Back to the Horseshoe

Coffee and some spooky vinyl this morning.

Happy Halloween, Internet!

For the first time in a decade, the Houghs neglected to host a Halloween Costume Party this year. As crazy as that sounds. There were a few different reasons why we pulled the plug on this family staple of ours, but basically it boiled to a.) a little bit of drama between a couple families in our Tribe (the local group of friends we hang around with), and b.) we just had a lot on our plate right now with the month of October being as busy as it was. While it killed us to cancel the party this year - it really did, it's one of our group's big events every year - we promised ourselves that we would return in full force next year around this time of year. So you can expect to be reading about another raucous costume party around this time next year.

Kris' usual fall porch decor (I hate that scarecrow.) 

So, with that pressure off us, we got to sit back and enjoy the season without the usual scramble of party-prepping, costume-designing, and house-cleaning. We also saved a ridiculous amount of money, too, so there's that. Anyway, this year Halloween fell on a Saturday (thank God - when it falls on a school night and you have to get up and go to work the next day that's the absolute worst), and our good friends the Johnsons still ended up hosting their annual driveway trick-or-treat affair. Their party, as stated before, is generally a smaller deal than ours, but then again it doesn't have to be a full-blown affair because it entails setting up a large spread of food in their garage, having a fire in their driveway, and passing out candy for kids trick-or-treating the Horseshoe (the common name for their area of the Chestnut Hill neighborhood.)

A warm-up stout before the evening's festivities kick off.

It has become a staple of ours over the eight or nine years and I see no sign of ever stopping it moving foward.

The girls each had separate plans this year, so we weren't rolling in as a family this time around (once again - every since they entered high school they've basically done their own thing, which is to be expected.) Still, we insisted on at least getting a family picture in the Study before we were all scattered to the four winds, and landed on a half-hour block where everyone was going to be home at the same time in order to snap our usual family costume pics. Once that was done, we loaded up all our crap and drove over a block or two to the Johnsons' place, where we set up shop for the duration of the evening. Par for the course, really.

And, with that, I'll leave you now with a bunch of pics from this year's Hough Family Halloween - enjoy . .

Nobody was staying back to man the fort this evening, so Kris set out one of our Halloween skeletons and had him on the front porch with the candy for trick-or-treaters. We watched several trick-or-treaters on our Ring doorbell throughout the night, and everybody adhered to the honor system - we came home at the end of the night to a ton of candy still in the bowl. That was a nice surprise, people suck nowadays.

Testing out the flash settings on my SLR in the Study. My wife is basically special needs.

The Houghs, 2026. From left to right: The Mad Hatter, a fairy, a bumble bee, and the Cheshire Cat. I didn't have a costume in mind, so figured I'd just pull something together by reusing existing costume pieces from previous years (seeing how we weren't creating a new theme since we weren't hosting a party this year.) Kris insisted I at least put an index card in the side of my hat with that Mad Hatter fraction on it, as seen in Alice in Wonderland, as she wanted to wear Abby's old Cheshire Cat onesie ('cause we'd be out in the cold all night) and she wanted to go as some kind of a couple.

We got to the Johnsons' place around 5:30pm, and I kicked things off with this beer I picked up from Cork and Ale a couple weeks ago. It was only meh.

Kris wanted a few more couple pics once we got there. Happy wife, happy life.

Abby and Ella were finalizing their costumes with a few of their friends as the party kicked off, running around and dusting themselves with whatever the hell this crap is. Looks like something straight out of 2003.

The driveway hangout of the year.

Katie and Kris start tearing into the various crock pots.

More and more folks begin to show up, anticipating the city's 6:00pm kick-off time for trick-or-treating.

I was told that I wasn't 'posing like The Mad Hatter' in the previous pics and had to step my game up. This is about the best we got this evening.

Abigail C., Abby, Ella, Harper, and Juliana, right before setting off throughout the neighborhood. . .

And of course these two had to get one of just the two of them. They changed costume ideas, like, a dozen times over the last two weeks and Kris and Courtney had to twist their arms to land on something this year. This is what they came up with.

The spread.

Mitch, Scott (Katie's husband), and Joel (Erik's best friend from high school.)

Erik and Courtney went as Wreck It Ralph and Princess Penelope this year.

The guys - Mitch, Collier, Lonnie, Jeff, and Brandon here - basically grazed all evening inside the garage,

Stef, Kris and Courtney

After an hour or so, Alayna and two of her buddies from college swung by to grab a free meal.

