''The Christmas Pre-Season,'' or, ''November''

One of television's greatest villains, making a dastardly SNES appearance. . .

What up, players.

November flew by this year, which is to be expected:  the second Halloween is over we all put on our Christmas pants and start counting down towards Thanksgiving Break and the beginning of the Holidays.  Aside from stuff we've previously mentioned - getting ready for the Holidays, etc. - November could basically be summed up as The Month of Leaves and Girl Scout Cookies.  That's about all we did this month.

Think I'm joking?  Check this out. . .

Okay, so Kris did take the girls out to see Wicked - one of her favorite broadway plays.  They didn't see it on Broadway, though, but the DeVos theater in Grand Rapids (pretty sure that's what the theater is called.)  She bought the tickets over the summer (I won't even begin to talk about how much those cost us) and over the course of the last couple months has been playing songs from the show for the girls.

Can you tell they're excited?

Me?  I don't fancy myself a theater fan, and I don't care for musicals.  So, while Kris and the girls went to their show, I had them drop me off in Rockford (some fifteen minutes or so north of the theater) to BP's house, where we passed our time drinking beer and playing Super Nintendo.  Which, obviously, is waaaaay more fun than watching the backstory about the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

They ended up getting medium-quality seats (I'm not sure the actual name of the section is, but it's not the super-nice seats, but they're not in the nosebleed section where you can't see anything, either.)  They ended up being good for the kids, I guess.

Hough girls are big fans of selfies.  As I'm sure you know by now.

Meanwhile, back in Rockford. . .

Here's a shopping list we found on the kitchen counter that the girls made.  Seems pretty legit to me.

An outtake from this year's Hough Family Christmas Card, which I shot the second week of the month.  Can you guess how much fun Kris is having?

We took our family portraits with all the leaves on the ground ('cause leaves are Fall-ish), but afterwards it was one of my main weekend goals to clear the yard of all the tree debris.  We had experienced a fairly long - and noticeable, for this time of year - cold snap towards the beginning of the month, and as a result, all the leaves from the trees fell all at once.  Thank God I invested in a Ghostbusters-esque backpack leaf-blower, which made short work of the raking process.  In an hour I had blown all the leaves into a 4 ft x 20 ft long leaf pile (the pic shown here was after we had hauled several tarp-loads away.)  I seriously need to invest in larger tarps, though.

Making progress

(These guys aren't very much help.)

These pictures don't do this pile justice - it stood above the curb by a couple feet, extended about six feet from the curb, and ran the duration of our property line.  It was insane.

. . . and, of course, the next week I had to start over once again.  I f***ing hate Fall.

Cookie Season begins.  I hate Girl Scout Cookies with passion:  Kris is a co-leader so it's become a pretty big part of our Fall lives, with both girls running around collecting orders, and cookie boxes from various members of their respective troops taking up space in our house.

This was after several orders were picked up from our house by various parents.  It's like living in a warehouse.

Hawking wares at a booth outside a Home Depot.

Collecting food for the poor - pretty standard Holiday season charity work.

On a Girl Scout field trip to. . . the Dentist's office.  Edge.  Of.  Your.  Seat. 

Studying geography and science.  We celebrate all things nerdy in this household.

Abby and her BFF, Larkin, on a play date while Kris took Alayna and her BFF, Maddie, out to a theater to see Wonder.

I had no interest in seeing a movie about a deformed kid who gets bullied but somehow ends up with a happy ending.  I like my movies with explosions and one-liners, thank you very much.

Fancy sleepover dinner for the ladies.

Setting up my classroom after Thanksgiving Break (I took other pictures showing off more Christmas lights and decor in my room, but unfortunately my students' names and work were visible in those shots, so I can't post them (FERPA.)

Our 8th grade team this year adopted a sturgeon as part of some Michigan Tech math/science unit, and our science teacher is raising the fish in her room throughout the school year.  Our 8th graders named it Bubbles (I know, it's horrible.)  In the spring, we're going to go on a field trip to release the fish into the Tittabawassee River.  Something to do with science and conservation or something, I don't know.

On yet another Girl Scout quest, collecting toys for the less-fortunate.  'Tis the Season.

My classroom, all primed and ready to roll for our annual Constitutional Convention simulation (one of my favorite - and the students' favorite - activities we do in class this year.)

- Brian