Girls' Weekend '21

What's up, America.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this all before, but this group of friends of ours enjoys it's adult weekends away from their families.  The Wives - by far - do this more regularly:  I looked for blog posts in The Archives to link here, but it looks like I've never gone out of my way to write individual posts about Kris' outings.  Rest assured, they happen about twice a year - starting in 2018, they always take place in January/Febrary, then again in the summer - and almost always consist of eight or nine moms sitting around an Airbnb, doing nails and facials, doing crafts, drinking lots of wine, sitting by a pool, shopping, and maybe going out to eat at restaurants from time to time. 

Pretty chill, pretty boring.

These weekends clearly stand in sharp contrast to the one Dads Weekend Away we've had to date: Brocation 2021, which saw seven of us adventure around Marquette for three days, hitting up natural attractions, points of interest, and countless bars and watering holes.

Anyway, Kris and the Wives once again set off for a weekend away, this time renting a house on Lake Michigan in Cadillac.  This particular weekend was a snowy hellscape, rest assured, which an abundance of snow and chilly temperatures, and no real reason to leave the house.  Consequently, the Wives didn't - they just sat around in pajama pants all weekend long, doing the aforementioned activities I listed before.

Except swimming.  Obviously that shit wasn't about to happen.

Check it out. . . 

Danielle swings by the house to pick up Kris that Friday morning. . .

On their way into town, they stopped off at this place for some lunch.

Afterwards, at some Secret Garden-esque boutique, Kris found a pair of tacky-ass mittens and couldn't help but recreate the infamous Bernie meme.

View from their porch window, overlooking Lake Michigan (I may have edited a few of these - I like to go through my Google Photos and make boring pictures better.)

Living Room, from the steps leading up to the bedrooms.

Wives in the kitchen.  At least some things are sacred.

I guess this is the room Kris bunked in. . . .?

Ummm. . . . another living room?

Meanwhile, back at home, the girls and I did our usual 'Mom's Not Here' routine:  we stocked up on junk food (candy, pop, donuts, ice cream, etc.), got some fast food, and vegged on the couch watching movies all weekend.  Cuddled up with dogs, of course.

Drinks and cards to close out Friday evening.

Pizza and beer.  Sounds like a decent Friday evening to me.

The next morning, the Wives spotted some ice fisherman out on the lake.  Why anyone in their right mind would want to go out and do something like this in such bullshit is beyond me.

This year's 'craft' (yes, they seriously coordinate this activity in advance, like the nerds they are) was photo coasters.  Kris came up with the idea: she takes a picture, buys some tile and cork from, say, Home Depot or some shit, and then stacks them so the picture sits atop the tile, with the cork providing the padding.  She then uses Modge-Podge to create a clear, waterproof lacquer that seals the image atop the tile.  Creating a coaster you can safely set hot and cold drinks on.  Most of these ladies did two, each with one of their kids on it (doubling up on one for those that have three kids.)  Kris had our two girls on one, and our two dogs on the other. . . 'cause that's kinda where we are at this point in life.

Welcome to Hoth.

Someone's cooking, someone's getting a haircut, and someone's working on their computer.  Seriously, would it hurt these ladies to hit up a f***ing brewery or something?

Meanwhile, back in Midland, our view from the back patio.  I'm gonna need to re-shovel out a patch of grass for the dogs to use soon.

This came in the mail on Saturday afternoon, which I've been wanting for quite some time.  Found it on Discogs for $20, which is a great price for a Mint/Mint album (on colored vinyl, no less.)  This is considered the Dropkick Murphys' finest album, being released in the Summer of 2001 (I saw these guys tour on this album at least twice that summer, both shows were incredible. . . just like this pressing.)

Erik's wife, Courtney, was also away on this Girls Weekend, so him and I doubled up on a couple 'single dad' activities throughout the weekend, since our kids are so close and wanted to hang out anyway.  He snapped this in Kris' van as I drove us out to the Roll Arena for some afternoon skating.

Due to Covid (Jesus, I use that phrase a lot), this place raised their prices considerably in order to off-set the lack of people frequenting their establishment.  Admission for skaters is now $8, and they charge $5 for people to just enter the premise without skating (a 'spectator' fee.)  With skate rentals being, like $4, I ended up paying $25 for two hours of watching the girls skating (and Alayna barely did at all, she doesn't like to.)  Absolutely ridiculous.

Abby and Ella tied in the kids race, which was pretty awesome.

Later that evening, the wives sat around and drank and played cards (not much else to do in the winter if you're choosing to stay in.)  Here Danielle holds up the Lemoncello bottle that's sat untouched in our freezer for nearly two years - I told Kris to just take it up with her, as I sure as hell wasn't about to drink it.

