Cassie's Journal - September 4, 2017

Summer has ended; our families have gone home; and I’ll be heading back to school in a bit more than a few hours.  I’ve been working most of the day, and missed out on pretty much all of the family fun; but I have been able to help bring joy to a lot of customers; and I do love working with Miranda, Stephanie, and everyone else at the Inn.

That does still seem a bit weird on Labor Day, but we have a good reason for celebrating it in our town on the Sunday instead; and it works for us! ;^)

What I need to do now is get some sleep; though; and I can do that because I honestly don’t have much else to add to this update.

Michael and I fell asleep shortly after starting our sofa sleepover; we really only had time for a long nap before getting up and heading over to the Inn for the breakfast buffet; and we’ve worked our butts off since then.  Sure, we did a bit of shopping on my breaks, but we had full dining rooms at the Inn most of the day; and kept those breaks as short as we could so that we could help Miranda and Jacob.  We were late getting the Inn closed by the time we had everything cleaned up and ready for the Tuesday morning breakfast shift; and I’ve been working on the family business since getting home – after just a short bedtime visit with Michael at his house while on the way here.

I’ve had hours of work to get done, but I am caught up; and will try to stay that way as we get into our first week of school.  I’ll write a lot about that as we go along, but you can flip digital pages to learn more while I really need the nap right now; so I’ll wrap this up and get to that.

Until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - September 3, 2017

We’ve had an awesome day!

Tai Chi by the river was a great way to get our day off started; I was at Michael’s for a gourmet breakfast that Jake and Stephanie joined us for – and that included a chef’s duel for the food between Jake and Jacob; and then Michael and I had to rush the clean-up before heading to the park for the teen praise team warm-ups ahead of the church service in the park.

We had a lot of fun with that; had more work to do when it was time to pack up our gear and make way for the first ‘act’ of the afternoon; and then we were on kid control for lunch and the co-ed ballgame.  I’m happy to report that we went five-for-five this year for family championships, and while I battled against Miranda for the cheerleading competition; my squad won that battle too – despite the fact that Miranda pretended to be mad about losing on her fiftieth birthday weekend.  I give all credit for that to Brianna and Faith; since they managed to keep Miranda distracted on a regular basis so that she didn’t have time to cheer for ‘her’ team.  While that was fun for us, there was a fairly-entertaining ballgame to watch too; and the Roughriders won the day over the Ranchers by a score of eighteen to eleven.  The game was a bit closer than the score looks; and this was another case of a really good inning for our team being the game-changer today.

After the game, some of us went for a swim to cool off; we played games after that; and then Michael and I were on kid control again for the dinner rush.  Add in park clean-up duty after that; and we were kept busy until after the dance started.  Once that work was done, we got to play with our family and friends again until the dance ended at a bit after eleven.  We danced a fair bit; socialized the rest of the time; and then helped with all of the work that went into packing up our day camp gear and getting all of the kids home.  The cousins are back with their ‘host’ families tonight; Ethan’s staying with Jayden; and Ehlana’s with Brianna because she couldn’t say no to the invitation after Brianna found out that some of the cousins were getting sleepover buddies.

That’s worked out nicely for Michael and me; and he’ll be here shortly for our sofa sleepover.  Sleeping will be what we’ll be doing; since we’ll be at the Inn early to work another breakfast buffet – and then work the holiday buffets that’ll be going on from noon until we close tomorrow night.  I might get to do a bit of holiday shopping on my breaks too; but I won’t get to spend much time with my family.  I do want to get to that sofa sleepover fun with Michael, though; so let’s wrap this up.

I guess the only news I’ve skipped is from last night.  The part of the campfire I was there for was fun; Michael and I took a turn playing and singing for everyone; and we had some quality cuddle time with Brianna when she picked us for her ‘fall-asleep’ cuddle buddies.  The camping was fun too, and we had some chat time with the older kids and teens before we went into our tents and got some sleep; but it was fairly low-key; and there really isn’t anything else to add about that.  We had an audience this morning for Tai Chi, but Michael and I missed out on the crazy-busy breakfast rush; and we didn’t have to help with the kid control either while we were at his house – and then at the park with the teen praise team.

Okay, that’s it, and I really need to get some sleep while cuddling with Michael – as soon as he gets here; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - September 2, 2017

Happy 50^th Birthday, Miranda!

This should have been a special day for Michael’s Mom, but that just wasn’t an option on a busy holiday weekend.  We’ll try to help her out with celebrating her big day while the Inn is closed tomorrow, but it won’t be the same; and I wish that we could have done more than just give them a kid free night – which wasn’t tough to do when we only had to find a place for Michael to stay tonight.

That was even easier than it might have been because the cousins collectively set up a camping night for all of us – and a handful of friends; though I might have preferred a sofa sleepover over a camping night with a gang of girls in my tent! ;^)

I’m writing this while switching from work mode to campfire; so I need to keep this short.

Michael and I worked the breakfast shift; Miranda and Jacob went with a buffet for that; and I missed the morning championship baseball games that Ethan’s and Ehlana’s teams both won.  Ethan’s Bakery Blizzard beat Emerson’s Earthquake by a fairly-easy eleven-to-five margin.  Ehlana, Naomi, and the Hair Herons had to battle to the end for their eight-to-seven victory over Green’s Garden Geese.  I was able to congratulate all of my favorite Blizzard and Herons players while on my morning break because I spent that time with them at the park while they celebrated with ice cream treats and played there for the rest of the morning.

