The Bumbling Travels of the Unflappable Houghs

If it's one thing Houghs do well, folks, it's pack.

Check lists, space capacity maximization, weight management, you name it.  We're genuine pros.  Unfortunately for us, this time around the whole 'packing' thing didn't work out nearly as well as we would've liked.

This year, as I mentioned before, we were setting off for the (hopefully) snowy farmland of central Michigan for the Holidays.  But unlike previous years, when we started packing days - if not weeks - in advance - this time around we literally did everything the night before.  Both Kris and I worked up until the night before the flight - busy with finalizing lesson plans for subs, closing down our classrooms, and otherwise wrangling kids like any other day of the school year.  There was zero time for preparing for our two-week stint in the homeland.

And while we were more or less done by the end of the night before we flew out, we still weren't 100% settled when the morning of our venture arrived.  There was still a lot of last minute "Crap, we need to fit this in somewhere - where the hell is this gonna fit?!" going around.  Add a few whining kids to the mix, and it didn't pan out to be a very relaxing morning for which to start our adventure.

Consequently, this caused us to run a solid half-hour late out of the door in the morning.

About to brave the TSA Gauntlet...

Our esteemed colleague, Clint, offered to drive our Tactical Family Transport Vehicle to the airport so we wouldn't have to fork out $50 - $75 or however much it would've cost us to charter a cab to take us to and from our house.  He lives about ten minutes down the road from the O.I.A., so it ended up working out pretty well for us - we got to the terminal about two hours before our departure time, which was more than enough time for us to check our mega-suitcase (which was three pounds heavier than the limit, but the guy seemed to sympathize with us since we had two screaming kids with us at the time).

Sometimes that card plays out in our favor.

Waiting for the monorail.

 

After clearing security, we ended up having to sit at the gate for about an hour before we boarded our flight.  Before I had kids, I'd generally use this time to read a book, screw around on my laptop, lose myself in my iPod, or some combination of the three.

With kids, though, there's no 'Dad' time allowed, and I instead I get to do such radical things as restrain my 1 1/2 year old from climbing into strangers' laps, wipe snotty noses, rescue abandoned Flynn Rider and Rapunzel dolls, and alternate which kid I'm going to awkwardly escort into the Men's room for a forced potty break.

Abby and Flynn... BFFs.

...and in case you were wondering, yes, we do get our fair share of "Oh shit, I bet that family's going to be on our flight..." looks from other passengers.  It's awesome.

En route to Detroit...

As seasoned travelers, Kris and I once again doped up our younger child with Children's Benadryl, which conked Abby out almost immediately.  In fact, the flight to Detroit was pretty uneventful: while Abby slept, Alayna watched Tangled on my laptop, and I actually got to listen to jams on my iPod (that never happens).

Then Abby woke up.  Just in time for a horrible, horrible reentry.

 

 After landing, we made our way to the baggage claim and waited for our gigantor suitcase.

Waiting for the suitcase...

M & Ms.  Abby's Achilles Heel.

After an hour, still no suitcase.

...still waiting for that damn suitcase.

As it turns out, our suitcase wanted to take its sweet time flying out of Orlando.  Maybe it caught up with another suitcase it hadn't seen in awhile, and decided to catch a drink before boarding our plane. And then missed it.  Who knows.  I don't know.  What I do know is that Delta informed us that the suitcase was on board the next flight from Orlando and would be delivered to where we were staying that night.

This was a little nerve-racking for us, seeing how all of our kids' clothes and all of our toiletries were in that suitcase.

Waiting for the rental...

Free popcorn.  BIG hit with the kids.

Anyway, from the airport we went to the rental place (I think we used Alamo, but I could be wrong), where Kris' cousin works.  Originally, we had reserved some kind of mid-size sedan (we wanted something larger than the Ford Fusion we had reserved for my brother's wedding back in August, seeing how we were packing three times as much crap this time around).  Once we got to Alamo, I started looking at a couple different SUVs, but they didn't have nearly enough trunk space.
 

Sharing is a work in progress with these two...

Kris' cousin was able to hook us up with a 2012 Town & Country Sirius radio, mp3/iPod hookup, neon blue skylights, remote doors, starter, and trunk, and even one of those cameras that assist you in the dash while you're backing up.  It was like riding in frickin' spaceship.

Check it out:

A hell of a lot cooler than our van, that's for sure.

We ended up staying the night at Kris' uncle Wayne's house.  While Kris and the girls visited with her extended family (no small feat, seeing how her family has a larger population than most mid-Michigan counties), I was dropped off at Seloske's house in order to hang out and have a few beers.  We hit up this place called Ashley's for a few craft brews before he dropped me off at Kris' uncle's house.

And, by 8:30pm, the girls and I passed out.  Exhausted.

Kris stayed up a for a few more hours, visiting with her family, when a long-expected party member finally decided to show up:

Gigantor.  Fashionably late.

In the morning, having rested and showered, we visited with a few more of Kris' relatives around the greater Romulus/Wayne area before setting off for the home stomping ground of Clare.  Fortunately, we had the ultimate rock station - WKQZ 93.3 - to keep us company on this last leg of our venture...

In transit and funned out.

This is the only snow I've seen so far in Michigan...

Dad and Cindy's Christmas tree

We had definitely learned our lesson from last year, so this year Kris and I decided that the best way to split up time over break so that each set of grandparents had equal time with the grandkids was to divide the two weeks into equal four or five day chunks.




Accordingly, Kris was going to take the girls to her mom's house in Lake George for the first few days, and I was going to stay at Dad's, so we figured we'd let the kids have a break from the car for an hour or so while they dropped me off.  

As Houghs, Alayna and Abby are huge fans of music.  It's in their blood.  Love listening to it, dancing to it, and - when applicable - playing instruments and making up jams of their own.  Even if they don't know what they're doing (which is all the time), they're no stranger to snatching up idle instruments.

Fortunately our dynamic duo, Dad and Cindy have a piano at their house:

And so, as I sit at my folks' house in Clare, and the girls somewhere off in the backwoods of Lake George, the Great Hough Family Christmas Adventure begins.

Stay tuned.

- Brian