Cassie's Journal - March 13, 2016

Our first day on the slopes at Winter Park was brilliant!

Before I get to that, though, I’ll start by mentioning that I’m not a big fan of hotel continental breakfasts.  Yes, I’ve been spoiled by gourmet breakfasts at Michael’s house, but I seriously doubt that very many hotel guests are going to claim that the make-your-own food is the best they’ve ever had.  We might still have other breakfasts at the hotel during the rest of our stay; but I think we’ll go out once or twice too – and that’s partly because most of us were hungry again long before we stopped for our lunch break on the slopes.

Okay, let’s get to the snowboarding report.  We went up to the resort early-enough so that we could get our snowboards and the rest of our equipment rented for the week and set up by the time the lifts began running.  After that, Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I were on our own for the day; and only needed to check in with the Palmers at lunchtime – and then meet up with everyone when the resort closed at four o’clock.  That, by the way, seems so early, but after our first day on the slopes; the extreme snowboarding had us tired out by then – and was way better than any snowboarding we’ve done back at home.

We were able to get lift tickets that allowed us on all runs except for the expert level, and while we could handle those runs too; there wasn’t any way for us to do that without having any way to explain that to the non-Magi in our group.  The runs we could go on were challenging-enough, though; and we won’t be bored while we’re here because it’ll take us days just to try every run even once – and we’ve already had several runs that we’ve needed to go on again while trying to master them.

There were some strong winds to deal with today, but the weather was otherwise fairly amazing – and a few degrees above freezing at the resort base.  I’m not sure what to think about the changing forecast around here, since it’s good that we’re supposed to have colder weather move in; but we’re also supposed to get a lot of snow now too.  If that comes every night; that could be great; but maybe not so hot if we get four or five inches while we’re on the slopes.  I’ll keep you posted on that; but it’s funny to just think about the possibility that we’ll see more snowfall here in a few days than we’ve had all winter at home.

Moving along, we had a blast snowboarding all morning; had lunch at eleven-thirty; and then played all afternoon with just one break for drinks and a snack.  We caught a final ride up the slopes shortly before the lifts shut down for the day; so we were also one of the last groups to meet up with our chaperones when it was time to head back to the hotel.  We dealt with our gear first; and then we had time to grab showers and get ready to go out for dinner once we were back at the hotel.  This time, we had to take a little drive to the local steakhouse; and the guys in our group were particularly happy to have ‘real’ food options, though I have no idea why they’d say that; since I did see quite a few of the different pizzas that were ordered last night and some of them likely had a full steak or two worth of meat on them.

I didn’t go with a steak, but did have a big meal compared to my usual standards.  Since Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I could all measure the exercise weight loss for today in pounds, though; that shouldn’t be surprising.  The food was pretty good, and we had desserts too; but I’ll admit that those desserts didn’t come close to anything out of the Olde Bakery.  We didn’t quite close the restaurant, but we were among the last customers when we left and came back to the hotel.  By then, the kids in our group were pretty much all falling asleep; so they were taken up to bed.  There was some talk about going out and doing something like catching a movie or going bowling; but none of us decided that we had enough energy for that; so we stayed at the hotel.  Once group decided to give the hot tub a try, but I didn’t want to do that either; so Rowen and I brought Michael and Tim back to our room again for the rest of the evening.  We watched a movie; and then we just decided to do a roommate swap.  That’s why Michael’s currently in his room grabbing a change of clothes and his bathroom kit bag; and Rowen’s doing the same here while I’m doing this update and my usual computer and email checks.

I don’t have anything to report from those checks; though that’s partly because Dad has spent most of the weekend getting ready for his trip to Crystal Springs.  Ethan and Ehlana spent time playing with Naomi and Aiden; but also had some time at the lab this weekend too while Dad was busy anyway.  That’s really boring compared to a day of extreme snowboarding; but they do have some fun planned for this week while I’m away too.  I’ll keep you posted on that as it happens; though their journals will have more details if you want to try reading them alongside mine whenever you’re doing this in our future.

Since I have a roommate swap and sleepover with Michael to get to now, though, I don’t really have time to write about things like that, and don’t have anything else to add for tonight either; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - March 12, 2016

We’re here in Colorado; and it’s been a very long travel day that was exciting, tedious, busy, and far too slow; depending on what part of our day we’re discussing.

