Leftovers from the Month of Caesar

Hi gang.

When I look back at July of 2023, years from now, I'm almost certainly going to be reminded of two things:  camping and construction.

Nearly every weekend this month involved camping of some kind, whether it be with family, friends, or a combination of both.  Each weekend this month, like every year, was filled up with plans and social obligations months in advance, and this year just so happened to feature a lot of time spent in tents. And honestly, while it looked okay back when we were making all these plans, months ago, it got pretty exhausting having to repack and reload all of the camping gear every, f***ing weekend.  

Then there's the construction. The City of Midland, in its infinite wisdom, decided that they should just go ahead and tackle every, last road project in the city ALL AT THE SAME TIME.  They closed down Whitewood (our street), along with Waldo, Congress, and Ashman - all main roads that we need in order to exit our neighborhood (Chestnut Hill.)  Like, they couldn't have boxed us in any more if they tried - what used to take five minutes to drive somewhere in town now took fifteen, because you had to navigate a labyrinth of back streets in order to get anywhere.

And this lasted for months.

Anyway, what follows is the day-to-day crap that went down on those weekdays where we weren't off camping somewhere, our daily grind of unpacking, doing laundry, and repacking for the next round of adventure.  Enjoy this month's installment, folks. . .

Abby's doctor noticed Abby's back is slightly off-kilter, and wants her to go get physical therapy in order to straighten her back out again. Abby likes to joke around these days that she suffers from scoliosis. 

Upon returning from Eight Point Lake, towards the end of the month, Kris took the girls - including their cousin, Lily (technically Kris' cousin, semantics) downtown for the fireworks.

Lily, Alayna, Abby, and Snapchat filters. Again.

While killing time before the fireworks kicked off, Kris and the girls walked around downtown, hitting up the Tridge, as you can see here.

"UNDER THE BRIIIIIDGE, DOWN-TOWWWN...."

Lame.

At some point while walking around downtown, Kris and the girls passed by Alayna's boyfriend and his family, walking in the opposite direction. Now, Alayna hasn't actually spoken to this kid since, like, school got out, because he's always getting in trouble and losing his phone, so its been weeks of not knowing her standing with him. Well, he called her over and they walked off a short ways to talk in private.  Couple minutes later, Alayna rejoined Kris, Abby and Lily, and informed them that he had dumped her.  Ah, to be young. . .

Weirdos downtown.

Kris picked the kids up slushies as they prepared for the evening's display.  Abby looks like a special needs kid here.

'MERICA

I had stayed home, pretty exhausted after a weekend of entertaining, like, forty kids up at the lake all weekend.

Watson naps alongside me on the couch while fireworks boom in the distance.

A couple sketches I came across in one of Abby's sketchbooks.  This kid is getting ridiculously talented. . .

Clearly she has inherited the Hough family gene of Drawing.

Now, cakes on the other hand. . . this girl could use some practice with cakes.

She always insists on baking one of these, at least one a month.  Then she eats like two pieces of it, finds something to complain about, and the rest goes to waste.  I hate kids.

First weekend of the month was the wives' annual Momcation.  This is much like our much cooler Brocation, but far down on the 'radness' scale. Instead of adventuring around and doing cool shit, these ladies just sit in a pool all day and drink fruity drinks. I'd be bored after a few hours.

Kris drove up there the evening of my birthday, after I hit up the record store but before I had gone out with the dads. For these summer weekend getaways they always drive down kinda by Kalamazoo to hang out at Danielle's friends house (I forget her name.)

Kris and Danielle.

The next morning, having mimosas by the pool.

More hanging out in the pool.  Again, this is all they do on these Momcations of theirs. . .

Alayna tried giving me a manicure at one point over the weekend, but it was giving me too much anxiety and I had to make her stop. I'll just bite my nails, thank you very much.

Abby's leftover cake, attempting to save some of it for as long as possible before it spoils. 

Abby likes stealing her sister phone and taking selfies and vids of herself.  You know, typical little sister crap.

Upon Kris' return from Momcation, she and the girls spent some time in the backyard tie-dying shirts for our Jellystone weekend (like I said earlier, the moms decided they were going to tie-dye this year instead of printing grey shirts, like we've done the previous two years - I have no skin in the game either way so I could care less.)

All this dog does is sleep.

Abby and Ella enjoying some boxed lunch by candlelight one afternoon.

Seriously, with this dog. . .

On a random Wednesday in the middle of the month, we drove up to Gaylord (yes, all the way to Gaylord) for Scarlett's high school Open House. We neglected to take any pictures there, but Alayna took a couple.

Seeing how it's Alayna and everything, here's a few more .5x wide angle shots for you. . .

I bought this film negative scanner on Amazon Prime Day when it went on sale for half off, as it was too good of a deal to pass up. I have been looking at getting one of these for years, but the technology and price have always been prohibitive until a few years ago.  I have kept and safely stored nearly all of my negatives since Middle School, and I've always wanted to digitize them in order to preserve them for future generations. Now, at long last, I can begin this most arduous of nerdy, side-projects. . .

