May Days

Donald 'Dump,' according to my kids.

Oh my dear God, America.

I think May just happened.

Seriously, what the hell was that?  Was that a month?  It felt like an extended weekend with a few work days tacked on the end. That was insane.  This cover of Rolling Stone (that my one of my kids defaced with a red pen) just about wraps up how this last month felt.  Packing, ending the school year, signing paperwork, more packing, celebrating birthdays, girl scout bullshit, more packing, soccer, more paperwork, even more packing. . .

I'm ready for summer, folks.

Here we go. . .

Starting off the month with some more day-to-day pictures from around the house, taken by Alayna (I know I've said this before, but the kids' pictures are a pretty cool supplement to the pics Kris and I take - we've gotten into the habit lately of bringing the girls' cameras with us on family trips.)

On guard

Some questionable school outfits

Not sure what's happening here. . .

My designated Friday to bring in snacks to work for the rest of the teachers in my building coincidentally fell on our annual Health and Wellness Day, where we were all supposed to be super healthy and active with our students.  Some men just want to watch the world burn. . .

Abby's on-again, off-again beau randomly bought this for her from the 'school store' and delivered it to our house one afternoon.  I'm not ready for this crap yet.

Piano lessons

Winding down this Spring's unenthusiastic soccer season

Mom brought the cousins over one Saturday for a visit while Jeff and Annie were away at some wedding

Abby's best friend, Larkin, was unable to attend Abby's sleepover birthday bash, so they had a whole-day play date and their own sleepover instead.  They kicked things off with an outing to the Roll Arena.

Back at the house, opening presents

A fairy garden (these two are big into playing fairies - which is weird because Abby has little interest with fairies unless she's playing with Larkin.)

Later in the evening, we took the kids out for bowling at Northern Lanes, and also caught dinner there while we were at it.

Moment of Zen

Slainte

The next morning, following a Moana-filled sleepover, the girls ate breakfast and started assembling their Fairy Garden

While repacking up totes, I stumbled across this old shirt from the Peace Corps.  The Northern Brigade was one hot mess.

Kris pulls up the jungle of weeds in the back'yard.'  I was in favor of just leaving them be, since we were moving out in  a week anyway, but Kris has been hell-bent on leaving the place 'nice' for whomever rents it next.  She's a better person than I am.

Another morning dove decided to nest on our house (first on the ladder hanging on the shed, then above the lamp by our front door, and now on the window sill outside our half-bathroom.)

A week or so later, I stumbled across another old Peace Corps shirt that had been used to wrap up something fragile.  I think all we did back then were go out to bars and have t-shirts printed up.

Some people put cars in their garage.  The Houghs put empty cardboard boxes.

Ol' Snaggletooth

Abby's Fairy Garden (sans real fairies.)

Appeasing the wife for Mother's Day

I recently sold a crate of old vinyl back to Radio Wasteland - mostly crap I didn't want, far from valuable, but there were a few sellable LPs in there for them (I told the owner he could just have the crappy stuff for free.)  I opted for $40 in store credit, and he graciously traded me nearly outright for these two limited edition, colored LPs from two of Michigan's greatest bands - I was floored.  To top it off, hat MC5 album is rather rare, and sounds amazing.

New additions to the household

The crap my kids blow money on. . .

The Squad, inexplicably standing on a brick wall for whatever reason.

Taking into consideration Abby would be getting her own Star Wars-themed bedroom in our new home, and the walls were going to be dark grey and purple (to match Abby's bed set), Kris decided to repaint the girls' existing dresser, which has been designated for that room now.

I've lost count of how many times we've painted this damn thing.

Rockin' some new, non-prescription glasses to school

And now for some random shots from around our house, so you can see what kind of disaster we've been living in this last couple of months . .

These large, long cardboard boxes underneath that camera bag and milk crates are my new IKEA Kallax shelving for my vinyl.  It took a special trip down to scenic Canton, MI for those stupid things, but they're going to look glorious set up in the new Study. . .

Bunk beds, disassembled forevermore. 

Storage room has been basically emptied and purged - that was my first order of business, just gutting this room of all unnecessary bullshit I had no intention of moving into the new house.

Today, the last day of the month, I went over to the new house with Rick to give it a final walk-through before signing the paperwork (which we're doing this Friday, June 2nd.)  This was the first time I got to see the inside of our new shed, which was cool.  Most of this stuff is staying behind, which is awesome.

Some random shots of our new backyard

Kris and Rick hadn't seen the point in a final walk-through, but I wanted to get a last look at the place, just in case something fishy was going on. . . and, in the end, I was right.  The extra refrigerator that had previously been in the storage room was suddenly unplugged and ready for shipment, in the middle of the garage.  This was an oversight by the selling agent, who failed to mention to the sellers that we had asked for this spare fridge in the purchase agreement, so they had every intention of moving it to Colorado.  I had Rick call the agent and put an immediate stop to this, so basically now we have a spare fridge in the garage instead of the Storage Room.  Whatever.  I'm just glad I caught it at the last second - that would've sucked to have lost my beer fridge.

I think most of this crap is going with the sellers.  We'll see what's left behind on Friday morning.

Back to the backyard.  We're getting the riding lawnmower dropped off on Saturday - it'll definitely come in handy with a yard this size.

We eventually want to build on a back screened-in patio sunroom-thingy where this existing square of blocks are.

Two more days and it's ours. . .

- Brian