Cassie's Journal - January 4, 2013

The top news story of the day, for just a very few of us, is that Liz Seager is pregnant with her second child!  Mom found that out when she saw Liz while dropping Ethan and Ehlana off at KidZone; and I got to ‘see’ for myself when Rowen and I coincidentally needed to drop off an afternoon snack for Liz and Vicki at our favorite hair salon.  The hard part about knowing things like this early is having to keep the secret until Liz can find out ‘officially’ from Uncle Adam in about a week and change.  Aunt Leanne suggested that some girls have apparently had happier holidays than most, but I’ll just pretend that I don’t know what she means by that.

Compared to the expecting mother story from the Seager family, my day has been fairly uneventful.  The snow has been melting a little more every day, so there weren’t even any boys out on the ridge trying to do any sledding today.  Snowball fights were still breaking out here and there, but Rowen and I stayed away from that action because while I love snowball fights as much as the next kid, I don’t like throwing – or getting hit by - ice or slush balls.

While Ethan and Ehlana were at KidZone, Mom was running around town doing the usual supply and grocery runs; picking up dry cleaning; and having lunch out with Dad, Aunt Leanne, and Claire.  Rowen and I had a self-serve sandwiches and chips lunch at my house, and we were there to help Mom with unloading the van; but spent most of the day outdoors except for two warm-up breaks – including the afternoon visit to the salon.

Dinner and a movie night resumed today, and Grandma and Grandpa were there too for a last visit before heading out for their trip in the morning.  I so wish that I could be spending the next eleven weeks in and around Australia and New Zealand with them, but since I can’t take Rowen, my parents, brother, and sister along too; I’ll just tough it out and stay at home with them instead.

Rowen stayed with us for the evening, and we helped Mom and Violet with making dinner.  Grandpa led the dinner conversation, and his review of the highlights of their travel itinerary was nearly as entertaining as his post-trip adventure tales always are.  I don’t know if having a high-tech daughter-in-law and granddaughter is rubbing off, but he must be using the internet a lot these days to learn everything he can about the places they’re going to visit and do their family business and charity work.

Uncle Adam and Aunt Deborah had been late getting out of the clinic, and we took our time having our meal, so by the time we finished cleaning up, it was after eight o’clock.  We all moved into the living room, picked a kid-appropriate movie; and settled in for a little quality cuddle time.  Violet went out to meet up with Dillon at the Inn when Rowen’s parents and brother joined us after closing the store for the night.  They stayed for the rest of the movie and our bedtime snack break before taking Rowen with them and going home when my grandparents, aunts, and uncles headed out.

Going off-recap for a moment, I’d like to mention that Patrick is usually fairly tolerable when he and Scott aren’t collaborating – and trying to show off for each other.  It was even fun watching him play with Ethan while he was here.  Rowen assures me that he can be very annoying without having Scott around to help him, but there does seem to be some hope that he’ll eventually outgrow this phase some day.  Sooner would be nice, but I won’t hold my breath; and I’m not sure that when he and Scott hit the tween stage that it won’t just be worse.

Anyway, back to the main story; I helped Mom and Dad put Ethan and Ehlana to bed, and have been in my room with Mandy since then – starting with a little Jacuzzi time for me. (For some reason, Mandy never wants to take a turn.)  Mom and Dad went to bed early too, and I doubt that Violet will be home early when she has less than two days left before she’ll need to go back to Woodvale.  She’ll be sad about that, but the good news is that this will be the last semester that she and Dillon will ever spend apart.

I’ve just been puttering around the internet since climbing into bed with Mandy, and there isn’t anything else to report for today; so I’m going to shut down now and shoot for a third night in a row where I’m sleeping before midnight.

Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging out!

Cassie's Journal - January 3, 2013

Pretending to be asleep wasn’t enough to keep Patrick and Scott from their mission to annoy us last night; and it took a cease and desist order from the parents to put an end to their warped sense of fun – until they resumed hostilities again this morning.  Our solution to the problem was to escape the house shortly after helping Rowen’s Mom with the post-breakfast clean-up; and doing our next holiday sleepover at my house.

Other than the change in overnight accommodations, and the welcomed end to our latest episode of being prank targets number one and two for Rowen’s little brother and his trusty sidekick; the rest of the day was pretty much a repeat of yesterday.  We played outdoors a lot; had a couple of snowball fights; took Ethan and Ehlana to the park; practiced our flute and saxophone in the lounge; and some Magi-shielded fun time with the twins too.  Dinner with my parents, little brother and his best friend, Ehlana, was much easier for us; and we’re both very glad that dodging food during the clean-up wasn’t an issue either.

