Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 23, 2026

 

Naomi and Ehlana:

Our boyfriends are already on the way to Clairmont for what we expect will be one of our toughest games of the season against one of the other top teams – and they are still undefeated so far this season; so one of our teams won’t be making that claim by later tonight.  Ehlana is letting me write this update because she loves me and I wanted to do it so that future Magi reading this journal get a different perspective now and then.  Yes, I have an archives journal too, but the twin Magi Masters are sure to get more attention from future readers compared to the rest of us – even the future librarian half of their duo! ;^)

My day started quietly with Tai Chi for one in my family room and breakfast with Mom, Dad, and Eli; I know that Ethan and Ehlana had a happy start to their day with Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with my future mother-in-law; and we all had a good, but uneventful school day with our classmates and friends.  I want to note that I will be very happy when the mid-term elections are over; since some of my classes include themed lessons ranging from history and social studies to the math of elections and related statistics.  I won’t count the chemistry jokes – though spewing poison does seem to be common among national-level politicians!  The current high of the day is around eighty, so that will be great for game time warm, but that’s about all we have for our own adventures so far.  Ehlana and I need to meet up with Sophia and Samantha soon for our ride to Clairmont; and we won’t personally have family support for the game – or really even a major contingent of hometown fans because the drive time is one of the longest each way and there is already a lot going on around town this weekend with the Haunted Halloween Walk tomorrow night.  Let’s also mention that we are not having a school dance for Halloween this year because our final two football games are away and half the students wouldn’t be here anyway.  We’ll miss that, but we’re busy enough anyway; so we’ll survive.  Finally, for our own news, I want to mention that Ethan is growing up to be everything I hoped he’d be; he’s hot-enough that I have to remind the other girls that he’s mine a bit too-often; and Ehlana does not want me to add in details that might have Ethan blushing to read about in their journals – though I’ll at least assure all future girls reading this that I am a very, very lucky girl!

Ehlana definitely wants me to stop there – for the personal stuff.  Cassie and Michael are still driving toward the last major stop on their trip across the Democratic Republic of the Congo – Kikunda; and they will be moving on into Rwanda next week.  Two of my favorite future in-laws are having amazing adventures that we wish we could be sharing with them – even with all of the rain that they’ve seen every day.  That wasn’t an option; and I shouldn’t complain about that anyway so soon after our amazing summer work trip with them across Canada!

We’re running out of time; so I’ll wrap this up with my version of the world news report.  Our world leaders are getting worse every day; all of the same wars are going on that I didn’t write about the last time I took over this journal update; and now we’ve added in more protests and riots and government crack-downs to the mix while everyone gets poorer thanks to rising prices caused by all of the wars and economic sabotage of our supply chains and industries.  We’re helping each other to thrive and survive here in our little corner of paradise; so I’ll be glad of that; stay happy; and not waste time worrying over things I can’t change anyway while wishing that we could do more to help everyone in need and stop the greedy, power-hungry elites of the world who continue to believe they have the right to take what they want regardless of the cost to the rest of us.

You’re welcome, Ehlana, but I really don’t want to offer up a rant about any of that, and we do need to get to Clairmont now; so that’s all for this report.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 22, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Cassie and Michael have already moved on from Kananga and will be in Lodja before we wake up to start our Friday morning.  They are leaving a lot of happiness in their wake as they make friends; cement partnerships; and spread hope for the future – even as they can’t change any of the very real challenges facing the people both locally and due to world economic and political forces.  While it is a lot of work and they are having very long work and travel days; they are happy; and even manage a bit of sightseeing along the way – and there are amazing wonders to see in Africa whether of the world-famous variety or the smallest, virtually-unknown sites.

