Baby's 1st Post-Christmas Aftermath

whew.

okay. so yule party '08 has come and gone, and, if you're reading this, you are among those who came through the gauntlet still in one piece. on this end, the houghs are doing well - we have no casualties to report this time around. this year we focused on the task at hand and stayed away from all manner of shopping centers unless absolutely necessary. the result was an awesome christmas, and our first one with dependants.

as you know, we didn't opt to brave the cross-continental, overland adventure up to michigan this year. last year we did, and it took us about 20 hours driving straight through (with the exception of a unsuccessful 1 hour nap session at a rest stop in tennessee). not fun. we reached central michigan on fumes, after consuming nothing but energy drinks, coffee, and gas station food for 1,200 miles. that stretch of asphalt - through the boring states like georgia and ohio, through the pass of caradhras -is hell enough without the snow-pounding of the century reaking havoc all over the midwest (right through our otherwise projected route). we really didn't feel like driving 15 mph in such weather through appalachia and the smokies. bad things happen to people that fall to the wayside in the back-country of tennessee. and, to top everything else off, now we'd be making that trek with a grump-ass 6 month old screaming in the backseat the entire way.

yeah, i'll pass on that one.

seeing how we were doomed to spend christmas alone in central florida, the ever-vigilant hough clan circled the wagons and set up a webcam on a tripod.

from 7am - 9pm, we logged in over 13 hours of video-conferencing with my dad's side and mom's side of the family. for those of you who are away from family and friends, i highly recommend you look into this if you're computer is somewhat non-crappy - throughout the day, it helped out a lot.

i won't go into what everybody got for christmas, as that'd be incredibly tacky of yours truly (and yours truly is by no means a tacky person, as we all know), but i will say this: we did pretty well. the cannonball, however, did really pretty well. and that's cool - the whole presents-under-the-tree thing is really for kids anyway, and about 8 out of 10 gifts under ours was for her. by my figuring, she won't need any more gifts until she's about 14 or 15.

we seriously deserve a 'thank you' card from fisher-price - those jerks owe us big time.

anyway, thanks again for all of your well-wishing and gifts this year, folks - we had a good time. hopefully next year we'll be flying up to the glove so we won't have to rely on computers for family time, but, worst case scenario, now we know its at least doable.

in closing, here's a crap-load of pictures. enjoy...

Countdown to Christmas: Mass Hysteria and Tardishness

hi folks...

we're about four days away from yule-party '08... and this guy's about all funned-out.

why the humbuggary, you ask? allow me to explain. kris and i were pretty smart this year, and once again accomplished about 95% of our christmas shopping before thanksgiving - giving us an excuse not to brave the hellish gauntlets that we would've otherwise been forced to fight through at one of the local malls and/or shopping outlets. we got it all out of the way so we wouldn't grow sick and tired of the 'season,' that has somehow gone from being a straight-up december-thing to a shortly-before-halloween-through-valentine's day-thing. still, despite our most valiant of efforts, its hard escaping the mass of frenzied idiots when one does have to occassionally venture out into the realm of retail this close to the holidays. i can't stand it.

i don't see why so many people are so friggin' stupid about christmas shopping anyway, but i guess that's because i'm so smart about it. when in public, its common for you to see complete strangers in the parking lots of these strip malls willing to knife eachother over parking spaces... or two grandmothers ready to rip one another's throats out for that last vibrating elmo on a toys 'r us shelf. and at times like that, you find yourself wishing that christmas was already here and over with.

...and while we're on the topic of things that piss brian off, i don't know about you guys, but i've about had it with crappy christmas music. not to be confused with decent christmas music, mind you (much props, vince guaraldi trio, jingle bells-singing dogs, etc.), crappy christmas music grates at your soul like pourous rocks over a fresh wound (mannheim steamroller, pay attention here). this morning, for example, the family and i took a couple of our friends with us to a local church we occassionally attend for some live christmas music. this is out of the ordinary somewhat, but we figured since it was the season for pleasin' and all, why would anyone pass up live christmas music five minutes from their front door? i mean, come on - they had a string orchestra, full band and choir, the works. so we went.

...and it sucked. bad.

not the greatest way to get into the spirit of things, rest assured. it pretty much shot my sunday right in the foot - spoken word over narada-type piano-work? not my idea of christmas jammage. if its one thing i cannot stand, its contemporary christian carols and hymns - give me that kinda material old school and traditional. i want to feel like i'm in a lecture hall when i'm in church, not in some gawdy clapfest. leave the bells and whistles at home, and stick to the traditional stuff. am i boring? perhaps... but i'm also a licensed JamMaster, and know decent music when i hear it. and, in this case, i know when something sucks gigantically as well.

but like i was saying before: we've got four days left of this hysteria before the masses can slow back down again and refocus on what else is going on in the rest of the known world. there's corruption and peril afoot. and apparently some snow. and there's that 'economy' everybody keeps talking about, spiralling ever downward and/or out of control. and there's high school musical 3 making teenagers even stupider and less-cultured. and there's the muppets - still the coolest damn carpet samples known to man.

so, in the meantime, over the course of the coming week, i urge you to stay indoors away from the hell that would surely await you at the mall or a circuit city, and keep your radio turned off to avoid the ear-molestation you'd otherwise have to endure via the backstreet boys singing 'the holly and the ivy.' stay with loved ones, make a snowman, and keep focused on what's important.