Violet was at Dillon’s house for dinner and the evening, and it was a fairly quiet night around here.  Rowen, Ethan, Ehlana, and I watched a movie in the lounge while Mom and Dad worked in the office; Rowen and I helped Mom with the full bath and bedtime routine for Ethan and Ehlana; and then we got ready for bed too, and have been playing on our computers and cuddling with Mandy for the last hour or so.  Once I have this finished, we’re going to call it a night early – mostly because we were a bit sleep-deprived last night, and partly because we want to be rested up and ready to enjoy the last weekday of our Christmas holiday.  Let’s not even think about the fact that we only have three days left before it’s over and we’re back to school again on Monday!

Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging out!

Cassie's Journal - January 2, 2013

It’s been all fun and games for most kids in Witch Falls today.  For Ethan, Ehlana, and me, our fun started with breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa.  When it was time to go home again, Mom came over to pick us up; I helped out with getting the twins and our bags inside; and then I was set free to meet up with Rowen and get on with our wintry play day.

There wasn’t more snow, but some boys had decided to try building a toboggan run by hauling nearby snow by the sled-full and filling in the bare spots left from overuse yesterday.  Rowen and I watched that semi-successful operation for a while; had a fairly entertaining snowball fight that was instigated by a pair of un-named girls who ambushed the unsuspecting toboggan run builders; and went for a few slides down the hill on shared sleds before word got around, and there were too many kids all trying to get in on the unexpected bonus time on the slopes.

After leaving the hill, we went back to my house for hot chocolate and a snack, and then we spent the rest of the morning hanging out in the lounge with Ethan and Ehlana.  We played our flute and saxophone; did a little telekinetic video gaming that was mostly for Ethan; and basically just goofed off until lunchtime.  For Rowen and me, lunch was a picnic for four, and before you get too excited Aunt Leanne, the other two members of that foursome were Rowen’s parents; and the picnic was at the computer store.  Patricia has been joking since then that our surprise lunch visit was exclusively to butter her and Owen up to get sleepover approval, but that was totally just an added bonus, and we really did put the picnic together just so we could spend a little extra time with them.  Having the sleepover at Rowen’s didn’t really work out all that well for us either, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Our afternoon included picking Ethan and Ehlana up after lunch and taking them to the park for some play time that included making toddler and tween-sized snow angels; slide action that had Ethan suggesting that wearing snow pants for that year-round would be a lot more fun; a brief, too-cold time on the swings; and a walk along the path to the falls and back.  We had our afternoon hot chocolate and snack break at the Inn, and then Rowen and I took Ethan and Ehlana home again.  I packed my bag for another sleepover away, and we took that, and our flute and saxophone, over to Rowen’s house after doing a round of goodbye hugs with Mom and the twins.

With the holiday rush over for another year, the computer store was back to normal winter hours, and Patricia came home early to start making dinner.  She had two volunteers to help with the work, and that’s when we found out that there were going to be two sleepover guests at the Emersons.  I’m not sure if it was worse tonight because this had been the first chance Patrick and Scott had to unleash their pranks and jokes on us since the start of the Christmas break, but the two boys were in top form all night – and still are even as I write this between interruptions.

Patricia, Rowen, and I had dinner ready by the time Owen got home with the junior jokesters, and for the next forty-five minutes; Patrick and Scott entertained themselves by trying their best to gross the rest of us out with their food analogies, jokes, and a display of dining skills that would have amazed any pack of starving wolves.  I won’t go into the details, and Rowen and I were both very glad to help her parents when it was time to clean up.

Doing the dishes didn’t give Rowen and me a reprieve from Patrick and Scott, since they quickly volunteered to help too.  Their help probably added ten minutes to the work time, and they didn’t actually get anything useful done while trying to splash Rowen or me with water; putting clean dishes back into the dirty stack; and an attempt at a leftovers food fight that Owen thankfully stopped immediately after two spoon-flung pieces of pasta hit their marks.  Getting a noodle and sauce in my hair was gross, and so was getting it out, but Rowen was more annoyed because she needed to change her top so that her Mom could spray it with stain remover.

The hits, mostly metaphorically, have continued all night.  Our music practice was constantly interrupted by things like the boys playing YouTube videos of screeching cats or of them staggering into Rowen’s room and pretending that our music was killing them – over and over again.  Rowen was already wishing she had a dart pipe to blow on instead of her flute by then, but there was still much more to come.  While watching a movie in the living room, Patrick and Scott spent all of their time pranking us.  Creepy-crawlies would brush up against our feet and ankles from under the sofa, or on our shoulders and hair from above.  The list went on and on, and though Rowen and I managed to get through the movie, we came back up to her room for the rest of the night right after it was over.

Unfortunately, the boys came upstairs too, and they had a large cache of weapons of mass annoyance available to them in Patrick’s room that they were not afraid of using.  Prank and joke delivery systems included a remote-control monster truck and a micro helicopter; rubber worm and spider-throwing slingshots; water guns; a robot; and a squadron of paper airplanes.

