A Bunch of Other Stuff That Happened in October

Kris and the girls help out at her church's Crop Walk. . .

Jesus H. Christ, people.

This month was busy. Even by Hough standards.

I blame my kids, honestly. They've successfully destroyed any 'relax at home' time after a full day of work, five days a week, for the entire f***ing month.

Alayna is involved in Orchestra, Honors Orchestra (yes, that's a separate thing that requires it's own after-hours time slot on a weekly basis), and Drama.  Abby is also involved in Orchestra, but also the additional Midland Community Orchestra, Confirmation Class at Kris' church, Physical Therapy (due to a minor and totally treatable scoliosis thingy), Poms, and - at least for the tryouts, at any rate - Volleyball. Add to that our usual mix of Church Youth Group activities, fundraisers, school football games (because they have to go to every, frickin' one these days), our local friend group (who hang out on an almost weekly basis these days), and - thank God - work and school, and we've practically had zero down time in, like, six weeks.

It's been frickin' horrible.

Behold the chaos. . .

To top it all off, I had a bad case of bronchitis the first couple weeks of the month, which put a screeching halt to my usual gym routine (not that I would have been able to find time to go to the gym anyway with all the damn crap my kids had going on every single day.) I went once on Oct. 3rd, then again on Oct. 30th.  Aaaand that was it for the month of October. I'm hoping to pick things back up in November and December, and try to get my ass out there for the usual three-to-four sessions like I was doing.  Because nothing at all is going on in November and December, am I right?

Right?

So yeah, here's an ass-load of pics and video that highlights another whirlwind month with the Houghs.

See ya later. . .

Towards the beginning of the month, Kris and the girls participated in some kind of a 'Crop Walk' event associated with Kris' church.

This is like one of those things where you walk around in a giant loop for awhile in order to help stop. . . something. In this case, it's hunger.  I've always wondered how walking helps issues like this, it's never made any sense to me.

Abby and some of her friends, hanging out after school towards the beginning of the month.

Another Snapchat selfie with the Hough girls.

Towards the beginning of the month, we had some 'trauma response' professional development at my district's high school (since with the rate school shootings are increasing in the United States these days, it's really a matter of 'when' it happens and not 'if') so that teachers and staff could be prepared for the worse. They rotated us around between four, different workshops that specialized in different areas of awareness and/or response, and at this particular one, we had these artificial limbs - complete with knife and bullet wounds - where we were taught how to apply emergency tourniquets to stem bleeding. Crazy to think this is part of a teacher's professional development these days, but here we are. . .

We updated our cable box this month, which kicked up our Wi-Fi quite a bit in terms of speed. Kris had been talking with a serviceman from Spectrum when he was at her office replacing their own Wi-Fi setup, and so she started talking about how our internet lately hasn't been as fast as it used to be.  The guy was nice enough to look up our account while he was there and he was blown away: turns out the cable box model that we've been using has been out of service for years - they don't even make them anymore - and he was honestly surprised it even worked still. Within the next couple of days, they had a technician come out and hook us up with brand new equipment, which has been awesome.

Following one of Northeast's 8th Grade Football games, the Johnsons and Larsons went out to eat at The Boulevard and brought Abby (at right) along with them. While they were there Erik sent me this pic of Abby, Ella and Sophie using what appears to be telekinesis or something in order to read one another's thoughts.

Later that week, Kris and some of the other Northeast Pom moms went up at the Midland Community Center pool area in order to treat the team to a 'social day' - just a way to get the team all out and doing something fun that didn't involve exhausting themselves at a practice (Abby is at the far right.)

Abby and Nica (I think that's who that is, I can't keep track of 'em all. . .)

Abby plummets down the slide.

And here's Abby with two other kids. No idea who they are.

More dog pics, courtesy of the Cannonball. All she seems to do with camera is take pics of the dogs sleeping on the couch.

The Best Costume trophy for this year's annual Hough Halloween Party, which I bought off Etsy from the same seller I did last year (you can see last year's trophy off to the background at the left - Kris won Best Costume last year.)

