Across One April

Watson.  Lord of the Couch.

Man, this month was nuts.

Generally April tends to be a pretty quiet affair, but we've been insanely busy this year.  Since the girls have gotten older, they've become far more involved with school and extra-curricular activities, and so, just like last month, we saw way more stuff pop up on our monthly calendar than in previous years.  Alayna's choir group sang at the Dow Diamond, Abby had a field trip and a musical, we had multiple social obligations with our group of friends, a couple different sleepovers and play dates, Girl Scouts, Easter, a couple random snow days (seriously), and Kris up and bought a new f***ing van.

All in, total chaos.  And we haven't even run the dreaded May/June/July gauntlet yet.  That's going to be downright brutal this year, mark my words.

Anyway, here you go:  the Hough Family's April '19. . .

Kris and I met up with Chris and Nicole for a few drinks the first Saturday of the month, over at Whichcraft Brewery downtown.  This one's called New Holland's Pilgrim Dole - 12% ABV wheat wine.  Really good stuff, this.

A mural on the side of the brewery.  Not sure if this is particularly 'Salvador Dali'-ish, but I'm not an art nazi.

Later that evening, we went over to the Shepherd's residence to hang out with the usual group of friends.  Finally broke into this rather expensive four-pack that I had lying around in the beer fridge downstairs.  It was awesome.

Mid-April.  A f***ing snow day.

I felt this was a fitting beverage, given the circumstances.

Seriously, Michigan. . .

Watson's not a big fan of this snow nonsense - he's pretty reluctant to go outside when it's like this.

He's a pansy.

A few days later, the snow melted and Alayna's choir group was to perform the National Anthem at Midland's Dow Diamond.  The local team - the Loons - weren't even playing, it was some scrub-ass college game between Northwood University and SVSU (shown here.)

Alayna, Makara, Christina and Gabby.

This was easily one of the crappiest extra-curricular kid events Kris and I have ever been to (so far.)  It was cold, windy, and everything was soaked from a downpour earlier in the afternoon.  Abby was super crabby and wanted to sit in the stands, and of course all the seats were soaked, so we all got wet.  We had to wait around for awhile after dropping Alayna off with the rest of her choir group, so we sat in water, freezing, for about twenty minutes before her choir made their way out onto the diamond.

All of the parents were sitting in the stands behind Home Plate, and we assumed - in our naivety - that the kids would face us, since more or less no one else besides us parents were in attendance for this game anyway.  After assembling all the kids, we realized - in horror - that the kids were facing away from the stands, and towards a random American flag, near the scoreboard. 

Since Alayna is relatively short compared to the rest of her classmates, she was positioned in the first row of her choir, meaning that there were two rows of taller kids between her and the audience.  I had brought along my SLR and lenses in the hopes of getting some good pics, but all I had in front of me was taller kids' asses - I couldn't even see Alayna.  So, as they started to sing, I moved down to where Kris was standing (she had moved for a better vantage), and we were luckily able to snap a couple mediocre pics and take a meh video, shown below. . .

High-fivin' some of the coaches and players on the way back inside the stadium. . .

Third week into April I finally broke into growler I picked up from Midland Brewing (when I went with my brothers at the end of March.)  The Lime Rock IPA isn't bad - not my favorite by any means, but decent.  I might order a pint of it again sometime, but probably wouldn't go out of my way to order an entire growler.

One Friday night, me a few of the guys went out to the Midland County Sportsman Club to shoot some handguns and play some poker in their clubhouse (shown here.)

A few of the guys are members and were able to get us in for $5 apiece.  Not too bad to use the range and have full access to the clubhouse. . .

The top floor

That fridge was filled with already-grilled burger patties and hotdogs.  A ridiculous amount of meat, and little else.

See a common theme in this magazine selection?  I didn't see a lot of Rolling Stone mags lying around this joint. . .

A defibrillator.  'Cause why not.

Once we established headquarters, we went downstairs to the handgun range.  You can tell they haven't remodeled this place in a few decades - it's pretty creepy and gross downstairs. . .

This is the sort of shit you see in a movie right before a clown jumps out and stabs a bunch of people.

Noted.

After an hour or so of shooting handguns, we went back upstairs to have some beers and play some cards.

You can't tell from this picture, but the head of this grizzly bear was frickin' HUGE.

