Another Bleak Winter Month

Hey gang.

Kris and Alayna found the dress for her first prom this month. . .

February sucks, no matter which way you look at it. School's boring right now, the weather is abysmal, there's no sun to speak of, there's not much going on. Pretty much the worst possible time of the whole damn year. It's been so damn cold - going on nearly six weeks of temperatures hovering below 25 degrees - and snowy that we haven't gone anywhere outside of work and school. These doldrums don't cease until mid-March, when St. Patrick's Day offers us a rare respite of revelry in an otherwise bleak and mundane existence.

This year, February centered around pom for the first half of the month, and orchestra festivals for the latter. That was literally all we did on the weekends, with a scattering of social get-togethers with the usual suspects thrown in here and there whenever we could swing it (which wasn't much.) We're hoping that next month, with the weather (hopefully) warming up slightly, we'll start doing more fun stuff again.

So yeah, as usual here's your monthly dose of All Things Hough. Enjoy. . .

Hanging out with Lexi for a weeknight study session, towards the beginning of the month.

Later that evening, over at Cristina's house with Rita and Toby.

Had to celebrate Groundhog's Day with this cinematic classic. . .

Alayna whipped up this culinary masterpiece one evening. A cheeseburger with hash browns in place of a traditional bun. Not the healthiest option for dinner, but damn did it ever look good. This is the sorta grub you want to devour at 2am after an entire night out at the bar.

The Cannonball, hard at work in the orchestra room.

Heading in to Lodge for Royal Arch the first Wednesday of the month.

I've been making an effort to attend more monthly meetings lately - I have three each month, for the regular Masonic meeting, Royal Arch, and Commandery - but doing all three is pretty difficult on account of our packed, weekly schedules.

At school, this time of year finds my class learning about Westward Expansion. I always have my students play through the epic classic, Oregon Trail, on their chromebooks as part of the unit, and obviously I have to play through it as well so they can see what a total, Gen X badass I am.

Kris picked up the girls some Dunkin when she was out shopping downstate. Her priorities are straight.

The usual, morning routine in the girls' bathroom. This generally takes a couple hours every day. And of course they rarely fight during the process.

Watson and his beloved pickle (which is holding up insanely well considering he's played with it NON-STOP for months now.)

Samson, hanging out in Alayna's room one day after school.

Abby and the JV Pom team performing at halftime for a boys basketball game.

Kris and I were supposed to go see this Hades Town play at the Midland Center for the Arts with the Larsons, but I got super sick Friday at work and spent most of the weekend on the couch in pure agony. As a result, Mees ended up going as Kris' date.

In the seats, waiting for the show to start.

A few hours later, after the show ended, getting a pic in front of the sign.

The following Monday, after our insane weekend downstate for Abby's States Championship for pom, I was still pretty under the weather (fortunately I had taken the day off of work and spent the entirety of the day in bed.) Alayna and Watson came in at one point to check on me.

Another day on the couch, after work, where I get to hang out and relax for about 45 minutes before turning around and heading out to the gym for a couple hours. Burning the candle at both ends these days. Lots of fun.

We got another snow day a couple days later, and since our neighbors were down in Costa Rica for the week, they asked if we'd mind shoveling their driveway for them. FYI - shoveling two driveways, back to back, is JUST as fun as you'd think it'd be. . .

And in case you were curious, both the girls were still asleep while I was outside doing all of this bullshit. Lazy teenagers.

One of my students got me this for Valentine's Day. 'Milk Chocolate Flavored' doesn't sound very reassuring. . .

Abby and Brooklyn, working hard at school.

I have no idea what the hell this is on her face.

We find a lot of pics like this on Abby's phone. . .

Abby and the pom team held a 'camp' for a bunch of elementary-aged kids so they could learn how to pom. After the hours-long practice, parents got to check out the final performance at the high school.

We've had a lot of frickin' snow these last few weeks. Getting straight-up ridiculous out here.

One day after I was done with the gym, Mitch and Erik told me to meet them out at the local golf simulator, which is in the same strip mall that the Man Cave, Tobacco Shoppe, and Blackball Tattoo is in. I hung out for about an hour while they played through this virtual course, which was absolutely insane to watch. The technology involved in this is hard to wrap your head around: this virtual course is based on a real-life course (somewhere in Canada), and the people who designed it must've walked every square inch of the course with one of those Google Maps 360-degree cameras. Super realistic.

Abby's official pom pics for this season.

The Midland JV Pom Team.

