Leftovers, July Edition

Hi fellas (and fellettes.)

July was a pretty decent month, if I don't say so myself.  Weather was awesome, and so I kinda wish I didn't have to work as much.  I felt like my summer didn't really start until our stint at Eight Point Lake, in the third/fourth week of the month (I continued my week-long workshop marathon at Delta College, teaching Animation, Photoshop, and STEM exploration right up until that vacation, so these last two months have really flown by.)  Hooray for adulthood.

Anyway, here's a little bit of what we managed to document from this last month. . .

This neighborhood kid practically lives at our house.

Birthday sampler.  My family gets me.

I may have consumed this entire thing within 24 hours.

Educating the offspring in some fundamental music history. . .

I've had a stack of 45s that have been collecting dust, and I decided this month to finally get off my ass and sort through them.  I have no idea how/when I acquired half of them (most without sleeves of any kind), and in the end I donated the sound majority to Goodwill.  Dad scored a handful - along with the LP shown here - that were from Granny's and part of his childhood.  I kept, like, eight 45s, I think.

One of the days I was off teaching at Delta, Kris took the girls out to the Midland Center for the Arts to check out their Dr. Seuss exhibit. 

Arts and crafts is always a big hit with our tax deductions. . .

Way to reach for the stars, kid.

Emulating her old man (I really need to buy a new drum set. . .)

Not sure what the news story's about, but I'm sure she's off-script.

She's got the posture down, I'll give her that.

That's one of the Cannonball's friends, Samantha - some day they had a play date or something.  Who knows, I was at work.

Kids playing banging on my grandmother's piano.

After years and years and years of her growing out, Kris had finally had enough of Alayna's hair reaching down to her ass.  One of our neighbors just so happens to cut hair on the side, having a salon set up in her house, so the Cannonball finally had her hair did.

(She had about eight or nine inches taken off - looks a hell of a lot better.)

Delta College, where I've spent the majority of my summer so far.  I've been teaching week-long courses in Animation, Cartooning/Illustration, Photoshop, Storytelling, STEM exploration, etc.  A crap-load of planning, but the kids are well-behaved and the pay is good. . . it just eats up a lot of my summer, which kinda sucks.  I'll probably scale it back a bit next summer.

These computers were AWESOME.  This was my classroom for my Animation and Photoshop classes.  I want one these iMacs for my home office. . .

The annual Ivy/Rapanos/Dina neighborhood picnic.  We knew a lot more people this time around, but once again opted against eating/bringing a dish (it had been pouring rain up until twenty minutes or so before the picnic was supposed to start, so a lot of people didn't know if they'd still have it.)

Another year, another water balloon fight.

Riverdays at the Tridge Park (whatever that place is called.)

Kris wanted to check out these dueling pianos, which, as could be expected, featured a lot of Billy Joel.  Way to be original, fellas.

The kids weren't thrilled with it, and we ended up having to split earlier than anticipated.

They did have a playground nearby, so we let the kids scamper about that for awhile to burn off some of their pent-up energy.

The Tridge

On the way back, Kris and I decided to hit up the Cork and Ale party store (formerly Valley Produce) - in my opinion the best craft beer store in town.  She wanted me to pick her out a sixer of random ciders (the only beer she'll drink), and while I was in the store getting some local ciders for her - and mixing up a sixer of my own - this is what my roommates were up to in the van.

They thought it'd be funny to move their parking spot while I was in the store.  They're hilarious.

At the beginning of another STEM workshop at Delta, I was given a brand new room to use.  Upon entering the room for the first time, I found this scribbled across the front white board.  Obviously kinda creepy.

Yes, of course they knocked it all down.  All over the floor.

Bunch of chicks, gettin' their nails did.

Seriously.  This chick lives here.

Abby felt it was necessary to warn her friends of the swords in our office.  'Cause, you know, we let the kids run in there and play with them all the time.

One day we came out side and saw that - SOMEHOW - a bird had impaled itself on the radio antennae of my car.  It soon became big neighborhood news with the kids.

Every time Kris got close to touching it, it started flapping its wings all over the damn place in fear.  And then Kris would recoil, freaked out, and the whole process would repeat itself.  This went on for about ten minutes.

(Eventually she got it off and the bird awkwardly flew away. In definitive defiance of God's Will.)

- Brian