Back into the Woods

Trevor hooked me up with one of these upon my arrival.

Hey Internet.

So it had been a couple years since the last time my high school crew and I got together and camped out in the woods, and as such we decided it was high time for us to do so once again.  Being winter and all, none of us felt like tenting it out, so we opted instead to go up to Trevor's family cabin, out by Rosebush.  No running water and no electricity, but - like Rita's family cabin we stayed in a couple years ago - it ran on 'Amish Lighting,' powered via propane.  This meant it was nice and warm inside, and well-lit - all one really needs when roughing it out in the woods in the dead of winter.

I drove up after Abby's Girl Scout troop's World Thinking Day thing (I'll talk about that in a later post, I'm sure), so I didn't roll in until around 8pm or so Friday, and by that time the rest of the guys had established headquarters and were already starting on getting dinner together.  We stayed until late Sunday morning, and had a blast reverting to a bunch of stupid 16-year-olds for a couple days, with no wives, no kids, no responsibilities, and no connection to the outside world.

I could've definitely stayed longer, that's for damn sure.

Check it out, folks. . .

Trevor's family cabin in the woods.  Simple, rustic, and smells just as you'd imagine Trevor's cabin to smell.

Sean and his Dad, Tom, who came along for the weekend as well.

These propane lanterns do well in a pinch to create more light (and heat.)

Trying to figure out how to get the stove going so we can bake some potatoes and cook up the venison Trevor had brought up.

Scrunge tries out of the not-at-all-creepy hats that was hanging on the wall of the cabin. . .

Dinner time.

After dinner, we bundled up and trudged down a two-track path through the woods to a pond that was on the far side of Trevor's property, which had frozen over in the cold.  Scrunge set up a bunch of his lenses to take some pictures of the stars, which were ridiculously bright in the clear, cold air - we were far, far away from civilization, so there was next to nothing as far as light pollution goes.

Had to snap a picture of the crew to send out to all the other members of our high school squad that couldn't make it out this time. . .

Some late night snacking before bed (yes, that's a dog - Scrunge brought both of his up with him.)

The next morning, drinking some tar-ish coffee - boiling hot and bitter - before getting a start on the day.

Trevor's cabin.  After eating a hearty breakfast of bacon, tater tots, and eggs - courtesy of Tom - we suited up in winter clothes and prepared to explore the surrounding land.

This is what passes for a bathroom around these parts. . .

Smells like Sankpala, that's for damn sure.

The front porch (which was more or less a refrigerator this weekend - had to store the beer and food somewhere.)

I hadn't noticed it the night before (it was pitch black out by the time I rolled in), but the cabin sat atop a steep hill that overlooked a creek.

Sean decided to play with his shotgun for a bit - always a good time.

 

Scrunge's dogs were not big fans of this. . .

Down by the river, exploring an old sandbar that Sean had christened Seanlandia a couple years ago.  Of course.

This dead deer was located about 50 yards from the cabin, and was set there as bait for coyotes. . . which, I'm told, Trevor's cousins shoot from the comfort of the cabin's kitchen window.  We posed a couple pictures for the trail cams that were honed in on this location.

Returning to the frozen pond from the night before.

It was actually pretty warm out - mid-40s, thereabouts.

 

Can't take these guys anywhere. . .

Slainte.

Yes, Sean is always that guy.

Sean and his dad, walking the two-track back to the cabin.

Creating a fire pit for use later on in the night.

Too much damn walking for Scrunge. . .

What kinda Pet Cemetary bullshit is this???

This is some Injun spirit-conjuring nonsense, right here. . .

The back porch of the cabin, with the outhouse in the distance.

In the afternoon, a couple of the guys decided they were going to build themselves an igloo.

This is about as far as they got. . .

Evil spirits keep watch over the river.  Or so I assume.

Not entirely sure if this side porch here is up to code or not - I wouldn't trust it, that's for damn sure.

There was a dart board inside the cabin, but the darts were garbage.  Good thing Trevor had a blowgun lying around. . .

Scrunge has enough of Sean's lip at one point.  Hilarity ensues.

The evening's bonfire (my phone died for a few hours while we were walking about outdoors, so by the time I had an opportunity to plug it into my portable battery charger, it was already night.)

At the end of the night, exhausted from a merry time outdoors.  You can imagine how horrible we all smelled Sunday morning.

- Brian

February: a Snowy Hellscape

Michigan doesn't play.

Holy Mother of God was this ever a crapshow of a winter.

I mean, right out of the gate, February came in raging - on the tail end of the biggest blizzard this state has seen in years, we saw a temperature drop that rivaled those from the winter of 2015.  It was a solid week-off of work, to be sure - and no one's complaining about that on this end - but it was still some pretty nasty weather to deal with (shoveling, etc. - especially being as sick as I was.)

Alas, this one stormy week of nonsense was only the tip of the ol' iceberg.  Two more weeks would follow, each with multiple snow and/or ice days (though, thankfully, no more 'cold days' - those are rough.)  Consequently, the girls and I spent a LOT of time bundled up indoors and not going to our respective schools.

Snowmaggedon aside, this month featured several weekends in a row where we had scheduled engagements - something we don't generally get a lot of in February.  A few different parties and get-togethers, Abby's gymnastics exhibition, a few Girl Scout outings and events - just enough to keep our minds off the usual drudgery of a brutal Michigan winter.

So yeah. . . here's a quick look at the Hough's February '19.  Enjoy, folks. . .

Killing time indoors with a bunch of Our Generation stuff. . .

