The Eight Point Lake Vacation

sorry for the delay, folks - with school just around the corner and the dust from our recent daycare debacle still settling, we've fallen behind on our updates on here at hough headquarters.

surprise surprise.

now here 'goes...

we flew home to michigan on july 23rd in order to spend a week at the cottage my family rents out a couple weeks each summer on eight point lake. not only were we flying in for the occassion, but so was my step-brother, bryan... making this vacation the first family event in almost two years with 100% attendance (and the first vacation with such since the infamous, ill-fated washington DC venture of 1997).

so... since others have touched on this eight point lake thing before - and a solid percentage of you readers out there were, more likely than not, at the cottage at some point in time over that last week in july - there's really no real reason for me to go into a huge amount of detail with this. (i had a hard enough time putting the damn pictures in this post... don't expect much more from me today, folks).

anyway, this happened to be alayna's first trip on a plane, which went a lot smoother than either kris or myself thought it would. we were both convinced we'd be those parents with the loud-ass kid on the plane, pissing off all the other travelers around us. surprisingly enough, not the case with us (this time around). the cannonball did pretty good. she slept well, she traveled well, and most relatives found her quite friendly (if not smellier than the foulest bowels of hell).

yes, are kid stinks that bad.

anyway, back to the lake: hough tradition usually dictates a fair amount of time being spent on boats, around bonfires, juggling children, drinking, and merry-making.

all of this was done with great fervor, and efficiently compressed into the mere six or seven days we had back home in michigan.

this trip actually was somewhat bittersweet for kris and i, however, as, to date, we're still not sure when we'll be coming home next. with gas prices the way they are, and airlines continuously screwing the average american the way that they are, we've more or less written off Christmas this year.... as crappy as that is. as of right now, team hough is tentatively planning the next michigan venture somewheres in the july 2009 ballpark. stay tuned for further updates there.

now, between myself, dad, and cindy, we shot off nearly 1,000 pictures from the week-long family stint on the lake. i randomly grabbed five for this crappy post right here. my dad, however, has several more up in a photo gallery, and i'd highly recommend checking those out if you get the chance:

http://web.mac.com/jhough/JHH_iWeb/8_Point_Lake_2008.html

that's all you'll get between now and the time i finally manage to muster enough dedication to upload more pictures up onto our flickr account. ...and we all know how good i am at that, right?

more to come, citizens. stay tuned.

cheers,

- brian