This has been a fairly great day around
Witch Falls, and while almost all of that happened without my personal
involvement; that didn’t keep me from enjoying the action from the
sidelines. Before I get to all of that,
though; let’s start with what I did have going on today.
It seemed very quiet around the house this
morning without a house full of guests, and Violet stayed at Dillon’s last
night too. Tai Chi by the river was a
nice way to start the day, and though I haven’t mentioned it in a while;
Michael, Ethan, and Ehlana are continuing to learn new postures and forms all
of the time; and can get away with doing more difficult forms in public now
that the twins are closing in on three – and after exercising indoors all
winter and a lot of the spring. Ethan
and Ehlana will need to wait at least a few more years before doing the most
difficult forms in public; but Michael can do more now and that won’t be too
obvious to most people after exercising with us for a year now.
Michael was back to morning weight training
too; though this will be the last week of that for the school year because even
Kyle needs to focus on exams next week.
While using the weight room will be out for the summer, Tim has his own
bench and weights; and Michael has advised me that Tim is going to make them
both continue regular workouts all summer – even if that won’t necessarily be
five days a week. I’m sure that Rowen
and I will be able to convince our boys that there are alternate exercise
options – like biking, canoeing, swimming, and watching girlfriends in
swimsuits. ;^)
With four school days left before final
exams and tests next week; it was all-review all day in our classes. There are some teens still dealing with
projects that are already late, including a few of our classmates; but that’s
just going to make it harder for them this week. Tim might have been one of the teens in that
group – he certainly has been before; but that was just one more little bonus
for him that came along with dating Rowen.
He’s not quite there yet, but he might be in real danger of being a
straight-A student next hear. Now that’ll
shock his parents in a good way!
Getting ready for exams didn’t keep the
guys from taking advantage of the nice weather to play football at lunchtime;
but it did mean no slacking off after school.
There are no band practices for the next two weeks while we get ready
for and then write our exams; so we were able to start studying right after
school. While we only had three extra
study buddies join us last week; we had nine extra classmates with us at my
house today. Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana were
at the lab for most of the time we were studying, and though it was a little
bit crowded there; we worked in my lounge instead of at the dining room
table. Since we really had a blast even
while trying to get some work done too; I’ll guess that we’ll have an even
bigger group tomorrow – if for no other reason than that we have really good
snacks and drinks at my house.
Michael, Rowen, and I were kept busy
helping our friends with everything from lending them our better study notes to
working on the review assignments and practice tests that Uncle Nick – Mr.
Ayres – and the rest of our teachers gave us to do. Tim is doing a lot better at school, but I’m
not sure if he’ll ever feel particularly confident with tutoring other people –
unless it is related to football. He
might have been a straight-A student all along if our teachers only taught
every single subject with some kind of football connection!
“If it’s third and sixteen on your team’s
forty-three yard line, and you catch a lateral pass seven yards behind the line
of scrimmage; a) How far do you need to run for a first down?; b) Where would
the new line of scrimmage be?; and c) Could you make it if Kyle Landry was
between you and the first down marker?”
I know, that wasn’t all that funny, but it’s
after three o’clock; and my funny bone fell asleep a couple of hours ago.
Okay, so the study time was fun, and we
each one of our friends stayed as long as they could before either getting
picked up by parents if they’d skipped taking the bus to work with us instead;
or they walked home. Rowen and Tim were
the last to leave; and Michael stayed to have dinner with us before heading
home when it was time for our family business and future plans meeting.
The top news story there was everything
going on at the lab today. Mom, Owen,
and Andrew Jennings started working on installing the computer systems; Dillon
will be working on setting up the labs and greenhouse with Uncle Adam and a mix
of construction workers and lab employees; and Violet is technically working
for Mom, but will spend as much time with Aunt Grace as the main floor offices
are completed, furnished, and decorated.
While I’m thinking about that, I wanted to mention that this phase of
the lab project is very good for local businesses; since Aunt Grace is buying
as much locally as possible. That will
make for a really good business year for everyone – especially for ValleyView
furniture, the Fix-it Shop, Emporium, hardware store, and Emerson Computers.
