Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 25, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 8^th Birthday, Tamara Carter!

Happy 26^th Birthday, Vanessa Sparks!

The birthday party at the Ridge River Ranch wouldn’t have been on our activity list if we’d been home today, but Tamara’s friends really love getting to spend a day at her home; and we’ve heard that they are camping and doing an overnight trail ride adventure.

We missed two ‘family’ ball games today too, and while Brianna didn’t pitch another no-hitter; she did lead her Rebels team to a twelve-to-two victory over the Pizzeria Patriots with some significant help from Faith for both defense and batting.  Leah and Hailey followed that performance with an even-better game as the Med Center Mist earned a seventeen-to-five win over the Sapphire Storm.  Ethan and I are very happy for those wins because we won’t get teased about being blamed for all losses while we’re away!  There is bonus family fun happening around town too while the Malloys are visiting; and with a triple-digit high this afternoon; the weather is great for outdoor play in and around the river and out at Quarry Lake.

The weather is great here in Thunder Bay too; we arrived in time for an early breakfast; and Ethan and I helped Cassie and Michael and our best friends with some fatigue healing after the overnight drive so that we were all at full-power for a work-play day!  Thunder Bay is a modest-sized city by our home country standards, but it is the center of power for this region of Ontario; and the largest employment segment supports medical and social services for the region.  Education is big here too with well-respected university and college options; and then there is related businesses tied to research and tech.  We already had meetings and a site visit related to all of the above; and we’re going to have some water fun tonight with an evening boat tour to go along with a work dinner and a meeting at the port with a new partnership for agricultural products transportation.  I’m not officially involved in those deals, but almost all of the agriculture-related business and charity projects that Cassie and Michael are working on in Canada are connected to my work at the lab as they help to expand sales of our designed seeds and the rest of our agricultural products.  We’re finally getting to a point where we can support major expansion into other countries, but there is a lot more involved beyond farm partnerships; and Thunder Bay is a key shipping hub for crops coming out of the prairie provinces that then get shipped through the Great Lakes.  It might have been fun to go on a commercial fishing boat too, but we won’t have time for that while here – and Lake Superior is quite a bit cooler than the water we’re used to at home!  We will be having some meetings related to forestry and mining tomorrow, but we can cover that part of our adventure with that update.

We are writing this update while taking a break and settling into our weekend accommodations.  Dinner is up next on our to-do list, and we need to go soon, but before we do that; let’s mention some thoughts we have about some differences between here and home that we find very interesting.  Weather is possibly the largest factor for differences in architecture compared to home; and the buildings here are built to withstand long, harsh winters and storms that can be extreme thanks to Lake Superior.  The local natural wonders are different and amazing too, and while we haven’t been able to try out many of the attractions that are in the region; we did enjoy the scenery early this morning on the way into the city; and we will fit in a fort tour and maybe a waterfront bike ride tomorrow.  We really need to get going soon; so let’s wrap this up with a quick world news report.

Starting with the Ukraine war, the escalating violence continues with Ukrainian drones continuing to go after ‘soft’ targets aimed at civilians while Russia is bombing everything and pushing hard along the front lines.  The bad is going to get worse; and we don’t even want to think about what it will be like in Ukraine by winter.  In the Middle East, the top news is that Saudi Arabia led missile and bombing attacks on Yemen; the Houthis are retaliating; and that is another war front opening up – again; since Saudi Arabia has been fighting the Houthis off-and-on for more than a decade now.  There have been reports that ‘we’ are pausing attacks on Iran, but that’s more-likely just part of the military plan to get ready for bigger strikes on Iran that President Trump has been threatening for weeks now; and we don’t expect a sudden flip back to peace – even if some market players might be betting on that change and front-running the news.

There have been more reports warning of food security issues that are compounding as fertilizer supply stresses grow and the poorest nations suffer the most.  We don’t want to see that happen, but even the expansions we are doing that will help with food supplies; we can’t grow fast-enough to replace the damage that is being done; since our total impact is still a fraction of a percent of the world food needs.  It is totally wrong for us to be writing about that when we are about to go out to an amazing meal that won’t be affected by world food supply, but we are still hungry; so we’ll try not to feel guilty while being grateful for our blessings.

We really do need to finish getting ready to go out; so that’s all for this report.

