More March Madness

How's it going, Internet.

March was pretty jam-packed this time around.  The highlights, obviously, were the previously discussed St. Patrick's Day and Spring Break (featuring Kris and Abby's last-minute trip out to New York City, and Alayna's epic Florida/Mexico Cruise.)  My Spring Break was definitely much more laid-back, and I included some of its comparatively lamer highlights for your viewing pleasure (grilling out in Mitch's backyard doesn't quite equate to, say, parasailing off the coast of Key West, or tandem biking around Central Park.)  Still, I'm a huuuuge fan of paid time off, and I was totally fine hanging back with the dogs this year.

So yeah. A pretty action-packed March for the Houghs this time around, definitely a lot of fun (if not ridiculously expensive.)

Check it out, folks . . .

Our kids empty the dishwasher these days, and it's not uncommon to come home to this sorta crap sitting on the kitchen counters. . .

Towards the beginning of the month, Kris, Alayna and I all upgraded our phones during one of Verizon's too-good-to-pass-up phone upgrade offers.  The two of them each upgraded to  Samsung's flagship line, the Galaxy23, while Yours Truly took it a step further and upgraded to the Galaxy23+ (none of us liked the 23 Ultra, which is just larger. . . almost too big to fit in a front pocket.)  The day I got it all set up, I took a few pics to get a feel for it - the camera is definitely an upgrade.

Another pic with the new phone (Kris put a glass upside down over a stink bug that was crawling across the kitchen counter.)  Camera quality is by far the biggest determining factor for me when picking out a new phone (besides streaming music, that's the number one thing I use mine for.)

The first weekend of the month, Abby and the Northeast Orchestra participated in a regional Festival (where local school orchestras perform for judges and receive scores based on how well they perform, learn new music, sight read, etc.)  This year's Festival was at Frankenmuth High School, and the student performers all traveled there via school bus.

Getting all warmed up for the judges (the Johnsons, Kris and I sat right behind this judge here.)

So, this time around, the songs were all a lot longer and unfortunately, even after resizing them to VHS quality resolution, they were too large to upload here to Blogger's server.  Honestly, though, if you've heard one middle school orchestra performance, you've heard 'em all.

After their performances, and after they had gone to a separate band room in order to demonstrate their rehearsing/sight reading abilities, the orchestra moved on to the school cafeteria in order to get some snacks and await the judges' scores.

Abby, Ella, and a couple other orchestra members pose with their conductor/teacher, Ms. Mammassian.

After about thirty minutes the judges came out and, much to everyone's dismay, gave our kids 'II's' instead of 'I's.  Oh well.  Circa 1994 Clare High School band they are not.

Later that afternoon, Alayna and a bunch of her friends met up at the Midland Mall for the annual ComicCon event.  Kris and a couple other moms of the friends went out there to people watch - some folks (even adults) get waaaay into this.  If a couple kids wanna dress up like fictional characters, that's fine. . . but grown-ass adults dressing up (outside of Halloween)?  That's frickin' bizarre.

Later that evening, we had plans with the rest of the inner circle of our friend group.  After having a few drinks out with my brothers earlier on in the evening, I had lost track of time and checked to see where everyone was at and if we were still planning on hanging out later.  Ryan sent me this pic of them already starting at his house.

Kelli sent this one of the Bos and Johnsons families dining out in Bay City.  They ended up getting to the Colliers around the same time we did.

One of the girls took this video of the dog in the backyard.  Not sure why.

Northeast's final pom performance of the season.  Abby's on the fence about sticking with poms for her 8th grade year - if she doesn't end up doing it, she's expressed interest in joining the swim team.

It's about damn time.

Alayna was invited to attend an Honor Roll award ceremony at Midland High for those students who scored all A's and B's for the first semester.

Every. Damn. Time.

Alayna and Lexi, shortly after their names were called.

Gym full of nerds.

Some lady (the principal, maybe?) giving obligatory remarks of some kind.