Ethan and I have had a much-quieter day by comparison, but it has been another good one from Tai Chi by the river and breakfast with Mom through to now as we’re winding down from the day after bath or Jacuzzi time.  We had fun with our friends at school; the football and cheer squad practices went well; and then we were on our own with Mom for dinner between the practices and game night at the Inn.  With Dad in the city; nobody was surprised to see Mom help Miranda with winning the senior title; Ethan helped Naomi win the junior title; and that might become a family trend if that continues to happen every month during Dad’s work week in Crystal Springs!  The weather continued to be great, so we took Silkie for another walk with Naomi and Aiden after we left the Inn; bath or Jacuzzi time followed that walk with just a cameo visit with Mom; and now we need to get some sleep because we are going to have a very busy weekend with the away football game and the Haunted Halloween Walk at the top of the list for our weekend adventures.

For the world news update, the media and our leaders seem more-interested in distraction stories, but peace for Ukraine is still on and going nowhere as usual while war talk is on for the Middle East as threats for ‘post-elections’ attacks on Iran continue from Israel and America.  That is insane, but what else is new; and nobody even wants to point out how ridiculous it is to demand peace for Ukraine out of one side of the mouth because energy prices are too-high while demanding more war out of the other side with no apparent care for those same energy prices or the economic stresses that continue to build every day that the conflicts in the region continue.  Protests and riots roll on in many countries around the world, but we’ll note for tonight that there are stresses amid the protesters too as leaders and media continue to have success with dividing the people.  For one small example in our country, the ‘No-Kings’ protests apparently have no room for Palestinian genocide protesters at their pretests.  Apparently some evil being done by the ‘kings’ is acceptable to them while Ethan and I believe that all evil is bad.  That shouldn’t be a radical concept, and apparently is; so it is likely for the best that ‘normal’ people will never read our journals!

That is also enough for tonight and we really do need the sleep; so we are out of here and off to dreamland soon.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 21, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 15^th Birthday, Paige Spencer!

Our classmate and friend’s celebrations needed to happen around academic adventures and practices, and while Paige isn’t involved in football or cheer squad, a lot of her friends are; so her dinner party was only with a few friends and her family; and she was also still at the teen praise team practice at the church.  Ethan and I helped out with the birthday fun when we could at school with a gift this morning and special treats at lunch, but that was it for us and we left it up to others to keep the fun going for Paige the rest of the day.

Ethan and I also had fun last night with the dinner and studying at Sophia’s house; the marching band practice; and our respective sleepovers with Naomi or Aiden.  Ethan and Naomi had more fun than Aiden and I did, but no details need to be offered here; and we were all happy last night by the time we got to sleep.  Magi-powered fatigue healing was an option this morning before our separate Tai Chi workouts; I’ll claim the better breakfast, since we had bakery treats and Ethan and Naomi had a ‘normal’ school day meal; and we met up for the walk to school with extra time for meeting up with Paige to deliver that gift to her before first classes.  The birthday lunch was the entertainment highlight of the school day; our football and cheer squad practices went well and the weather was great for that with the high hitting seventy-seven; and then Mom hosted our dinner, study, and group Magi lesson break between those practices and the teen praise team practice that we moved on to at the church after that break.

We’re working on music for Thanksgiving and Christmas now; and we focused more on the Christmas music and musical; since we have a lot to learn for that show.  The practices will continue to be a bit longer, but we still collected Silkie after the practice and went for a walk with Naomi and Aiden that was longer than needed to get them to their homes.  That was a fun wind-down to our day, but we still had some work with Mom once home; caught up with more of her travel news; and then moved on to bath or Jacuzzi time for all of us.  Ethan was done first and got the head start on our world news checks; we’ve pretty much finished with that now; and will go and get some sleep once I’m finished with writing this report.  Before we get to those stories; let’s cover the Cassie and Michael news of the day.

Ethan and I haven’t gotten much news directly from Cassie and Michael today, but Mom did; and they are very busy right now and pushing hard to keep up with a tight schedule that includes a lot of driving with stops along the way that are practically cameo moments along the way.  They continue to deal with daily rain with sunshine and heat and humidity between showers and thunderstorms, and while some of that rain time is while driving; they’ve been rained on at some of the stops too.  Today they spent more of the day in Gungu, but continued east from there by evening local time; and they’ll be more than three-hundred miles further and in Kananga by sometime tomorrow.  They’re still sleeping now, but will be up soon and on the road again while we sleep, and by the time we wake up; they’ll likely be in Kananga and working there for the rest of their Thursday.