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

Ehlana's and Ethan's Journals - July 24, 2026

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 22^nd Anniversary, Angela and Terry Malloy!

Happy 19^th Birthday, Ryan Bassett!

Happy 26^th Birthday, Serena Kendall!

Congratulations Serena and Shayne – You’re Engaged!

The Malloys are in town for the weekend and an anniversary vacation, so we would have spent time with them today, but then it has been stormy and wet and cooler there; so they didn’t exactly get to go outside to play very much.  The weather let up enough for the co-ed ball game to go ahead after dinner, but it was still damp; and the spectator turnout was very low as ‘our’ Wild team lost twelve-to-ten to Palmer’s Pride.  Some blame was sent our way for not being there to cheer for our team, but we all know that it had more to do with not having Jake and Stephanie playing tonight because the rain also meant a busier night at the Inn and they couldn’t get away for the game.  Cassie and Michael loved the engagement news, and while Shayne proposed for Serena’s birthday; they’re calling it a joint birthday gift for both of them; and they are currently also on vacation to celebrate both birthdays and do visits with their families.  We did a short vid-chat with them and also with Ryan, so while Cassie and Michael might have done more with Ryan if we’d been home; the gifts that had been left or sent ahead of time and the vid-chat wasn’t really different from normal for them anyway.

While it rained at home with a high in the mid-seventies; we’ve had another sunny day here and it was warmer too with an afternoon high of eighty-six.  That worked great for our meetings, site visits, and sightseeing; the work was a lot of fun from new First Nations partnerships to resources development and environmental conservation projects; and our entertainment highlight was the visit to Science North.  Each of the three science centers we’ve visited in Canada are unique, and while the one in Sudbury is much smaller than the center in Toronto; it was also still a lot of fun and I’ll admit that the scientist in our group had the most fun with everything we saw and experienced there.

Our top news for this report should be our current activity – the overnight drive all the way from Sudbury to Thunder Bay.  That’s a bit over six-hundred miles; it will take around eleven hours plus stops; and we’ll be doing the full trip so that we can spend the entire weekend in Thunder Bay and the surrounding region on the northwest shore of Lake Superior.  The teens in our group might take turns driving too, but Cassie and Michael could do it all and take turns napping, so if we help out; that will just be for the experience and driving practice.  For the legal record, we won’t ask the Provincial police if our learner’s permits are valid in Canada, since while that likely isn’t a problem for most American drivers; our age might be an issue in at least some of the provinces where drivers need to be at least sixteen for the first level of graduated licenses.  I’ll also add that I do know that Aiden hasn’t joined that club with us yet, but don’t really think about that at all; and he will be in the club by the end of October.  Before we move on to the world news update, and since I’m thinking about driving; let’s mention the primary highway we’re using tonight – the Trans-Canada Highway.  Depending on the calculations you want to use, this highway is between forty-six and forty-nine hundred miles long with a total of around eight-thousand miles in the entire system including all spurs and alternate routes.  Even that ‘shortest’ number is half-again longer than the longest Interstate in America, so that is impressive, though as with the Interstate highway systems at home; this one has a wide range of quality and the maintenance and repair work never ends.  We’ll be using this highway a lot for the rest of our trip to the west coast, so that’s enough for tonight; and we might have more on that part of our travel story as we experience the longer-distance drives between the major cities in the Prairie provinces.

That brings us to the world news update, and since we have lots of time on this long drive; let’s go for a longer report and maybe a bit of a rant on the never-ending idiocies of our world leaders!  The Middle East continues to be a disaster on a lot of levels, but our hypocrisy report of the day is thanks to a story about President Trump and others commenting on allowing Saudi Arabia to have a nuclear program and enrich Uranium at the same time that they’re destroying Iran supposedly to keep them from enriching Uranium.  Conditions were added through the day thanks to having that pointed out to our leaders; and the entire story might have just be theatre; since Saudi Arabia would be crazy to agree to those conditions while Israel is continuing to destroy Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon.  The Straits out of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf continue to either be open or not, but oil prices went down a bit today for no apparent reason other than some bets made money while others lost trading on nothing valid.  The bombs and missiles and drones kept flying; so did the threats; and we’ll see whether that escalates again over the weekend or not.

