The Horseshoe on Fire, and Other Halloween Tales

Happy Halloween, America!

Establishing headquarters in the Johnsons' driveway. . .

Like we've done the last few years, this Halloween we went a block or two over to Sweetbrier Terrace, where the Johnsons hold their annual Trick or Treat the Horseshoe.  The 'Horseshoe' symbolizes the U-shaped, enclosed streets of Sweetbrier, Highbrook, and Westbrier, which are chock-full of youthful families that are all big on Halloween and hand out tons of candy for kids.  This neighborhood feels like the 1980s, with kids clogging the street and running around from door-to-door in wild packs, just like you see in the movies.

The neighbor across the street had a HUGE smoke machine going. . . 

It's pretty awesome.

We've mentioned it before or time or two, but for this much-more-tame follow-up to our own Halloween Party, the Johnsons put out a spread of food in their garage, drag a fire pit onto their driveway, set up some chairs, and blast music all evening.  They hand out candy to all the kids that swing by, and offer beers and waters to the accompanying adults.  It only lasts for a couple hours - because Trick or Treating is only from 6 - 8pm, and it almost always falls on a frickin' school night - but it's a nice end cap to the month, for sure.

So here you go, folks - one more post for the month of October.

(You're welcome.)

Waiting to set out for candy - Ella, Harper, Ella's cousin Hazel, and Abby

The smoke from that guy's smoke machine (fog machine, whatever it was) rolled down the entire block, billowing across front yards as far as the eye could see.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, over on Bellaire Street, Alayna and her group of friends assembled over at her friend Cristina's house to go Trick or Treating (you know, because Alayna is 'old' now and doesn't like hanging out with her family anymore.)

Recreating that one Spiderman meme (off the Internet, I'm told) with her co-Spidermen, Cristina and Lexi.

About ready to set out into the neighborhood (you can spot a handsome guy in the background, off to the left.)

Not sure who Kris is talking to, here. . .

With Gabby, Ava, and. . . someone with a 'C' on their face for some reason. I don't get it, maybe they're trying to be funny or something.  Sorry for the quality of this pic - someone texted it to Kris and I got it off her phone.

Back on Sweetbrier, the smoke was getting out of control. . .

. . . to the point that the City Fire Department was called in to put out a 'fire.'  Seriously.

I guess a neighbor down the street called the fire department, due to all the smoke (not their fault, they didn't know what was going on), and you could clearly see the smoke rising from a few blocks away.  That must've been one hell of a smoke machine. . .

They were definitely threading a needle coming down this narrow side street, cars parked along both sides of the road, in their giant-ass emergency trucks.  Gave me a little anxiety watching the big rigs squeeze past my car (fortunately it didn't side-swipe it.)

(Kris is having the time of her life watching all this unfold.)

More fire trucks - including the big rigs - roll in to 'save the day.'  Basically they rolled in, ascertained that it was just some overly-zealous reveler, and had him shut off his smoke machine.  Definitely a first for this neighborhood. . .

My brother, Chris, and his fam had asked to Trick or Treat with us this evening (since they live out in the country and don't have 'neighborhoods,' per se), so we invited them out to the Johnsons.  As they have little kids and everything, their time was limited, so they parked about a block away and began trick-or-treating their way towards where we were all set up.  By the time they reached us, the chaos of the fire trucks was in full swing, which my nephews (Louis and Sam) definitely got a kick out seeing all the sirens and flashing lights.

After the smoke, fire trucks, extended family, and trick or treaters all dispersed, some folks hung out around the fire for a bit longer in order to have one more drink and get some more food.  The Collier and Griffin families showed up right at the end (like they did last year), and we all hung out with them for about a half an hour or so before I ended up driving Abby home (she had to get a shower in before bed, and it was pushing 9pm already.)

My nightcap for the evening (one of my favorite Halloween beers.)  We let the kids stay up until about 10pm or so, eating candy and watching old Treehouse of Horror episodes from The Simpsons on Disney+.  Another Halloween in the books, folks - see ya next time.

- Brian

Everything Else of October

Hey gang.

The Houghs had a pretty low-key October this year compared to previous years.  Aside from the craziness of our big Halloween Weekend at the end of the month, we had a series of chill weekends that didn't see us doing much of anything aside from house/yard work.  Some of this was due to the fact that I was sick the latter half of the month with ophthalmological shingles - which is just as much fun as it sounds - so I had to take off like four days of work this month and more or less just loafed about the house, writhing in agony.

