Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - July 5, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

We had a blast through the rest of our Fourth of July adventures!  Dinner was great and we had a bit of everything from ribs and burgers to corn on the cob and various cold salads.  The family-rated dance was awesome; we spent most of that time with our teen friends and danced a lot with our respective favorite dance partners; and then the fireworks show was amazing too!  Getting our day camp gear packed up and helping with getting next-gen kids into our tents and off to sleep took a while; and then we wound down our holiday with a late-night swim; chat time with our friends and cousins; and co-ed cuddle time that didn’t wrap up until after three o’clock.

That didn’t leave us much time to nap before getting started again today, but Tai Chi by the river with a gang again was still awesome; and then we got ready for the day and headed to the Inn for the breakfast buffet adventure!  That was great too, and pretty much everyone in our collective families went there too, but we didn’t all do that at the same time; so there were waves of family and friends doing that while we had to move on to other plans.  We needed to pack up our tents and gear due to rain and thunderstorms that are in the forecast for later today and tomorrow; some of our cousins had ball games to play this morning; and they had cheer squads and spectators along to cheer them on.  Brianna, Faith, and their Taylor’s Twist team won the closer battle over Spinner’s Spin; and Sebastian, Caleb, and the Med Center Monsoon had the more-convincing win over the Witch Falls Wave to give our family teams the sweep for the holiday weekend games we had booked.

That brings us up to now.  Ehlana and I are taking time to get ready for our afternoon trail ride at the ranch; Mom and Dad are hosting one of several, smaller barbeque lunches; and then we will hopefully get our ride in before the first blast of rain arrives in the area.  Due to the forecast, dinners will be smaller-group events tonight too; and Ehlana and I are hosting a teen night here while younger cousins get to do a boys’ night at the Carringtons or a girls’ night at the Ayres’ home or choose other entertainment options elsewhere.  We’ll have those stories for you with our next report, but expect to be busy for the rest of the day; so we’ll put our computers away for the rest of the day and get back to the holiday fun with our family and friends starting right now!

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - July 4, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

Happy 4^th of July, Everyone!

Happy Un-Independence Day, Mom and Cassie!

We’re still in the middle of our holiday fun; and this update is being multi-tasked while we transition from our afternoon adventures at the park to the play time we’ll have for the rest of the day.

Since our last update, we have had a lot of fun; and have been very busy too.  As our weekend guests began arriving, we got to play with our cousins and friends except for some food work around meals and next-gen kid control duties.  Some of our younger cousins decided on a camping night in the joint back yards at the Carringtons and Everetts; and we were among the teens that got drafted to help with supervising and camping too.  We only set up three of the tents, but then we also ended up with next-gen campers in our tents and no co-ed sleepovers.  That wasn’t exactly work, but did take some time out of the swimming, park play, and back yard games that filled up a lot of the rest of our afternoon.  Ehlana and I didn’t end up helping much with unloading vehicles at the cottages or family homes yesterday, but we did take on the younger kids so that their parents could welcome the adults and help out when possible around their own work.  The Carringtons hosted the barbeque dinner yesterday; we – the kids and teens – had a campfire starting at dusk; and Naomi and our little band provided most of the musical entertainment while some of the boys took care of a toddler-friendly round of campfire stories.  The youngest kids were tucked in by eleven o’clock – though some of them napped through some of the campfire fun; and that’s why we stayed close to those kids and the tents after that even though we stayed up pretty late before most of the campers ran out of steam and crashed for the rest of the night.

Our day-so-far has been awesome.  Tai Chi by the river was with a gang of exercise buddies; the major camping breakfast was an adventure; and then we needed to hand off the next-gen kids to others while Ehlana and I needed to meet up with the school band at the school staging area for the parade.  The weather has been perfect; we loved playing with the band and entertaining our family, friends, and neighbors; and we only wish a bit that we could have done that and enjoyed the rest of the parade too.  Our four best friends were with us and the band too, but this might be the last year for that; since we may need to split up in the future to help with the teen praise team or other parade projects through our high school years.  The parade was a big hit again this year; and then we had time to pack up our gear and the band equipment before heading to the park for lunch and the annual noon co-ed ball game.