After the ceremony, the parents all wanted to get pictures with their kids.  Cristina's mom, Ana, is the Spanish teacher at Midland High and suggested we take them in the other gym instead, where it was less crowded and there was stuff there the girls could pose with.

Cristina, Alayna, and Gabby

It was not easy getting her to ditch her Chucks.

Hopscotch. . . I guess.

That same evening - yes, we were spread that thin (I tackled Alayna's honor roll ceremony while Kris handled Abby) the Northeast Pom team celebrated the end of their season at the Midland Community Center (like they did last year.)  Each girl was called up one at a time for different awards, presented by their coaches.

Not as many tears and theatrics this time around, but Ella broke down a bit.

Abby and her assistant coach (who's on the pom team at SVSU.)

. . . aaaaand one with the head coach.

Later that week, on a Thursday, I had to take a day off of work because I twisted my back shoveling snow (yes, I'm to that point in my life where my back suddenly says "f*** you" and I'm screwed for days at a time.)  While I rested in bed, the dogs felt the need to warm my legs.

I recently ordered some rosewood, checkered grips from the Ruger website store for my Wrangler single-action.  Gotta flair that shit up, folks.

The day after my sick back day was a Snow Day, so I actually had a four-day weekend that week. . . which, you know, was pretty damn awesome.

Franzia was on sale a couple weeks this month - like half off.  You gotta strike while the iron's hot, guys.

For Danielle's birthday this year, the wives all did a Thrifty Night Out:  they each had a set amount of time the day of their night out to hit up a thrift store and select an outfit.  They then had to wear said outfit out for dinner and drinks on the town.  This what they came up with.

Mees, Kris and Courtney

And one with Amy

(Amy put together a few collage pics that I stole for this - you're welcome.)

I upgraded Abby's lighting this month - bought her some nicer LED's for her walls and bedframe - turned out pretty awesome, I'd say.

It connects to an app on her phone so she can adjust the hue and intensity of the lighting.  Not as fancy as the stuff I have in the Study, but better than what she had in there before.

Pulled a couple pics of Alayna's phone.  All her pics are taken through that accursed SnapChat app and look like this.

I don't understand the ghost filter thing in this stupid app, it makes zero sense to me.

So, as mentioned in an earlier post, Alayna now has herself a boyfriend.  He's the dude on the right (playing Ponyboy in Midland High's production of The Outsiders.)  Seems like a funny kid, we're just going to have to keep a sharp eye on this as it progresses.

Another one off Alayna's phone:  Watson, lounging in his bed (located on Alayna's lower bunk in her room.)

As Spring Break approached, Abby took over the magnetic board we have on the side of our fridge for posting our weekly meal plan.  The cruise ship for Alayna, the Statue of Liberty for Kris and Abby, and watching TV (and enjoying a beer) for the dogs and I.  Pretty damn accurate.

We use the Life360 app in this family in order to keep tabs on one another, and I screenshot it quite a bit to see where the rest of my family was throughout the last week of the month (nothing much else to do while sitting around on my ass watching TV with the dogs, right?)  This is later on in the afternoon, while I was at work, after Kris landed in New York City with Abby.

More dumb footage of the dogs, courtesy of the Cannonball.

I had to take Thursday before Spring Break started off of work in order to finish packing up Alayna for her trip south to Florida and Mexico (which I'll detail fully in the next blog post.)  The dogs knew something was up.

I dropped Alayna off at Lexi's house late in the morning.  Lexi's affluent grandparents always go on a cruise during Spring Break, and bring along Lexi's aunt, cousin, and Lexi and her older sister.  This year they invited Alayna along on their annual cruise trip because Lexi always ends up being a third wheel (her sister and cousin are a couple years older) and they wanted her to have someone come along her own age.  This was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we agreed to it (they paid for everything, it's not like you could say 'no.')  Later that evening, when I checked my phone, I saw that the group had made their way south into shithole Ohio (they were driving down to Florida, and from there would be boarding a cruise ship after a couple days to take them through the Caribbean to Mexico.  