Getting up early wasn’t hard despite the lack of sleep; and giving Michael his wake-up call was fun for me – and gave us something to do while Rowen was using my bathroom to grab a shower.  We were all ready for the day within a half hour; though Rowen and I couldn’t have our hair totally dried by then.  We managed to get ready without waking Ethan, Ehlana, or their friends; but Mom and Dad got up to see us off.  Tim’s parents both looked as though they wished they were still sleeping; but declined Tim’s offer to drive us to the airport.  He was a bit disappointed about that; but we managed to keep him entertained during the drive to the airport.  We did the drive as part of a mini caravan; and part of the reason for that was because there were then extra drivers available to help out with getting everyone going on the trip to the airport while also getting some of the vehicles into parking lots either before or after the travelers were dropped off at the departures terminal entrance.

Once at the airport, we had a blast of hurry up and wait that wasn’t too terrible because our flight was one of the first heading out in the morning, but we were still there early; and had extra time once we’d finished jumping through all of the hoops that make air travel such a royal pain now.  We had breakfast while we waited for our boarding time; and then pretty much just sat around watching the action going on around us.

This might be a good point to mention that my assigned chaperones for the week are Brent and Sharon Palmer.  They’re in charge of Michael, Tim, Rowen, and four more teens including Anna-Marie; but I’m definitely in their group for a reason.  I don’t expect to have any problems with Dark Magi this week; but I’m sure that Brent and Sharon don’t mind getting to go with us for the extreme snow adventure while being here for me should I need the help.

Moving along, we eventually were on our plane and had a one-stop, two-jet flight out to Denver.  The stop and plane change was fairly short; but we still spent hours on the jets; and then had another long delay in Denver as we retrieved our luggage; rented the ten-passenger vans we needed to haul everyone around for the week; and then drove to Winter Park.  It wasn’t really fun to me, but it was raining when we left home; and we had a bit of rain while on the drive to our hotel too.  It was also warmer than expected; so there was definitely some snow melt going on today – just as it was melting yesterday; judging by the snow report I’ve been checking every day for the past week.

The drive out to Winter Park has a lot of amazing scenery to enjoy – if you’re not one of the drivers of those over-sized vans.  We were with Brent and Sharon in their van – and with their entire group; and we brought up the rear of our caravan while the Robinsons led the way to the hotel.  It was late-afternoon by the time we got there – even with the time change; so we went straight to the hotel and checked in.  Getting that done took a while; though the adults in our group split up to get that done while we – the teens and kids – either watched the luggage or took turns doing a bit of exploring.  From there, we split up onto two different floors for our rooms, and while I know that we didn’t all get to have mountain-view rooms; Rowen and I did get to have one of them – and the view is spectacular!

We’ll be out there snowboarding on that mountain tomorrow, but to be honest; I was glad that we didn’t have time to go to the resort today.  I was tired by then; and we still hadn’t even gone out to dinner yet.  Our chaperones allowed us forty-five minutes to freshen up and settle into our rooms; and then we gathered in the lobby before going out to eat.  There is a decent selection of restaurants of varying types available around here, but our small town showed up with the kids and teens because we all wanted to go to Pizza Hut for our first dinner in Winter Park.  Try not to let that scare you, but when you rarely have anything other than frozen pizza or those pizza kits in a box; Pizza Hut is teen food heaven! ;^)

Yes, I’m saying that even when my boyfriend’s father is a gourmet chef; and I’m also saying that I loved the pizza; spending that time with my friends; and even the play time we had with Mr. and Mrs. Robinson’s kids when they wanted to hang out with Michael, Tim, Rowen, and me instead of with their parents.  After a long travel day, that was the least we could do for the parents in our group; but we didn’t continue with kid control after we got back to the hotel – mostly because the youngest kids were ordered off to bed for the night.

Turning in early was an option, but Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I went on a full tour of the hotel first; and then headed back to our room – Rowen’s and mine.  We talked about trying out the hot tub, but decided against that; mostly because there were other guests there using it; and I didn’t want to be in a comparatively small room with a group of strangers while wearing a swimsuit.

So my small town was showing for that too; but it’s the way I am; and Rowen was with me on that one – even though Tim voted for the girlfriends in swimsuits time.  I do want to try out that hot tub sometime while we’re here; but maybe we can do that with the other teens in our own group sometime when we can do that without a bunch of spectators.  I’ll keep you posted on how that goes for us.