While we’ve mostly had fun today and Cassie and Michael have been working hard and making their way across the DRC; the rest of the world continues to be in turmoil.  Russian attacks on Ukraine intensified again after the drone swarms Ukraine directed at St. Petersburg; and the Kiev infrastructure continues to be degraded and destroyed while life just gets harder for the people.  Peace talks continue, and Russia released an American prisoner, but while that gesture was political; the person released had been a mercenary fighting for Ukraine; so he deserved the conviction and sentence he was given by the Russian courts.  Many people might not agree with us on that, but we have a personal problem with mercenaries fighting and killing people for money – and we think that’s true for all of the billionaires making money through the military-industrial complex.  We still don’t believe that the peace talks for Ukraine will go anywhere because Ukraine and Europe won’t agree to anything that Russia demands; and Russia is not going to trust any deal with America when our leaders are proven liars and their deals are usually worthless.

There are not peace talks for the Middle East right now – just talk and threats for more war.  The Saudi-Yemen fighting isn’t waiting for any elections, but we are still waiting to find out whether airstrikes on Iran will resume before or after the Israeli and American elections.  The ‘when’ doesn’t really matter, but we can hope that cooler heads will prevail and there won’t be new escalations at all.  No, that isn’t likely; so we’ll prepare to help where possible regardless of what our world leaders end up doing.

The protests and riots continue in Europe and beyond with no end in sight despite crackdowns including curfews and using the military in France while their President runs away from the crises he’s led the country to through his terrible policies and governance.

I’d really love to get started on a rant for all of the daily distraction stories that keep coming out or are rotated through the news cycles every few weeks or months, but it is getting late; and ranting about that won’t change anything as the divide and conquer strategies continue to work while we don’t understand how so many people continue to be fooled by all of the lies and cons used against them.  That doesn’t work on us and we’re going to stay happy despite all of the challenges in the world; so we hope that your ‘now’ is better than ours and that we’ve helped to make that happen sometime in our near or distant future.  That will happen in small ways for the rest of this week, so stay tuned to find out how; and we’ll get some sleep now to be ready for those adventures.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 20, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Cassie and Michael are more than half-way between Brazzaville and Gungu tonight; their work day included early and late-day driving time as well as the driving between work stops; and they got a lot done – including during the drive time when Cassie or Michael worked on their computers while the other took turns driving.  There are a few side-issues that we should mention for them, since driving times and speeds in some parts of Africa are very different from here; and even car rentals need to be worked out in advance between countries; since they don’t all have rental companies with operations in every country.  Cassie and Michael took care of all of those issues long before getting there, but they did need to work all of those issues into their travel schedules – especially between some of the countries they’re driving through.

Here at home, Ethan and I had fun with Mom this morning, and while Tai Chi by the river was chilly; the hot breakfast was great.  We had to say goodbye to Mom again when we headed to school; since she headed for the city this morning and is going to stay there with Dad tonight.  While she’s been busy with some shopping and other fun; we had a good day at school; the cheer squad, band, and football practices all went well; and the weather was decent with a high that touched seventy for a while during Ethan’s football workout.  We’re only home and doing this update because we needed to grab overnight bags for our respective sleepovers with Naomi and Aiden that we’ll be doing later tonight after the marching band practice.  We need to get over to Sophia’s house for dinner and studying that she’s hosting tonight; so we really need to get going soon too.

That’s why we’re going to skip the world news update and we’ll double up on that tomorrow night.  You’ll be able to flip the digital page to read that report without any delays; so taking a break today isn’t a big deal for anyone other than Ethan and me.  Okay, that’s only for me; since Ethan doesn’t have a problem with taking that break and that’s entirely because he is really looking forward to spending the night with Naomi – and without any extra co-ed cuddle couples in the room with them whenever they do get around to that alone time!  We won’t write about that part of his story tomorrow night, but we really do need to go now; so that’s all we have for this update!

