Everything Else from the Month of Caesar

Well, July is finally over. 

I can honestly say that it will surely go down as one of, if not the busiest summer months the Hough Family has ever had.  A ten-day vacation in Florida, a week at Sanford counseling at a Junior High Camp, a four-day stint up at Eight Point Lake at our family's cottage, the Fourth of July, and several social obligations with our friends.

A whole hell of a lot of July.  And while most of the aforementioned highlights I've already disclosed, there were some other notable highlights to this month as well.  Kris recently decided to undertake the infamous Marie Kondo process of purging and de-cluttering our house, which became the focus on many of our mutual days off.  Yours Truly finally interviewed with the Freemasons, after waiting two months since my initial petition to the local lodge was submitted (the lodge goes 'dark' during the summer months, and they were unable to meet with me sooner.)  Some of our good friends moved away to New Jersey, so there were multiple send-offs for the them and their family.

A crazy, blur of a month which went by in record speed, but holy hell was it a lot of fun.

So yeah.  Here's a few things that popped up here and there between all of the other crap.  Enjoy. . .

Kris kicked off our family 'Kondo'ing' process (yes, the Japanese lady's last name can be used as a verb) where one is supposed to start things:  clothing.  She spent eight hours emptying the contents of her side of the closet and dresser onto our bed, then systematically began the process of choosing which articles of clothing 'bring her joy' (a phrase they often use in the Netflix series and books.)

In the end, she ended up getting rid of nearly half her clothing.  I got rid of about a third of mine, since half of my wardrobe is work clothing, and I rely on it during the school year.  It only took me about fifteen minutes, though.  Just sayin'.

On my birthday, later in the morning, I went to Radio Wasteland to spend a couple hours perusing their wares (a tradition I've adhered to the last few years since they've been open in town.)  I walked away with two new LPs and an arm-load of vintage treasures, but left this gem behind (I took a pic to send to Kris to see if she was interested. . .  she wasn't.)

While I was gone to the record store, the girls decided they'd decorate the house up for my birthday.  Ella, shown here, has more or less moved in with us this summer.  Her parents live around the block from us, so her and Abby have been inseparable this year.

While still waiting for me to return from the record store (yes, I take my time on my birthday), Kris took them up to Plymouth Park for the daily Meet Up and Eat Up program for a late lunch, put on by Midland Public Schools.

In the afternoon, Kris let the girls swim at the neighbors' pool (they - the Angelotti's - were vacationing in Ireland and told us we could use it as often as we wanted, joking it'd be good to stir up the pool once and awhile during their time away.)  We'd end up using this pool on a nearly daily basis throughout the month.  It was awesome.

That evening, Ella's parents - Courtney and Erik (who sponsored my membership petition with the Freemasons, himself being a Master Mason) - swung over for an evening bonfire and some s'mores.  I've had far shittier birthdays.

An amazing beer.  Dragonmead does their homework.

Sending me a picture from home while I was slaving away as a camp counselor up at Sanford Lake. . .

. . . aaaaand of course there's a weird one.

Free Slurpees on 7-11 Day.

Playing Hogwarts Chess. . . with a couple stuffed animals that they picked up at Universal Studios' Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Who the hell knows why - this is while I was still at camp.

When I finally got back from camp, the second weekend of the month, Kris and the girls were out of town:  Kris was away down in Kalamazoo with the Wives, and the girls were at her mom's house in Clare.  So I went over to my buddy Ryan's house and had a few beers around a campfire.  This Founders offering tastes exactly like a margarita, it's insane.

The next morning, with our wives and children still all out of town (his wife was in Kalamazoo with Kris, as well), Ryan and I loaded up some firearms and went shooting at the Midland Sportsmans Club.  We sighted in my .22 Ruger (shown here) again - I hadn't done so in a year or so - and tried out the new .45 sub-compact my brother Chris had given me before he left for Indiana.  It kicks like a frickin' mule.

After sighting in the .22 and playing around with handguns for awhile (always a good time - I really want to buy a 9mm), we went down to a third range and played with a few larger rifles Ryan owns (he collects firearms like I collect vinyl.)  We shot several magazines worth of ammo through an AK-47 and AR-15, the latter of which was a hell of a lot of fun (the other was meh.)