The girls' extracurricular crap - Abby's Pom stuff and Alayna's Drama productions, along with orchestra concerts - filled in some of the dead space, certainly.  All in all, however, this was a very September-ish sort of month this year, which was okay by us.

So here you go, folks - a look at the Houghs' quieter-than-usual October.

Enjoy. . .

Kris and Abby, hanging out in the basement.  Why this warranted a selfie, I have no idea.

Alayna attended an all-weekend 'Orchestra Camp' towards the beginning of the month at Midland High, which started early each morning and lasted until dinner time-ish all weekend long.  It was more intensive than usual Orchestra class, and drilled students with advanced techniques and fundamentals they otherwise wouldn't get in the classroom.  It was also a socializing event that helped get the students intermingling with other kids in orchestra they otherwise wouldn't go out of their way to hang out with.  On Sunday afternoon of that weekend, they hosted a culminating concert that showcased a bunch of the orchestra crap they had learned.

I took a video of the performance but it clocked in above Blogger's maximum video size, so I can't share with you folks (my apologies.)  Rest assured it sounds like a high school-level orchestra performance, so you're not missing much.

Afterwards, Alayna walked Kris and I down to the MHS Orchestra room to check out the 'team banners' each section of the orchestra created in some kinda team-building competition.  Here's Alayna with her section's banner (I don't remember if theirs won or not.)

Kicking off a month of fall beers with a non-Michigan choice (not awesome, but not terrible.)

As previously disclosed, Alayna had Homecoming towards the beginning of the month, and so Kris had to practice doing Alayna's hair multiple times in preparation for the big night.

Picked up some of my favorite Fall beers from Cork n' Ale, now that they're in season.  Fall and Winter beers are hands down my favorite varieties of the year.

Southern Tier makes some of the best higher ABV beers on the market today.  These are two of my favorite Halloween-ish beers ever.

Abby's Pom team got to perform during the halftime at Midland High alongside the Jefferson Pom team, which was interesting to see (I guess Northeast's coaches oversee the Jefferson squad as well.)

They're actually not performing to this song - they were performing the Northeast fight song, but the stadium's sound system drowned out the little boom box playing the fight song.  Kinda matched up well, though.

(You can spot the Jefferson pommers by their red pom-thingies.)

The halftime routine, starring both Jefferson and Northeast Pom teams. . .

Leaves have been changing colors a lot earlier than last year. . .

Kris begins her Fall display bullshit.  She always start off modest like this and just progressively adds to it throughout the month.

Alayna, Cristina, and Lexi all show off their recently done nails for Homecoming (which, of course, match their dresses.) 

Alayna (who's behind the banner, you can barely see her) marched in the school's Homecoming Parade this year.

Great pics, Kris.

Our anniversary this year fell on a Friday, but we couldn't really do much for it because we were basically 'on call' for Alayna's frickin' Homecoming experience all weekend (the big home game was this evening, and Alayna needed a ride to and from the high school, etc. etc.)  Since it's our 16th Anniversary this year, and we really only do big extravagant things at the 5-year marks, we had originally just anticipated going out for dinner.  Alas, with all that homecoming crap we couldn't really squeeze it in our schedule, so Kris decided we could try this Orion Sports joint out in the Midland Mall instead. . .

This Orion joint has a bunch of 'sports' you can do that are pretty outside the box - stuff like axe throwing, laser tag, and, shown here, glass smashing.  Kris made a reservation for the two of us in the Smash Room:  you pay to don a bunch of protective clothing and enter a small room where you're given a tote's worth of glass bottles to destroy with a variety of destructive instruments.

These overalls are like twelve sizes too big.

Despite all this protective clothing, shards of glass still flew everywhere - we got it in our hair, in the hood of my sweatshirt, it got all over the floor and became lodged into the soles of our shoes, etc..

Lots of shattered glass behind the central table.

How it's done.

About twenty minutes later, all done smashing shit.  It was okay to try out once, but I wouldn't do it again - the glass got everywhere, and with two people in there swinging bats and hammers around, you had to be careful you weren't about to hit anyone.

One of the girls snapped this pic of Samson.  Doing what he does best.

Sixteen years in, folks.  Still doin' the ol' hand thing.  Now we have to rely on our teenage children to help out with it, though.

The morning of Homecoming, Alayna's friend, Lexi, came over so that the two of them could cut off and bury their friendship bracelets.

I guess these bracelets have been around their ankles for a couple years, and now, since they were about to get all fancy with their Homecoming dresses and shoes, the bracelets had to finally come off.

