The Houghs: June 2017

What's up, people.

The monthly installment of June randoms always weirds me right out. At the beginning of the month, I'm still hilt-deep in end-of-the-school-year hecticness, running the last gauntlet to the beginning of Summer Vacation. But by the end of the month, the school year is soooo far away in the rear view mirror it feels like that time took place in another lifetime. Looking back at school pictures that were taken towards the beginning of the month are definitely jarring.

Anyway, as you all know, we had a really, really crazy June; aside from maybe June of 2008 (when Alayna was born) and June of 2015 (when we all moved back home to Michigan), it was probably our all-time craziest. I've disclosed all the main happenings already, but here, as always, is a snippet of all the little stuff that happened in the meantime.

Enjoy the randoms, everybody. . .

My classroom on the Last Day of School (obviously no kids in the photo, wouldn't want to violate FERPA.)

Found this in my classroom. Arguably the coolest teenage impression of the Civil War I've ever seen. . .

We definitely had an interesting group this year. . .

We've had a few deer in our yard this month, usually early in the morning before I go to work and as I'm getting around for the day. They come from across the street, meandering in from some far-flung forest or something, and putz around our park-like yard. The morning of the last day of school, we saw this deer hang out in our backyard for quite awhile. In fact, it was still around the neighborhood nearly a half hour later, while I was driving off to work. Half-way through my commute, Kris called me and told me Alayna - our resident animal-lover - was hysterically crying. Apparently, Alayna was getting into the van in the driveway, getting ready to leave for school, and watched as the deer continued walking down our street towards Waldo Ave. As the deer stepped into Waldo, it was blindsided by a speeding pickup truck, and dashed to pieces. . . all right in front of Alayna's eyes. What an AWESOME way to start the last day of the school year. . .

Had to part ways with this bizarre pair of margarita glasses I got from Granny Hough. No one in our house drinks tequila, so we had no use for them. Now, if they had been whiskey glasses, that'd be a whole other story. . .

Making a pit-stop over at the old house, cleaning more stuff out (and cramming in a few donuts in the process.)

Another Girl Scout outing. I have no idea where they are or why they're there.

Ice cream outing with Kris

After our new Cub Cadet's maiden voyage mowing the lawn, I retracted the blades and gave Abby a ride around for awhile. After awhile she ended up doing all the steering, but she had to warm up to it.

(I love this thing.)

Kris and I dragged the girls along with us to the At Home (or whatever the hell it's called) store in Saginaw to buy some lamps and other home decor for our new house. While we were there, Kris decided to pick this up for the girls' bathroom (since Abby is our resident in-shower diva.) You can't really tell from the picture, but the font color perfectly matches the walls of the bathroom.

We had the piano moved over the third week of June, after most of the dust had already settled from the moving process, and wheeled right into the Study. Originally we were going to put it in the living room, but realized the flow of the room would have suffered from it. I was a little hesitant about having it in my dream room, but it ended up working out pretty good; I won't be able to put a desk in this room anymore, but having the Captain's Quarters in the basement allows me to have a work space anyway.

Shopping trip to the Midland Mall, blowing some allowance money.

VBS (Vacation Bible School) at the First United Methodist Church downtown (Kris' church.) A lot of kids the girls know ended up attending this one, so we threw our hat in the lot. Can't find fault with free daycare for an entire week, folks. Saves us hundreds of dollars in childcare costs.

Abby loses another front tooth.

Dad and Cindy came by towards the latter half of the month to drop off Alayna's birthday present. . .

We had been reluctant to buy our kids tablets, as studies have repeatedly linked longer increments of screen time with lower cognitive ability, but the parental controls and features of Amazon's Kindle Fire series made it pretty hard to argue against. We can program it to cut her off after a certain amount of time, and she can't access games or videos or whatever until she's completed a set amount of time using standards-based educational apps.

Guess how thrilled Abby was that her older sister got a brand new tablet for her birthday and she didn't. . .

Alayna and her new best friend.

I decided to take a new series of pics around the house, now that we're about 80% moved in by this point (still have a lot of wall-decorating to go, still.) Here, obviously, is the Living Room.

Abby's Star Wars-themed bedroom

Alayna's room, still under construction

Our room, the headboard of the bed at this point still not attached. . .

Master Bath

The Foyer. We picked up the runner from At Home, that previously-mentioned home decor store in Saginaw, along with a few hundred dollars' worth of lamps, wall decor, and other crap we probably didn't need at the time. . .

Another shot of the Living Room

The Dining Room

The Kitchen, and the Study beyond

My favorite room in the house

Rest assured, all that garbage there won't be a permanent fixture in this hallowed space. . .

Ah, the effects of having a dog pissing in your backyard. . . totally awesome.

The Garage. Still a shitstorm.

Beyond our misplaced patio furniture is my workbench, which I recently cleaned up and reorganized.

The pipe-and-Lord of the Rings section of the house. . .

Watson checks out Squirrelsville (if you look towards the left, you'll see some standing water left over from the flood we recently suffered.)

Down into our basement. . .

We still have quite a ways to go with the unpacking

Another shot of Kris' office

Post-flood Storage Room - still in one piece (thank God.)

The Workshop is no more. I present thee with The Captain's Quarters.

This took weeks, but it was well worth it: part office, part retro-sanctuary, part museum of all things Brian J. Hough. This room is truly a thing of beauty (if not a little tacky.) Retro videogames, VCRs and cassette decks, '80s action figures, knick knacks from around the world, pirate memorabilia, and so much more. . . sweet Jesus, do I love this room.

The final home of the Houghs.

No idea how or why this happened, but this bird continually flew, non-stop, into this garage window for about twelve hours, all while I cleaned and organized my work area in the garage. Definitely creepy.

Busting out a classic.

My kids are weird. . .

Finished installing the cabinet lighting in the Study. . . finally.

June 30th, the last day of our lease at our old rental on Ivy Lane. The girls and I drove over to drop off the garage door openers, keys, and take one final walkthrough of the place to make sure we weren't leaving anything behind.