As for tonight, it wasn’t all that late when we got back to our room; so we watched some television and cuddled in pairs on the two beds.  A roommate swap was discussed, but we decided to be good tonight – if only because we’re all tired – and we didn’t want to risk messing things up with our chaperones on our first night here.

I’m not actually worried about that, since I fully expect that there will be other teen roommate swaps with the rest of our friends too, but I really am tired; so it isn’t as if Michael and I would have been doing anything other than sleeping tonight if he had stayed and Rowen had gone to their room with Tim for the night.

Rowen’s already asleep as I write this, and the boys went to their room about forty-five minutes ago.  I suppose that none of what I’ve written about for today sounds very exciting, but travel days really aren’t the best part of any holiday.  If they were, then people would just fly around on planes and drive to and from airports all day, every day; and skip the destination play time.  We’re going to get started on that first thing in the morning, though, and we have a time change to deal with too; so it’s time for me to wrap this up and get some sleep.

After the boys left, Rowen and I got ready for bed; I’ve done my usual bedtime computing that is only slightly different than normal because I’m working through Mom’s encrypted network tunnel while on the hotel wireless network.  That adds a bit of a delay for everything; but allows me to still have access to our normal systems too – and keeps my computing private.  I didn’t have any family business work to take care of, but did have a handful of email to read and respond to – including from Mom and Ehlana; and some more from my cousins and favorite collegians looking for travel updates.  That was all fun, but I’m glad that I don’t have extra work to do tonight.  That also means that I’m done with this update and can go off to sleep; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - March 11, 2016

Rowen and I are about ready to get started on our nap now.  Mandy’s with us; and Ehlana and Naomi are camping in the lounge.  We’ve had a fun night; but we’ll be getting up in a couple of hours so that we can get ready for our trip to the airport and then on to Colorado.

That’s why I’m going to keep this short – though I don’t actually have much news to report anyway.

The weather’s been nice again; and we were able to get outside and actually enjoy some of it today.  That began with Tai Chi by the river; we were outdoors for our lunch break; and then Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I had some park play time with Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden after school.  I was doing that to help Mom out while she was busy doing other things; but I was also glad to spend that time with Ethan and Ehlana too.  Mom and Dad had the extra teens and kids for dinner too, but they went with an easy-dinner night that included grilling burgers and hot dogs; cold salads; and some oven-baked finger foods.  I was still on kid control for the cooking part of that; but Michael and I were on the clean-up crew after dinner.

When the work was finished, Michael, Tim, and Rowen all went home to finish packing for our trip.  I stayed to get a last few things packed too, and we all needed to get that done because Tim’s parents loaded up the minivan they’re using to take us to the airport tomorrow after they were finished work for the day so that we don’t need to take time to do that in the morning.  Michael, Tim, and Rowen also needed overnight bags for here too, but that wasn’t much extra work for them; and it really will be easy for us when Tim’s parents pick us up to just hop in the minivan and go.

We had that done by eight-thirty, so we followed that up with a little visit with the parents – all four sets of them.  Tim’s parents didn’t stay long because they were going to get to see us for the trip the airport, but Rowen’s and Michael’s parents stopped in to see us after closing the computer store and the Inn; and we did those visits in the living room with Mom and Dad – and with the twins and their friends too.  Since four out of six of our parents are working in the morning; that bit of fun didn’t last long; and then it was time for the kids and teens to end our night with a movie in the lounge.

That was fun; Mom and Dad joined us for the last half of the movie; and then they took Ethan and Aiden down to Ethan’s room on their way to bed while Ehlana and Naomi took over the lounge for their sleepover; and Rowen and I split up long-enough to say goodnight to our boyfriends before meeting up here in my room again.  Once we were ready for bed; we had a quick little girl chat with Ehlana and Naomi; I’ve done a micro computer and email check; and the only news I have to report from that is that my favorite collegians are either finished traveling for the night and home safely; or they will be home soon and are fine.

With four teens needing to get ready to go in what really is just a couple of hours from right now, Rowen and I need to get napping; so that’s it for tonight.  Our travel day tomorrow won’t be all fun and games, but we will be together; so that will be great – even if we won’t get there in time to do any snowboarding before the ski lifts shut down for the day.  We will have time to do some exploring, though, and maybe even get caught up on our sleep ahead of our first full day of snowboarding at the Winter Park resort.