After spending nearly two months of sorting through my vinyl collection, testing which LPs sounded too rough to keep and which ones I otherwise no longer wanted, I came out with a pretty big stack of used stuff I was ready to sell.  Over the last two years, I've done this about a dozen times before, each time taking in five or six albums to Radio Wasteland, and each time getting about $30 in store credit, and then buying one or two new LPs that I'd much rather have.  It's way of trimming fat and saving shelf space, but also of rounding out my collection and increasing it's overall worth.  This month, I ended up getting nearly $50 in store credit, and bought a few limited edition, colored-LP repressings, such as this live album from Chicago. . .

And this score.  Aside from these two, I picked up six Irish LPs (Clancy Brothers, etc. - in preparation for St. Patrick's Day) and a handful of Best Of's. . . both vintage and new.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

SuperBowl Sunday found the Houghs watching the game with our usual group of seven or eight families, this time over at the Johnson residence.  Morgan, Pete and I claimed the couch.

This was pretty good.  I'm always skeptical when it comes to this label, but they came through with this one.

I've seen this in stores for $30, and always thought it looked cool, but couldn't justify spending that much on something I can play for free on the ol' Internet (despite the awesomeness factor of it's aesthetics and packaging.)  When a recent Slickdeals.net posting featured this on sale for $10, I decided to finally pull the trigger.  Now I look forward to countless bouts of dysentery in the near future.

Out on a lunch date with Mom.

Abby, in the zone.

Gotta love Michigan winters. . .

  

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before or not, but the Houghs are returning to Florida in June for nine days - gonna take the kids and do the whole Disney World/Universal Studios vacation, be good parents, that sorta thing.  We recently reassessed our luggage situation and realized that we needed to pick up a few additional pieces:  a stow-able carry-on for each kid (for their clothes and personal stuff), and a large, heavy-duty suitcase we can check at the gate for some of our clothes/shoes, the family's toiletries, as well as souvenirs and additional crap we pick up on vacation.  We started taking the kids around with us to look at suitcases, and it was just as much fun as you could imagine.  At Marshall's, Abby found a decent carry-on piece. . . though we ended up buying a better-rated one from a more reputable brand that looked nearly identical online.

Alayna decided to throw a tween-tantrum when we told her that she couldn't buy a huge white suitcase because it wouldn't fit in the overhead compartment (we nabbed ourselves a super-nice condo through airbnb with a washer and dryer, so the girls don't need to take a full-size suitcase filled with clothing, despite what they may think.)  Just look at her face in this pic. . . God, I hate children.

After picking up Abby's new glasses from Midland Eye Associates (the second time we've had to brave a blizzard in order to do so), the girls and I barely made it back into the driveway - had to gun it just to get out of the street.  Just check out my tire tracks, there. . . frickin' ridiculous.

Abby's fancy new specs. . . that she barely wears.

Later that day.  The driveway and walkways shoveled.  In your face, Winter.

More sledding down the driveway.  It's been that kinda winter, folks.

Girls and glasses.

The third week of the month, we got slammed - yet again - with a third blizzard:  there were four in a system that was moving sluggishly across the Midwest, so by this point in time we were all pretty sick of Michigan's bullshit.

Snowing.  Still.

You can't really tell from the picture, but the snow's well over a foot-deep here - it was up to the second step, leading into the house.

After a couple hours, the driveway, sidewalk, and walkways have been shoveled out.  Again.

Lately our mail carrier has been leaving our mail on the front door.  Can't say I blame him - he'd need twelve-foot arms to reach our mailbox.

 

The plus side of having so much frickin' snow dump on us all at once is that you can create some pretty impressive snow structures.  The girls dug out an igloo as I piled up snow around the outside.

Earlier on in the process. . .

I turned one of their Suicide Sleds upside down and wedged it in to serve as a ceiling.

This kept them busy for a long, long time. . .

The kids' hang-out section of our basement.  Kids are the worst.

Can your kid recite every, last book of the Christian Bible, IN ORDER?  'Cause ours can.

Abby's favorite past time (aside from standing on her head.)

Dr. Hough breaks out another science experiment. . .

(No idea what she's up to, here. . . I was at work.)

Alayna's devoured nearly ten Rick Riordan books over the last few months: the Percy Jackson series, the Heroes of Olympus series, and now she's on to the Trials of Apollo series (each series contains five books, and each book in a series is between 300 - 500 pages.)  This kid reads like it's nobody's business, and unless you stop her, she'll keep going for hours (seriously, we've tested it.)  I'm not complaining, though - her knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology and lore is pretty impressive.

During a lesson on Westward Expansion, one day I let my students try their hand at the old school classic, Oregon Trail (see the picture I included earlier in this post, folks - it's too good a game to pass up.)  On our Google Classroom, I posted the link to a website where they could play the game for free, and gave them an accompanying handout to complete.  While they played through the game and answered content-related questions that went along with the game, I played my own game via my Promethean Board as a means of modeling the activity for them.  I named my party after a few of my coworkers.  It didn't go well.

A couple new LPs, all ready to roll for St. Patrick's Day. . .

And, to round out the wintery month of February, we have here - once again - the Girl Scouts.  Kris and Courtney's troop, actually, this time as a scenic water treatment plant (where they turn poop and pee into drinking water. . . or something.)  When I asked Abby how the outing was, later that evening, she told me it smelled like 'a bathroom at school.'  Who in their right mind takes a group of kids to a shit factory?  My wife does, folks.  My wife does.

- Brian