Alayna decided to bring the dog along with her, and that dude ate like a king this evening (bunch of adults who had been drinking for the last couple hours felt it was okay to start feeding this dog all kinds of meats and cheeses.)

Erik's little brother, Ryan, fed him a ridiculous amount of cheese while they were stopping by. . .

Consequently, Samson stunk up our house so bad with his farts over the next twelve hours. He crapped his brains out the next day.

This one was also meh. I gotta stop getting so excited about buying pumpkin beer, most of them never turn out half as good as I'm expecting them to.

Still going strong, an hour or so after trick-or-treating ceased.

Lonnie and Brandon, probably talking about sports or shoes.

Womenfolk, huddled for warmth around the fire.

Rob and Tom showed up for an hour or so (sans wives of course, their wives never come out to hang out anymore.)

The temperature was dropping rapidly - the low was around the mid-40s this evening. I had brought along a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and a coat in my car, but I never ended up needing to change into it.

Juliana's dad (forget his name), Mitch, Tom, Ryan and Scott.

Kris takes horrible selfies of us, as a general rule.

We offered to stay til the end in order to help the Johnsons clean up, but Juliana's parents ended up raging til like 1am, so we started the clean-up process the instant they drove away, getting home and crashing around 1:30am. Far too late for folks this old, lemme tell ya what.

- Brian

The Tenth Monster Mash

Well guys, we're here at long last. . . .

The Tenth Annual Hough Halloween Party

The culmination of the Halloween Season (which, for us, starts in like mid-September), we've been preparing this for weeks. Kris and her fellow Real Housewives of Midland were talking about theme ideas for this year's party way back on Momcation, and so credit for coming up with this year's theme - Song Titles - goes to them. This theme required our guests to dress up like the title (or lyrical content) of any song, and I planned on curating a playlist based on everyone's 'songs' to share later once we had them all jotted down. When we solidified this idea and sent out the invites, Kris and I began plotting our own costumes. . . which seemed easy at first then became insanely difficult. 

Kris, hard at work in her office, working on food prep for the party. . . 

I, personally, thought I had mine figured out right away - music is kinda my thing, and like 90% of my daily life revolves around it in some form or another (listening to it, playing it, thinking about it, etc.) Right out of the gate, I thought about doing 'Anarchy Burger' by The Vandals (one of their early 80s staples and still one of their best-known songs), and I thought about buying a cheeseburger costume off Amazon and then custom-designing an anarchy symbol hat off Etsy to finish it off. Maybe blow up a waitresses' order slip to poster size to affix to the back of it and have it say 'w/o government' on the back (due to the lyric, 'order myself an anarchy burger/hold the government, please.'

The Study, all prepped for the party (including Halloween vinyl on the turntable.)

Then I thought about how many f***ing times all of our non-punk rock friends (which is ALL of them, minus BP and maybe my brother, Jeff) would see my costume and say, "Oohhh, you're 'Cheeseburger in Paradise. . . ."

Sooo I had to go back to the drawing table. And you'll see what I ended up with in a sec (but yes, nobody figured out my eventual costume anyway - our group of friends isn't too well-versed in music lore, at least not to anything remotely approaching my level.)

Anyway, as you all well know by now, we've now been holding this costume-themed, Halloween bash for a decade now, having started this tradition a year after returning to our home state of Michigan, back in 2016. Over the last ten parties, we've fine-tuned this event, always adding or removing features in order to maximize fun for our guests, and are constantly trying to improve it with each passing Halloween. 

Since 2022, our party has been held up by three, distinct pillars: the Costume Contest, the Beer Pong Tournament, and Karaoke. We've relegated karaoke to the basement as a kids-only activity, which minimizes the volume for adults who want to be able to hear each other talk, and this year we opened up the annual Costume Contest for all people voting, not just kids (in order to keep it fair, as before those who ended up winning prizes were often times those who had the most children.) Little tweaks here and there to make things easier on everyone.

Bartender Bob the Skeleton mans the bar in the basement area. . . 