As for President Trump’s threats, he isn’t restricting them to enemies.  He threatened Canada again today, and since we’re in the country; we’ll hope that he doesn’t decide to go to war with them too – especially when the spat of the day is over the new bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan.  President Trump decided that the deal made with Canada to build and manage the new bridge wasn’t ‘fair’ to our country; he ordered changes; and now he’s mad that Canada didn’t invite him to the official opening ceremony.  That’s ridiculous, but then so is his rants about Europe and the taxes and other charges the European Union is imposing on American companies for various reasons.  News flash to the President – we have taxes and tariffs and other costs for pretty much every foreign company that imports products and services to us; so there’s another major example of hypocrisy in action for our leaders!

Let’s take that topic for a transition to Europe and their latest sanctions package on Russia that won’t do anything except increase tensions and anger.  Add in a plan to pirate Russian oil tankers in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, and if they are dumb-enough to actually do that; it will not end well for the countries involved.  Their leaders really do seem to be driven to destroy their own countries; so we’ll expect the worst from them – along with the inevitable consequences.  There is more talk about support for Ukraine and the war against Russia, but other than the ongoing tactics change to send drones against civilian warehouses and stores; there aren’t any serious plans being publicized to help on the frontlines or with the non-stop Russian bombings across Ukraine that are causing massive damage and casualties.  Okay, we can mention that European countries are working toward expelling draft-age Ukrainians to send them back to Ukraine to die for their country; and we will never understand how any leaders can live with themselves while committing moral crimes like that – especially when those leaders are often the same people claiming to hold concepts like bodily autonomy as sacred!  As far as the frontlines action goes; Russian forces continue slow advances; more Ukrainian troops are at risk of getting caught in several different cauldrons, and since they are rarely permitted to retreat; that never ends well for them.

That’s enough for tonight, since after all of that; I’d rather enjoy some travel nap time cuddled with Aiden instead of ranting on; since that is a much happier place to be!  Stay tuned; and we’ll hope for some good stories to share over the weekend as we work and play in our final stop in Ontario before moving on to Manitoba on Monday.

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

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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 28^th Birthday, Erica Palmer!

Before we get to any of the rest of our news for today, we are going to start with a major hometown concession – our little local caves do not even remotely compare to a real mine!  Our first visit to any kind of mine was amazing; and the Big Nickel mine and Dynamic Earth Museum were the sightseeing highlight of our time-so-far in Sudbury!  We are not planning on changing careers to anything mining related, but the science is very cool; and visiting a mine that was mostly dug out with manual labor and old technologies at a very high human cost was memorable.  Okay, we remember everything anyway, but you know what we mean!

That might seem like an obvious statement for best fun of the day, but then we also got to experience the ferry ride from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island along the way from London to Sudbury; and that was awesome too.  The extra-early start to our day wasn’t as-exciting, but we were on the road ahead of schedule; picked up fast food to go on the way out of London; and the drive to the ferry was interesting as we traveled through farmlands and small communities that again reminded us of home while also having unique differences that we enjoyed a lot.  Most Americans might not even know much about Lake Huron, but it is one of the Great Lakes; and the part that we crossed on the ferry took about two hours so we had lots of time to enjoy the view.  There was still another two hours of drive time to Sudbury, so we arrived in the early afternoon; did a work-lunch; visited the mine and museum; and then there was more work to do with Cassie and Michael – along with some chores for some of us.  Dinner was a charity work meeting; there was an evening site visit for a business project related to mining and forestry; and then we did a driving tour of Sudbury on the way back to the cottage we’re renting for the night.  That has all added up to a good day, but a long one too; so we’re pretty much ready to get some sleep soon.

Back at home, we wouldn’t have been in on Erica’s special day – though Cassie and Michael would have gone to the party and likely helped with the work too.  Mom is home from Crystal Springs – and so is Dad because he finished up his work and left the last appointments for Anna Marie to deal with on her own.  We haven’t mentioned that much so far, but they don’t need to work together all of the time; they have their own clients when needed – especially for contracts and real estate deals; and that just means more business for ‘our’ law office that Dad used to share with other local area lawyers when needed in the past.  There were suspiciously-few details from Mom’s trip, but she seemed very happy; and that’s all we really need to know!  The weather has been good at home again today and only a bit warmer than here, but we also know that our cousins worked on yard chores for a lot of today to get the weekend chores done early.  We’re missing out on various camping and sleepover adventures and lots of play time, but then if we were home; we’d be working most weekdays at the lab anyway.

