Month of the Julii

'Sup fam.

The Cannonball pulls out of the driveway for her first SOLO drive as a motorist.

So anyone catch the Roman reference in the blog title up there? Anyone? Well, I'm not explaining it so we're just gonna move on.

July, of course, ended up being a little busier than June, which we expected right from the get-go. And a hell of a lot hotter, too - holy crap this month was hot. Hot and sunny, or hot and rainy, take your pick. Not that I'm complaining, though, 'cause Yours Truly has a sick tan these days, I had a heck of a glow up this month. Bronzed like a Greek God.

So I know that this is July and everything, and her 16th Birthday was two weeks earlier, but she had to finish clocking her last, twenty or so driving hours, and some of them had to be highway, some had to be at night, etc. We knocked 'em out whenever and wherever we could the last couple months (she didn't drive barely at all during the winter), and she aced her last driving test, but she wasn't fully licensed until the first of the month.

Anyway, despite scaling back on the usual camping trips and the frequency we went up to Eight Point, in comparison with previous years, we still had somewhat filled calendars throughout the month. Social outings, parties, our extended stay at the lake, a camping trip with my old high school buddies, a couple camps our kids were involved with (pom, youth group, etc.), and an end-of-the month visit from the Voigts.

Abby rode Shotgun for the inaugural drive. Ride or Die, Hough style.

Oh, and Kris still had to work.

Next month begins the Sunday of Summer, and the only thing noteworthy about that month - aside from the usual Back to School bullshit - will be Brocation 2024. As such, you can look forward to a considerably smaller installment of pictures and videos in August. For the time being, grab a drink, strap yourself in, and behold - the Houghs' July 2024.

Enjoy. . .

Our anxiety was through the roof, rest assured.

Our neighbors travel a lot during the summer, and hire Alayna to watch their dogs while they're away (feeding them twice a day, throwing a toy around the backyard for 'em, staying the night over there so the dogs don't get lonely, etc.) One of the arrangement's perks for Kris and I is that they let us have unlimited use of their pool, which we definitely take advantage of whenever we can.

I started playing Red Dead Redemption 2 again this month - not that much, but here and there when I could scrape together the time. It's a pretty deep game, with thousands of hours of possible gameplay (similar to, say, Skyrim.)

Didn't do a whole hell of a lot for my birthday this year (it was the day after the Bos' pool party, and everyone for the most part was out of town), but I made it a point to head over to Radio Wasteland to sell some old, unwanted records and score a handful of new records. Once home, I spent a few hours cleaning, re-sleeving, and cataloging my new additions in Discogs. . . per the usual.

While I was away at the record store, Kris and the girls spotted a deer walking around our neighborhood, which is something we haven't seen since June of 2017, thereabouts.

I asked Kris why she didn't shoot the damn thing and she, of course, didn't have a good reason. . .

My brother's a jerk.

My new additions from my birthday haul. That Red City Radio one was truly a diamond in the rough - I've been looking for that one for two or three years. It's pressed on gold vinyl and incredibly rare, and I got it for like $15 in Near Mint condition - for sure made my birthday this year.

Nothing beats a summer deluge. . .

Abby has to film these pom practices for her coaches regularly (now that she's on the high school JV team they're practicing most of the summer during weekday afternoons.)

You can tell my kids respect me 'cause they take pics of me napping on the couch after a day of the gym and yard work.

Halfway through the month, the girls left with their church youth group down to a teen church retreat somewhere in like Illinois for four or five days. Of course these two splurged on fancy coffees on one of their stops down there.

This was held at some university (I forget where, exactly), and was basically like a summer camp, with classes, small breakout group activities, field trips, and usual stuff like that.

Alayna and Abby shared a dorm room for the duration of their stay down there.

Alayna's bed (based on the comforter, here.)

They took pics of their entire setup, they were super excited to be staying in their own dorm room like a couple of college kids.

The Cannonball is not amused with her sister.

The girls and some creepy looking kid.

We routinely had to take pictures of the dog and text it to them because, you know, the girls really missed the dogs (not so much their parents.)

Abby on her bed.

A couple days into the girls' youth retreat, Kris and I headed downtown for Tunes By the Tridge and swung by Pizza Baker to grab some personal, flatbread pizzas (their pizza, while not Buccilli's, is pretty decent.)

This evening's jazz/rock quartet did a lot of instrumental versions of bands like Steely Dan and such, which I was cool with.

Kris works on her nails.

This douchebag decided to sit directly in front of me during the performance. He only had a frickin' field to work with. . .

Mitch and Erik came out to join us (most of the rest of our tribe was either busy or out of town.)

Kris enjoys getting pictures of me getting pictures of other people.

Free inflatable balls, courtesy of some random, local nail salon. Whatever, I'll take free merch, guys.

Meanwhile, in another state. . .

Next morning coffee time, listening to NOFX and hanging out with Watson.

(Not sure what's happening here.)

Abby and some trans singer that performed at the youth retreat (seriously.)

Girls have a weird app on their phone(s) that lets them design album covers from their gallery pictures, so they texted us crap like this throughout the week. Good to see they're paying attention at church camp. . .

Samson has this weird habit of jumping up on this bench in the backyard. For no reason.

The girls have spent the summer revamping their bedrooms (both wanting an 'older' aesthetic.)

Later that weekend, Kris and I opted for a childless bonfire in the backyard (our only one so far this summer, we're definitely slacking around these parts this year.)

Selfie for the kids.

The assembled youth at the retreat (our kids are in their somewhere.)

Another round of bronzing and margaritas in the neighbors' pool.