I can hardly wait to get the adventure started, but I’ll wish that I’d gone with getting a bit more sleep soon too; so that’s it for tonight.  My next update will be coming to you live from Colorado; so, until then...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - March 10, 2016

We’ve had a nice weather day here, but I didn’t get outside to enjoy it much.  Tai Chi was by the river, and we spent most of our lunch break outside too; but that was pretty much it for me – except for the walks to and from school and the Inn.

Today was really our last day of ‘real’ classes before the March Break.  Tomorrow will just be a wrap-up day for either finishing projects that are due or working ahead on our holiday homework.  I won’t have anything to do because Michael and I did all of the March Break homework we could do ahead of time; and only have one English assignment left to go that we can’t do until we’ve actually experienced what we’re tasked with writing about.

We did that while skipping game night at the Inn, but we did help out with the dinner rush there first before moving on to my house to get that work done.  Yes, we had a very minor make-out session too, but we really did do all of our studying first, and had a last music practice too; since we won’t be able to do that for the next week or so and we still need to be ready for Easter.  We had all of that done by the time that Mom and Dad got home from the Inn with Ethan and Ehlana, and then Michael went home after just a quick visit with them because we were both going to work on packing for our trip after that.

I took care of getting Ethan and Ehlana tucked in for the night first while Mom and Dad got to work in the office; but then I came up to my room and used a bit of Magi power to do most of my packing.  I’ve multi-tasked my bedtime computer and email checks too, so once I have this update finished; I can call it a night and get some sleep.

Before I do that; let’s talk snow.  The weather forecast for Colorado is a bit too warm for the next few days; and snowboarding might be tougher if they get some rain too.  I’m sure that you’re amused reading this in the future that I’m wishing it would be colder for our trip when I’ve hoped for warmer weather all winter.  What’s even stranger is that the forecast for here at home is really great for next week – at least for the temperatures; and we’re going to miss out on that while we’re away too.  Getting the chance to go snowboarding for a week at a really great spot will be worth it – even if we can’t do that and enjoy temperatures in the sixties and seventies too.

I’ll be writing all about my trip while we’re there, though, and the start of that is just a couple of digital page flips away for you whenever you’re reading this in my future; so I guess there’s no point in speculating about any of that tonight.  There is one bit of news I should add before calling it a night.  Michael, Tim, and Rowen are all going to stay here with me tomorrow night so that we’ll be together in one place when it’s time to head to the airport on Saturday morning.  We’ll be doing that very, very early, since our flight leaves early too; but napping along the way will be an option and I expect we’ll likely be up late too.  Ethan and Ehlana are going to have sleepover buddies too, so we’ll likely do a movie night in the lounge with them.  I’ll be glad to do that with them, since I won’t see them again until we get back from Colorado; but the twins are having Naomi and Aiden over because they’re excited about getting to spend extra time together over the next week while Naomi’s off from school too.

Finally, in case I don’t remember to mention it tomorrow; my favorite collegians have just one day left for mid-term exams; and then they’ll be heading home for the holidays too.  Violet and Dillon will be going up to Woodvale first; so I won’t see them before I leave; but then I might not have seen them anyway depending on how late they’d have been driving home after their exams tomorrow.

Wow – that reminds me that I did almost forget a couple of birthday best wishes!

Happy 17^th Birthday, Martin; and Happy 1^st Birthday, Marcus Malloy!

I shouldn’t be so distracted that I forgot to start this update with that news; but then I really had no involvement with either birthday today at all.  I even missed out on the phone calls to Woodvale and Crystal Springs because I wasn’t home for dinner when Mom and Dad made those calls.  Marcus was having a party, and Martin was doing something with some friends tonight; but that’s pretty much all I know about what they were doing today.

Maybe I should’ve had a longer chat with Mom and Dad before coming up here tonight!

Oh well, I can’t do that now, and they definitely wouldn’t want me interrupting them either; so I’ll just leave it there – and let’s not discuss why my parents wouldn’t want me going down to their room for a visit either.

Gee, look at the time!  I’m suddenly very, very tired, and should get the extra sleep tonight while I can; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!