Auld Lang Syne

 Happy New Year, America!

In the past, we've usually kept New Year's Eve as a pretty tame affair, but - after this year - it's probably going to join the ranks of Hough Family Parties, along with our annual Halloween and St. Patrick's Day ones.  And it happened pretty randomly.

Since moving back to Michigan, we've usually just hosted our old camping friends, Rita and Smitty, for the evening.  They're close with our kids, having camped with us throughout the state over the years, and we've kept it a pretty chill tradition - watching the Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve broadcast on ABC, eating pizza, and catching up.  Last year, due to Smitty getting Covid, they didn't come up, so we invited the Johnsons and Boses over, but again - it was a chill time.

This year, with my brother Chris and his family back in Michigan, we invited them over, along with Rita and Smitty.  My other Sausage Pad compatriots - Zack and Damon, along with their wives - were going to come up from Kalamazoo, but had to cancel at the last minute.  Seeing how we were going to have so many people on hand, we said 'screw it' and invited the couples from the inner circle of our friend group over as well.

And that's how a normally mild undertaking turned into a somewhat smaller party.

With my newly-acquired beer pong table set up in the garage and a bar-worthy karaoke set up established in the Study, were were definitely ready to entertain.  We considered a dry run for our upcoming St. Patrick's Day party, which would probably have double the amount of guests, if past parties are any indicator.

So what follows, dear readers, is a brief rundown of how the Houghs rang in the New Year.  

Check it out. . .

Chris and Nicole - sans their three kids (for once) - came over around 6:00pm, before the big rush of other folks, and we killed some time playing some of our friend group's go-to trivia games that we've been enjoying recently.

Not my favorite Holiday beer, but it wasn't terrible.

Alayna's friend, Lexi, was staying the night this evening (we'd have a few houseguests tonight.)

It's rare that I lose a trivia game, and tonight was no exception - I mercilessly beat the shit out of everyone.

While we adults continued our bouts of trivia, the kids eventually grew bored with it and moved into the Study, where we had set up the karaoke system.  It was a big hit with the teens, for sure (Alayna was singing, but refused to do so while the camera was trained on her.)

Nicole was able to sneak this one from her vantage in the dining room - that's about as good as you're gonna get, folks.

Slainte

After an hour or so, our good friends Rita and Smitty rolled in, followed shortly thereafter by our next door neighbors, Dave and Sherri.  At that point we decided to transition to beer pong in the garage (on my newly-acquired, regulation-size table.) Nicole is pretty cut-throat at this game, as is our neighbor Sherri. 

Abby and Ella, bustin' out jams.

By 9:00pm, our usual Midland friends started rolling in from their other engagements - the Colliers, Johnsons, and Bos families (the remaining inner circle family - the Larsons - were busy entertaining their own extended family at their house for the evening, so they were out for the night.)

Courtney and Mees, picking out karaoke songs.

Beer pong is a new fan favorite with this group - Ryan and Erik teamed up and were basically unstoppable all night.

Yelling at the Alexa to play what I f***ing asked it to.  Our robot has strokes from time to time.

After hours of beer pong, karaoke, and games, it was time to break out the champagne bottles (and sparkling grape juice for the dozen or so kids we had on hand by this time) and watch the countdown.

Distributing champagne flutes to the masses (Chris and Nicole had left a couple hours before this - apparently big crowds are not their jam.)

Awaiting the countdown. . .

Mitch, Smitty and Rita

And so it begins. . .

Happy New Year, America.

About an hour or so after midnight, most folks headed home with their more-than-exhausted children.  Smitty, Erik and I stayed up pretty late - singing karaoke to absolutely no one, as everyone else had wisely gone to bed.  Here's to 2023, folks.

- Brian

Other Crap That Happened in December

 Welcome back, readers.

December, as always, was absolutely insane.  The Holidays knock everything up to a fever pitch, obviously, and that was definitely the focal point of the month.  We did a lot, and we have a lot to show for it - lots of get-togethers with friends and family, lots of concerts, and (miraculously) quite a bit of snow.

I'll just go ahead and jump right into the pics and videos - there's a lot to go through this month.

Behold. . .

Reviewing Holiday vinyl (and, by the look on my face here, I'm clearly not a fan of the LP in question.)

I added another figure from Weta Workshop for my burgeoning Lord of the Rings collection.  Aragorn, son of Arathorn.  Rightful King of Gondor.

Kris with another selfie with our resident fat ass.

We had to bump our annual Friendsgiving this year back into the first week of December, which the Griffins once again hosted.

