Randoms of June

Wow, June was f***ing nuts, guys.

Things are beginning to heat up around here, both figuratively and literally.  With the school year winding down (FINALLY), and our various summer plans rapidly approaching, we knew things were bound to get hectic.  I mean, just check out how many frickin' blog posts there are from June alone - it's ridiculous.  Graduations, field trips, parties, outings, you name it.  June's been insane.

What's crazy is that July is bound to be much, much worse.  June's just a warm-up.  This summer is jam-packed with awesomeness, from start to finish.  It's gonna go by super fast, no doubt about it, but it's definitely gonna be one hell of a ride.

So yeah - what follows is what we can remember happened in the five minutes that was June of 2019.

Enjoy.

At the beginning of the month, the girls had some picnic with parents - and Jet's Pizza - at their school.  Each kid (and parent) got an individual pizza and got to hang out outside in the gorgeous weather.  In the background here, behind Abby, you can spot the Larson fam, who we hang out with frequently.

The Cannonball loves herself some pizza.

The Houghs, minus Dad (who, like an asshole, was stuck working with teenagers on this particular day.  Of course.)

Abby, her friend Allie, and her friend/on-again-off-again-beau, Jackson.

Hanging out in some awesome early June warmth.

Alayna and her friend, Jazmine.

Abby and Allie.

Abby does pull-ups on Jackson's arm.  Why not.

Alayna and her some of her now middle-school-aged squad: Gabby, Noah, Christina, and Makara.

Larkin and Abby

The first Saturday of the month, Kris took Alayna on one of her last Girl Scout field trips of the season, how to some pony ranch where the girls got to ride ponies all afternoon long.  Which, as you know, is something little girls absolutely hate.

While they were off doing that, my good ol' high school/college buddy, groomsman, and old bandmate in J.L.F.P. and Exit 86 (both terrible, by the way), the infamous Jon Kimmel, and his wife, Kat, swung out to Midland to hang out with Yours Truly.  They were in from Chicago visiting some family in mid-Michigan, and came out to see me, so I took them out to Radio Wasteland to peruse some local, used vinyl.

Kimmel's been into vinyl almost as long as I've been, but has, like 1/20th of the number of records that I do.  I don't get it.

Giddy up

After Radio Wasteland - where I scored $50 of absolute awesomeness, by the way - I took the Kimmels out to our local microbrew, Midland City Brewing.  Not the greatest beer in the world, but definitely not the worst, either.  Vinyl and craft beer with one of your all-time best friends?  I can think of far shittier ways to spend an afternoon.

Someone brought a bunch of puppies by Kris' work later the next week, if only so the front desk staff could cuddle with them.  Not exactly sure why, but Kris obviously enjoyed herself.

Abigail on her Last day of 3rd Grade.

The Cannonball, on her Last Day of 5th Grade, and Elementary School. 

And one, last picture of the two of them together, at the school.  Nice job, Alayna.

Later that weekend, Abby stayed over at Ella's house, where my buddy Erik introduced the girls to some Wii virtual titles from the Sega Genesis.  Gotta appreciate the classics.

One of the must-get souvenirs for Yours Truly for our upcoming family vacation to Florida was some Disney ride soundtracks on vinyl picture-discs.  These are incredibly hard to buy online, and are only offered in the theme parks at select stores.  On Amazon and Ebay they cost nearly $50 apiece, which is ridiculous.  I was nervous about buying them in person at the parks, as the humidity and heat would surely warp and damage the records while carrying them around all day.  In a stroke of fortune, however, I found an online store that specialized in selling Disney media, and was able to buy these for the EXACT same price they were in the park ($23 apiece, plus shipping. . . a much better option that risking damaging them in the Florida heat.)

Picture discs are notorious for having a shitty sound, as the colored layer that creates the picture image is flattened onto the record grooves, creating surface noise and muffling the dynamics of the music.  These records, as you can see here, don't suffer from the imposed images - I was REALLY happy with both of my acquired 'souvenirs' from our Florida trip.  That, you know, I haven't even gone on yet.

So they have a few different picture disc soundtracks available from various Magic Kingdom rides, but the only two I really wanted were from my two, all-time favorite rides at all of Walt Disney World:  Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.  Both vinyl picture discs were flawless, and so now I'm struggling with whether or not I should keep these in playable rotation, or have them framed on a wall as a display.  Decisions, decisions.

The girls have been bugging me lately to let them play in our secret Crawl Space.  Whatever.

This is what our basement looks like on any given day.  I hate kids.

This is so f***ing beautiful I tear up just looking at it.

My white board, on MY last day of school.  I'm gonna miss this year's group, for sure.  Well, about 3/4 of them.