The morning of me and Kris' anniversary, her and I hung out in the basement to prep for the upcoming Halloween Party. It takes weeks of planning out guest lists, supplies, etc. to pull off our parties each year. While I spear-headed this, and picked up costume crap off Amazon and elsewhere (hence the Chromebook), Kris worked on her costume. We've been married long enough that this is the kinda shit we're totally cool with on an anniversary.

The Johnsons took Abby and Ella out to the Fashion Square Mall in Saginaw in the late morning through the afternoon (not sure what they were all shopping for.) While out and about, they had to stop and get the girls some over-priced pretzels from this pretzel joint (that our kids always force us to stop at.) This place is ridiculously over-priced, I can't stand it.

Later that evening, Kris and I knocked out our annual 'hands' pic in front of the champagne. Alayna once again jumped in to provide a couple additional 'years' for us (we're to that point now.) Appreciate the hell out of this picture, Internet - it took many, many takes in order to get it to work. Kris is having to kneel down over the counter, with me standing directly over her and Alayna leaning off to the side, just to get everyone's hands in frame. 

Later that evening, hanging out in the Study, listening to vinyl.

The following week, we found ourselves at yet another after-school Northeast Football game, where Abby and the rest of the Northeast Pom squad performed the fight song and half-time routine.

It was cold and drizzly out, so my ass was soaked from sitting on the wet, metal bleachers. I hate going to football games.

After a few weeks of coughing - and one week where I was running a temperature - I was put on three different prescriptions for bronchitis. Took another week or two for it to clear, but I was basically coughing the entire month. It was super cool.

Scenes from a middle school boys' bathroom.

Teenage boys are the f***ing worst. Fortunately, crap like this is not part of my job description.

The Larson kids had check-up/teeth cleaning appointments at Kris' dental office one afternoon, and Abby was scheduled for a similar time slot. Morgan was nice enough to pick up all three kids from Northeast and drive them over for their appointments, then took them all out for ice cream afterwards. You know, because that's healthy for one's teeth.

Alayna and her friend, Cristina, watching some kinda something at some auditorium at some point. I have no idea when or where this is, but it apparently happened this month (got the pic off her phone.)

This picture adequately represents the personalities of our two dogs.

Abby and Sophie work on constructing a personalized photo collage and frame for Ella's Birthday (remember that?) In the process, they got pink paint all over my frickin' coffee table, but fortunately it cleaned up fine.

A pretty good spin on the ol' Halloween stout. Not one of my favorites, but I'd definitely pick it up again. Very dark, very heavy.

The OG's (as they like to call themselves) the morning after Ella's sleepover birthday thing at the Bavarian Inn. Erik and Courtney took everyone out to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.

Fall leaves, starting to change colors and die. Bring it on, Fall. . .

Picked up a new hat from this company that I saw online from this site called Relentless Betrayal. Pretty awesome packaging it was shipped in.

Kris' finished photo op boxes for our annual Halloween Party. Lotta work went into constructing these bad boys, definitely glad it turned out as good as it did.

A couple times per year, the Northeast Football Teams get to play rival schools at Midland High School. Consequently, this means that the Northeast Pom team gets to perform at the beginnings of these games and at the Half-Times. 

The Northeast Fight Song, played during the 1st Quarter of the game.

The Half-Time routine.

We had a couple half-days at school later that week, on account of Parent/Teacher Conferences. My kids had two elective classes then, like, a half an hour of 'core' class time. That's not enough time to really do much of anything, so I just brought in my Super Nintendo, hooked it up to my Promethean Board, and let the kids play Mortal Kombat II and other SNES classics to run out the clock. Teaching 101, folks.

The very next day, while I was tackling 'Day Two' of Parent/Teacher Conferences, Kris met up with the Larsons and Johnsons for the second Northeast Football game at Midland High (the Larsons' son, Jackson, is on the team.)

Another game, another Half-Time routine. . .