This salsa was on hand, featuring the name of the girls' former principal at Chestnut Hill Elementary.

The dads always get shoved over to the little kids' table.  Pretty fitting.

Meanwhile the wives get the fancy, big folks table.

Later on in the evening, we gathered around to play through some boardgames (husbands vs. wives, of course.)

The charades aspect of these games are always hilarious.

Kris and I had to leave Friendsgiving relatively early because we had to get up pretty damn early in the morning in order to make it down to St. Charles (I think that's where it was) for Abby's scheduled Solo & Ensemble orchestral performances.  Along the way, we drove through some random town in the middle of nowhere and spotted the local Masonic lodge.

Abby was forced to play a cello duet with some kid from her orchestra that was, well, pretty terrible.  Abby, however, is really, really good at her instrument, so they somehow squeaked out a II score on their ensemble performance.

After that kid left, we had an hour to kill at the local high school before Abby had to perform her solo piece for the judges (unfortunately, no one was allowed inside the room where she performed for the panel, so we didn't get a video of her actually performing her Brahms piece.) She knocked it out of the park, though - scored a I, the highest score you can get.

Private performance for the dog.  Of course.

(This is the piece she played for her solo performance where she scored the 'I.')

We got to hang out at home for a couple hours before we had to shuttle Alayna up to Midland Center for the Arts, where her orchestra was performing in the annual Rhapsody Rendezvous.

Okay, so the video sucks here, but I didn't want to have my phone's bright-ass screen showing for all the people sitting behind me in this large, dark room.  I kept it subtle as possible, and you can't see Alayna at all, but you can still listen to their song I guess.  You're welcome. 

Kris was able to coerce the teenager into a posed picture following her performance.

Wrapping presents and organizing stocking contents while the girls were away at Kris' church's weekly youth group.

Abby and Ella, upon being picked up from youth group one Sunday evening,

Kris asked me to make a meat loaf for her one night after work, which turned out just as bad as you'd think it would.  I can't cook to save my life, I have no idea why she asks me to do shit like this.

A few nights later, waiting for Midland High's orchestra to put on yet another performance (lot of orchestra shit this month.)

Alayna's off to the left. . . somewhere. She recently was promoted to 2nd Chair for the first violins.  In layman's terms, this means she's the second best violinist in the entire High School.  As a f***ing freshman.

We even got her to pose for a picture afterwards.  Huzzah.

This is the kind of crap that happens in Alayna's classes these days.  No idea what's going on here.

While the meatloaf may have looked like absolute garbage, the Cannonball was a huge fan.  She eats the hell out of some meatloaf.

Kris and some ladies from her church study group, wrapping some presents for the homeless (or poor people, I forget.)

One weeknight, while hanging out watching TV, Kris and I suddenly realized that both girls looked way taller than they seemingly had been a couple days ago.  So we stood each one back-to-back with their mom in order to see for ourselves how much they had grown.

Abby has skyrocketed this year - it's crazy how much taller than her mom she is now.

One Friday - I think the second weekend of the month - Kris' boss took all her coworkers and their spouses out to eat at One Eighteen, a swanky restaurant downtown.  We had a private room and everything, it was pretty awesome.  I don't want to know how much the doctor's bill was at the end of the evening.

Later that weekend (on a Sunday) we drove down to scenic Saginaw (in a questionable part of town, that's for damn sure) to celebrate Victoria's son's first birthday with one of the Laginess branches of her extended family.

Julian prepares to chow down on some sugar.

I'm a big hit with the students these days, make no mistake about it.

(This means I'm awesome.)

This is the sort of weird shit we find on our kids' camera reels.

Another day on the job, hard at work.

The Santa Train (or whatever it's called), in front of the Courthouse, downtown Midland.

Abby's an odd duck.

This was total bullshit.  Everyone was preparing for Snowmaggedon the last few days before Winter Break kicked off, anticipating a once-in-a-generation blizzard that never, ever materialized (at least not for those of us in the Tri-City area.)

More like 4 inches, weather people.  Jesus.

Kids are weird.

Samson can't get enough of this chick.

No idea.

This happens on a nearly constant basis in the background of our everyday lives.

I picked up some vinyl here and there throughout mid-November - mid-December, due to the great sales that kept popping up.  I shelved them for the time being, seeing how I was in Holiday Music mode, and only broke them out towards the end of the month.  Each of these retails for $30 - $40, but I scored all of these for $5 - $15.  Absolute steal.

Alayna's new turntable setup (I eventually want to get her a standard vinyl cabinet setup, but we'll see how much she gets into this first.)

