Santa, a Train, and Ninety Minutes in the Freezing Cold

Season's Greetings, cuties.

This Holiday season's been really, really weird, folks.  Maybe it's the fact that it's a week shorter this year, seeing how Thanksgiving fell one week later in November than it usually does - who knows.  Whatever the case, Kris and I have really been dropping the ball with all things Christmas-y this year:  we've been half-assing the whole Elf on the Shelf thing, we haven't gotten around to Christmas Cards yet (not sure if we're even doing it this year, seeing how we're already half-way through December), and the kids haven't even been to frickin' Bronners.

Good grief.

Anyway, we were able to remedy at least one of our parental deficiencies today:  we hauled our kids downtown to Midland's famous Santa House so the kids could greet 'Santa.'  This year was more than a little awkward - neither kid sat on his lap (they're to the age where they're a little too old for that), so they just kinda stood facing him and told him what they wanted.

Midland's City Court House - all decked out to the 9's for the Holidays. . .

Gotta love meet-and-greets with Mr. Claus.

Anyway, here's how we spent that two-hour mandatory Christmas outing.  Kris and the girls got to ride a train, I froze my ass off standing in line for over an hour, and the girls got their last-minute wish items in.

Happy frickin' Christmas, everybody. . .

Downtown Midland and Santa's train.  The Santa House opens up on certain days at 1:30pm, so Kris and I had tried getting the kids out the door by 1:00pm in order to drive down, find a good parking spot, and snag a spot in line before the line backed up too long.  Alas, the girls took forever getting around this afternoon, so we didn't get down there until 1:40 or so.  By that time, the line was backed up down the sidewalk, so I grudingly assumed a position in line while Kris walked the girls down to the train to pass some time.

A train on wheels?  Clearly they don't understand how trains operate up there in the North Pole. . .

The girls didn't have to wait long to board the train - nearly everybody was waiting in line, like me.

More weird selfies with mom.

About an hour later, after the girls' train ride around Midland - and after Kris ran across the street to pick up a couple plates of cinnamon rolls from her church, First United Methodist - the rest of my family joined me in line.  By that point in time, I was right up against Santa's House, about a dozen or so people back from the front.  The kids goofed around in the yard, not wanting to stand around bored in line (can't say I blame them - I was frozen to the bone and bored out of my mind.)

Checking out a one-armed Elf near the Santa sign.

Trust falls.  Why not.

Sisters, bein' weird.

Waiting outside the Red Door for admittance into Santa's crib.

FINALLY inside, after about an hour and fifteen minutes of freezing my ass off outside.  My toes and fingers were numb by this point, which happens all the time now thanks to getting frostbite back in 1998 when I was on my high school ski team - still paying for that one.

It was sooooo awesome being inside where it was warm. . .

The Houghs.  In a big f***ing sleigh.

The girls check out some of the weirdness in Santa's house. . .

These creepy-ass animatronic elves are terrifying. . .

Chaos.

In the queue to see Santa

So are these gnomes, or dwarves?  What the hell do either have to do with Christmas?  I thought that was Elf territory. . .

I look really, really old in this picture. . .

FINALLY.  After an hour and a half. . . 

This is seriously the best picture I could get of her - she didn't even attempt to sit on his lap, she just walked up and he started asking her what she wanted.  I guess she asked for a gold hover board. . . which she is definitely not getting this year.

Abby's turn. . .

Abby asked for a Pomeranian.  Seriously.  Then, after Santa asked if she was sure, she adjusted it to simply 'a new puppy.'  When he asked what she'd like if he couldn't swing that - nicely done, Mr. Claus - she settled on a rosegold karaoke microphone.  Sweet Jesus, I hate kids sometimes. . .

The Hough Girls with Santa

Outside afterwards, for a mandatory picture in front of Santa's House (check out the ridiculously long line - it continues to wrap around out of frame to the left quite a ways, all the way down the sidewalk.)

And, in closing, here's a one-armed Christmas Elf.  You're welcome.

- Brian

The Rest of October

May this haunt your dreams.

Happy Fall, America.

This was a pretty insane month, folks.  Halloween took up a sound portion of our spare time:  buying things and decorating for (and ultimately hosting) our Halloween Party, then Trick or Treating a couple days later.  There were also several school activities we had to juggle around - fundraisers, parties, parent/teacher conferences, etc.  Factor in Girl Scouts, piano, gymnastics (yes, we're doing that again), and social gathering on top of the existing school and work, it goes without saying that the month of October is right up there with December and June as a pure wash.

. . . and did I mention the f***ing leaves?  'Cause we had our fair share of those, too.

Anyway, here's some of the stuff we undertook on the side throughout the month.  Enjoy.

Kris bought a bunch of crap for our house 'fall' display.  You can imagine how excited I was to come home and find that scarecrow standing in front of my frickin' house. . .

Clearing out some leftover summer offerings from Short's Brewery while playing poker over a friend's house.  The beer was good, my poker skills were not.

Some pictures via Class Dojo that were shared by Alayna and Abby's respective teachers.  It's a nice app that let's you catch a glimpse of life inside your kids' classroom (and also allows you to see how they're behaving.)

Writing stories - one of Abby's favorite school activities.

Some sort of presentation thing going on in Alayna's classroom.

(Alayna is in the long-sleeve teal shirt.)

One school night, while Kris was away at a PTO meeting, I let the girls finish up some ice cream after dinner and let them watch the Twilight Zone.  Because that's how awesome Dads roll.