Yours Truly with an AR-15.  I can see why Trumpers love them so much, they're pretty rad to shoot.

One day while I was out and about running errand with the girls, we stopped off at Target.  Afterwards, on the way back out to the van, we found this:  four identical, black Chrysler Town and Country's (one of these is Kris' - I forget which one.)  There is a serious glitch in the Matrix. . .

Another day of destroying the living room.  And of course this wasn't cleaned up right away. . .

My previously-mentioned new handgun.  For free I'm definitely not complaining. . . but it's definitely more for, say, 'stopping' someone that breaks into your home rather than target shooting.  It kicks like crazy and so is hard to aim well.

One day, while the girls were both away on play dates and Kris was at work, I went to war with the Garage - yet another step on our Kondo'ing process this summer.  The first step was sweeping and blowing out all the debris, dirt and leaves that had accumulated in all the hard-to-reach corners of the garage over the last year or so.

Chris (who, like I said, was moving to Indiana towards the end of the month) was getting rid of some bar signs, and I told him I'd take a few to hang up in my garage.  He was dumping a lot of crap, but I stuck with the larger, nicer ones, which had a beer/Ireland theme to them (fitting for a Hough Family garage, for sure.)

This one is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Cleaned, wiped down, and well-organized.  The garage now 'brings me joy.'

This seriously took an entire day.  But it was soooooo worth it.

 

 

After our vacation at the Cottage, the girls went off to their respective summer camps.  Abby, who has recently started to show a budding creative side with each passing day - writing large-scale stories, drawing, singing, etc. - took an acting camp.  Their production this week was a collection of short stories pulled from Greek Mythology.

I brought along my SLR, but didn't take many photos.  Alayna took a few from my phone, and Kris filmed a bit with hers, but most of the video files were too large to upload to Blogger (I can hook you up if you're really dying to see them, though.)

Abby was the narrator for one of the stories, and had bit parts in two of the other ones.  Here she's, um. . . a rabbit?

The set was built on one of the smaller stages at Midland's Center for the Arts.

(She did the bulk of the narrating because the other girl could barely speak English. . .)

One more dance number to close out the show.

After the play, picking her up from the dressing room.

. . . and outside the Center for the Arts.

A truly great combination.

No idea.

This is how Marie Kondo wants you to fold your clothes.  In case you were curious.

Abby reads a story to a few of her plush animal friends (including her recently-acquired dog, Fang, from Universal Studios. . . who is inexplicably wearing my camping headlight.)

The Study, Kondo'd.  I routinely go through my vinyl and purge records I no longer want/listen to in order to sell at Radio Wasteland for store credit, so the record collection wasn't in need of being Kondo'd at all.  The library, on the other hand, hadn't been purged since 2016, so it was about time to work through that again anyway.  Over the course of a few hours, I shaved off three piles similar to the size you can see there on the floor before I was done, which was really hard to do.  Now I have more room on the shelves for more decor and artwork.  And books.

- Brian

Eight Point Lake '19, Pt. IV

(contd.)

Day IV

"The Cornhole Tournament, and the End of the Cottage"

Here we are at last:  the culmination of our week on Eight Point Lake.  The annual Cornhole Tournament, and we were fortunate enough to be blessed with beautiful weather projected for the entirety of the day.

Brian got up early to begin smoking dead animals for the evening's big feast.  In your face, vegans.

Chris, Nicole and the twins returned to the lake later on in the morning (their gamble for holding out for better weather having paid off substantially.)  Dad had promised the boys a boat ride, so we loaded up all the kids for a quick pontoon ride around the lake.

Dad and Samwise

Watson prefers to nap in the sun.  Can't say I blame him.

Nana

Louis

Gettin' down with some snacks on an incredibly chill boat cruise. . .

Sam had a turn at 'driving' the boat.

. . . so of course this happened.

We didn't cruise the lake long at all - the weather being as nice as it was, we decided to hurry back to the Cottage in order to stock up coolers, grab some towels, and head over to the Sandbar in order to let the little kids splash around in the lake.

Near-middle schoolers, prepping for another outing on the lake.

Dad shuts down Jax's choice of which song to play next on the pontoon's radio.  The music these kids are into these days is the f***ing worst.

The clan assembled, heading over to the Sandbar.

Stocking up on caffeine and sugar en route.

