Back to School

With Summer rotting in its still-too-damn-hot-for-this-time-of-year grave, it is time once again to dust off my pants and head back to work.

*Queue fanfare*

Pretty much.

Last year, on the very last day of school, our school had what students were crazy enough to show up actually help their first period teachers move into their new classrooms for the upcoming school year.  This was two parts crazy and one part genius, but it worked - I drove my students like a slave driver and successfully did 80% of my usual back-to-school move-in process before kicking off Summer Vacation.

It was absolute Hell on earth, but we did it.

Now, as I move in my countless boxes of books, teaching materials, posters, and what-have-you, there's not nearly as much pressure to track down custodians for elevator keys, handcarts for file cabinets, etc. 

I'm a big fan of this.

Behold Mr. Hough's new and improved classroom for the upcoming 2012 - 2013 school year. . .

This is what we accomplished before the Summer officially kicked off. . .

The door to the far left opens up to a middle room that I share with three other teachers; the middle door opens up to a HUGE walk-in closet; the door to the far right opens up to a hallway with bathrooms AND a drinking fountain.

. . . needless to say this is a far cry from my humble trailer last year.

Still needing to snaz (technical term) the place up with posters and the like, but this room definitely has serious potential. . .

Note TV on rolling cart equipped with Nintendo and stack of cartridges (for planning periods, before school, etc.)

My humongous walk-in closet. . . slightly unorganized.

Wish you were here!

Mr. Hough's room, post-decorating

The Voigts were nice enough to donate five or six large, fake trees for my room - which will surely please/creep out my incoming 6th graders. . .

My SmartBoard is mounted to the wall, which frees up some lecturin' space.  The projector's a bit on the shaky side, so methinks I'm going to have to jerry-rig that secure somehow. . .

Bathroom sign-out center.  Because middle-schoolers resort to chimps when unsupervised.

Not only was Yours Truly heading back to work, but my feminine roommates were as well.

Kris was recently granted full time employment at Sunchild Academy, which coincided perfectly with Alayna starting V.P.K..  The two of them were going to be putting in full 9am - 6pm days, and, with Abby unable to drive herself to school, that meant all three Hough ladies would soon be joining Mr. Hough in going to school all day long. . .

The Cannonball shows off her new backpack. . .

Pumped for the First Day of School

- Brian

The Death of Summer

Well, that was short.

I know those outside of the education field will probably grudge (begrudge?) me for complaining about my mere two months off of work during the summer (paid), but I'm going to anyway:  summer was way too short this year. 

It was.

Yuck city.

Probably had something to with us buying a new house and spending the first month of summer moving into it and settling down.  That, and only having the pool up for two months sure as hell didn't help - we didn't get a chance to put it up until the beginning of June (opposed to last year, when we were swimming by mid-April).  Consequently, we were forced to tear the damn thing down two weeks ago when a pinhole appeared and water began leaking into the yard.

Ever been to Mackinac?  This smelled like it.

Sure, we could've easily patched up the pinhole, but that would've required doing so after draining water out and letting the area dry first.  Then we'd have to refill the pool (which takes awhile), add more chemicals to the water, take the sample to Pinch-a-Penny (our local pool store) so they could check our levels, adjust the chemical levels in the water if need be, and wait a day or two to let the balance adjust.

Ultimately, with us taking the pool down in a couple weeks anyway, we just said 'screw it' and tore the damn thing down.  August, ergo, has been a pool-less month. 

Check it out . . .

Getting ready for some quasi-serious gardening with Daddy. . .

Picked up a couple of $1 flowers from Home Depot so the girls could re-pot something while I tended to the larger plants. . .

. . . they lost interest pretty fast.

Abby wasn't down with this at all. . .

Week 2 of Kris attempting to dry out the pool (not as easy as one would think, what with the amount of rain we get down here.)

Wasting expensive soil, as could be expected.

Our girls are huge fans of peeling paint off things.  They always have been.  Their bedroom dresser had originally been painted a dark blue, but when we bought it we repainted it a pale green to match the original nursery.  Sure enough, the green paint was slowly peeled off, and it looked terrible in their new purple room.  So Kris decided to repaint it. . .

Eerily enough, the kids were quite well-behaved in assisting in the paint job.

Alayna masters how to tie her own shoes (note the finished dresser in the background)

(. . . also note how messy our kids' room is.  I blame my roommates)

Diva time. . .

Duplos are like crack. . . even for big people.

This monolith was way better than anything my kids can build. . .

NEVER leave your children alone with markers. . .

Fortunately this came out, but it reinforces our decision to abstain from buying new, nicer furniture until our children grow up into civilized human beings.

Showing off another new dress.  Always a big deal in this house.

- Brian

The Old Maid

Some of Abby's new threads

A parking lot chock-full of homeless people is not enough to keep the Houghs from treasure hunting, folks.  Let the bums come - we're a pretty determined lot when it comes to vintage clothes and antique oddity shopping.
Back in the day, Goodwill used to be a pretty cool place to shop at.  You could pick up an awesome shirt straight out of the '70s or '80s for $1.  Those days, unfortunately, are long gone.  Down here in San Juan Orlando, Goodwill charges nearly $6 for a t-shirt, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of thrift shopping in the first place, seeing how you can buy a new t-shirt for a few bucks more.

Without getting your allergies all up in a hen-hizzy.

Alayna's new Jem & the Holograms shirt

Anyway, a short drive south into the bowels of Kissimmee, one can find Goodwill's cooler, older brother - Salvation Army.  Their 'street cred' seems to be more legit, and lately we've been hitting that joint up more frequently, because their prices - while still not at the desired 'Value Village in the '90s' level that Kris and I became accustomed to - are much better than Goodwill.

New bookcase (left) in the Study

We went up their recently to pick out some new shirts for the girls, as well as tie-hunt and book scavenge for Yours Truly.  This time around, we managed to find a few some new shirts and skirts for the kids (see Jem shirt above), some snazzy new vintage shirts and ties for Yours Truly, some more books for our ever-expanding Library, some clothes for Kris, some records, and even a new bookcase (as our others are overflowing).

All for $50.  I'm not about to start complaining about that at all. . .

Still a little too big for daily wear, but she's still pretty stoked about using it as a night-gown. . .

 

  

Reading some new books. . .

 

 

The next day, the Cannonball and I decided to run a few errands in order to prepare for Kris' upcoming 31st birthday (not that we go to the extreme with birthdays around here - the kids actually like celebrating our birthdays more than we do).  Then came the actual baking and decorating process, which, with my two kids, was just as much fun as you can imagine.

Behold Operation: Old Maid . . .

The Cannonball drove us to Publix to pick up baking crap for Kris' Birthday.

Flowers from Kris' Mom

The girls each write/draw birthday cards for Mommy. . .

(Abby doesn't know how to write)

Alayna, attempting to capture Kris' likeness

Alayna's card for Kris (dictated to Yours Truly)

The girls decided Kris would appreciate cupcakes for her birthday, so that's what we did.

. . . but there's always a crapload of cakish material left after making cupcakes, so we just made a cake, too.

Leftover Cake.  Decorated.

Abby begins decorating Mommy's Birthday Cupcakes

And this is what Abby would look like if she were a Mexican migrant worker.

(we let her keep this one)

Nap time.

Abby's healthy lunch.

We also picked up a cheesecake so Kris would have something that she actually enjoyed for her birthday.

Trick Candles - the joke that NEVER gets old. . .

Kris gets some assistance. . .

This kid really likes cupcakes. . .

- Brian