Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 57th Birthday, Miranda!
We haven’t gotten to spend much time with one of our favorite Moms today, but we were there when gifts were delivered, and while she has been busy at the Inn; her family and friends have done what they can to make her day special. Before we get to our news from today; let’s cover the rest of the story from last night.
The food booth dinner at the park was awesome and then we had a blast at the family dance – even when we got teased with payback dance cut-ins that younger cousins were happy to help out with while the instigators enjoyed the bonus entertainment. Honestly, that isn’t as-funny for Ethan, since Naomi is also happy to ‘defend’ her claims to him even with our cousins while Aiden has a tougher time – especially when my cousins actually could date him if one of them could ‘steal’ him away from me! Brianna has the most fun with that kind of thing, but then teasing me about that doesn’t really work with her ongoing claims that she’ll know when she’s met her perfect match at first sight. I think that it would be very unfair to me if Brianna has had that happen; knows that Aiden is her match; and has kept that news to herself without warning me!
Moving along, our dance-date time was amazing, the evening weather was warm and comfortable; and we all headed for our homes starting at around eleven o’clock – or a bit earlier for some of the next-gen parents and their babies and toddlers. Ethan and I brought Naomi, Aiden, Sophia, and Aaron home with us for the rest of the night; we watched a movie and enjoyed the cuddling and chat time while staying up too-late; and then we wrapped up our day with the co-ed nap time in the lounge. We started today with Tai Chi by the river and a hot breakfast, and after the clean-up; we met up with a gang of family and friends for the annual Labor Day shopping adventure. That has definitely been more fun with the addition of the Galleria to the shopping options; and that also makes it a challenge to hit all of our favorite stores before we head to the Inn for the noon buffet. The parents choose that first time slot for our final family meal of the holiday weekend so that our guests can head for their homes earlier than possible on other visits – including for some holidays. Ethan and I were on kid control for that meal, but managed to eat our fill too; and the food was as amazing as always. After that, we split our time between entertaining kids and helping to get vehicles loaded for departure; the goodbyes stretched out into the late afternoon; and we started to mix in chores to clean-up houses and cottages once our weekend guests had left for their own homes. Here at our house, there were also loads of laundry to do, and while that was true at the cottages too; we didn’t get those jobs.
After major meals at breakfast and lunch, we opted for a snack-dinner that we fit in around the chores; we joined Mom and Dad for a bit of family business work in the office; and then Mom sent us upstairs for bath or Jacuzzi time by seven-thirty so that we could also finish getting our gear ready for school in the morning. We’ve done all of that, and now we’re winding down toward the early bedtime that has been ordered and that we’re good with doing because we are tired after another incredible holiday weekend. We could offer an extended commentary on more details from the past few days, but instead of writing more about the ‘what’ we’ve been doing; let’s do a bit of a people update.
First up, we should mention that Kaitlyn and Jeremy had a sad departure after she’s spent so much of the summer here with him – and working with Aunt Leanne and Claire. We didn’t mention Jayden in our recent updates either, but then he spent less time with us than usual because he was busy elsewhere a lot of the time. Susan spent more time with him, but that was also while he was at his family cottage or with the Everetts or various grandparents. That was a change for us, but we understand why Jayden wanted to spend more time at his cottage and with his aunt and uncle ahead of the months we won’t see him in-person while we’re all busy at school.
The major continuing change to our family dynamics for holidays is the next-gen parents and their kids; and that affects everyone – whether we’re talking about the remaining teens and kids in our generation or the older adults making transitions to the next levels of their lives. Mom and Dad aren’t in any imminent danger of joining the grandparents’ club, but they also aren’t exactly in the same group with Violet, Dillon, and the rest of the younger parents with toddlers and babies; so that puts them in with some of those next-gen grandparents when it comes to hanging out together. As Ethan and I start running out of older teen cousins; we’re also dealing with those remaining teens choosing other entertainments too that we can’t join in on too – including options like being able to drive cars. Most of our younger cousins also haven’t crossed over; so they aren’t ready to hang out with couples – though there are exceptions for times when pranks or other similar entertainment is an option. We don’t want that to sound wrong or that we’re feeling excluded in any way – it is simply a series of facts that we don’t need much parental supervision; we’re doing less with the older teens; the parents of various ages have different interests; and we are helping with kid control fairly-often when it comes to younger and next-gen cousins and their friends so that’s a change from previous years when we were just two of those kids playing together.
Growing up is inevitable and unavoidable; so those changes will continue – even if they might not be something we’ll comment on between now and the next round of holidays in November and December. We are happy to be able to add that everyone in our family is doing well and are healthy – including the grandparents and great-grandparents. There might be news coming this fall for some grandparents that are showing interest in the new retirement community and in joining our grandparents for winters in the south, but we’ll keep you posted on those potential stories as they happen. We’ll be busy enough with our return to school and the changes that will include Naomi’s cheer squad responsibilities and adding in our own activities like school band. We will not be attempting to record another album at the studio this fall or winter, and to be honest; we haven’t even decided whether to keep that band going this year with everything else we’ll have on the go – though we have already been asked about playi9ng at school dances and the fall festival. That has me thinking about the fact that we didn’t play at the teen dance on Saturday, but then we probably would have turned down any offers; since we already had the football game and baseball matches on the schedule.
Okay, it’s time to wrap this up. We’ve loved getting to have so much fun with our family and friends, but summer is over; and it is time for us to get back to school and work out our fall schedules – including trying to do more work at the lab or archives while we can for one more year before we hit high school and need to change that up again. Cassie could get away with late nights working in her room, but Ethan and I won’t be able to hang out at the lab until the wee hours of each morning without drawing attention we can’t have with our non-Magi neighbors. Yes, there is work that we can do from home, but that isn’t the same as working directly with our beakers or books; so we’ll need to deal with that in our own way. Getting more sleep at night compared to Cassie’s teen years will just be an awesome bonus for us! ;^)
It is obviously time for me to stop writing now, so stay tuned for our first school day update of the fall sometime tomorrow night; and we’ll go get some quality nap time to be ready for those adventures!
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