I won’t get into the specifics of the work
going on every day at the lab, since that’s all being documented in the archive
for the lab that Uncle Adam is keeping track of; but there are a few things
that I want to write about related to the work they’ve started today – and related
reports and plans from our meeting tonight.
Let’s start with the archives. Mom
will be doing most of the computer system installations on the basement levels
for both the first basement level lab and the bottom two floors that the
archives will be on. The security
systems for the building are already installed an operational; though some of
the levels haven’t been made operational yet so that workers can still get
pretty much anywhere in the building with just a very few restrictions.
It is going to take years to bring all of
the archives from around the world home; but that effort is kicking up several
notches this year. Grandpa Grant and
Grandma Eleanor are coordinating and leading that effort; and the shipments
will be coming in much more frequently now as the teams working on that are
able to carefully pack up and ship the often-fragile and one-of-a-kind books
and scrolls. The timeline to have
everything here is four years – so basically by the time I’m finished high
school; we should have the entire Magi archive here at home where it belongs. That may seem like a long time just to ship a
bunch of books, but the only way we could do that faster would be to have
people doing that full-time year-round.
Even with the way we’re doing it, Grandpa Grant and Grandma Eleanor will
be travelling for a third or more of every year – and that doesn’t include the
work that’ll need to be done at this end as the books arrive.
Ethan will actually be leading that part of
the job; though we’ll need to be very careful with that for the next few months
with so many people working there. He is
going to be the archivist, though; so don’t let the fact that he’s only three –
almost – affect your perception of his ability to do that. He and Ehlana are, after all, about to finish
their freshman year of college. If you
think that his work with the archives is impressive; just wait until you find
out about what Ehlana’s going to do with her research at the lab!
I guess that’s actually next, and though
Ehlana couldn’t pitch in to help with the lab setup; she did have some
suggestions at the meeting tonight for things she’d like to have added or
changed after getting to do a tour of the building today. Ehlana really wants to hit the ground running
with the lab in September; and there are things that she wants to have done
this summer so that she and Uncle Adam can take at least some of the ideas that
they’ve mostly only been able to talk about so far and hit the ground running
with them in September.
While Andrew doesn’t know it yet, his work
this summer is going to be perfect training for the job we have in mind for him
after he graduates. It’s hard to believe
that isn’t really all that far away – Andrew and Isabelle will be starting
their Senior year at college in August!
That’s still two years until they’ll be finished their Masters’ degrees;
but that really doesn’t seem like very long with everything that’s going to
happen around here between now and then.
On the construction end of our local future
plans, the first apartment building is basically done now except for the
finishing work; appliance deliveries; and final clean-up. Move-ins will start during the last week of
June so that the tenants can be in their new apartments for the holiday
weekend. The medical center building is
a little bit behind schedule right now because of the extra rain around here;
but that shouldn’t be a problem as long as we get some dry stretches over the
next couple of months. As long as the
shell of the building us up by late fall; there won’t be a problem with having
the place ready to open next June. That
building is being built to grow, though, so it won’t even need to be fully
finished inside for a few more years.
We went over the more general plans for
work we’ll be doing over the next few years; talked about projects that are in
the works for other businesses in town that isn’t related directly to our
family business; and Ethan, Ehlana, and I had a few future plan details to pass
on to our little group so they’ll be ready to deal with those issues – though we
didn’t give away any major surprises and spoil any fun for them either. I’ll write about those things as they happen
instead of doing that now – even though you’ll already know about some or all
of my future events whenever you read this in your ‘now’.
The meeting lasted about two and a half
hours, and after our guests headed for their homes; I took care of getting Ethan
and Ehlana off to bed while Mom and Dad worked in the office. I was in bed by eleven-thirty after doing my
Magi lesson with Mom once the twins were tucked in. It’s been all studying and work since then,
but I’ve gotten a lot of work done; and I’m almost ready now to wrap up this
round of language study before taking the summer off from studying anything except
the archives.
The extra work definitely has me ready for
some nap time now; and I guess that’s about it for the news today, so, until
next time…
…Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the
Light!
