Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - November 5, 2023

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

This has been another very busy day, and we’re tired; so this report probably won’t end up being as complete as we should make it.  With that admission, let’s start with the rest of the story from last night.

Dad’s birthday dinner at the Inn was a blast, but we were on kid control; Zack and Eli were in fine form; and we managed to keep them out of trouble while some of our favorite parents had fun with roasting Dad.  The babysitting that followed at the Ayres’ home can be a part of our story that we can gloss over; so let’s do that.  We had a very large gang of kids to take care of; they kept us up until very late – especially the gamers in the play room; and we were exhausted by the time we got around to having naps that ranged from a couple of hours to a max of four hours.  Yes, the girls got more sleep than the guys, but we were all still up in time for Tai Chi before breakfast.

Our morning adventures around breakfast included helping the extra parents that came over to help with the meal and kids; the food was pretty good – once we got a chance to eat; and all of the crazy that went along with getting everyone to church of time had some of us ready for naps instead of church and Sunday school.  That didn’t happen, but we did spend our Sunday school time helping out with the usual work that gets done every year for the teen-led services at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  That kept us busy for most of the morning; we had Naomi and Aiden with us when we came home for lunch; and we had a vid-chat with Cassie and Michael for our meal-time entertainment.  We really wish that we could be somewhere hot too, but can’t really complain when the weather here was pretty good for early November.  That’s why we spent most of the afternoon outdoors.  We biked the trails; played at the park with some friends; and came home without Naomi and Aiden in time to help Mom with making dinner.

Dinner with Mom and Dad included a chat about our respective afternoon adventures; we took care of the clean-up; and then our evening included a Magi lesson and then we watched a movie in the living room.  Yes, that’s a bit of a novelty, but Dad had his work done; and we were happy to spend some time with our parents that wasn’t work-related!  Bath or Jacuzzi time followed the movie; and now we’re quickly winding down toward nap time because we really do need the down time.

A break in the busy would be nice, but then that’ll just give us chances to do more with our work at the lab or here at home; so don’t expect our lives to get too-boring – even if that might be true compared to the fun that Cassie and Michael are having in South America.  Whatever ends up happening, we are ready to rest up and re-charge now; so that’s all for this report.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - November 4, 2023

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Happy 45^th Birthday, Dad!

This is a micro-update because we’ll be busy with a major babysitting job tonight; and can do a better report tomorrow night.  Tai Chi was cold but by the river; we had eight for Dad’s special birthday breakfast; and then he got a chores-free day as one of his gifts while we, the tweens, led the way for fall clean-up at a total of six homes.  Except for our lunch break, we kept busy through until we needed to get to our homes and clean up for Dad’s birthday dinner at the Inn; and now we’re about to head over there – though we’ll drop off our overnight bags at the Ayres’ house along the way.  Uncle Nick and Aunt Deborah are hosting the babysitting; and they will not be able to have as much fun as the parents with kid-free nights will have and that we won’t want to learn any details about from anyone! ;^)

That’ll do for now, since we need to get going soon; so we’re out of here.

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - November 3, 2023

 

Naomi, Ethan, Ehlana, Aiden, Sofia, and Aaron:

Happy 12^th Birthday, Caroline Carter!

I am taking over this update from Ethan because a girl is required to write about the tween party report!

The weather has been pretty good today with a high in the mid-sixties; and that worked for Caroline’s party; since some outdoor time was a comfortable option for the start of her celebration.  We had a good day at school, and some of the highlights were birthday-related too, but we also had some extra outdoor time to go along with some treats at lunch and the cameo bits of entertainment we had with Caroline that included some little gifts.  We split up after school for long-enough to get ready for Caroline’s party; and four of us had a short stop at Cassie and Michael’s house to check in on Mandy and spend a few minutes with her before getting to the party fun.

Sophia and Aaron aren’t a new tween story anymore, but they did get teased tonight about joining our group for co-ed sofa sleepovers!  Sure, at least half of our friends are jealous that we’re getting away with them, but instead of commenting on that; let’s write about at least a couple of the newer tween stories.  Caroline needs to be first for that, since she is paired up with Miles now; and the top news there is that he managed to do a pretty good job of making her happy today and he didn’t get into any girlfriend trouble – even though he didn’t totally avoid a few annoyances thanks to some food games and a bit too much fun with video gaming.  Caroline really is happy tonight, though, so let’s take the win and be happy!  Jen and Joshua are a couple too, and while that isn’t surprising; Ehlana, Sophia, and I want to mention that some of our friends have very different relationships compared to what we have with our guys.  Small-town tween drama is usually mild compared to the norm in cities and bigger schools, but we have our own issues – including the simple fact that we know all of the kids in town.  That makes the drama personal even when we’re talking about other couples, and we have to sometimes walk the fine line between friendship and privacy whenever our friends have fights and other drama moments.  We won’t mention specific issues, but there are two couples in our group of friends having problems this weekend.  Those problems didn’t really cause any issues with Caroline’s party, but those friends weren’t very happy tonight; and we won’t be surprised if we have one-less couple before much longer.

