up too
late – including the teen chat time by the river after the movies; there weren’t
any co-ed naps that we’ll admit to for any friends; and we were segregated last
night too thanks to the junior tent buddies we were babysitting.
Our plans for the rest of today include
hosting Naomi and Aiden and spending time with Mom and Dad ahead of Dad’s trip
to Crystal Springs next week. We need to
go and help Mom with making dinner soon, so we’ll save all of that news for our
next report; and wrap this up with a quick world news update.
There hasn’t been much actual news so far
today, so maybe there actually is some diplomacy happening in the background
for the Iran war, but we aren’t holding our breath; since both sides still seem
to be far apart for demands to even solidify a ceasefire. If anything, each side is demanding more than
ever before; so we don’t see how those issues will be resolved without some
serious compromises and intermediaries stepping up to offer trust-building
assistance. While Iran and the United
States haven’t continued their exchanges of missiles and drones; Israel is
continuing attacks in Lebanon and the Palestinians are still being decimated in
their ever-shrinking outdoor prison.
While nothing has changed yet on the ground
in the Middle East; what is happening in Ukraine continues to get uglier. Russian forces are pushing hard on at least a
half-dozen significant places along the front lines; things are getting really
bad for the Ukrainian troops being surrounded and cut off from supplies and
reinforcements. While those horrors continue
in Ukraine, European leaders continue to beat drums of war against Russia, and
we can only watch on in disgust; since even thinking about starting another
world war after all of the times that Europe has been destroyed in past centuries
going back thousands of years is insane – especially when attempting to start
that war from a position of weakness.
Maybe we’ll get into that line of thought in a near-future update, but
it is time for us to go now; so that’s all for this report.
Until next time, live with love, fellow
Magi of the Light!
