The Five Minutes That Was August

Welcome back to the Land of Houghs.

August flew by in, like, five minutes.  I kid you not.

I've previously mentioned how frickin' busy we've been with Back to School crap, but I want to emphasize that since Yours Truly is a teacher, Back to School season becomes exponentially more hectic.  That's all I've been doing lately - lesson planning, buying stuff for my classroom, moving stuff around in and decorating my classroom, etc. etc.  Besides some vacations and highlights here and there - most of which we've delved into in other posts - August ended up being a very mundane, if not SHORT, month.

Here's a snippet of some of the crap that we didn't touch on in other posts, though.

Enjoy. . .

We bought a new grill at the beginning of the month, which was awesome.  After weeks of research, I settled on this copper-toned Webber grill, which is the deluxe version of their famous model (it comes with a temp guage and an ash-removing tray - both super-handy features.)

. . . obviously I bought a crapload of accessories for it as well.

Found an old box of cassettes in the basement, and finally got around to hooking up a pretty high-end dual-cassette player to my stereo receiver.  Kris wasn't a big fan of this new set-up initially, but I'm sure it'll grow on her (I might have to make her a mix-tape to seal the deal with this, we'll see. . .)

I bought this tape from a Big Wheel store in Clare back in 1993, based solely on the front image alone.  The lyrics were terrible, and Dad ended up confiscating the cassette from me when I was young, finally giving it back to me when I was in my teens and no longer thought the music was good (it was terrible.)  Oddly enough, I still have this cassette, which I'm going to have to get around listening to again in the future.  I doubt it holds up, though.

The first week of August, Dad and I decided to tackle the boxes and boxes of photos that Granny had in her basement.  This would end up being one hell of an undertaking, but we both had the time off of work, so we rolled up our sleeves and spent an entire day sorting through papers, pictures, negatives, and other random bullshit that hadn't gotten picked up when we all went through her house back in March.  Like, say, this horrifically racist 'Get Well' card from the 1930s. . .

Grandpa Hough apparentely wasn't a big fan of the church back in 1928. . . he must've written this when he was a kid, long before he ended up being a minister in the exact same church.  Kinda funny.

Some of the pictures Dad gave me from Granny's - he wanted me to have all the pre-divorce pictures that Granny had of our family, so I was able to separate them by year and now have the awesome task of scanning each and every one of them (whenever my work load slows down and I have a chance to breathe. . .)

It wouldn't be a trip to Granny's without Yours Truly loading up another van-load of stolen plunder, like this solid-oak, 12-person kitchen table.  Definitely a step up from what we had before.

Swimming at Stratford Park again - one of the girls' favorite summer hang-out spots.

This old lady turned 35 this year (and this is what passes for a birthday cake around these parts.)

Bedtime reading (Abby's really taken off with reading - she took to it a lot faster than her sister did, and Alayna was at the top of her class for it.)

More beach time - we ended up going there at least once a day for a week or two in August, just to break up the day (like I said before, it's a 3-minute drive from our house.)

Grandma Jordan swung out one day to stop in for a visit. . .

. . . and an apparent makeover.

. . . and a tea party.

My new school only gives teachers desktop computers, so I went out and bought an Acer Chromebook that was insanely high-rated on nearly every site I researched.  Since 95% of my work is done via Google Office and Google Classroom, I don't need the storage capacity of a traditional laptop, nor the processing power, so the Chromebook was the optimal choice.  I still plan on replacing my MacBook Pro in a year or two with a fancy new iMac, but this will definitely get me by in the meantime.

Trevor and Sara drove down from Clare one Saturday with their kids to hang out and spend the night at our house like we had done at theirs (back in July, around the Fourth, if you'll remember.)  They showed up right after lunch, so we decided to take the kids down to the park to swim and play in the sand for a couple hours while we caught up and had some beers on the beach.

Good ol' Trevor McNerney.

Okay, so this picture wasn't supposed to be of Kris, folks.  No, this picture - which I took on the sly - was meant to be of the guy off to the right.  If you look closely, he's holding up a FRICKIN' FISH to his mouth and rapping into it like it's a microphone.  I want to be this guy's best friend SO bad. . .

Drying off time

 

Grillin' up some dead animals back at the house (our grill's maiden voyage, actually.)

Kid section

After-dinner catfight

Forts in the basement.  Never gets old.

Alayna bought this chair with her own money from a Salvation Army for $5, and it has become her favorite reading spot in the house.

Go Lions

We're planning on buying a house this winter/spring, and have informed the kids of this in the past, so Abby decided to help us out and draw us a detailed side-view diagram of the exact house she's looking for.  Hopefully she relayed this information to Kris so that she can scope it out on Zillow.

Just another day in the Hough house. . .

Lunch at Jimmy John's on the way home from church. . .

(You can see Kris in the background, placing her order. . . and simultaneously pretending she doesn't know the children climbing around in the restaurant.) 

At a neighborhood party at one of the houses down the road. . .

Ivy Lane squad

No, there's no booze in this - they were handing out shot-glasses of water.  Give us some credit, Internet.

At Plymouth Park for a play date with Alayna's friend, Samantha

The kids in the neighborhood had organized a 'parade' (yes, seriously) one afternoon.  No idea what it was for, but this is what it basically entailed.

