Grandfolk, Garage Sailin', and Abby 1st Birthday (Observed)

Howdy.

I absolutely hate this time of year. I do. I despise it. Everything about it. Lots of bugs, lots of tourists, and my students - who, upon completing their annual standardized tests - have nothing but summer on the brain.

Everybody's counting down for the end of the school year, sure enough. That's a no brainer. I've found that having things to look forward to helps alleviate one's mood when confronted with soul-crushing horribleness. And, while the end of the year is probably the greatest possible thing one could ever hope to look forward to (it is), we had another one recently come and go - the importation of my parents.

Yes, Dad and Cindy - 'Papa' and 'Nana' if you're under 3 and can't control your own bodily fluids - came down over the weekend to celebrate Abby's 1st birthday (observed) alongside the Voigts and Clint. Yes, technically Abby's birthday is on the 21st, but we figured it'd be cool to have her grandparents at her birthday, so we threw her a subtle shin-dig two weeks early.

She's a year old, she didn't notice.

Anyway, the other reason we invited my folks down for this particular weekend was that it was time, once again, for the annual Hunter's Creek Garage Sale. Now, I've talked about this numerous times before, but - just to play Devil's Advocate - I'll repeat myself once again.

*Ahem*

Twice a year, the Hunter's Creek Women's something-or-other hosts a community-wide garage sale throughout Hunter's Creek. All the subdivisions participate, and Kris and I generally make out like bandits. This time around, we had Dad and Cindy in tow (following in their rental), and, although the adventure didn't quite live up to the two previous stints (in May and November of 2010), it was still a pretty decent outing.

Here's what we nabbed:


I didn't grab as much crap for myself as I usually do. Neither did Kris. No, this outing ended up being centered on our kids.

This is why I'm not all that enthusiastic about our spoils this year.

As you can see, they got a lot of stuff - clothing, toys, books, organizers and decor for their rooms - which was cool, I guess. In the end, I walked away with an old-school Tele-Games Pinball Breakaway - precursor to the infamous Atari 2600 - for $10. That was a pretty good find, considering I got it with its original user's manual, Atari Adapter, and Atari joystick. This purchase also continues the trend of me adding to my ever-expanding vintage video game systems every time we go out and participate in this whole Hunter's Creek Garage Sale thing (much to my wife's dismay).

I also picked up a toy soprano ukulele for the Cannonball, who has expressed a growing interest in music and instruments lately - particularly stringed instruments. I bought this toy uke - smaller than a soprano - for $1, as it only had two strings on it. It sounded God-awful, but, after buying some Martin uke strings and tuning it repeatedly over the next couple of days, the kid has her own, working ukulele.

...and for a buck, if she breaks the damn thing, who gives a shit.

So back to my parents. We had a really great visit with Dad and Cindy - it was a nice break from the usual work/kids/work/kids/weekend chores routine. They were only in town for a few days, but, in typical Hough fashion, we took a few hundred pictures. Fortunately for you and I both, Dad already did all the hard work and created a pic slide show of the weekend so I don't have to spend a crap-load of time uploading pics to this stupid blog of ours.

Here are the pics. Enjoy.

- Brian