Congratulations to the Taylor and Spencer families! Natalie Taylor gave birth to her first child,
Ricky, today; they’re both doing great; and both families are very excited
about the new addition to their ranks.
It was also a special day for Uncle Mark because Ricky is the first baby
he’s delivered in Witch
Falls.
My day wasn’t new addition to the family kind of great, but
even without much sleep; Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I managed to have a pretty
good day. For Michael and I, that
started with Tai Chi in Tim’s back yard.
It isn’t the first time that Michael has had friends around to witness
our morning workouts; but it was different today compared to being at home with
Mom, Dad, and the twins. That quiet
start to the morning ended abruptly when the official wake-up calls came for
anyone still sleeping; and it was a crazy-fun rush of action for the next
couple of hours. We needed to get ready
for the day; have breakfast; pack bags; and tear down the tents before Tim’s
mother drove Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I out to the Ridge River
Ranch for our riding lesson.
We only have one riding lesson left to go after today, and
it’s especially fun right now because we’re working on the most advanced riding
techniques that we’ll be learning this year.
That includes getting to let our horses run a bit more often, and while
we’re not doing anything even remotely as difficult as the jumping that
advanced riders do; we have done some little jumps – so we could hop things
like deadfalls if we ever needed to do that some day.
Rowen’s Mom picked us up from the ranch when we were
finished our lesson and trail ride; and swung around to Tim’s house so that
Rowen, Michael, and I could load our gear into her minivan before riding our
bikes back to my house and meeting her there.
Tim came with us; and we all stayed to have lunch with Mom, Alicia,
Ethan, and Ehlana after unloading the minivan.
There was a kid swim before lunch too that was mostly so that four of us
could wash off the trail dust before eating.
Michael had to eat and run so he could get changed and over to the Inn
to at least help with the post-lunch rush clean-up; but Tim stayed and played
with us until he needed to go over to the park for Kyle’s football practice.
Ethan wanted to go over and watch the football action, but
we did a few things around home first before hooking up the trailer and riding
over to the park. We were still there
with lots of time to spare before the scrimmage game, and Kyle made Ethan happy
by again using him as extra weight in one of the suicide drills. They’d added extra elements to those drills
now, so it was even more fun for Ethan as Kyle would put him on his shoulders
while doing squats or jumps; and one of the other guys helped Ethan to sit on
Kyle’s back when it was time for the push-ups.
Okay, carrying a toddler around like that isn’t as
impressive as the stories about Lee’s lunch break farm equipment bench presses;
but we had fun watching that part of their training, and Kyle probably could
have done those drills carrying one of his teammates without slowing down much.
Michael joined the practice in time for the scrimmage game,
so we sat on the bleachers and watched them play for a while before Rowen and I
took Ethan and Ehlana to the playground so they could run around and have fun
there until Michael and Tim were finished playing football. We went home for another swim after that, and
then Michael needed to get back to the Inn
again. I expected Tim to leave then too,
but he instead invited Rowen and I to ride the trail with him for a while; so
we went and did that for the hour or so that Rowen and I had before we needed
to be home again to have an early, baseball practice night easy-dinner.
The Leopards only have one game left to play, and since we’ll
be up against Palmer’s Panthers again; Coach Sarah and Carolyn were pulling out
all the stops to get our team ready for the championship match. None of us want to lose that game –
especially when that would mean losing all three of our games to the Panthers;
but we haven’t figured out how to beat them yet this year. My own game play wasn’t as good as it should
have been tonight, but I am running on about three and a half hours of sleep;
and it had already been a long, busy day by then.
Rowen and I went for a swim after practice, but then she
went home and I was in for the night so that Mom could do another Magi lesson
with me. She wasn’t disappointed or
surprised that I didn’t have my archive homework done yet from our last lesson;
but that doesn’t happen very often.
She’d already done her lesson with Ethan and Ehlana by then, so they
played on their iPads while we worked through a shielding lesson. Yes, I can do wards and shields on my own
now, but that’s just basic protection.
There is a lot more that Magi Masters can do with shields – and I still
have years and probably decades of study to go before I’ve covered everything.
The good news about Mom’s orders to have a study night at
home is that I’m going to be able to get some extra sleep tonight. After my lesson, we did the full bath and
bedtime routine with the twins that included a story and chat with Dad; and
then I came up to my room to do some Jacuzzi and computer study
multi-tasking. Since my archive homework
included time-phasing; I even combined that studying with practicing the
lesson. That’s how I managed to have a
long soak in the tub, take my time with drying and styling my hair, and get two
hours of archive reading finished in just minutes of ‘real’ time.
I am feeling those extra hours of work now, though, along
with everything else I did today; and I’m ready to crash and get a decent
night’s sleep, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