A couple takeaways from this year's party, which, for me, was a little more stressful than last year. First, Yours Truly can no longer participate in the Beer Pong contest. Last year, I paired up with Kim (Kris' best friend), since she came solo and we were doing a couple's tournament (due to last year's theme being Famous Couples.) She wasn't great, so we were eliminated after our second game. This time around, we decided to make the entire tournament random, and I happened to be paired up with Morgan, who's one of those guys who's naturally awesome at everything he does. . . so we ended up winning the tournament. As a result, I found myself anchored to a beer pong table for pretty much two, straight hours. . . which meant I was stretched thin with my usual music-streaming, picture-taking, and Wi-Fi enabling duties. Caused some definite headaches.

The Den was converted to a chill, movie room for kids wanting to watch TV.

Secondly, our food options went over just okay. We did sliders again but we had a lot of leftovers compared with last year. We might have to rethink some of the stuff we put out for folks (who always bring their own dishes to share, thankfully.) Erik and I split a half-barrel keg of Miller Lite for the party (his own Trick or Treating shin-dig will be next Friday, on Halloween night, and he'll be taking what's left of the keg over to his house), and Collier lent us his kegorator to use. We drank a ton of it, to be sure, but not nearly as much as we thought we'd drink: some folks brought their own drinks (despite us telling everyone that we'd be supplying booze - the keg and a couple cases of seltzers), and then later on in the night we were doing drinking games with aforementioned seltzers, so folks stopped drinking from the keg.  Not sure we'll need to order a half-barrel next time around.

Anyway, long story short, it was another successful party, but there are definitely a few things we'll be changing for next year. I'll cut things off for now and let the following dump of pictures and videos do the telling. So, with that being said, behold - the Houghs' 10th Annual Halloween Party. . .

The karaoke section of the basement.

This skeleton on my workbench was in charge of music this evening. I created a playlist called 'Tribe '25,' which was a mix of both the Momcation and Brocation playlists from this year. It was random as hell, and had something like 400 songs on it, but it was well-received.

Collier's kegorator, primed and ready for action.

Punk Rock Skeleton approves of this party (you can see our last-minute To-Do list for the fam that we erased shortly before guests arrived.)

Erik came over in the afternoon before the party to help me test the keg pours prior to guests arriving (at 6pm.) The first few pours came out with heavy levels of foam, so we had to play around with the CO2 levels in order to dial it in.) This is what heroes do.

It was a good thing we did so, because eventually we figured it out. Still, the process took its toll - we drank multiple beers and had to stop after we realized that we were getting a solid buzz on at like 3pm.

The DeBoers showed up around 2:30pm and hung out with us for a couple hours as we finished getting all the food and crap around for the party.

Kris puts the sliders into the heating pans.

We set out this gross-looking Halloween punch Kris discovered on Pinterest (of course) - green Hawaiian Punch (yes, that's a thing), pineapple juice, Sprite, and gummy worms for garnish. Sounds gross, but the kids drank like three-quarters of it before the night was through.

Kris bought a giant-ass bag of gummy worms from. . . somewhere. I only used a handful for the punch, so we put the rest out on a tray on the bar. By the end of the night, they were all gone. Kids are fiends.

The DeBoers get their family pictures out of the way before the masses arrive.

Their song selection: 'Rock Lobster' - the B-52's.

The Johnsons, as 'Gangsta's Paradise' - Coolio.

Tom showed up solo (his wife and kids would be coming in an hour or two), and his song selection was 'Radioactive' - Imagine Dragons.

Alicia (sans Holty, who was driving separate), as 'Raspberry Beret' - Prince.

My brother Jeff, his wife Carissa, and their collection of hellions. Jeff's song was 'Astronaut in the Ocean' - Masked Wolf (I think it's some 'bro-country' song, I didn't know it), while Carissa's was 'Jailhouse Rock' - Elvis. The kids obviously didn't participate in the 'song title' theme (which isn't surprising, the kids usually don't buy into the theme concept.)

My nephew, Levi. I kept giving him shit asking if he was a Care Bear. He was not amused.

Owen, Kinsley (Kinsleigh? - not sure how to spell her name), and Levi.

The Larsons (feat. Jackson's girlfriend, Sevaeaha) as 'No Scrubs' - TLC.

The Boses, who are both adamant country music lovers, went as 'Whiskey and Sunshine' - Frankie Ballard.

Mees, who's husband (Collier) was shooting another wedding this evening and wouldn't be showing up until later, came as 'Bejeweled' - Taylor Swift.

Amy dressed up as 'Black Widow' - Iggy Azalea.