A Mercedes-Benz, several kids on bikes. . . and no floats.

But then this.

- Brian

Traverse Smitty, Pt. III

(Contd.)

After our exhausting Forced March up the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, we swung out to some historic 'ghost town' called Glenn Haven.  Kind of a creepy place, really.

Smitty knows tons of hidden gems like this - he'd clean up as a Michigan tour guide, that's for sure.

I guarantee people have been murdered here.  Pretty creepy vibe with this place, and the gloomy weather definitely didn't help.

We had to stop 'cause our two kids had to use the restroom, but the girls room was occupied.  Smitty had offered to take them, so Kris, Abby, Rita and I watched a bizarre scene unfold from the vantage of the van.  Eventually the girls had to all take turns using the men's room, with Smitty standing guard outside.

Smitty had to turn away a few different guys who attempted using the bathroom, including a very, very confused Asian gentleman who barely spoke English and didn't understand why Smitty wasn't letting him use the bathroom.  Definitely hilarious.

Stopping off in Glenn Arbor for some mandatory souvenir shoppin'. . .

Abby and Smitty take a break in the van while the rest of the womenfolk shop.

This town would be a pretty cool place to hang out in - they had a few different outdoor bars that looked cool, but we were still a ways away from Traverse City, and had to start heading back. . .

We spent a half hour snaking around this lake, assumingly back towards Traverse City, only to discover - to our unbridled horror - that we had arrived right back in Glenn Arbor.  Somehow we had taken a long victory lap around the lake, and were unaware of our blunder because we had taken no turns off the road that would indicate we were returning to our point of destination.  It was super bizarre, and we were so shocked that we weren't really upset that we had just spent 45 minutes driving around the lake for nothing.

Trying to get the hell out of Glenn Arbor. . .

Randomly, we drove past this lone man, walking along the side of the road - IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE - carrying a plastic bag with something heavy in it.  We assumed he was a serial killer, and that he was carrying a human head, but we never got around to stopping to ask.

GPS recommended we take this random, one-lane dirt road to get back to Traverse City, so, being the tech-dependent idiots we are, we followed its suggestion. . .

This is how horror movies start. . .

In the end, GPS apparentely did know what it was doing.  After long last, we FINALLY made it back to Traverse City, where we witnessed this regiment of college kids strolling across the street in formation.  No idea who the hell these people were or what they were doing.  By this point in the grand scheme of things, nothing was really surprising us anymore.

More selfies

We had to replenish supplies for our last dinner at camp, so we dropped off Kris and Rita inside Meijer and Smitty and I hung out in the van with the three girls. . . and listened to shit-load of Kidz Bop.  Thug Life.

Dance party in the van.

Back at camp, getting ready to wrestle with yet another stubborn fire.

Again, we didn't have much in the way of kindling, and it was still a pain in the ass to get the fire going, but it didn't take as long this time around, which was cool.

The next morning - kids woke up and scampered outside pretty early.

A dry morning (thank God.)  Everyone up and around, grabbing breakfast (except Smitty, obviously.)

(We're messy campers.)

Photo courtesy of Abby

Another score from my dead grandmother - a handy mini-vac that makes short work of sand and dirt off a tent floor (Kris is a huge fan of cleaning.)

Abby enjoyed documenting the slow process of cleaning and packing up the campsites. . .

Returning from our trash run (it was a bit of a walk to the dumpsters, which were located at the front of the campground, but Smitty and I could use the exercise.)

Alayna breaks out her digital camera (we basically gave her our old Canon Powershot.)

Somewhat cheaper than developing rolls and rolls of film for stupid pictures like this. . .

The girls hung out in the van while we slowly loaded it up with the tent, camping gear, coolers, etc. - they clearly kept themselves entertained with taking ridiculous pictures.

Leaving the campground, heading towards downtown Traverse City for some last-minute shopping and lunch-eating. . .

I made us stop for a coffee first, though - Daddy needs himself some frickin' coffee in the morning.

After finding a parking garage, we set off for some shopping.  They had a ton of artwork hung up on the outside of the buildings downtown - all repros, I'm sure, but they were cool to check out.

Map-readin'

Downtown Traverse City

Some cool-looking old Opera House that we didn't set foot in. . .

We ducked in and out of several different shops.  Kris and I didn't really see much that we wanted to pick up, but Alayna bought a shitty pair of handcuffs and a ring.  Abby ended up saving her money for one of those Beanie Boo animals (see previous post) with the large, glittery eyes.

Fossil shop.  Or whatever the hell you would call this. Medicine Man Emporium?

I don't know about this.  It kinda looks like a rock they pulled out of the lake. . .

This was a big hit. . . for whatever reason.

I need a mug like this in my life.

Our last stop of the day was at Mackinaw Brewing Company, which was some much-needed food.  Everyone was tired and hungry and ready to be done with walking around, and once we had put greasy bar food in our systems we realized we were still exhausted and should probably just load back up into cars and go our respective ways.

We saw this on our way back towards the parking garage - one of the reliefs from the gates of Ishtar, back in the days of the Babylonian Empire.  I kinda want a copy for my living room.

- Fin -