They felt it was necessary to conduct a ceremony for the burial.  (I didn't attend.)

Kids are weird.

Kris has been gradually turning part of our basement into a theater area where we can hang out and watch movies on a large projector screen.  Lately we've started lining the walls with posters of our family's favorite movies - we've got another four or so to hang up, but it'll look pretty cool once it's all finished.

Another halftime performance, courtesy of the Northeast Pom Team. . .

Gina, our resident self-cleaning robot, somehow got a hold of a discarded, shower loofa one day while everyone was at work/school, and proceeded to shred it all over our living room.  When it gets caught up on something it automatically shuts down and sends an error message to Kris' phone, then we get to come home to something like this hours later.  

So a bunch of the moms in our Midland friend group decided it'd be 'fun' to take their daughters out to a Walker Hayes concert this month.  That's right, I said it:  Walker Hayes.  The epitome of douchebaggish Bro Country.  This is about the shittiest form of 'music' one could think of, and it's not anything Kris had any desire to go witness firsthand, but since all the other moms were going and taking their daughters, Kris relented and brought Abby along.  It all started when Rylen (on the left, in the flannel) - who actually enjoys the guy - asked her mom, Amy, if they could go to his concert, and she said 'f*** it, sure' and threw the invite out to the rest of the moms.  A few people said, 'God, I hate that guy, but my daughter likes the 'Applebees' song, so sure' - and, next thing you know, they all signed on to the shit show.  Here's a pic of them all eating dinner before the show, somewhere in Saginaw.

Kris, Courtney, Mees and Danielle.  The concert itself was at the Dow Event Center downtown.  On a Thursday.

This is how far society has fallen.

Group pic of the ten moms and their daughters.

Courtney, Kris, and the Three Amigas.

Kris has to get her selfies in. . .

Sophie might be having a stroke here, not sure.

I'm so utterly disappointed this was Abby's first concert.  It's so f***ing sad.

I've been told the kids stood up and danced for the majority of the concert.  You know, because kids have super shitty tastes in music.

Walker Hayes has an incredibly punchable face.

Once and awhile I'll pick up this old book I got from Granny Hough a decade or so ago - from the 1920s, which sits atop my teacher desk in my classroom - and get a solid laugh from it.

The leaves have been pretty awesome this year.

Alayna is involved with the MHS Drama Club this year, and has been doing stage and crew work for their productions.  They did a play based on The Outsiders at the Central Auditorium, and Kris and I went and checked out the performance on a Friday half-way through the month.  Kinda hokey, but not bad for a bunch of high schoolers I suppose. . .

Abby, meanwhile, was at a birthday party for a friend from school, which was held at a Chuck E. Cheese down in Saginaw.  I didn't know we had one of those up here in Michigan, honestly.

After the production - which was like five hours long - Alayna posed backstage with Cristina, who was a nurse in the play, and Lexi, who also did stage and crew.

Freshmen going through the production booklet (or whatever the hell it's called.)

Kris took the girls out to the Johnson Pumpkin Farm outside of town with her church's youth group that Sunday evening.

They have a cornfield maze there, and Alayna was tasked with leading the folks through the maze using this rudimentary map (I guess she did so with ease, and they didn't get lost at all.)

Couple of corny maze masters.

The First United Methodist Youth Group

I frickin' hate goats.  Still.

Kris and the girls.

They took a hell of a lot of pics among these sunflowers. . .

A fitting photo op, seeing how this was her Halloween costume and everything.

Not sure what this is. . .

Both girls should be practicing their instruments on a nightly basis, but obviously that doesn't happen quite as often as it should (what with all of Alayna's high school homework and Abby's strenuous Pom bullshit.  When they do have time to bust out their instruments, they do a good job.

Abby's Fall 2022 Pom Pics

Preparing for another halftime performance at a Home football game.

This year's Best Costume trophy for our 7th Annual Halloween Party (which Kris would end up winning.)

The other categories - including Scariest, which I won - only got ribbons.  We didn't wanna drop $150 on this nonsense.

Some group selfie Alayna took at some school event.  Not sure what was going on here.

Kris has been restoring this old whiskey barrel we've had since June (which we got from her Uncle Wayne) - eventually she wants to set it out on our front porch as a decor piece - whatever works.)