Alayna and her boyfriend, Sebastian, dressed up as 'SWAT' - Talib Kweli.

Had to get one with Kinsley, who also showed up as a SWAT member (this picture made her night, for sure.)

Hens, clucking in the Study. Left to Right: Alicia, Amy, Danielle, and Kelli.

Folks start to dig into the food. . . .

Rob as 'Ice Ice Baby' - Vanilla Ice.

As always (because they share a brain), Abby and Ella coordinated their outfits this year. They landed on Wild Kratz, which was some animal-centric cartoon on PBS in the 2010's.

They're a couple of dorks.

Their friend and fellow pommer, Harper, recreate their famous 'Charlie's Angels' pom pose (which they break out whenever the three of them pose for any picture.) Harper's family, who showed up last year, couldn't make it to this year's party due to prior obligations, but she's dressed up as Flounder from The Little Mermaid.

The Johnsons, again, now that their kid was finally ready for a picture.

The Griffins, as 'Purple Rain' - Prince.

They had to get one with Alicia, who also came with a Prince song this year.

Alicia and Steph.

The Houghs.

Kris finally landed on 'Karma Police' - Radiohead, while Yours Truly ended up with 'Lonesome Cowboy Bill' - The Velvet Underground.

Any excuse to wear a weapon with my costume, folks - I haven't changed a lick since I was four years old. I don't care what my costume is, just so long as I get to wear a sword, a gun, or a lighstaber.

If it's one thing this tribe of ours does well, it's food.

Chow time.

The Pro and Lonnie Big Balls, grazing in the kitchen.

Kris made two things of sliders - the Italian ones (on the left) went super fast, but the buffalo chicken ones (on the right) were only half-eaten. Gonna nix that option for next year.

I wanted to do a 'Pick Your Poison' station in the kitchen for folks - a decent, dessert whiskey (the Dough Ball), along with a bottle of the WORST-tasting liquor known to man, Malort. Look it up, folks - it's just as bad as everyone says.

Owen loads up on some more sugar.

The annual Beer Pong Tournament kicks off, with Morgan and Courtney doing Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who gets to throw first (we'd end up demolishing her and Mees, don't you worry.)

Some more of Alayna's friends - Bree, Amelia, Cristina, and Rita - show up and get a group pic with her and Sebastian.

The Collier kids - Myles, Teagan, and Elise - as The Three Blind Mice.

Kris was partnered up with Jeff for this year's tourney, and, consequently, she ended up playing more than a couple games (Jeff's pretty good, kinda on my level.)

I brought a TV out in the garage so folks could watch the Michigan/Michigan State game while the tournament was going. Lonnie basically sat in front of the TV all night and barely conversed with anyone.

BP and Erik were teamed up together, but Morgan and I destroyed them as well.

Holty was paired up with Danielle, but they were eliminated after the first game (he also came as 'Jailhouse Rock' - Elvis - always kinda awkward when folks double up on costumes.)

Morgan snipes the opposition.

Danielle and Kris

The Pickvits as 'Fishing in the Dark' - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Susan (Tom's wife) showed up eventually as 'What Does the Fox Say' - The Fun Squad

The DeBoers cast their votes for the annual Costume Contest.

We had a slideshow from all the previous Halloween parties cycling on the living room TV, so folks would occasionally pop into this room to take a breather from socializing and wax nostalgia over pics from yesteryear (like this one of The Houghs from our '80s party in 2019.)

Showing some of the guys my fancy pistol that I ordered off of Amazon for my costume (I'm a sucker for authenticity, folks.)

Meanwhile, in the basement. . .

Alicia takes her shot. . .

This is the team that should have won the tourney - both Susan and Carissa are stone-cold killers at this game. I guess they both just had an off night or something, who knows.

My nieces and nephews were glued to Abby when they first arrived, and Abby was a sport and hung out with them for a bit. . . before she got wrapped up with Ella and Harper, and later her boyfriend, Kingston.

Jeff and Scarlett, watching the tourney.

Amy and Lon-Dawg.

The Boses.

Alayna, talking about her costume with Courtney and Mees.

The Knights of Poke'mon (retired.)

The Voting Station. Kris takes polaroids of people in their costumes and pins them to this board so folks can vote in the following categories: Funniest Costume, Scariest Costume, Best Couple Costume, Best Group Costume, Most Original Costume, and Best Overall Costume.

Erik and Cory, hanging out in the Study.