...and for yours truly and company, that means making due without snow or family. in order to aid us along in this venture, we're stocked with holiday drinking ingredients, a webcam, and more (non-crappy) christmas music and movies than one could shake a stick at.

do i roll?/well i guess/thunder express.

merry pre-christmas,

- brian

Animal kingdom

Thanks to our good friends Adam and Lindsay, Alayna and I were blessed to be able to spend a day at Animal Kingdom. Pretty nice for a random Monday, if I don't say so myself. It was a gorgeous day out as far as the weather is concerned. But, that's nothing new for Florida in the winter time. If we ever get out of here, I will miss that.

So, anyway, I strapped Alayna to myself with our baby harness and we took a hefty walk through Camp Minnie and Mickey. We left there after a nice photo shoot with the Duck and checked out 'Africa.' Of course she was in need of some refreshments and to my astonishment Disney has a gigantic baby center in the park with changing tables, high chairs, microwave, nursing rooms, couch and tv, etc. So, we decided to hang out there for a while and then she decided to get some shut eye.

I took that time to enjoy the nice scenery of

'Asia' and by the time she joined me again we were ready with our fast passes for the Safari.

She sat on my lap as we drove through the tour and handled it pretty well considering the guy driving was not afraid to hit the bumpy turns hard. We were in a row all by ourselves (who knows how that happened) and I almost flew across to the other side at one point. I found it a bit hypocritical on the drivers behalf after he just finished telling the group to keep kids in their seats and yelling at a guy to do the same after he creeped himself up a bit for a look.

We got some really nice views of the animals since they all seemed to be very close up.

All the excitement had to come to an end after that though. Brian would be home soon and taking care of a 6 month old on my own at a theme park is a bit tiring.

-Kristina

Emergency at Santa's Workshop

So, at Primrose we've been practicing for about a month for our big Christmas concert. My preschool class had to perform 3 songs, and there were 3 other classes doing the same. It's a pretty big event, so we hold it at the nearby elementary school and fill their auditorium with parents. And every year, I guess it's a great turn-out that includes cookies and cocoa with Santa. So, I encouraged Brian to bring Alayna to watch me and my classroom and get some complimentary pictures with the fat man in red. Unfortunately, for all involved, Santa was running late and Brian wasn't feeling good, so I told him to forget about it and we'll do pictures later at a mall or something. So, me and my colleagues hung out behind the big curtain with a good quantity of children under the age of 5.....waiting.....

And finally, we get the wonderful news. Santa is not coming! My director held her composure very well with the exception of her ears turning bright red refusing to hide her anger. And she decided to not only make the assistant director be the bearer of bad news, but make all of us stand in a line with her on top of the stage in front of God knows how many parents. We were pretty much waiting to get stuff thrown at us. Luckily, that did not happen. I did see a lot of pissed off faces though. We were then encouraged to go out and mingle. I love being thrown to the wolves. But, the few people I did talk to were pretty cool and took it gracefully. Probably because we promised Santa would show up at the school next week.

Boy, I hope so.

-Kristina

Here We Go Again...

i've been having an awesome week. i really have.

i have all of my lesson planning done between now and christmas. my gradebook is a well-oiled machine. i have a humongous, class project running eerily well that the kids (surprisingly enough) absolutely love. i was even voted by the 7th grade as the students' favorite teacher.

...and then we had a meeting this afternoon wherein the principle told us we'd most likely be reducing staff number again. cowabunga.

i survived the last fall of the guillotine by God's good graces and the seat of my pants, and was thankful to hold on to my coveted job for a second year. i don't think i'll ever know exactly how close i came to being one of those guys who ended up drawing the 'short straw,' and i don't think i'd want to. granted, i'm in better standing than i was last year - being a second year teacher now and beginning grad school in january and all (by the way, i found out today i was officially accepted). and i don't personally expect this year's staff cut to be as bad - or ominous - as last year's... but, at the same time, you never know.


regardless, being told that 'some people might be let go next year' was enough to put my super-awesome week into a tailspin.

it is, in truth, as my principal says, i suppose: "as goes the economy, so goes our school."

...and on that matter, folks, all i have to say on that matter is this: this whole economy thing better turn around real damn fast or else this guy (yours truly) is going to have to join the military.

(yo joe!)

- brian