'Terror Bay.'  Sounds like a nice play.

One day, Alayna realized I still had working holes in my ears (from years ago, back when I had gauges), and asked if I'd wear earrings to work the next day.  I told her 'no,' but later on in the evening found this note left on my nightstand.  That kid is persistent.

Abby and I went clothes shopping at Marshall's one weekend, looking for summer clothing for our upcoming Florida trip.  When I stepped into a dressing room, I let her sit out in the waiting area with my phone.  Later on, I stumbled across this crap on my phone. . .

 What the hell is this?

This old picture of Mom's side of the family, from last month.  The girls were, once again, playing around on my phone, and made a few 'changes.'  I like to think this is what Jeff would've looked like had he been born a girl. . .

- Brian

Rock Around the Fifties

This is how she went to school this morning. . .

Hey there, fanbase.

Abby's been on a huge '50s music kick lately - it's all she'll request our various Amazon Alexa devices to play anymore.  Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Señor Valens, you name it.  This recent obsession isn't random by any means, though:  she got a small speaking role in her grade level's annual musical,  Rock Around the Fifties, and has taken it upon herself to prepare for it (months in advance) by listening to 65-year-old rock and roll on a nearly constant basis.

Ready for the show

I'm not complaining, though.  It sure beats the hell out of what her sister usually has our household robots stream.

Post-show (while Yours Truly stacked chairs. . .)

Anyway, I ended up filming it this year with an HD videocamera.  Anymore, with performances like these, I'm starting to lean away from hauling around various SLR lenses, and instead opting to important multiple movie files into iMovie, then uploading it (unlisted, of course) to Youtube.  It's more or less the same amount of time/work in the end, honestly - editing and uploading vs. filtering through hundreds of pics in order to find the ones worth keeping.

So yeah, here's a throwback concert for all you rock and roll fans out there.

   Enjoy.

- Brian

The Bunny Hath Risen!

Happy Easter, Christianity !!!

Whoomp there it is.

So here we are again at one of my least-favorite holidays.  I know every year I go into the absolute lameness of this annual gauntlet - the hours and hours or prep work that goes in to the night before Easter, only to have kids barrel through all of your hard work in a matter of minutes, devour a crap-load of candy, and then become bored with the entire day once they've thoroughly pillaged their baskets.

Then, on top of everything, you have to go to church.  And it's, like, standing room only.

God, I hate Easter.

Anyway, Kris came up with a pretty cool idea this year.  Instead of personally having to hide all the Easter Eggs around our backyard for our kids (like I was forced to do last year in pitch black after our kids went to bed), Kris suggested we invite all of the families in our social circle over for an afternoon luncheon and egg hunt.  This would cut down on the amount of junk food our own kids would eat Easter morning, while, at the same time, giving everyone less prep work the night before and allow everyone some extra socializing time.

Win win win.

Our St. Patrick's Day card table, put to use in the kitchen.  Kris wanted to make cheeseburger sliders and more 'finger food' sides and dips, seeing how we had people over earlier in the day.  I had no qualms with any of this.

Probably the coolest Easter-themed beer ever made.

So yesterday afternoon, folks started showing up bringing dishes, drinks and children.  Kris - who enjoys Easter a great deal - also came up with the idea of numbering each egg (a number delegated to each of the twelve kids in attendance), so that that way everyone got the same number of eggs.  The lower numbers were given to the younger kids, and were therefore easier to find.  Higher numbered eggs - like for Alayna and the older kids - were extremely difficult to find.  It made the scavenger hunt last almost a half an hour, which was pretty impressive.

Our yard was perfectly suited for this activity, and despite the occasional wind gust, the weather was perfect (though me and the dads tended to hang out inside in the kitchen, drinking beer and standing vigilant guard over the snack table.)

So yeah.  Here's yesterday and today, encompassing all of the Hough Family's 2019 Easter.

Enjoy. . .

The mad scamperin' begins. . .

Fischer kids

Jackson and Abby

On to the trampoline, while Watson absolutely loses his shit. . .

You can always spot the dads.  Monitoring with beers.

Alayna invited her friend, Christina, over for the day.  With so many littler kids in this group of friends of ours (Abby's age group down to about three years of age, thereabouts), Alayna frequently gets bored.  We've been allowing her to bring friends along more and more.  She's at that age.