They attempted to get some team pictures afterwards, before the kids exited the field.

Abby

Aaaaand one with the Old Lady.

Another Snapchat selfie from the Cannonball. This was taken Friday, after school, while Lexi and her mom were running around tackling errands (and logging in some driving time for Lexi in the process.) Alayna was staying the night at Lexi's, since Kris and I were, at this point in time, down in Tennessee for Bryan and Chelsey's wedding.

Scenic shot down Wildwood Drive, right around the corner from our house.

After yet another Northeast Football game, Abby and Ella demonstrate their now-famous, Best Friend Handshake routine. . .

These games are frigid as hell - I can't stand it.

Dad and Cindy came out to watch Abby perform for this particular football game, because about an hour later we had to return to the school in order to check out her orchestra perform at Music a la Mode - the big, annual music night that features the school's various orchestras, bands, and choirs.

Abby (front row cello, on the left), Ella, and the rest of the 8th grade orchestra played three songs in the Northeast gym. Unfortunately, we all had to sit through the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade orchestras, along with the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade bands. It was a looooooong night.

(Hopefully those are three different songs. If not. . . my bad.)

A night or two later (yes, this is all after school/work, on random weeknights - I told you this month was f***ing nuts) Kris and I drove Abby over to the Midland Community Center conference room for the annual Northeast Pom Award Banquet. This wasn't as tear-jerking or as big of a deal as the one that comes in March (remember?), at the end of Competition season, so there wasn't as much food on hand - just desserts and drinks. The team (with the exception of a couple girls) all sat at one big table, and took a ridiculous amount of group selfies throughout the evening.

Ella, Maddie, some girl I don't know, Abby, and Nica.

Abby and Nica.

Lots of selfies this evening. You can imagine how much this was for us parents.

Kick line.

The 8th Graders on the team all got roses from their coach.

Abby and Ella, stopping to smell the (yellow) roses.

Kris took a LOT of rose pictures. . .

Ella and Abby with their pom coach.

We found these pics off Abby's phone, towards the end of the month.

Alayna and the MHS Drama Club. They put on Othello at the Central Auditorium for a run of three or four nights towards the end of the month.

The morning after our big Halloween Party, I found someone had written in my tentative 'itinerary' for the first four days of November. Clearly the work of Mitch. . .

The day after the party, I took our first batch of leaves out to the curb. Just the front yard shown here, as the maples always fall a week or so before the giant oak in the backyard goes.

Halloween Night, we once again went over to the Johnsons' for their annual Trick or Treat the Horseshoe (the commonly used nickname for their stretch of Sweetbrier) Party. We've done this the last four or five years, and it's always a good time - sure beats the hell out of staying at home to pass out Halloween Candy to random-ass trick-or-treaters. This beer was kind of a let down - I've been sitting on it for a year or two now - but it wasn't terrible.

At 8.6%, you only need one of 'em, folks.

Like every previous year, adults hang out around the fire in the driveway while our kids terrorize the local neighborhood. And of course we pass out candy to kids (along with drinks to the adults) throughout the evening.

I ran Alayna (the pirate at far right) over to her friends house before we went over there so that she and her squad (shown here) could trick-or-treat a different neighborhood in town.

(I think this back shot was taken so that you could see their tails. . .?)

Abby and Ella, as Cookie Monster and Elmo, show off their costumes before setting off on their annual candy quest.

Showing off their trademark handshake. Again.

And another one with their friend, Harper.

The food spread here, while not quite to the level of our parties, was really, really good.

It was a lot colder than last year, but it was still fun hanging out for a few hours.

My nightcap at the end of the night, after we got home and threw on one, final Halloween movie - one of my favorite Halloween craft beers.

Abby ended up staying the night at the Johnsons' on Halloween Night, even though it was a school night and everything. These girls are nuts for thinking this was a good idea, but they got up and around the following morning without issue I guess. And so ends another chaotic month with the Houghs - we'll see ya next time, folks.

- Brian