The Dads, meanwhile, did the same thing, just over at the Bos residence.  We obviously had the kids in tow, so they were running around the house sounding like a pack of Apache.  Good times.

Kris calls these weekends 'chill,' but I was prefer the term 'boring.'  Whatever floats their boat, I guess.

- Brian

March Madness

Welcome back, America.

So the entire nation this month has been obsessed with college basketball, and stuff like 'brackets' and 'sweet sixteens' and all other such nonsense.  We Houghs are about as far-removed from the label of 'sports fan' as folk can get, so it should go without saying that we're all pretty funned-out with the whole 'March Madness' thing.  I've seriously been counting down to April for the duration of the month.

Basketball aside, this month featured quite a few highlights:  another Daddy/Daughter Dance, Spring Break, the school carnival, and - the month's obvious pinnacle - St. Patrick's Day.  There was also plenty of downtime, to be sure, considering how cold this month has been.  And honestly, I'm at that age where downtime is pretty damn rad.

So yeah.  That was our March.  Check it out:

Alayna shows off one of Chestnut Hill's new t-shirts, designed by Yours Truly.

While over at the Larson residence for a game of Euchre one Friday evening, I brought along this rare find, which I hadn't been able to find since my days in Orlando.  A higher ABV in a Belgian is something you don't see very often, but holy crap is it ever good. . .

Alayna had been requesting a dye job for the past few weeks, so Kris finally caved and gave the girl what she wanted:  red streaks.

Finished product.

The Cannonball all dolled up for Rock Star day at her school.  Goth make-up, leather jacket, dyed hair. . . aaaand a Harry Potter shirt.  Whatever.

I recently traded in a small stack of vinyl that included a couple early pressings of albums I really only owned in the first place because I felt a decent record collection should contain them (crap I don't like, such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, etc.)  Long story short, I was able to exchange them for a few new vintage additions at Radio Wasteland, as well as a red 180gm pressing of Bat Out of Hell.

I recently became aware of the fact that this is a thing.  You can buy this Dryel system (say, off Amazon, where they're super cheap) and each kit comes with three or four treatments.  Each Dryel treatment can handle about four or five suit pieces, depending on their size - sports coats or jackets, dress slacks, vests/waistcoats, etc.  You put all the pieces in the pictured bag you see here, throw in one of the treatment packets, zip up the bag, and throw it in the dryer at a specified setting.  Upon completion of aforementioned instructions, your clothes are frickin' dry cleaned.  Now, would this work if you had, like, stains or sweat soaked into your clothes?  No, but fortunately my suits (which I wanted cleaned for me and the girls' Daddy/Daughter Dance) were just musty from being in a closet for years.  This system worked out perfectly, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone.  Saved me an ass-load of money on dry cleaning, that's for sure.

Abby's hair had been getting ridiculously long - like her sister, nearly down to her butt - but, unlike Alayna, Abby had a hard time of staying on top of it.  She'd get these rat nests in the back of her head where she couldn't reach, and it was becoming a royal pain in the ass to brush through it all the time.  Finally, she agreed to take some of it off.  She saw an old picture of herself from a couple years ago or so (I'm sure there's old pics of her hair on this blog somewhere) and decided she wanted shorter hair again.  Kris and I were thrilled with this decision, and promptly took her over to Danielle's in order to get scalped. . .

She ended up taking nearly ten inches off.

Much better.

This was a solid read if you're into reading the occasional theological text.  Incredibly enlightening.

Hangin' out at the annual Chestnut Hill School Carnival.  Tons of games, sugar, prizes, and screaming children.

Erik, Morgan and I were 'volunteered' by our wives to work the kitchen for the evening (which, honestly, beat the hell out of watching kids or overseeing some super-shitty carnival game.)  

Alayna had me 'tattoo' this Camp Half Blood design - to her specifications - on her forearm.  She's devoured about ten of Rick Riordan's books on Greek Mythology:  the Percy Jackson series, the Heroes of Olympus series, the Trials of Apollo series, etc.  She can't get enough of these frickin' books, which is awesome because Greek Mythology is pretty badass.

One day, during Spring Break, Kris and I took the girls over to the Canopy Walk at Dow Gardens.  Not really my cup o' tea, to be honest, but the girls get a kick out of this place. . . so that's what we do.

Walking into this weird-looking hive thingy. . .

There was a line to go into this frickin' thing, and only one way to go in and out (that net walkway) so it became incredibly bottle-necked.  Yours Truly stayed on the walkway outside, because I was sure I would 'Hough out' if I were forced to wait for people to walk across that net for too long.