Moving along, as we mentioned, we had some outdoor time that was basically the social hour before Caroline’s birthday dinner; that meal was great – and non Pizzeria pizza; and then the birthday cakes topped off that meal while Caroline multi-tasked opening gifts and we joined in on the rest of the usual birthday fun.  We were the only six tweens to help with the post-dinner clean-up; Caroline drafted us for an hour of music and dancing; and then we watched a movie that she picked out too.  The party wrapped up starting around eleven-thirty; we came back here for the rest of the night; and will likely stay up too-late while watching movies and enjoying the wind-down cuddle time before we get around to having naps.  Ehlana and Aiden get the ‘nest’ tonight; we’re all cozy and happy; and now I’m ready to wrap this up and get back to helping Ethan out with our personal cuddle time!  Stay tuned; and Ethan and Ehlana can handle the next update that will include my future father-in-law’s birthday news and more!

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - November 2, 2023

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

***RESTRICED UPDATE***

We do not have any details that are likely the truth about what happened to Javier Thorne, but Cassie and Michael found out today that he is dead; and that it happened either on Halloween night or early yesterday morning.  The story given to the media wasn’t true, since Cassie knew exactly how healthy Javier had been while with him on the weekend, but while Mom searched the Thorne family systems; there was no trace of what actually happened to him other than that he’d died sometime overnight and was ‘found’ already dead in the morning.  That did happen at his father’s estate, though, and there had been a big Halloween party there that he’d been attending with the rest of the family – or at least the members that weren’t busy elsewhere like the students in private schools.  We can make educated guesses, but that’s all we have for now; so that’s it for this part of our report.

***END OF RESTRICTED UPDATE***

We’ve had a good day at school, and while we’re getting back into the normal routine again; we’re also just at the start of the transition toward Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For us, the early highlights meant getting the Christmas music for the school band so that we can work on it over the weekend ahead of our next practice and we’ve been asked to help out with the Christmas concert at school and the senior’s Christmas party at the church too.  The practices with primary classes will be starting next week too; and Naomi and the Holiday Harmonies will need to work on more music for the concert and party – along with getting ready for the school Christmas dance and anything we expect to be asked to do at church or elsewhere.

After being set free from school, while the weather was warming again, we still opted for lab or archives play time; we had fun with that for a couple of hours; and then it was home again for a quick dinner before we needed to clean up and get to the Inn for game night.  We didn’t manage to retain either game night title for the family this week, but we had a blast with our best friends; and I will admit that I had more fun doing that with Naomi as my partner after being apart for the girls against boys ‘battle’ we had last week!  We took Silkie out for a walk that was multi-tasked with seeing Naomi and Aiden to their homes; Mom did a short magi lesson with us; and we didn’t do any work because Mom vetoed that idea and sent us up to our rooms for the night.  That’s entirely because we have a very busy weekend ahead of us, and we want to be ready for all of the fun; so that’s all for tonight!

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - November 1, 2023

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Let’s cover this update from where we left off yesterday afternoon!

Dinner was with our besties, Mom, and Dad; our trick-or-treating was with Brianna and Faith; we covered about half the town; and have more candy than we need between now and when the Christmas treats season will begin!  For posterity, we’ll mention that we were a set of four ninjas this year.  We had a couple of run-ins with werewolves Zack and Eli while out tonight; while Brianna and Faith chose to be dancers.  We don’t want to cover every cousin costume, but will add that Sierra, Stuart, and Luke were adorable as a puppy, baby chef, and tractor; and Ryan and Emma went with being a dinosaur and teddy bear.  Other Halloween stories include Rowen and Tim giving out treats at Cassie and Michael’s house, and while we would have been happy to hang out with Sophia and Aaron; they were with other friends and younger kids instead of going around with us.

Naomi and Aiden came home with us; we had a visit with Mom and Dad before trick-or-treating was finished; and then we went up to our rooms for the rest of the night.  Since make-up wasn’t required for our costumes, it didn’t take long to get changed – though the girls opted for taking turns in the Jacuzzi while Aiden and I opted for showers.  That gave us more time to get ready for our last Halloween movie of the season; and then we wrapped up our night with that show and some quality co-ed cuddle time before we crashed and got some sleep.

That brings us up to today, and thanks to sub-freezing temperatures; Tai Chi was indoors; we had a hot breakfast; and then you might be able to guess that our academic adventures were a bit weird thanks to the sugar rush that goes along with having a lot of snack treats – especially for the kids and teens that eat a lot of their Halloween stash in the first days after their haul is collected.  While we had fun and also moved on to start new study modules; our personal top news for the first day of November is that our new Christmas album came out; and sales are good entirely because of the pre-orders.  The first music video was released too, and while we won’t have one for every song; they will be coming out for either five or six songs – depending on whether they can all be put together in time for sales before Christmas.  We’re happy about that, but didn’t really have anything to do with that today.  We played at the lab or archives after school; worked in the office with Mom and Dad after dinner; and now we’re winding down toward bedtime because we’ve had a long-enough day and we’re ready to catch up on our sleep.

As we wrap this up, we also want to add that Cassie and Michael are keeping busy with their trip toward Rio de Janeiro.  They are about half-way there tonight from their starting point in Belem; they’ve continued to have meetings and site visits in the mornings and afternoons with drive time between stops and then late into each night; and they are getting a lot done – if not having much time for major sightseeing.  We’ll keep you posted on at least the basics for their trip, but that’s it for tonight because we really do need to stop and re-charge for the rest of the night!

Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!