On the world news front, there was a foreign ministers meeting in Manila between the United States and Russia, but it only lasted a half-hour and change; and it doesn’t sound as though anything came of it – unless it was only set up for a quick exchange of information.  To be blunt, nobody trusts our leaders anymore; so while we are all for diplomacy; we don’t know why any other countries would take any meetings with us seriously anyway.  We are not going to get into war reports tonight.  The bombings and threats continue day and night; nothing has changed in the Middle East or Ukraine to change the trajectories of either war; and the death and destruction continues relentlessly while the insanity rolls on with our world leaders.

Instead of going there; we’re going to wrap this up; enjoy some co-ed cuddle and chat time as we wind down toward nap time; and be back sometime tomorrow night with our next amazing travel report!

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

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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 19^th Birthday, Jeremy Green!

We probably wouldn’t have had anything to do with Jeremy’s birthday fun today because he and Kaitlyn were both working most of the day anyway.

Here in London, we’ve had an awesome day, and we’ve even enjoyed a cooler weather day where the high didn’t even hit seventy.  Cassie and Michael’s work today was often a bit different to normal; and we were in on two charity education scholarships meetings that included visiting the University and college partnering with us for those low-income scholarships.  Both campuses were interesting, but the University of Western Ontario impressed us; and I really enjoyed a quick look at the research partnerships they have with the city hospitals.  For some reason, they wouldn’t let me play in their labs, but I wish I could have done that; and missed my lab a lot while there!  Cassie and Michael had some finance meetings and another site visit for a business partnership, but we didn’t do all of that with them; and did some sightseeing instead – including to a museum and a mall.  Cassie and Michael met up with us for a Thai dinner; we all went for a riverside walk downtown; and now we’re back at our hotel and getting ready for an early bedtime.  We need to be up very early for our drive to Sudbury because we’re taking a ferry ride and need to be in a little town called Tobermory on-time for the first departure time of the day.  We really just want to get to the co-ed nap time; so let’s wrap this up with the world news report.

The Middle East tensions remain high; the threats and bombings continue daily; and the two Straits either are or aren’t open depending on who you ask.  President Trump has added new threats to bomb bridges and power plants for every ship that Iran attacks in the region, and we have no idea what he means by that; since he’s already promised to destroy all Iranian bridges and power plants over the current two weeks if Iran doesn’t basically surrender and do everything he tells them to do.  For the Ukraine war, the escalations continue with attacks on civilian food and supplies distribution warehouses and markets on both sides; and that is a very bad change in tactics that Ukrainian leaders started and that will definitely end badly for their citizens and infrastructure.

We’re going to stop there; since that co-ed nap time sounds a lot better than continuing this update – especially when that early wake-up call will be coming in just a handful of hours!  Stay tuned; since our adventures in Northern Ontario are going to be very interesting!

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

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

 

Ehlana and Ethan:

Happy 14^th Anniversary, Uncle Nick and Aunt Deborah!

That celebration might be the top story from home, but we don’t have much news about it since our short breakfast vid-chat with the Ayres; so details will be added tomorrow if we hear anything especially-interesting and also kid-friendly!  Mom spent some time with them this morning, but then she headed for Crystal Springs; and we don’t have any news from her visit-so-far to the city and with Dad.  If you’re reading that and coming up with mental pictures about our parents getting permanently banned from the courthouse – cut it out! ;^)

As for our own adventures in Toronto, we’ve had an awesome day despite the rain and thunderstorms in the area off-and-on for most of the day.  We helped with some work with Cassie and Michael, but also visited the science center and the C.N. Tower.  We loved both, and the science center was amazing, but the tower was an all-new experience for us; and it is really something unique to experience during a rain and storm day!  Highlights included the elevator rides to and from the observation decks; the view from around fourteen-hundred feet even on a cloudy, messy day was awesome; and you would need to experience the glass floor to relate to how that feels; since even junior Magi Masters are affected by standing on glass with nothing below you for more than eleven-hundred feet!