After that, I worked the lunch shift for as long as I could; went to my ballgame after that; and Rowen and I led our team to another championship – the last we’ll have for at least a handful of years because we won’t be able to play baseball next summer – or won’t; since we wouldn’t want to leave our team hanging when we’ll be heading to college by mid-August.  I won’t write about the score, since we had a great pitching effort today; so we could have used the mercy rule.  We didn’t do that; but we did coast through the last couple of innings with a bunch of intentional pop-up outs to help speed us through to the end.  While our team celebrated, Rowen and I caught the start of Michael and Tim’s big game, but I had to get back to the Inn in time to help out with the dinner prep work; so I could only cheer them on for their first two at-bats before I needed to get going again.  Landry’s Lasers eventually doubled up on the Solar Farm Photons, but in this case, their twelve-to-six win came thanks to one big inning for the Lasers; and the Photons couldn’t make a comeback happen before they ran out of innings and outs.

The dinner-to-close shift at the Inn was non-stop busy; we had a full house with all dining rooms; and the only reason I’m here now is because Jake and Stephanie insisted that we shouldn’t be stuck working right to the very end of the night – just most of it!  Seriously, Michael and I stayed until most of the work was done; so we only skipped getting the library set up for the self-serve breakfast in the morning and the last bits of clean-up in the kitchen and dining rooms.

I’ve grabbed a quick shower; I’m doing this while getting my hair dried and dressed for a campfire and camping adventure; and I need to get out to the campfire that has already been going on for more than an hour already.

Sunday is going to be my only ‘holiday’ of the weekend, but the fun really starts now for me; so I’m going to get to that – and you can flip the digital page to find out what happens between now and my next update!

It’s been a long, busy day filled with a lot of work, but we also won four championship games for our family today, and my family has had an awesome day while I’ve mostly been busy with work; so I’m glad that they’ve been able to do that while I’ve been busy.

Before I wrap this up, though, I should add that Miranda did have a lot of birthday love sent her way today, so while taking the day or weekend off to celebrate wasn’t an option; her friends and family did what they could to make her day as good as possible while working fourteen or fifteen hours.

Okay, I need to get out to the family and friends fun now; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!

Cassie's Journal - September 1, 2017

It’s been another crazy-busy day, so while a lot has been going on around here for the last Friday of our summer holidays and the first day of September; I’m going to keep this update as brief as possible.

Michael and I worked the breakfast shift at the Inn; he went to his football practice when needed; and I stayed until the end of the rush before going home and getting started on my chores and some bonus family business work.  I went back to the Inn to help with the lunch rush; did more chores after that; and then I had an early dinner before meeting up with Rowen and heading over to the school to get ready for our second football game of the season.

We have two home games in a row to start the season because it was our turn to home field advantage in our annual game against Maple Valley.  The spectator turnout was great; and there’s a good chance that half the people in Maple Valley were here for the evening – along with some campers that came to town and then stopped by to watch the show.

The guys on our team put on quite a show too; which is why I’m not going to go on much about the game.  That just wouldn’t be fair to any future Maple Valley team fans of the future that might read this – and there are a few Magi with close ties to Maple Valley families.  We won by a score of fifty-seven to nineteen; kicked five field goals in the second half; and Michael and Tim scored three touchdowns each in the win – and still put up big passing yards in the second half despite scoring all of those touchdowns in the first half.  It wasn’t really a fair match this year, and while Maple Valley does have some good players; they didn’t have anyone fast-enough to keep up with Michael or Tim tonight.

Our cheerleading was fun; we had bonus junior cheerleaders again tonight – including our visiting cousins; and our second half-time routine of the season was another big hit with the kids and adults – if not so much with the teens because it was so kid-friendly.  Rowen and I are working on new routines that will hopefully help with that; but we’re still going to stick to the plan to make every routine family-friendly.

Speaking of family, we do not have any guests at our house tonight, but we will have some cousins here for at least one night before they head home on Monday.  The rest of the Proctor clan arrived earlier today and Uncle Blaine had a couple of meetings this afternoon while he was here and could talk with some of the contractors and construction workers that continue to build the homes he’s continuing to design.  The Rice family is at home in Woodvale this weekend; mostly because three out of four kids are at college and Dawn is working the weekend at the airport to earn more flying time money.  Ditto that for the McEwans – without the flying-money-work for anyone; but the Johnson clan is here in force; and split up between the Carrington and Ayres’ homes.  Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace have her family with them, so other than one or two sleepovers or a camping night with our cousins; our contributions to the family fun this weekend will be with the food and work.

For me, the work will be starting with a breakfast buffet shift at the Inn; so I need to wrap this up.

I got to spend some time with my family before and after the game – and during it while our junior cheerleaders wanted to play with us.  Michael and I had another, smaller, victory party to attend after the game; and that was again at Tim’s house – though we’ll change that up for the rest of the home games.  This time, Michael and I only stayed until midnight; he walked me home; and I took care of the Magi-powered healing so he wouldn’t be too sore to sleep or in rough shape in the morning.  I’d help Tim with that if it was an option, but it isn’t; so he’ll have to settle for Rowen’s love and support instead! ;^)

Everyone was sleeping at my house by the time we got there; I didn’t wake anyone on my way up to bed after Michael went home; and I only had a bit of family business to deal with that came up during my email.  That works for me, since I really am wiped out now; so let’s wrap this up and I’ll get started on my nap.

In addition to the work at the Inn tomorrow; we have four family ballgames.  I may miss all of Ethan’s and Ehlana’s Championship games while working at the Inn, but I’ll be at my game after lunch; and might catch part of Michael’s game before going on to the Inn for the dinner-to-close shift.  I’m going to miss out on most of the family fun tomorrow, but the Inn is closed on Sunday; so I’ll get to have some fun with everyone then – though I’ll still be busy with things like the teen praise team and cheerleading and kid control during the co-ed Championship game.

That’s all news I can write about as the weekend moves along, and I really do need to get all of the sleep I can to be ready for all of the work and fun; so, until next time...

...May the Magi Force be with you!