'Hangin' with the Chuckster,' or 'Cannonball Turns 3'

Word, people..

So we decided this year that for Alayna's 3rd birthday, we'd take her out to Chuck E. Cheese's.

Most of you already know my feelings regarding this most hated of mouses, but, for my daughter's sake, I let bygones be bygones. She's a big fan of the joint, and I'm not going to deny her happiness on her birthday simply because she wants to frequent the establishment that more or less murdered some of my childhood heroes.

Whatever.

Below are a crap load of pictures and videos.

Enjoy.

-Brian

The Cannonball's 3rd birthday cake

Cake Master

Professional photograph - 1 token

(she really sucked at this game)

Abby in Gabbaland

Alayna and Papa John check out the animatronic mouse that owns the place

Establishing headquarters

Abby and a rather handsome man.

One, gigantic tub of tokens.

Alayna busts out her tokens

First ride on the horse (soon to be a personal favorite)

Abby, unsupervised

Discussing the current political situation in Libya with Lindsay

Homeboys.

This is not an uncommon sight

...neither is this.

Healthy dinner

Abby, not upset enough to prevent her from devouring a few pieces of pizza.

Showing off her pizza to the Voigts and their son, Clint

Riding with Derrick

Some party guests

Alayna and her friend, Adylyn (not sure how that's spelled)

...and with her pseudo-beau, Derrick.

Grandma and Papa John

Abby in a rare happy mood (seconds before Chuck waltzed over and made her crap herself)

MOUSE!!!!!!

Makin' friends

A much weirder family portrait.

The Chuck

Cake time!








The Hough girls tear into the cake








...and so does this random kid who just came over, sat down, ate a piece of my kid's cake, and left without saying anything to anyone. I'm hoping he got hit by a bus on his way home.

Hugs with Alexander

More grandparents

Yet another ride on the horse with Derrick




Wrapping up the meal

Posing for another family portrait

Leaving Chuck's

On the way home, watching 'Bear in the Big Blue House'

(Abby didn't make it)

(Happily) digging into the birthday plunder

Cannonball and Chuck

JUDGEMENT DAY!! (...and Abby's 1st Birthday)

Well, today was Abby's birthday. Officially. As usual, we Houghs didn't celebrate our kid's birthday on their actual date of birth, as our social calendar is obviously more important to us.

We didn't do anything extravagant for her birthday, either - she was running a fever, so we couldn't really leave the house and take her out and about somewhere. We hung around the house and let her open a few gifts that trickled in after her observed birthday.

Didn't want to do too much anyway, seeing how today was Judgement Day and all.

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. God picks out all the V.I.P. members off the face of the Earth and leaves the rest of us to suffer at the hands of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (or something along those lines). This was evidently taking place around 6pm, so I wasn't about to make dinner reservations anywhere fancy.

I don't really watch the news much anymore - for the last fifteen years or so it's really turned into one, gigantic train wreck, and hasn't featured anything that could be even remotely considered objective 'journalism.' No, sensationalism is all anyone seems to care about anymore, and playing right along into that is all the news coverage surrounding the whole 'End of the World'/'Judgement Day' crap that some random, Christian fringe group started spreading around.


Harold Camping, sir, if you're reading this, please stop speaking in public. Go out in the woods, build yourself a log cabin, and commune to God in private. You're an idiot, and you turn the ignorant, gullible people the world over (and there are a lot of them!) into paranoid, delusional idiots (moreso) every, damn time you open that stupid mouth of yours. Please stop doing this.


Whether or not Harry and his peeps truly believed this was the end of the world, or (more than likely) the entire affair was a huge marketing tactic designed to drum up fear and reap the financial rewards, this whole 'May 21st is Judgement Day!' fiasco got way too much press from our beloved 'journalists.' This is hardly news, people. Who cares about this crap, really? And who actually buys into this sort of nonsense?

I'll tell you who: idiots.