Inside the Ewok Village. . .

 

I love it when people pose for a picture and you take video instead.  They look like idiots.

Back across the nets.  Some random twelve-year-old happened to be filming this net (and, consequently, my family) with his tablet - who knows why - and I stepped in front of him to take this picture with my phone.  The kid's dad had the gall to say, "Seriously?" as I did so, so without turning around I said "that's my family so I'm taking a picture of them, thanks."  The dad then muttered an apology and shoo'd his kid away.  F***ing prick.

Throughout that canopy walk outing, I was practically falling asleep (we had stayed up pretty late the night before), so I forced Kris to swing by for a pick-me-up.  Energy drinks are usually disgusting affairs, but this one was pretty good.

More options from Short's Brew - probably my favorite brewery now.  Not big on porters, but this one wasn't half bad.

Kris and I decided that Spring Break was a good time for some Arts and Crafts, and since we had been throwing around the idea of getting some bird feeders for the backyard for awhile, we decided to pull the trigger and pick up some from Michael's (along with paints and birdseed.)

And yes, we invested in waterproof, outdoor paint.  We're not stupid.

I threw together a bizarre-but-functional apparatus to screw in to the existing bird feeder pole in our backyard garden.  I'm handy like that.

Thug Life.

Abby's finished product.

. . . and Alayna's.  After this initial paint job, we had to put on a lacquer that sealed in the paint and further protected it against the elements.  Two coats, with a day of drying in between. 

Keeping the kids busy during Spring Break can get old fast, but fortunately Kris is more into that whole thing than I am (as a child of the '80s and '90s, I have no problem whatsoever with kids becoming bored at home.)  One afternoon, we took the girls up to the Roll Arena for a free skating session, and apparently many of the other Chestnut Hill moms had the same idea, because the girls ran into a shit-load of their friends there.

Abby, Archa, Archa's little sis, Ella, Scarlett, the Cannonball, and Christina.

This is what I did for the two hours we were there: grading pre- and post-assessments for my annual Student Growth models.  Administrators have to make sure I'm doing my job, you know.

Behold:  my handiwork.

Kinda looks weird, but - as you can see here - it does the frickin' trick.

Mac and cheese.  The default Spring Break lunch.

Towards the end of Spring Break, we had a day of mid-60s weather and sun.  The girls acted like it was summer, and demanded Slurpees - their first of the new year.  Kinda have to oblige at that point.

I took advantage of the good weather and worked on cleaning out the garage and my work area (and tried out a couple more new beers from Short's Brew, like this one here.)

Also spent some time cleaning up fallen branches, sticks, and other such debris in the backyard.  We had an abundance of cardboard boxes and spill-over from our recycling bin (which gets picked up once a month), so I decided to set a fire to get rid of it.  With all the cardboard and dried up sticks from our yard, this thing quickly became a six-foot inferno, and raged for over and hour as Kris and I continued to add yard waste, garden trimmings, wood, and boxes to it.  Little did we know, at the time, that the City of Midland had put a burn ban in place for this week on account of the dry conditions.  Whoops.

Also cleaned out the Shed.  It had been a few months since I had spent any long period of time in here, it was long overdue.

My brothers, Chris and Jeff, and I went out to Midland City Brewery for a few drinks one evening, towards the end of Spring Break, in order to catch up and hang out while we all still can, seeing how Chris is moving down to Indiana in June.  This flight wasn't half bad - I've definitely had better, but for a local brewery this is okay.

Mom threw an 87th birthday get-together for Grandpa Chinery at the end of the month.

Chow time with the twins.

Grandkids and balloons.  Chaos ensues.

Jeff's kids decided to 'help' Grandpa open his presents.

Abby and Louis.

Mom requested a new family portrait so she could replace the one on her wall in the living room that had Grandma Chinery in it, but no Levi, Louis and Sam.  Chris had to Photoshop three separate pictures into one in order to force-correct all the closed eyes, distracted faces, and other such kid-caused screw-ups.

I spent a lot of time doing this during Spring Break.  I can think of far shittier ways of spending one's time off of work. . .

Hanging out at the Shepherd's place for the NCAA Championship (I go for the socializing and beers, not for the sports, as you can imagine.)  And consequently trying out a few more selections from Short's. . .

(I had this one in my beer fridge for years - finally got around to it tonight.  It wasn't worth the wait, sadly.)

Girls, out on a lunch date.

And, rounding out this month's selection of Randoms, here we have an image one of my students Photoshopped and sent out on social media (to both me and the rest of the school.)  Apparently he found a picture of me online somewhere.  I think it's awesome.

- Brian