A ladies pic (Alayna somehow sneaked in there.)

Morgan and I, still kicking ass in Beer Pong.

The Cannonball and Sebastian.

He has a ridiculous amount of real-looking Airsoft guns - we told them they weren't allowed outdoors with guns looking that realistic.

Susan, Alicia, and Mees.

Kris takes a moment to hydrate between throws.

Amy was on fire tonight.

Cory and the Griffins' oldest, Alivia, watching the game.

Hanging out between games.

Jeff and Kris went pretty far this year in the tourney.

Nephews.

Scenes from the living room.

Kelli and Carissa submit their votes.

Some of the children of the Tribe (getting all of them together in one group pic is impossible, so we always settle for 'as many as we can get at one time.')

The Adults.

Collier, playing with Sebastian's SWAT rifle.

Myles and LJ, in the basement, defiling Bob the Bartender (or what's left of him - he had a leg broke off this evening, thanks to LJ.)

Firearms.

Kris, Carissa, and Scarlet.

Kinsley.

Levi is gonna be a straight-up menace when he gets to drinking age. Mark my words.

Lori and Kelli.

Jeff's kids always gravitate to the Beer Pong tables as the night drags on. That's a red flag if I've ever seen one.

Rob didn't set this baby down ONCE throughout the entire evening. Now that's dedication, kids.

Alayna, all ready for that ICE career.

Alivia did not want her picture taken. Tough shit, kid.

Kris starts to tally up the votes after all the ballots were submitted.

Steph and her kid.

Hens, clucking about something on their phones.

Some kids, hanging out in the living room.

Snacking in the dining room. The dessert table was a big hit towards the end of the night.

Collier and Cory.

We assembled in the Study at one point so that Kris could announce the winners of each category in this year's Costume Contest. . .

The Larsons took 'Best Group Costume.'

Alayna and Sebastian won 'Scariest Costume' (not surprisingly.)

Mees won 'Most Original Costume.'

Rob, the big winner of the night, took home two awards - 'Funniest Costume' and 'Best Overall Costume.' So he ended up taking home the big trophy this year. To the victor goes the spoils.

The 2025 Beer Pong Tournament Champions - The Colonel and Baby Driver

This year's Costume Contest winners (The Johnsons won 'Best Couple Costume.')

Kris' tally sheet from counting all the ballots.

A man and his baby.

Erik and I brought out the Malort later on in the evening so everyone could experience the pure shittiness of this horrid, horrid drink.

For those of us who have had it before, it was hilarious watching the reactions of all the Malort virgins as they tried it for the first time. . .

Facts.

My nephews are handsy motherf***ers. . .

Downstairs in the den, where a bunch of the high schoolers were hanging out.

Totally normal, nothing to see here.

Even though the tournament was over, folks were still wanting to play in the garage, and so impromptu games kept popping up.

Kinsley and her siblings circled the tables for hours, and were playing on and off for most of the night.

Seriously, this guy never put down the baby - even when playing.

Cory demonstrates his behind-the-back throw.

Levi kept asking if he could have this hat, and eventually I was like, 'Sure, go for it.' I've had it for years, having picked it up down in Treasure Island way back in the day, and I only wear it like maybe once a year. Time to let it go.

Lonnie, falling asleep in front of the TV like a frickin' grandfather. He's the life of the party, lemme tell ya.

Kris grabs a selfie.

Took a pic of the bracket so we could remember how things went down this year.

Around 11pm, after some folks had gone home, those of us whose kids weren't crashing and were ready to get a little crazier decided to launch into the more 'dangerous' drinking games, like Slap Cup. . .

This one gets ferocious.

Rob, playing one-handed (still refusing to set down that damn baby.)

Collier, sans costume. He's an asshole.

Congrats, Baby.

Courtney, forced to chug the Death Cup at one point.

Around midnight, more folks having taken off.

Kelli was having a blast.

We broke into a game of Flip Cup after Slap Cup had wrapped up, splitting off into two teams of four.

Kris with some teenagers.

These two teams faced off about half a dozen times, and each time my team came out victorious. Beer Pong and Slap Cup are just kinda 'meh' for me, but Flip Cup? That was my bread and butter in college, folks.

Pure destruction.

The losers lick their wounds.

Another epic Hough Halloween Party in the books, gang - we'll be back next year with another spooky, costume bash. See ya later. 

- Brian