My folks got me a Rancid flag for Christmas this year - based on their sophomore album, Let's Go - but it hadn't shown up by the time we celebrated Christmas with them. Ironically, it came the very next day, so I made a point to swing by and grab it when Erik and I swung in to town a couple days later.

One of my Christmas presents that I got for myself this year was a fancy-ass lightsaber.  My brother, Chris, picked one up for himself as well, so I caved to peer pressure.

This is the Liberator model from SabersPro - I paid extra for the premium model, which looks and feels better than their standard model. Comes with twelve different lighting options, sixteen different sound fonts, numerous other visual effects, and a score of badass features.

Pretty much the next best thing to owning a real one (which probably won't happen in my lifetime.)

When testing out Alayna's new turntable's 45 adapter, I stumbled upon an old 45 record that my parents bought for me from Showbiz Pizza Place back in the early 80s, featuring two songs from the infamous Rockafire Explosion.  We tested it out on Alayna's turntable and the thing was still in pristine condition.  Dad let me keep it, which I was beyond thrilled with.

How is this not copyright infringement?

The B-Side.

Seriously. . .

Cataloging new additions to my burgeoning record collection (sometimes the markings on the runout groove or so tiny and fair that you have to employ a magnifying glass.) Kris thinks I'm a huge nerd, but she doesn't appreciate the struggle.

Six year old Brian Hough has his dreamed finally realized, decades later.  It's hard not to resort to a child mentality when swinging this bad boy around.

Abby tries out one of her stocking stuffers (I don't know what this is or what it does.)

As previously mentioned, a couple days after Christmas, while still on break, Erik and I decided to head up to Clare to check out Jay's and General Jim's.  I'm always on the lookout for cheap .22LR ammo, and Erik is an avid hunter and gun enthusiast, so we figured we'd make a day trip out of it before returning to Midland to bar-hop with a few of the other dads who were getting equally stir-crazy after being cooped up with their families for a week.

Erik makes a friend.

After poking around Jay's for awhile, we left (empty-handed, surprisingly enough) and headed over to General Jim's.

Some flight suit, I assume from some no-longer-in-existence Eastern European country.

We left General Jim's - again, not buying anything - and then swung by Dad and Cindy's house real quick so that I could pick up my Rancid flag.  We then stopped off at Ruckle's, a Clare institution, for a few beers.

Nothing like some cheap beer with a bunch of townies to round out your day.

Passing some Amish as we got onto US-10 for our return trip to Midland.

When we rolled back into Midland, we swung by and picked up Collier and Mitch from their respective houses before jumping back on 10 for Bay City.  We stopped off first at Beaver's Pub in downtown Bay City for some food and drinks (I had this cider which was pretty decent.)

Mitch and Erik

Chicken wrap and fries.  I ate way too much - I'm seriously going to need to start hitting the treadmill soon.

Alayna, as I've said before, is going on a cruise to Mexico over Spring Break, so we've been picking her up things for her upcoming trip here and there over the last couple of weeks.  While I was out galavanting with the dads in Clare and Bay City, Kris took Alayna clothes shopping and picked up a coverup for her to wear on the cruise ship.

Meanwhile, back at Beaver's Pub, we spotted a bizarre piece of taxidermy on their wall above the door that led outside.

Who mounts a frickin' ostrich? 

Back at home, the dogs were doing what they do best.

After Beaver's, we drove across town to a dive bar called Chet's for some shuffleboard (which we've enjoyed before.)

Mitch is pretty good, but the rest of us were complete garbage.  After spending a couple hours of Chet's we hit up a local Midland dive bar, over by the overpass, where some drunk moms tried picking us up (good to know we still got it) before heading home.

Checked off a few highly sought-after LPs that I've been wanting for years.  This merchbar.com site is incredible.

Managed to locate this rare find at Walmart, after having zero luck over the last year or so.  Highly rated .22LR ammo in bulk, but it's rarely in stock.  Whenever it is, I pounce on it.  Online it's like $120, but at Walmart, in person, it's only $85.  I had Kris check for me while she was out buying last-minute groceries for our upcoming New Years Eve party.

Also suffering from Cabin Fever, Kris and Abby snuck out one afternoon to check out Avatar 2: The Way of Water at Midland Cinemas (I was doing something else and Alayna had already seen it with her squad of friends.) Not surprisingly, they cried.

While Yours Truly was showering for our New Year's Eve party, Watson positioned himself outside the door to keep me safe.  Samson might be Kris' dog, but Watson is unquestionably mine.

- Brian