Cassie and Michael only caught parts of our play time while mixing in the work they did without us too, but when we left Toronto for London – our next stop; we all decided to make a side-trip to Niagara Falls because we were so close and didn’t want to miss out on that natural wonder.  The rain didn’t follow us, but it was stormy and wet in Niagara Falls too.  Fortunately for us, we got a break in the rain for an hour or so while there; and we took that chance to walk along the river gorge to the falls.  For anyone that might not know any details, there are actually two sets of falls at that location on the Niagara River – the Horseshoe Falls that are most-famous and the American Falls that are smaller and split in two by a small island on the American side of the river.  Our fellow Americans should not be jealous of the cooler-looking falls on the Canadian side; and we are mostly surprised that the Canadians have apparently done a better job promoting the tourism with bigger and better attractions!  We didn’t get to visit many of those attractions; so we really should come back again sometime to try out some of those options including the Maid of the Mist boat ride to the base of the falls; the zip line into the gorge; and everything from the two towers to the Clifton Hill attractions that we only managed a small sample of before needing to head for London and our hotel.  We did visit an awesome haunted house and checked out some tourist trap stores, but you would need several days or maybe a full week to do everything.

We are in-transit to London as we are writing this; Cassie is taking a more-direct, but somewhat rural route through the middle of the Niagara Peninsula; and even after dark we are enjoying the view that feels a bit like home to us.  That has more to do with the farms and small towns than the geography, but this is amazing too; since this whole region is a geological wonder carved out by the past ice age – including the two Great Lakes that border the length of the peninsula that ends at the Niagara River and falls.  We should mention the Niagara Escarpment as part of those features of the region; and the view of it rising above us during the drive from Toronto to Niagara Falls was amazing; since it rises hundreds of feet above Lake Ontario while being different from mountains because it just tops off and then is ‘normal’ land again across to Lake Erie.  For the record, we crossed one of the highest points on the Peninsula a little while ago in a town called Fonthill; the climb-drive up that hill to the top of the town reminded us a bit of southern and western roads into our hometown – though about three or four times higher; and the view was awesome too.  That town was interesting for also being split by the hill, and there were even homes built on the hill, but while that was interesting; we didn’t suddenly picture Witch Falls with a town expansion in the valley below the ridge or falls!

Ethan would be happy to write about geography and geology for another hour, but I’ve had enough of that; so let’s cover the world news and then call it a night.  We’ve skipped mentioning the change in Prime Ministers in the United Kingdom, but that’s mostly because it doesn’t really matter who is in charge when the policies remain the same – and they will with Prime Minister Andy Burnham.  That is bad news for their country and people; so expect more internal trouble there as people continue to get angry and rebellious.  In the Middle East, Israel has offered up a new target for President Trump in Iran; claiming that Axe Mountain is the new location for building the next imminent nuclear bomb; so we expect the place to get bombed soon while doing nothing to change the reality in the region.  There hasn’t been much news about the new blockade beyond reports that ships are Turing back and avoiding risks of attack from the Houthis and there was a report that Saudi Arabia is included in the blockade of that Strait due to their recent attacks on Yemen.  There were more incidents in the Strait of Hormuz too; the attacks continue on both sides; and the only good news so far is that it still hasn’t escalated into a full-out war.  There is still talk of a ground offensive to take over the Strait, but that would be insane and impossible to implement for very long – if at all; so we hope that doesn’t happen.

In Ukraine, the top media news might be that the President fired yet another military leader, and while we don’t like any of the Ukrainian leaders as they take their country into total destruction; these political moves are always a disaster for both the military capabilities and for civilians that will suffer the most.  Russia is also adding in retaliations for Ukraine targeting of civilian food infrastructure warehouses and markets; they’ve begun to destroy similar warehouses and processing plants; and food shortages are already a problem in Ukraine that will be getting much worse now.  More ships are being targeted in and near Odessa; the port facilities are also being hit daily; and shutting down that critical transportation hub for Ukraine will be devastating for the country, economy, and people.

We don’t need to write about the growing world economic stresses again tonight, but will still again mention that adding blockades and trade challenges to the global supply chain will make everything worse, and as we already know; it takes weeks and months for those impacts to work through the supply chains so the results won’t hit most consumers until the fall or winter.  That is a tough thought to end this update on, so we’ll stop now; enjoy the co-ed cuddle time during the rest of the drive to London; and work on making happier thoughts and memories while we do that!

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