Ehlana, Naomi, Sophia, and most of the other girls were drafted to join Cassie and Miranda’s cheer squad in support of the Witch Falls Whirlpool, but we helped with rounding up food and drinks first; and then I was part of the group of guys drafted for next-gen and younger cousins’ kid control.  There is a very good chance that ‘our’ cheer squad helped the Whirlpool to the big win over the Valley View Vortex today, but having all of their best players helped a lot too.  The Vortex only managed four runs today; and they earned three of those runs later in the game while our team kept the lead from the start and took it easy in the late innings and only traded runs-scored to keep their six-run lead through the final two innings.  We – the guys – didn’t catch half of that game – we took the kids swimming once and played at the playground for quite a while – which is part of the reason for why I wanted to come home and get cleaned up and changed ahead of the dance and fireworks tonight.  Naomi loves me, but wouldn’t have wanted to cuddle or dance with me tonight without this little break! ;^)

That pretty much brings us up to now, and we need to get back to the park soon; so let’s wrap this up.  Our plans for the rest of the day include dinner with our families at the park that won’t include kid control for us because the adults are giving us a break from that; the dance will start after that; and then the fireworks are scheduled for eleven o’clock.  We’re camping again tonight; will probably have junior camping buddies again; and expect to be up late again too.  We’ll have all of those stories for you with our next report, so stay tuned for that while we get back to living the adventures with most of our favorite people!

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - July 3, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

It hasn’t been long since our last report, but Ehlana and I are finished with the house chores; Jayden and his family will be here soon; and we’ve decided to take the rest of the day off to play – though we’ll help with meal chores and kid control too.  Since the day isn’t all that old, we don’t actually have much to write about yet, but we have had a good morning with Tai Chi by the river for seven because Sophia joined us because she happened to be out when we were anyway.  Breakfast was quick and easy before Dad headed to the office for a half-day of work; and then Ehlana and I got to work on those chores that included a last run-through for the guest rooms and bathrooms that our grandparent-visitors will be using over the next few days.

Now we’re about to meet up with Naomi and heading over to the cottages to welcome our cousins; and then we’ll get started on the holiday weekend adventures.

We’ll have the rest of our news of the day eventually, but we’ll be taking a break from world and political news unless something major happens; since we are definitely ready to focus on love and happiness – and we hope that you have that and more in your ‘now’ whenever that is in our near or distant future.  Stay tuned; and we’ll be back with our next report sometime tomorrow!

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - July 2, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

This has been a long, busy chores day for us, but we have most of the work done now; and will be able to play for most of the weekend.  There isn’t much news to offer – we had yard chores at multiple homes and cottages; Naomi and Aiden worked with us; and we only took breaks for cool-down swims and lunch through until we wrapped up in time for a quick dinner that Mom and Dad hosted.  We went to the park for the co-ed ball practice after that; helped with the kid-control entertainment; and then we came home and went straight to bath or Jacuzzi time because we really needed to do that by then!  No, I am not insulting my twin or myself – we were just dirty and really wanted to get clean again.

We’re keeping our bedtime computer checks short because we’re tired and want to get back to full-power for all of the holiday weekend fun that will be starting tomorrow as many of our guests arrive early.  Let’s just take the night off from any world news rants or commentary.  While this hasn’t been a major play day with non-stop fun, we’re happy with what we got done; and feel pretty good about taking most of the next couple of weeks off from most of our work while we entertain our cousins and have fun with our friends.  This might even be the last summer that we get to do that with Jayden, since by next summer; he might have a summer job that he can’t take long breaks from for vacations.  Stay tuned, since we really hope that our holiday adventures will be amazing and the stories entertaining for our future journal readers! ;^)

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

Ethan's and Ehlana's Journals - July 1, 2025

 

Ethan and Ehlana:

We didn’t exactly start July with a best-ever kind of day, but we’re mostly trying to get work done ahead of the holiday weekend; so that was our focus for as much of the day as possible.  After Tai Chi by the river and breakfast, we play-worked at the lab until around one o’clock; we followed that up with a late lunch; and then we had a few hours to play with our friends between then and dinnertime with Mom and Dad. Naomi and Aiden joined us for that meal after some biking and swimming; we had our baseball practices after that; and then Ehlana and I worked in the office with Mom doing a Magi lesson and some charity work until she had us wrap up at a bit after eleven o’clock.  Dad worked too, but finished earlier than we did and mostly kept us entertained after that until we all headed up to our rooms.  Time phasing allowed us to get more done tonight too; so we’re getting tired fast.

Since coming upstairs, bath or Jacuzzi time was needed after the play time and practices; and now we’re winding down toward nap time with the usual computer checks and twin chat fun.  I don’t want to get into any news tonight, but we should mention that our federal government is nearing a done deal on the President’s ‘big beautiful bill’ that will continue to blow up our national debt with no end in sight; and most of the theatre out of our Capital continues to distract from even-more-important problems in the world.  Ukraine continues to lose the war with Russia; Palestinians continue to be starved and killed and bombed by Israel; and none of the world leaders are actually doing anything to change those facts.  Instead of ranting on about that; we’re just going to wrap this up and get some sleep.  We are planning on more work tomorrow; and then we are hoping to play with our family and friends for most of the next couple of weeks.  We want to be ready for all of that; so that is all for this report.

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