Took some time to figure out and trouble shoot, but now I can load and scan an entire roll of film in about twenty minutes.  This is going to take me a looooong time. . .

As I've talked about before, the City of Midland has been in the process or reconnecting our sewage/water lines (whatever) to the main drain pipe since early June, and this month they finally got around to rebuilding our sidewalk, outlawn and curb.

The next step, I assume, will be re-paving this battle-scarred street. . .

The DeBoers prepare to head back to Grand Rapids, following our botched attempt at camping in Caseville this month. There was something wrong with his U-Haul trailer, and it took him like twenty minutes to back out of our driveway, which was pretty hilarious.  I was just glad he didn't back up over my mailbox.

Samson throws some serious side-eye around the house.

Another day, another crap-load of road construction. All those heavy vehicles are ripping the hell out of Waldo Road, which we haven't been able to access in over a month. Pretty awesome.

Alayna and Cristina at the Midland Country Club. Alayna and Abby (and Cristina, too) volunteered as LPGA Golf Caddies this year. Alayna did it last year and really enjoyed it - especially the part where she got tipped $60 - so Abby figured she'd give it a whirl. The only part that concerned us was that tipping wasn't required, so some golfers tipped and others didn't. The event organizers, as a precautionary measure, gave each caddy $30, but at the end of the day Abby got an additional $100 tip from her pro-golfer and Alayna didn't make crap. Now, we had discussed this possible scenario beforehand, and it was agreed upon by both girls that they would split the difference in the event someone was shafted. Abby - thank God - ended up giving her sister like $40.

The ripping up of Whitewood commences. . .

So THAT'S how you de-pave a city street. . .

I'm sure they'll re-pave this road right away. . .

Like living in Farwell or some shit.

Alayna took this pic of the dog subtly begging for some of her chicken pot pie one afternoon. Par for the course around these parts.

While the LPGA tour was in town up at the Country Club, my brother Chris asked me if I wanted to accompany him up there seeing how his boss had given out to employees complimentary tickets to the course's Diamond Club. This was the top-tier VIP area of the club, overlooking the 18th hole and including free food and free drinks. Neither of us like golf at all, but it's hard to turn down free food and drinks.

After clearing security, we aimlessly wandered around awhile, having no idea where the Diamond Club was. Eventually, after asking a bunch of folks, we made our way around the back of the clubhouse, which overlooked the 18th hole.

You had to go up those stairs there, and at the top was a huge open-air pavilion. They had posted security at the base of the stairs and at the top in order to make sure no one unauthorized sneaked in.

Sent this picture to the rest of the dad group, who are all avid golfers. They couldn't believe I had Diamond Club access, and demanded further proof that this was, in fact, me.

Bam. That shut 'em up.

Not really, but it was free.

We didn't watch any of the golf, and only knew someone was at the 18th hole when employees posted up in the pavilion shushed the assembled crowds.

The Diamond Club.

Chris was so impressed by the porta-johns at the Country Club that he took a pic to send to our third brother, Jeff. Rich people certainly know how to poop.

I coincidentally was doing the exact same thing in the neighboring stall.

Free drinks dispensary.

After a few hours, we figured we should probably call it an afternoon - any more free drinks in our system and it would've made driving dicey, so we headed back to the bus, which shuttled us back to Midland High.

They'd since flattened the dirt road numerous times, compacting it and compacting it I guess in order to make it as level as possible.

I'll be so glad when all this damn construction is over with.

Hercules - Herc the Jerk, as he's commonly known - stands watch from the Angelotti's house.

Alayna enjoys her temporary tattoos a great deal.

While I was away camping with my high school crew, Kris, Danielle, and Ana took their respective daughters out to see the new Barbie movie the night it opened. And yes, of course they dressed up for it.

Kris and Danielle.

Cristina, Alayna, Sophie, and Abby.

Alayna photoshopped this somehow. 

Another Alayna pic of Samson. She does enjoy her dog photography.

While I was still away camping, Kris went out for drinks and dinner with her best friend Kim one evening.

That Sunday afternoon, Kris set up the backyard for the moms to tie-dye the rest of their shirts for our upcoming Jellystone camping trip.

Lots of kids in the ol' trampoline.

We've had Midland Sprinklers out twice before to fix a leaking valve in our yard, and it's still leaking water. I took this and emaled it to them, and fortunately they had two guys come out and finally fix it for good.  Repairs suck, but fortunately we didn't get charged for the first, two botched attempts.

Alayna took this as a mental reminder while hitting up a local McDonald's with her sister - she's been entertaining the idea of getting a job in order to get more spending money. Both her parents worked in fast food during high school, and we'd much rather have her work a job like this opposed to, say, waiting table and dealing with Karens all damn day.

A day or two before our annual Jellystone camping trip, I drove Abby up to the Orchard Building in the Midland Hospital complex in order to get a series of X-rays done for her spine-thingy. Only took like an hour, which was cool - when Kris did this a year ago they were there for like five hours. That may have killed me. Anyway, that's it for this month's installment, folks - see ya next time.

- Brian