I won't buy into the whole Judgement Day thing until I personally see fireballs start falling down from the sky. You ever catch that Simpsons episode where Marge, Lisa, and Maggie start floating up to Heaven during the Rapture, and Homer and Bart end up being left behind? I imagine, in just such a scenario, that I'll have the house to myself on Judgement Day... so I personally don't care if Godzilla or Mothra or the Bubonic Plague trample across Central Florida.

At least I'll get to play video games and throw back a few beers in peace for a change.

- Brian

More from the Obnoxious Hough Girls

Hey, guess what we haven't done in awhile?

Yeah. A ton of weird videos of my kids. For you. Free of charge.

(you're welcome)

- Brian

Alayna Reading the infamous Brown Bear

...evidently Abby finds this book boring as hell.

Backin' it up for Sesame Street...

Cannonball Discovers the Ukulele

____________________________

Here's some footage from Abby's party...

Abby Turns One

"Mongo LOVE cake..."

Ukin' with Papa

Grandfolk, Garage Sailin', and Abby 1st Birthday (Observed)

Howdy.

I absolutely hate this time of year. I do. I despise it. Everything about it. Lots of bugs, lots of tourists, and my students - who, upon completing their annual standardized tests - have nothing but summer on the brain.

Everybody's counting down for the end of the school year, sure enough. That's a no brainer. I've found that having things to look forward to helps alleviate one's mood when confronted with soul-crushing horribleness. And, while the end of the year is probably the greatest possible thing one could ever hope to look forward to (it is), we had another one recently come and go - the importation of my parents.

Yes, Dad and Cindy - 'Papa' and 'Nana' if you're under 3 and can't control your own bodily fluids - came down over the weekend to celebrate Abby's 1st birthday (observed) alongside the Voigts and Clint. Yes, technically Abby's birthday is on the 21st, but we figured it'd be cool to have her grandparents at her birthday, so we threw her a subtle shin-dig two weeks early.

She's a year old, she didn't notice.

Anyway, the other reason we invited my folks down for this particular weekend was that it was time, once again, for the annual Hunter's Creek Garage Sale. Now, I've talked about this numerous times before, but - just to play Devil's Advocate - I'll repeat myself once again.

*Ahem*

Twice a year, the Hunter's Creek Women's something-or-other hosts a community-wide garage sale throughout Hunter's Creek. All the subdivisions participate, and Kris and I generally make out like bandits. This time around, we had Dad and Cindy in tow (following in their rental), and, although the adventure didn't quite live up to the two previous stints (in May and November of 2010), it was still a pretty decent outing.

Here's what we nabbed:


I didn't grab as much crap for myself as I usually do. Neither did Kris. No, this outing ended up being centered on our kids.

This is why I'm not all that enthusiastic about our spoils this year.

As you can see, they got a lot of stuff - clothing, toys, books, organizers and decor for their rooms - which was cool, I guess. In the end, I walked away with an old-school Tele-Games Pinball Breakaway - precursor to the infamous Atari 2600 - for $10. That was a pretty good find, considering I got it with its original user's manual, Atari Adapter, and Atari joystick. This purchase also continues the trend of me adding to my ever-expanding vintage video game systems every time we go out and participate in this whole Hunter's Creek Garage Sale thing (much to my wife's dismay).

I also picked up a toy soprano ukulele for the Cannonball, who has expressed a growing interest in music and instruments lately - particularly stringed instruments. I bought this toy uke - smaller than a soprano - for $1, as it only had two strings on it. It sounded God-awful, but, after buying some Martin uke strings and tuning it repeatedly over the next couple of days, the kid has her own, working ukulele.

...and for a buck, if she breaks the damn thing, who gives a shit.

So back to my parents. We had a really great visit with Dad and Cindy - it was a nice break from the usual work/kids/work/kids/weekend chores routine. They were only in town for a few days, but, in typical Hough fashion, we took a few hundred pictures. Fortunately for you and I both, Dad already did all the hard work and created a pic slide show of the weekend so I don't have to spend a crap-load of time uploading pics to this stupid blog of ours.

Here are the pics. Enjoy.

- Brian