The third week of the month, my right eye started hurting at work.  It felt like someone was pressing my eye with their thumb or something - the pain was deep, coming from the back of my eye instead of the front (which, when one usually has eye pain, is usually the case.) I figured there was something wrong with my contacts, so when I got home from work I took out my contacts and wore my glasses for the rest of the evening (because that usually does the trick.)  The next morning, my eye hurt even worse, so I wore glasses to work the next day, a rarity for me.  It only got worse as the day went on, so I took the day after that off of work and went in to see my doctor, who had no idea why my eye was hurting so bad (seeing how I had no other symptoms at the time.)  He referred me to an ophthalmologist who said my eye was definitely inflamed, but he wasn't sure why - so he put me on some steroid eye drops and sent me on my way.  The next day at work, I started breaking out in rashes across my forehead and the side of my head, and it finally became evident what was going on with me:  I had ophthalmological shingles.

That evening, Alayna really wanted to go to another home football game, but we told her she couldn't until she and her sister raked the leaves in the front yard out to the street (I usually do the leaves around here, but I definitely wasn't feeling up to it - my head was killing me.) 

Despite all their groaning and complaining, they were able to knock it out in about an hour and a half.

Later that night, I felt well enough that we went over to Chris and Nicole's house for a game of Nightmare (the old '90s VHS-based boardgame that we're all big fans of, especially around this time of year - it's become somewhat of a Halloween tradition for us.)  We hung out over there for a few hours, and I was feeling okay while we were over there, as the shingles hadn't really exploded yet and I was keeping the pain down with ibuprofen and Tylenol.

Scenic shot of the backyard, the following morning.  When I woke up Saturday morning, I was in agony - my head was screaming in pain as if all the nerves in the right side of my face and head were on fire, the shingles had flared up, and my eye was red and swollen.

Long story short, I was bed-ridden for about three days, and was forced to take three days off of work before I could even remotely function as a human being.  The pain was unlike anything I've ever experienced, it's not something I'd recommend to anyone.  The doctors said it was rare for someone as young as me to get something like this - usually you get this in your 50s and 60s - so I guess I won the frickin' lottery with this crap.

That Sunday evening, Kris took Alayna and Abby - along with friends Ella and Cristina - out to her church in order to carve pumpkins with the Youth Group.

I thoroughly enjoy the pumpkin carving process of the Halloween season, but there was no way in Hell I was able to do anything at all at this point, feeling as shitty as I was.  At least the kids were able to do it.

Alayna designs her pumpkin.

Cristina, Kris and Abby

More selfies

Ella and her pumpkin

Abby and hers (which turned out pretty awesome - she's ridiculously talented.)

Alayna, Cristina, and whatever the hell Alayna came up with.

Finished products.

This was basically my view for a few days that week - just a worthless pile of man garbage, unable to do anything but groan in agony and clutch what was left of my face and head.  At least the dogs hung out with me.

Leaves starting to accumulate in the backyard, halfway through the week.  I generally felt better in the afternoons, once my various prescriptions and pain killers had kicked in, so at one point I had raked all of the leaves into big piles in the backyard. . . only for more leaves to fall and cover up any of the progress I had accomplished.  I later busted out the leaf blower and - with a great deal of effort and pain - got everything you see here out into the street.

The very next day, you wouldn't have thought I did anything at all to the yard. It was like God was laughing at me.

I had to go out into the street and rake all of our leaves back into our outlawn, after realizing our party guests who need a place to park in front of our house for our Halloween Party, coming up that weekend.  That took about an hour, but it was worth it - we got our parking cleared out and folks didn't have to wade through 3 ft of leaf piles in order to exit their vehicles.

Trunk or Treating with Sophie Friday night at Kris' church, downtown.

This event drew far more people than anticipated, which was good.  The kids had a blast doing it.

Inflatable ring toss

Passing out candy to Trick or Treaters.

Alayna was forced to come out and 'help.'  You can tell by her lack of costume that she was having a grand ol' time. . .

Queen Selfie and the Freshman

They were down at the church for a couple hours doing this before the sun began to set and they came home.

The day after our party, Kris had to blow the leaves out of the backyard because I was in too much pain to do so.  She managed to get them all into the outlawn, and then I rallied my strength, grabbed a rake, and got the massive piles into the street.  That alone took a solid hour.

The City of Midland was scheduled to collect all the leaves the next day, so we were definitely on a timetable.  This won't be the last of the leaves we have to take care of - our two maples in the front yard still have to drop a lot of their foliage - but this is about 80% of our leaves right here, so getting that out for collection was a huge weight off our shoulders, for sure.

Stay tuned for next month's installment, America - we'll see you guys next time.

- Brian