Packing up my classroom at the end of another school year (I have to label all my furniture because the custodians empty all the rooms to deep-clean the carpets over the summer, and they need to know which piece of furniture goes in what room when they're done.)

Not sure if you picked up on this or not, but I got out of work a full week AFTER my own daughters did.  That was fun.

Can you tell I'm excited for Summer?  I took this on a coworker's phone after she left it in a colleague's room.  You pretty much have to whenever that happens.  I think it's a law.

The evening after my last day of school, I met up with some of the guys in our social circle - Erik, Ryan, and Mitch - downtown to hit up the Beer Garden that they open up in a parking lot nearby Kris' church.  They have some food trucks, a few local craft beers on tap, and what I honestly believe is the LARGEST port-a-potty I've ever seen.  Look at the size of this thing, it's crazy - I think I could park my Focus in here.

Mitch (right) and I totally destroyed Ryan (left) and Erik at a game of Cornhole.  Wasn't even close, I've gotten pretty good over the last couple years.

The next day, in the early afternoon, I met up with Erik once again to drink local craft beer downtown, this time for Midland's annual Tapped festival.  Breweries from across the state all set up booths and kegs, and there's a lot of awesome beer to try.  You pay $20 to get in, which gets you a 6 oz plastic tasting glass, and six drink tickets (each time you fill up your glass costs 1 ticket.)  You could buy additional tickets at 5 for $10.

A lot of these breweries also had free merch for their patrons - buttons, stickers, pins, bottle openers, etc.  Erik and I did a sweep of all the breweries right away and I filled up an entire plastic bag filled with brewery merch.  FOR FREE.

They also had bands playing on that stage you see there.  Not great music, obviously, but hey - free is free, and when you're drinking good beer outdoors, you don't really care anyway.

See that Larkin building there?  That's Midland's Masonic Lodge, which - and I'm not sure if I've told you this before or not - I'll be joining later this summer.

Bumped into our real estate agent, Rick, who helped us get our current home.  He's an awesome guy.

About three hours in at this point.  Clearly having an awesome time.

Eventually, we just kept coming back to this particular brewery, as the ladies there, appreciative of our small talk and politeness, kept giving us mead for free.  No complaints here.

Drunken women dancing to a local band.  Why not, it's 6pm.

Winding down.

Erik helping tear down some kegs at the end of the festival

Shortly after leaving this festival, I had to pick up pizzas and make it back to the house for Alayna's birthday party.

The next day was Father's Day, and Kris and the girls gave me these wax melts that, when placed upon an oil burner, give off the exact same smells as my two favorite rides, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.  My roommates know me well.

The next week, the girls had Vacation Bible School at Kris' church (First United Methodist), downtown.  This week was safari-themed (or something), so we took advantage of this photo op they had set up right next to the parent sign-in paperwork.  The Larsons and Johnsons also had their kids enrolled in the same VBS camp - 'cause free daycare is free daycare, after all - so we decided to get some dinner after dropping the kids off.

We three couples went a block down Main Street from the church to Diamond Jim's for dinner, and I bought a couple pints of this Ring of Fire ale, which was absolutely incredible.  Jalapeno and Habenero in an ale?  Sign me the f*** up.

Can you spot the dog?

Abby, enjoying the 'swing' she and Ella built in their tree fort in our backyard.

Sort of getting along with her sister, who insists that - because it's in her backyard - the tree fort also belongs to her.  We've had quite a few sisterly fights over property rights in this house over the last week or two.

Watson, losing his damn mind over the sprinkler.  Again.

Kris and all the moms in our social group designed and purchased matching shirts (seriously) one weekend because it was one of the girls' birthdays.  And that's what Midland moms do, I guess.

A much more tame affair than when we dads go out together, that's for sure.

Posing in Bay City 

Alayna had been begging Kris for awhile to dye her hair red before the upcoming Florida troop, so Kris obliged.

Bozo the Clown, the happy camper.

The girls and I took Watson up to Clare the Monday before we left for Florida, as Dad and Cindy were generous enough to watch him for us while we're gone (Watson gets along really well with their two dogs, and is pretty low maintenance to take care of.)  While we were there, the girls made good use of their pool.

 

 Never gets old.

Cannonball's cannonball. 

Watson was not happy with his family leaving him in Clare, he knew what was happening.  Oh well.  Have fun in Clare, asshole, we're going to Disney World.

One last beer before leaving early the next morning for Detroit and the airport.  This is a Michelada - Bud Light mixed with tomato juice, which is an awesome summertime drink if you've never tried it before.  Sounded gross to me as well, but damn if it isn't delicious.

- Brian