Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Cannonball's Chompers

Not much to say about this post aside from Alayna was very brave!  She let the hygenist take x-rays without hesitation.  She flinched a bit when it was time to clean, but found her way through it by squeezing mine and the lady's hands.  And I was very pleased walking out after the stains were successfully removed from her front teeth.  We could see her grown-up teeth on the x-rays, but the dentist assured us she has plenty of time before they will appear since she was a late bloomer with her baby teeth.  More time to learn how to brush properly!  Here's some cute pictures.
-Kris

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Visit with Kim

It's not often I have friends visit.  So, when my life-long friend Kim called to tell me she would be arriving here in Orlando for a weekend, I quickly requested an extra day off and started planning a girls' night out.  We had a great time hitting up some popular tourist spots such as the Premium Outlets, Downtown Disney and CityWalk.  Being able to do a late night without kids is something I do rarely, so I pushed through my usual tiredness and made the absolute most of it.  We enjoyed a game of putt putt golf at the new course they have at CityWalk, which made my weekend, since it's something I can never talk Brian into. (probably because the kids would make it impossible)  On Monday, I took full advantage of Sunchild, and dropped the girls off, having requested the time to myself, and we hit up Epcot like a couple of adults.  It was such a different place to visit without kids; I actually got to go on some rides.  We made a quick jaunt over to Magic Kingdom; just enough to wet her appetite for more Disney.  I'm pretty sure she's hooked and currently saving for another trip with the nephew.  Disney has that affect on people.  Her husband, Matt, picked her up that evening and it was time to say "see you later."  I will hold onto that weekend for awhile.  Those times are few and far between.  Enjoy the pics.
-Kris


Taking a break from shopping
Getting her hair did
Not sure about yet another girl in the house.  Outnumbered......moreso.





I played a surprisingly good game


Sunday, January 20, 2013

The Sausage Pad (Sort of) Returneth

It doesn't happen very often, but whenever an ol' war buddy makes it down here to San Juan Orlando, we Houghs fancy ourselves some shenanigans.

Of course, now that we have kids in tow, these shenanigans have gotten considerably lamer.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed a brief, PG-13 visit with none other than the Sausage Pad's Zack Smith.  The weather wasn't all that great (January isn't really peak tourism season down here in the sub-tropics), and I had to work throughout the week, but we soldiered through.

Observe:
Zack and his girlfriend, Renee, stayed at some condo Zack's dad owns.  Not a bad place - too bad the weather was complete shit. . .
Some homeless guy that was crashing on Zack's balcony.
Wizard Wheat Ale.  I hadn't had this since I was 23 and a regular patron of Bilbo's back in my kidless years at Western Michigan University.  Wasn't quite as good as I remembered, but still a nostalgic nod to my hazy past.
Another conversation for the ages.
Smith fancies himself a sound pamperin' whenever possible. . .
Z. Smith, gettin' his nails did.
. . . okay, so I did too.  Kinda hard to say 'no' to doe-eyed kids.
Produce Manager, illustrating the appropriate way to slice up a pineapple.
Ready for business.
We opted to grill out some chicken and pineapple/vegetable kabobs and throw back some craft beers opposed to dining out, which - if you'll remember - is totally awesome when you have little kids.
Abby, Baby Commonia (however the hell that's spelled), and the Cannonball
We tried in vain to hook up some rabbit ears to an old TV out in our sunroom in order to catch the playoff game, but alas our old rabbit ears were garbage.  Smith cried a little.
Only a matter of time.
Ladies love this guy.
Zack nicknamed our kids 'Clare' and 'Farwell,' and the monikers somehow stuck.  Here Abby shows off some piece of crap shirt my parents bought her. . .
Later on in the week, I took the girls over to Zack's condo so that they could hang out in the pool. . .
. . . unfortunately, it was in the low 70s, windy as hell, and the sun was being a major a-hole.  Oh yeah, and it rained.
Still enjoying the pool.  'Cause my kids are weird.
Zack attempts taking Abby through the Fountain Gauntlet of Death. . .
I was REALLY tempted. . .
(Abby wasn't enjoying herself.)
Seconds before Abby announced that she had pissed herself.  Fortunately they weren't our towels.
- Brian

Monday, January 14, 2013

Into the Fire

Last of the Christmas cocktails. . .
Hey fellas,

The Holidays are over, and everyone's gone back to work.

Hooray.

We held onto Christmas as long as we possibly could - we kept the tree up through the New Year, watching Christmas specials, drinking the leftover Christmas cocktails, and jammin' out to Holiday jams until it became weird.

Then came the most depressing time of the year:  boxing up all that Christmas crap until next Thanksgiving.  Or Halloween.  We'll see.

These last two weeks have been a blur, as both kids and adults struggle to get back used to the usual grind.  I think I had the hardest out of the whole clan, seeing how I was out of work for a solid two-week stretch, but I got my ol' teachin' legs back pretty quickly.

As the second half of the school year kicks into gear, we've had a whole slew of new developments fall into our laps. . .

First off, Yours Truly and a few of my esteemed associates from work have been laboring tirelessly on a career 'Plan B,' so to speak.  I can't go into full details yet, but hopefully within the next two months I'll be able to divulge more.  Basically, we realized our creativity was becoming dangerously stagnate at our place of work, and that our livelihoods were suffering as a result.  So, fearing the drudgery of the next twenty or thirty years, we put our heads together and came up with a bold venture that, surprisingly enough, is coming together very rapidly.

Stay tuned.


In other news, Alayna's got a new choir routine she's been actively practicing these last couple weeks. . . and it's horrible.  Any kid song is fully-capable of driving a man to suicide when played on 'repeat' three or four times - back to back - and this new song of hers that she's been practicing is definitely no exception.  Her concert isn't until February, which means we have another month of listening to 'I Love Bugs.'

Thank. Jebus.

Anyway, one huge development - for me, at any rate - is my nomination as Group Leader for an upcoming EF tour to Italy (Milan, Venice, Florence, Assisi, Rome and Pompeii) in March.  Check it out the tour itinerary here if interested.

This more or less fell in my lap, too, so I'm a little stressed as I scramble to start taking over leadership responsibilities with two months before departure.

Basically what happened was that myself and two other teachers began planning this trip out back in May of 2012, but one of the other teachers was the group leader - I was just offering support.  EF Tours is an educational travel agency that I've used in the past to visit Mexico (back in 1998), and they're awesome.  Anyway, we were sorta lazy over the summer and really didn't begin advertising our trip to Italy to parents and students until the beginning of the school year.


The problem with the trip, for most people, was the price per traveler - nearly $2400 per students and $2700 per adult.  Needless to say, only eight people ended up signing up for the trip, despite hundreds of interested persons that had turned out for those early meetings.  EF pays the way for a chaperone if six spots are secured, so basically myself and the other teacher figured we weren't going, and the original group leader continued planning out her trip.

Fast forward four months to present day.

I was approached by this group leader last week, and she mentioned that, due to health concerns, she was unable to lead the group to Italy.  The second-in-line teacher also couldn't make the trip, so, by process of elimination - and sheer luck - Yours Truly is able to travel to Italy for practically nothing.  Sure, I have to pay $130 for a new passport (my old government-issued passport from the Peace Corps is useless), and I have to save up about $500 - $600 for traveling expenses, souvenirs, and lunches (EF pays for breakfasts and dinner, but lunches they expect you to buy yourself).


Not that I'm complaining.

So, for the next two months, I'm going to have my hands full of travel-planning, Plan B-collaborating, lesson-planning, house-maintenance'ing, and child-raising.

Back to the Grind, 2013.

Let's do this.

- Brian