The next morning, the Friday before Spring Break officially kicked off, I kept getting pics from Kris and Abby from New York (and even a couple from Alayna on her trip down I-75.)  This is what I sent them in response - I wasn't having as glorious of a time back in mid-Michigan, that's for damn sure.

Later on that morning - the Cannonball continues into Kentucky.

After some more pictures sent from my roommates, I updated them with this picture of me and the entire 8th grade watching some movie in the school's auditorium.  That's how I roll.

That evening, Alayna now in South Carolina.

While watching TV that evening, this was what I sent in response to more pics sent from Kris and the girls.

The Cannonball finally makes it to sunny Florida. . .

Meanwhile, back in Michigan. . .

Later on Saturday morning, I decided to drop off a bunch of used vinyl and do some much-needed shopping at Radio Wasteland.  Almost snagged this one, but the price was too steep for my blood - I'll wait until the price drops on Amazon.  I instead walked away with Warren Zevon's Best of (on colored vinyl, mind you), an anthology of Dave Brubeck, and Black Holes and a used, 3-LP compilation of classic rock and '70s soft rock.  Not too shabby.

Easter candy, beer, wine, rawhides, hot sauce, and spray butter.  Such is grocery shopping when the wife and kids are away.

Enjoyed the holy hell out of this habanero cider while cataloging my new records.

I don't really care for jazz very much at all, but I LOVE me some Brubeck. . .

Later that weekend, Kris and Abby were flying back to Michigan from NYC.  I happened to check Life 360 in the seconds between when Kris turned her phone back on, upon landing in Detroit, and Abby turned hers back on, making it look like Kris had left Abby behind in New York.

Kris and Abby arrived home early in the afternoon, and we were able to hang out for a bit before Yours Truly had to set out for the Bos residence, where we had planned a small dad hangout for the evening.  I brought along this Irish Pub Pack that I had originally purchased for our annual St. Patrick's Day party but never got around to breaking out.  Figured we could enjoy ourselves some Black and Tans (shown here.)

Back in September, all us dads helped Mitch assemble this giant gazebo he had purchased from Costco.  It took us three days, and was ridiculously complicated to assemble, even with six or seven of us working on it.  Months later, he's converted it into his own little grilling station, equipped with a small, mounted TV (so he can watch March Madness while tending to his meat.)

In order to get the game(s) streaming, we had to install/set up his Roku device.  The process was, well, pretty weird.

I imagine we're all going to spend a great deal of time in his backyard this summer. . .

Tom and Ryan showed up shortly after I did.

Spicy chili, bacon-wrapped grilled chicken, and a smoked tri-tip steak.

These guys know what they're doing.

I could have eaten this entire plate.

We broke out one of those smoke-less fire pits to use because the temperature was dropping rapidly.

Enjoying a Black and Tan and some candied bacon.

(Pics courtesy of Tom)

His gazebo has these drop down, clear vinyl walls that kept out a good portion of the cold weather, which was pretty awesome.

The next morning, before Kris and I took the dogs and girls to Midland City Forest, these two hit up their usual hangout spot, Grove Tea.

After nearly twenty years, Kris finally made me get rid of my favorite spatula (it was warped from heat after years of abuse, and was getting harder and harder to use.)  I'd been fighting her on this for years, but finally relented when she upgraded a bunch of our kitchenware.  Goodbye, old friend.

Abby joins me in the Captain's Quarters, later on in the week, for some retro video gaming.

That second weekend of Spring Break, we went over to the Collier's to break out their newly-remodeled kitchen and enjoy some drinks and snacks.  This beer wasn't as good as I had hoped, but decent.

Ryan broke this syrup mix out to mix with some Maker's Mark in order to whip up a few rounds of Old Fashioned's.

Ryan, Morgan and Mitch - whiskey bros.

And one with the wives.  Thus ends the evening, Spring Break, and the entirety of March. See ya next month, kids.

- Brian