Short of using a little Magi power, there doesn’t seem to be anything Rowen and I can do to put an end to the little brother and sidekick games tonight – even bribery didn’t work – so I’m going to wrap this up and we’re going to turn the lights out and at least pretend to go to sleep.  It might work – or not.

Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging out!

Cassie's Journal - January 1, 2013

Happy New Year again!

The snow from yesterday and the college bowl games today combined to convince our holiday weekend guests to pack up and head for home early.  Even Chris and Martin were able to get motivated at the prospect of being home in time to watch the games with their buddies; and were packed and ready to go in record time for them despite the lack of sleep from too much video gaming.

Our parents weren’t quite as fired up, but Uncle Rick and Uncle Blaine really did want to get on the road early, so Mom, Dad, Violet, and I all pitched in to make that happen for them.  It was still only mid-morning by the time we were done with the goodbye hugs and kisses; our outbound family members were all on the road; and we could take a little break in a suddenly very quiet house.

With the Inn closed today, Violet was busy with Dillon from shortly after we had that little snack break, and I went to meet up with Rowen for some snow play fun while Mom and Dad puttered around the house and spent the day playing with Ethan and Ehlana.  As kids everywhere there is snow do, Rowen and I managed to find a place where we – and what seemed like half the kids in town – could do a little tobogganing.  It wasn’t much of a run, and we could only play until the snow cover was too thin to keep sliding down without getting caught in ruts, dirt, or mud and slush.  The rest of our snow play included a really fun mass snowball fight at the park; some more snowman building that we stopped to help Jessica Bassett with on our way back to Rowen’s house for lunch; and a moderately successful attempt at riding and sliding our bikes around at the park and school.

When Rowen and I stopped in to my house for our afternoon break, I found out that Ethan, Ehlana, and I were doing a dinner and sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa tonight.  yes, I’m sure that part of that was so we could spend a little quality time with them before they head out on their next trip this weekend, but Mom and Dad seemed very happy about the prospect of some quality alone time too.  Whatever they plan to do with their kid-free time is probably one of those things that kids-don’t-need-to-know.

That news did shorten my play time with Rowen, and we ended up staying in my room with Ethan and Ehlana after our hot chocolate and cookies break.  We had a little flute and sax music practice; I packed for my sleepover; and we had a little telepathic chat with Ethan, Ehlana, and Mandy while mostly just hanging out and taking it easy.  When it was time to go over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, we did the goodbye hugs and kisses with Mom; Rowen headed home; and Dad drove Ethan, Ehlana, and me over so that we didn’t have to bother with switching the car seats to Grandpa’s van.

There really isn’t much to report for the rest of the evening.  After days of too much food, Grandma and I put together a light soup and sandwiches meal; we had bakery desserts; and then spent a couple of hours playing before both the grandparents and toddlers were ready for an early bedtime.  I wasn’t ready to crash at nine o’clock, so I’ve been playing on my computer since helping to put Ethan and Ehlana to bed.  It’s still only ten-thirty now, but I guess getting an extra couple of hours of sleep more than usual will be nice – as long as that doesn’t just have me up earlier than usual in the morning.  I’ll let you know how that worked out for me tomorrow night.

Until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor; logging out!

Cassie's Journal - December 31, 2012

Happy New Year!

There’s still a party going on downstairs, and Chris and Martin are continuing an attempt at an all-night gaming marathon, but Dawn fell asleep before midnight; was woken up to ring in the New Year; and promptly fell asleep again before being moved up to my room.  I came upstairs then too, but am winding down, and starting off the New Year with a little bedtime computing.

Since the usual parties at the Inn and Sheldon’s Pub are going on tonight, our little family celebration probably won’t make the top ten best New Year’s Eve events in Witch Falls, but I loved spending the evening with our family and a few friends; and there’s the added bonus that Aunt Leanne wasn’t able to do any matchmaking with me tonight.  That probably worked out even better for Michael too because Lisa was going to be at the Inn party along with Nora, Tim, and some of the other kids in our class.  I’m sure that Dawn and I will get the full party report from Violet in the morning if we have time to do that while everyone is getting ready to head home in the morning.

Not being around Michael didn’t keep Aunt Leanne from teasing me about him a couple of times, including once at midnight; but I was quite happy to go with hugs and kisses with my favorite guys – including Dad, Ethan, and Grandpa.  There was more than enough mushiness with the couples in our family, and tweenie romances were not needed or wanted.  Let’s drop that line of thought, and go back to the beginning of the day.

Tai Chi was short and sweet this morning because Ethan, Ehlana, and Jayden decided they were ready to party early.  Breakfast was cereals, fruit salad, and Olde Bakery goodies like muffins, bagels, and cinnamon buns; and the mini-buffet was open for self-service from eight until nine-thirty.  Chris and Martin barely made it downstairs before Mom and Dad started packing everything up.  Dawn and I were drafted for some clean-up work both in the kitchen and in the lounge.