The third week of the month, we had the annual Pom Banquet to attend (this year in the high school cafeteria, opposed to like the Community Center where they used to hold it back when she was on the Northeast team.) When we were walking in we saw the Johnsons pull up in Erik's truck, and they parked like this. We were curious about the parking job until we spotted Ella - who recently completed driver's training - behind the wheel. In her defense, her dad's truck is practically a tank.

After folks ate and they presented the usual player awards, the girls all posed for a team pic with their coaches.

Then - as always - we stood around for about an hour so the girls could get a variety of poses with various teammates, in varying combinations (probably for their Snapgrams, who knows.) Here we have Abigail, Harper, Ella and Abby.

Abby won a couple awards for her work this season, including one for 'Outstanding Execution' (basically she treats every practice like it's competition time.)

Super thrilled her mom asked a for a couple solo pics.

One with the coaches.

Abby, Ella and Harper wanted to recreate a couple of their middle school pics while they were at it. I combined them in PhotoGrid for her.

A fam pic. We're all very, very pale these days.

I feel like I need more bags under my eyes. . .

Abby and one of the varsity pom coaches (their team was also there this evening - the two high school teams combine their banquets, I guess.)

Ella and her requested flowers.

Kris changed the bulbs in our bedroom ceiling fan one evening, later that week, and didn't remember to check out the color tone of the bulbs first. So that was cool.

Abby and Nica. Not photoshopped at all.

This is the image Midland High uses to advertise upcoming MHS Hockey games in all their online 'marketing' (whatever the school equivalent of that would be.) If you look closely, you can see Abby and Nica - who, during hockey season, attend these games religiously (for boy-watching, despite what Abby says about liking the sport itself) - right above the player's head on the left. She's super proud about this.

That Friday night, Kris and I met up with the Johnsons for dinner and drinks at the Boulevard, sans kids (which is always awesome.)

Some old guy at the table next to us - who, based on his demeanor, was probably twelve beers deep by the time we got there - kept buying our table shots.

Courtney and Kris, talking Disney (we're going to Disney World with the Johnsons in June this year.)

(Our waitress photo-bombed us.)

Kris picked up this dog ornament art kit thingy around Christmas, but we never opened it up to try it out. That weekend, as we were sitting around the house bored, we decided to give it a go.

You wet the dog's paw, then press it down into this pre-made clay. Then the clay air-dries over the course of the day and you have an imprint of your dog's paw preserved for all time (or whenever you decide to toss it out.)

Clearly some dogs are better at this than other dogs. . .

Look how much fun Samson is having with this. . .

Yeah, this didn't turn out that awesome. Not sure what we're going to end up doing with this, but I'll be damned if this monstrosity ends up on our living room Christmas Tree. . .

Sunday evening, as we got ready for yet another super-fun week of work and school, Alayna does some homework while Kris and I watch TV on the projector downstairs.

My students like doodling on my classroom Promethean board sometimes. 

Abby and Samson, snuggling on the couch after school one evening.

The Gruesome Twosome, at Midland High later that week.

(I don't know what room this is in, but it looks too big to be a regular classroom.)

Picking up a quick pizza the following Friday, as we were short on time due to the evening's big event: Orchestra Festival.

We were in for a crazy twelve hours. Since Alayna and Abby are in different orchestras this year - Alayna is in Symphony and Abby in Concert - they had different performance times for this year's Festival. Alayna was slotted for 8pm on Friday night, and Abby was slotted for 7:30am (seriously) on Saturday morning. About as shitty of a schedule as you could hope for, really.

Alayna, Abby and Ella in the van.

The MHS Symphony Orchestra, shortly before performing (we weren't allowed to take any pics or video of the actual performances, which is pretty typical for Festivals, so my apologies for the lack of songs, folks.)

This year's Festival was at Bay City Western High School, in Auburn, which was only like a ten-minute drive from our house (thank God.) We awaited the orchestra's scores in the cafeteria, and they thankfully got the scores out within ten minutes or so. You can see Alayna's blood-shot eyes in this pic - she broke multiple blood vessels in her eyes (and eye-lids) when she woke up violently puking in her bedroom a few weeks ago. Took a long, long time for that to heal.

The kids swarm the board. Symphony ended up scoring perfect 1's across the board - couldn't ask for better.

The Cannonball with Lexi and Amelia.

Posing with Mammassian.

Abby the pack mule, hanging on to her sister's stuff.

Heading home after the Festival.

At the end of the night, watching TV and psyching ourselves up for our early, early waked up tomorrow morning. Watson had the audacity to try and grab Alayna's pizza out of her hand. He's gotten to that age - almost 12 - where he just gives zero f***s anymore. Which is kinda awesome. See ya next month, kiddies.

- Brian