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - October 19, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 29^th Birthday, Chris Rice!

Happy 26^th Birthday, Madelana!

We were up early to see Dad and Anna Marie on their way to Crystal Springs, and then Ethan and I didn’t have anything to do with either of the top birthdays today while taking care of ourselves through Tai Chi and breakfast and then heading to school for the day.  Chris likely wished for more sleep as a new father; and we’ll add that baby Sophie is doing well; and so is her Mom – even if they might all be too-tired for much of a birthday celebration today!  Cassie and Michael did vid-chats with our cousin and her friend from Kinshasa during breaks between work stops, but around breakfast-time here at home.  We should mention that Madelana and Stefan aren’t at home right now in Chicago; since they’re busy with a fall work trip too, but they left earlier and will be home again in time for Halloween.  As we are writing this update, Cassie and Michael are still in Kinshasa, but will be awake soon and heading out toward Gungu; and they will work-drive their way there over the next two days.

While our big sister and brother-in-law are busy in Africa; our day has been fairly-quiet.  Ethan and I had a good day at school; our football and cheer squad practices went well and we were happy with warmer weather again – though the mid-sixties is still normal for this time of year and a long way from the hot weather we had a week ago!  Mom was still on the way home when we picked up our dinners at home and took them with us to the lab or archives; we work-played there until she was nearly-home; and then we packed up and got home to welcome her back – after she’d already dropped off the other Moms including Aunt Leanne.  We helped with her luggage; had a little chat with her; and then it was bath or Jacuzzi time for all three of us; since Mom was really tired by then and just wanted to get cleaned up and off to bed after a long play and travel day.  We still don’t have many of the travel details; so we’ll share anything interesting once we get those stories.  This has been a long day for us too – especially since we did some time-phasing while at the lab; so let’s cover the world news of the day and call it a night.

The riots in France and elsewhere in Europe roll on – and in France that is while the mobs ignore President Macron.  Hundreds of arrests aren’t working either, and if anything; the police actions are only causing more anger and hatred toward government and police.  There are crackdowns on covering those stories too; so those leaders are not looking good when they claim freedom and democracy while planting boots on the necks of their people.

The western leaders and media are spending a lot of time on peace talks for Ukraine whether for or against it; and the latest today is about peace talks with China mediating and hosting talks with Russia and the United States – but not with Ukraine or European leaders.  That would be pointless to make a deal without Ukraine and Europe agreeing to any deals; so this is just more theatre that will distract the masses and change nothing on the ground.  As for the actual war, Ukraine loses more ground on the front lines; Russia continues to bomb them and destroy more infrastructure and economic and military targets; and Ukraine is getting more-overt with their drone swarms with help from other Baltic countries that are helping with what is likely more than just flyover rights for Ukrainian drones to get them into the St. Petersburg region.  Russia will adapt and respond; and those countries should hope that they don’t become targets too; since they should be legitimate targets for Russian retaliations.  Yes, Russian leaders know that is exactly what some European leaders want – a retaliation into NATO countries so they’d have an excuse to go to war directly with Russia, but we should all hope and pray that doesn’t happen.

There hasn’t been a lot of news from the Middle East today, but tensions remain high; the fighting continues between Saudi Arabia and Yemen; and the top news addition is that Egypt has reportedly agreed to send troops and weapons to help Saudi Arabia.  That is a really bad choice from their leaders; and it is sure to end badly for Egypt too – especially if the Houthis begin targeting the Suez Canal and Egyptian ports.  The Egyptian government can’t take care of their own people; so wasting money to prop up the Saudi royals will not go over well with their people.  Israel continues to threaten more military action against everyone from the open-air prison of Gaza to renewed attacks on Iran; and the risks remain high for new airstrikes and fighting before the Israeli or American elections.  The situation could change at any moment and flare-ups could happen for any reason; so there is no way to predict what will happen next – though a break-out of world-wide peace seems least-likely of all possibilities.

That’s enough for tonight.  We have another long day ahead of us and need to get some sleep while we can; so that’s all for this report.

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