Women, clucking.

Here's Kris, taking the videos I just posted above.

Note the empty bird feeders.  We seriously hung those up a couple weeks ago.  Our birds are apparently fat asses.

Sophie.

The assembled egg gatherers.

. . . . and one with Watson.

While the adults worked on finishing up the leftover food inside and had a few drinks, the kids were either out back on the trampoline or else downstairs playing the Wii U in the kids' play area.  Segregation at its finest.

After everyone else took off with their offspring, it was down to just us and the Johnsons.  They were on their way out their door when Ella (shown here) and Abby started begging to decorate eggs yet (it was 7pm the night before Easter and neither of our families had gotten around to it yet.)  So, we relented and let them get started, which allowed Erik and I to have a whiskey and end the night on the right note.

The Cannonball

Abby apparently cannot believe what she is seeing.  As if we don't do this shit every year.

Courtney facilitates Paas nonsense.

Yes, she's bored.  She's ten going on fourteen, we're all already sick of it.

Focus.

Still bored.

Finished tie-dyed Easter Eggs.  Bam.

The next morning, the girls awoke waaay too early and rushed out into the Kitchen, where they had left a note behind for the Easter Bunny (along with a decorated Easter Egg as a snack for him, evidently.)  So we took a page from the ol' 'Santa came' playbook and left 'evidence' of the Easter Bunny stopping by.

The Easter Bunny was born in 1500?  Is it, like, the Highlander?  Or a Vampire?

Let the 2019 Easter Basket Scavenger Hunt begin. . .

I always love hiding clues outside.  Watching little kids run out into the cold, dark morning air in their pajamas is hilarious.  This year we hid a clue on the trampoline.

. . .  and it's always Abby that volunteers to go running out to retrieve clues.  No surprise there.

Here's where everything got screwed up.  The girls were supposed to find a clue in the crawl space (literally, a HIDDEN ROOM in our house, one not even our realtor knew about when he showed us the place, and we didn't discover until after moving in.)  Instead, the girls took it as the Captains Quarters (I guess 'hidden' and 'forbidden' mean the same thing in Elementary school.)  This threw everything off.

This clue led to the remote cubby in the console of the sectional couch in the living room, which, from there, led to the drum set, and then up to Abby's Our Generation Doll RV camper set.  Instead, things veered off course. . .

This clue was supposed to be found about half-way through the scavenger hunt, and so the girls by-passed other clues entirely and missed out on locations that would've put them to their baskets a hell of a lot faster.

I had to sit down upstairs and have a few sips of coffee at this point.  It was maddening to watch them, especially on so little sleep.

This one was supposed to lead them to Alayna's Our Generation Doll Vet Clinic (you have to balance clues out like this in order to keep it 'fair,' folks.  It's called parenting.)  I didn't take a pic of that clue because Alayna was sleeping in her room when I placed it.

The girls automatically read 'Vet Clinic' and thought 'it has to be in the medicine cabinet.'  I hate kids.

We decided not to give them any hints this year, which, in hindsight, might have been stupid on our part.  They decided to run back downstairs and just look everywhere for clues, no longer following the scavenger hunt's WELL-THOUGHT-OUT SYSTEM.

Now we're all sorts of screwed up. . .

Abby has no idea what's happening at this point.

They finally found it after Kris relented and gave them a hint.

Back (sort of) on the trail. . .

This bunny has a dark side.

Again, Abby is sent out into the cold, morning air.  Note how light it's gotten outside - they took FOREVER this year.

Anyway, long story short. . .

The baskets were hidden in Kris' new van.

The girls' Easter Baskets.  We neglected to buy them Easter dresses this year because they only wear them once or twice before never wearing them again.  We opted this year instead to buy them nice flip flops, summer outfits (for Florida, etc.) and some high-end, aluminum water bottles.

Of course Watson got one.  The girls would revolt if he didn't.

We had the girls take the baskets into the living room so they could be warm while they began to plunder their baskets (but moreso that I could get better pictures with my SLR.)

Watson loses his mind during Easter morning.  Everyone running around like crazy and not settling down, he doesn't know what to do with himself.

Bliss.

And that was Easter 2019, America.  364 days and counting. . .

- Brian