By the time we were finished our work, snow was falling outside.  Not really coming down or anything, but we do have somewhere around three inches of the white fluffy stuff on the ground by now.  There was definitely enough for some afternoon snow fun; and even some of the grown-ups came out to play with us for a while.  There were snowball fights, a couple of smallish snowmen have appeared in our back yard down by the river; and all of the younger kids were pulled around the yard in two of our sleds.  Rowen, Dawn, and I went to take a look at the possibilities for going sledding down the ridge, but there just wasn’t enough snow on the hills to make that an option yet.  Rowen and I will check on that again tomorrow, but we’ll probably have to wait for more snow.

I’d say it was mostly a lazy, fun day at the Proctor house, and I guess it mostly was for the kids; but the parents ended up doing a fair bit of work.  There were two more meals to put together after breakfast; a party to get ready for in the evening; loads and loads of laundry; and the added bonuses of shoveling driveways and sidewalks, and hauling in enough wood to keep the fireplace in the living room going all evening.  Dawn and I weren’t completely off the hook for the work, but our help with snow shoveling had the ulterior motive of getting more snow for our snowmen and snowball fights; and the lunch clean-up was easy thanks to using recyclable dinnerware, glasses, and cutlery.

After the dinner clean-up was finished, it was mostly play time for everyone.  Rowen had spent the afternoon with us, and her parents came over after closing the store and getting something to eat.  Patrick had been spending the day with Scott, and he was dropped off later when the Faulkners stopped in for a little visit before going on to the New Year’s Eve party at Brent and Sharon Palmer’s home.  We had quite a few cameo visits like that, and sometimes the kids or teens would come upstairs to the lounge to hang out with us while their parents were sharing a cup of cheer and a chat in the living room.  That occasionally made things a bit crowded, but it was non-stop fun too.

Rowen, Dawn, and I played games with the five younger kids; there was video gaming in the lounge; a New Year’s Eve music simulcast from parties around the world on the stereo; and more snacks and drinks than even Chris, Martin, and the rest of the visiting teens could demolish in one night.  There were only two times all night when the lounge was empty.  The first was a little mini-buffet at eleven, and the second was when we all gathered in the living room to welcome in twenty-thirteen together.

This wasn’t as big of a deal for the kids in the room, but our parents and grandparents were more than a little nostalgic tonight about watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve for the first time since he passed away.  There was a tribute show earlier that they didn’t watch, and more clips and tributes during the live broadcast.  I’m fairly sure than none of our grandmothers have the Bieber fever, or even know who most of the artists performing tonight are, but then the channel probably got changed shortly after I came up to bed anyway.

The midnight hugs and kisses seemed to be more fun for the married adults in the room; but Aunt Grace, and all of us kids and teens, had fun too – though Chris, Martin, and Patrick pretended they didn’t.  An intermission from the party in the living room followed, and while the parents were busy putting all of the younger kids to bed, Patricia ran Rowen and Patrick home; and as I mentioned already, Chris and Martin took over the lounge, and I came up to my room then too.

I’m going to wrap this up shortly, but let’s end this entry with a little New Year’s resolution fun.

Aunt Deborah’s resolution is to have her baby in twenty-thirteen – like she has a choice!

Aunt Grace plans on completely changing her life; leave her job; move from the city to a small town; become CEO of a risky start-up bio-tech company; and get married to a guy who is nuts enough to have the same plans.  She’d like to bring her personal trainer here too, but since there isn’t a health club in Witch Falls; that probably won’t happen.

Grandpa’s resolution is to have more fun than last year.  When you read this some day, Grandpa, I’d just like you to know that you’ll have more fun than you could have imagined; and yes, Ethan, Ehlana, and I knew.

Aunt Leanne wouldn’t tell me what her resolution was, and I’m more than a little scared about that.

Mom and Dad are hoping to have more fun too – and less work.  We’ll see about adding some more fun into their year, but the less work thing isn’t going to happen for them anytime soon.

There were others, but I won’t list them all here.  I don’t really have any New Year resolutions, but when it was my turn tonight, I just mentioned that I’m going to learn to play piano this year.  I know it’s boring, but resolutions are supposed to be about things you want to – and can – change in your life.  The only thing I can think of that I’d really like to change would be to not have Aunt Leanne’s volunteer matchmaking services, but there’s no real point in making a resolution I have no control over; and I certainly wasn’t going to give her more ammunition for future teasing by suggesting it tonight.

Okay, I’m done for tonight; and ready to get some sleep.

Say ‘goodnight, Cassie’.

“Goodnight, Cassie.”