Last day of the youth retreat, Alayna grabs a selfie with some of the people from Kris' church.

That frickin' deer is back (Kris took this while leaving the house for her daily walk around the neighborhood.) Twice in a month, what the damn hell. . .

We decided to get ourselves matching tumblers for our upcoming Brocation '24 (the first weekend of August.) Mitch bought the cups and I had them engraved with our Kings of the Hill logo at Wellington Engraving (a local business that's done all of me and Erik's Masonic yeti engravings over the years.) Seven of us opted to have our nicknames on the opposite side of the KOTH logo, but Collier doesn't really have a nickname (yet) so he abstained this time around. From left to right: Omkar, Mitch, Yours Truly, Collier's mug (his is blank on the other side), Morgan, Tom, Erik, and Lonnie Big Balls.

Abby and the JV Pom team had a teambuilding activity during the last week of the month (they do stuff like this once and awhile so the team can bond outside of a normal practice.) For this outing the team met up down by the Tridge for some yoga. . .

Afterwards, they went out for pizza and ice cream at Pizza Sam's.

The next night, Alayna, Abby and Ella went back downtown to hang out in the Commons and check out the weekend's live music. Alayna drove 'em down so I didn't have to worry about fighting downtown traffic to extract them all once they were all funned out at the end of the night.

While they were down there they took 'artsy' pics around the Tridge area. . .

While the girls were downtown (and I was hanging out at home), Kris and the other Moms headed over to Bay City to celebrate Amy's birthday. She wanted to do the trolley thing Bay City has (where you drink around and sort of - but not really - drive the trolley by peddling.

They had about a dozen moms on hand and rode this trolley thing around for a couple hours, I guess - stopping off at random bars for rounds of shots here and there.

Meanwhile, in downtown Midland, the girls continued to get artsy pics of Abby posing around the Commons. . .

Abby wanted a pic of her in front of this sports car, apparently. Teenagers have zero chill.

Still riding around on the trolley.

Abby, channeling her inner Spiderman.

Kris. . . and two chicks I don't recognize (Amy had some other friends that aren't part of our tribe along for the evening.)

A big gaggle of middle aged women.

This doesn't look safe at all. . .

At Retro Rocks (where, if you'll recall, me and the guys frequented about a month earlier.)

Stephanie, Kris and Danielle.

Another round of bronzing and relaxing in the pool. We did this a lot this month.

Kris took Abby and Sophie to a local production of Sweeney Todd at Midland's Center for the Arts towards the end of the month (I had no desire to see it and Alayna was working at her new job at Taco Bell.)

The well-manicured backyard, grass as good as a frickin' golf course (unlike the front yard, which - thanks to our two maple trees sucking all the nutrients out of the ground - looks like a hobo's asshole.)

Finally trimmed and scaled down the hedges along the side of the yard, which looks a lot better than it did after the Blizzard of '24.

A glorious sunrise over our neighborhood (no idea what I was doing up that early.)

The Johnsons brought Abby along for something or other towards the end of the month, and they stopped off at Culver's to treat the kids to premium fast food (we never eat there, the line's always out the damn door.)

Alayna wanted to take the dogs for a ride in her car one afternoon when she was bored, so she laid down this fleece blanket so they wouldn't mess up her backseat (that blanket is going to remain in the car, just in case, she tells us.)

(Watson loves riding shotgun.)

Abby and I decided to break out some old Wii games one evening, and we tried out hands at bowling (for the first time since, like, 2012.)

(I crushed her.)

We did golf next, but both of us only played like one hole and then got bored with it. Just like real life golf, Wii golf is super lame.

I'm sure Mitch would not approve of my stance and swing.

My brother Jeff gave Abby his old Crosley record player, which was still in perfect working order, except the CD Drive was stuck. He had been unable to fix it, but after researching it online I was able to fix the drive and remove Jeff's old, burnt CD that had been in there for, like, fifteen years. Good as new, now.

Had a dentist's appointment one morning and when I pulled into the parking lot I found this asshole parked like this. It's not even like he's driving a nice car, it's some shitty, old sedan that's like 20 years old - why take up three spaces, guy?

So our friends the Voigts - who were practically family when we lived in Florida - flew up to Michigan this week due to a death in their extended family. We drove down to the funeral the day before, but the following afternoon they were passing through Midland on their way up to Elk Rapids for a family reunion and we met up for lunch at Midland Brewing Company.

Kris was going to swing out on her lunch break (she was working, as it was a weekday), and the girls drove separately because they both had eye appointments in the early afternoon. Seriously had to juggle a shitload of crap just to have lunch with some old friends, it was ridiculous.

We forget this place exists, honestly - the food and beer is good, but their hours are garbage (they close at like 8pm or something stupid.)

Alayna gets another .5 wide angle.

Kris and the Voigts (the girls had left by this point - we ordered their food the second we sat down so they had time to eat.) And no, I'm not in any pics because Kris doesn't know how to take pictures. It's not like me and Adam have been friends for 25 years or anything. . .

Abby had her eyes dilated at the eye doctor, so Alayna - of course - had to get a pic of it.

Abby engineered some temperature control in her room (because, you know, air conditioning isn't enough I guess. . .)

The girls hanging out with the dogs next door, yet again. Like I've said before, it's a pretty sweet arrangement we have with the neighbors: they get preferential dog-sitting (people come and stay at their house so their dogs are on familiar ground, at a cheaper rate than most kennels), and Alayna gets a solid chunk of change for feeding three small dogs once a day, playing fetch a couple times, and staying the night there. Oh, and we get to use their pool whenever we want.  Zero f***ing complaints here, folks. 

- Brian