Showing the twins the Sandbar. . .

The older kids attempted a quick game of volleyball while we were up there, but it didn't last long.  Turns out none of the kids were really any good at it and they lost interest pretty quick.

Uncle Bryan and what's left of the Sandbar's pitiful treeline. . .

Splash attack, feat. the Disaster Twins.

They were way too into this. . .

We trashed the shit out of this boat.

Brian and the White Boat showed up shortly thereafter, dragging up the new tubing rig for kids to play on.

These three spent quite a bit of time on this thing, being pulled in towards the back of the boat before being pushed back out gain, back and forth, while we were anchored at the Sandbar.  Not sure how that's fun.

 

Before we left the Sandbar, Blake's friend, Nick, mentioned that he had seen what looked like Alayna's missing, inflatable Swan sitting on someone's lawn, on the far side of the lake.  On our way back, we decided to swing by and check it out.

Sure enough, it was.  At long last, Alayna and the infamous Swan were finally reunited.  The Great Hunt was over.

(Slightly more crowded on the ride back to the Cottage.)

Chelsey and Kris, catchin' up on some snacking.

Lucy came over to give Cindy a hand with preparing the evening's big tournament meal.

Wardrobe changes.  You'd think these two were presenting at a frickin' awards show how often they underwent this process. . .

Having passed the administrating torch to a new generation, Dad and Uncle Larry and I work at organizing the year's bracket and teams.

Watson sorta-patiently waited on the dock for the duration of the time I handled tournament business on the pontoon.

Bird friends, reassembled.

This year's teams, which were pulled totally at random out of a hat, then doctored up a little in order to let the womenfolk more time in the kitchen prepping for the meal.  As if the fates themselves wished it, the Borthers were once again paired up for another round of battle.

The beginning of the tournament.  We stripped it down as much as possible in order to keep games moving as quickly as possible - I don't think anyone really wanted to spend a whole hell of a lot of time playing this in such good weather, not while we had boats and a lake just waiting to be enjoyed.  Kinda pissed that I didn't get another picture of this thing after it was all filled out. . .

Kris and Brian face off against Bradley and Al. . .

Blake bides his time. . .

This year's tournament suffered from a few set-backs right out of the gate.  For one, not only was I competing again this year (on a competitive team that, for the last three years, has placed in the Top Three), but I was also officiating the entirety of the tournament as well as taking about 97% of the pictures.  As such, I was spread ridiculously thin and didn't photograph things nearly as well as I could have (and there were no pictures taken while the Borthers played through the series.)  On top of all of this, the Whites' dog, Duke, swallowed a f***ig fish hook and had to be taken to the vet.  Brian W. handled this, so Dad had to step in for him.  Him and Kris were knocked out in the following game, so once out of the tournament Kris took the girls down the road to enjoy some time at the lake's beach.

Chris and Nicole - and the twins - took off in the afternoon, the twins not being able to nap up at the Cottage what with all the people and commotion about.  They'd be leaving in a week or two for their new lives in scenic, kick-ass. . . Indiana.

Meanwhile, back at the beach. . .

The tournament rolls on.  Sluggishly.

Burying Abby in not-nearly-as-nice-as-Floridian sand.

Creepy Uncle Bryan.

Long story short, Nick and Jill took first this year.  They were a little lop-sided, both of them being A players - next year we have to make sure to remedy that.  Bryan and I placed a dismal third (Bryan, our A player, was having an off game this year.)

The silver medalists.

Champions and Runners-Up, 2019.

Christina and the Cannonball

We had to leave early in the evening, shortly after dinner, as Kris had to work in the morning and the girls were both starting summer camps through the Midland Center for the Arts the following day.  Before we left, we snapped our mandatory Family Picture on the Dock picture.  This would ultimately be our last summer at the faithful cottage we had frequented since the Summer of 2002, as Dad and Cindy are planning on buying their own property on the lake later in the summer.  This year was the final straw for everyone, forcing our family to address the long-running problem of a growing family and an ever-shrinking cottage.  Too many kids, grandkids getting older and wanting to bring friends along with them, not enough sleeping space, and only one frickin' bathroom.  It surely is the end of an era - nearly twenty years running - but it's far past time.  This time next year, we'll be corn-holing on a new battlefield.

- Fín - 

- Brian