We have a ridiculous amount of maples in our front yard.  They all turn a bright yellow, which is pretty awesome (until you have to rake them all up, of course.)

(From our side yard.)

Another rainy day on Alayna's Safety Patrol beat. . .

Kris was one of the first ten Midlanders to utilize Kroger's new ClickIt feature, and so she won a free Selfie Stick (which the girls demanded to play with.)  Essentially, you go online or use the Kroger app and enter in all the grocery shit you want to buy (minus booze, sadly.)  Then, you select a pick-up time at least an hour or so into the future.  During your allotted time, you swing by Kroger, park in a designated spot, and the employees bring out your frickin' groceries, free of charge.  This service costs nothing.  Kris is sold.

More selfie stick.  Couple pics aren't the most flattering after a full day of work.

We had some friends over for a few drinks on a whim one Friday, a couple weeks before our big Halloween bash (hence the decorations scattered about in the background.)

My beverage and glass selections are on point, Internet.  Try and convince me otherwise.

Watson stands guard over the garage while I take a break from raking the leaves.

One Saturday, half-way through the month, while Yours Truly was hilt-deep in yard work and paper-grading, Kris and the girls met up with her friend, Kim, at that one pumpkin patch in Beaverton that we've frequented a few times before (2015, 2017, etc.)

Folks, meet the smelliest animal in existence.  I've snuggled with them before on many a night, I know what I'm talking about.

I hate goats.  I won't get in to it here, but just rest assured that they're probably the shittiest animals on the planet aside from mosquitoes and cats.

Is Alayna doing a Trump impression?

Heading back to the van after a long day of pumpkin farm shenanigans.  I haven't heard otherwise, so I'm assuming that's Kim's kid Abby's carrying, and not some random kid she found in the petting zoo or something.

A rare moment of tranquil, sisterly imaginative play.  We try and document these rare occurrences whenever they happen, lest people not believe that, on occasion, our kids will actually act civil with one another.

Kris asked if she could take back some of the cans to Meijer so that the girls could use the collected money for their school's big fundraiser.  I thought she was talking about a small bag in the garage, not my big bag of beer cans I was saving to put towards future booze purchases.  I wasn't very happy about this.

I put a lot of effort into drinking all that money, Chestnut Hill.  You better appreciate the hell out of it.

The big school fundraiser this fall was the Walk-a-Thon.  I forget what that all entails, all I know is that every frickin' kid in Midland was trying to raise money throughout the entirety of October.  It got real old real fast.

Abby tears ass around an orange cone.  No idea why.

More mom-and-kids selfies. . .

I assume this is the Walk-a-Thon itself, as Alayna and her friends are clearly walking here.

Noah and the Cannonball.

The kids who raised the most in their classrooms got to hit the principal in the face with a pie.  Alayna, at left, raised more than the rest of the kids in Ash's class, so the honor was hers.

A little lackluster, to be honest.

Brady winds up. . .

While Abby didn't get to hit the principal in the face with a pie, she did win a prize for the ridiculous amount of money she raised for the Walk-a-thon:  a f***ing DRONE.

This was our test flight in the backyard, the following morning.  It's super tricky to fly, so we're going to have to try and practice a little more before we do anything super tricky with it.  There's an app I downloaded on my phone that connects to the drone's camera, so I can control the camera optics right on the drone controller.  A pretty cool feature.

Coming in right on the heels of the CHE Walk-a-Thon fundraiser, comes yet another Girl Scout Cookie campaign.  I hate these more than anything else in existence.

Shameless.  That's what this is.  Unfortunately, every other person on Facebook has their kids doing the exact same thing.

Time for another rip-roarin' October Girl Scout Glow Dance.  This time around, I made it a point not to show up.

I'm not entirely sure which of these three ladies looks the craziest, here. . .

Abby and her friend, Allie.

Trying on some winter coats.  We decided to just say 'screw it' and drop a few hundred dollars on new winter coats for the whole family. . . then we added on new boots, gloves, and hats.  'Tis the season.

Hanging out in a Gamestop in Saginaw and killing some time on the Nintendo Switch while Kris continued to shop for outfits in a neighboring clothing store.

STEM Night at Chestnut Hill.  Now featuring robots.

Alayna and a high-fiving robot.

Kris tries out the photo backdrop she set up in the basement for our Halloween Party.

The Kid Zone.  Having a fully-finished basement to where you can banish all children makes ALL the difference when it comes to hosting parties, folks.

I told Kris I didn't expect these balloons to last more than twenty minutes after kids started to arrive to the party.  In reality, they probably lasted a full hour before they were all ripped down in a sugar-induced fury.

The Living Room, all set for our Halloween Party (this was actually taken the night before, but that's how it looked during the festivities. . . just with a fog machine as well.)

Alayna created a Christmas List towards the end of the month.  She's going to be a really, really sad girl on Christmas Morning. . .

Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic candidate for Michigan's Governorship, visited my school to speak with our dozen or so students who are members of our school's Michigan Youth in Government chapter.  I'm co-advisor of this club, so I was able to sit in to this Q & A and take pictures and video of Whitmer's exchange with the students.  The students wrote their own questions and got to read them to her, and Whitmer, in return, answered the kids' queries in a very polished and predictable manner.  It was a pretty cool 45 minutes, but I didn't upload any of the pictures from that meeting due to students being in them (FERPA.)  I did, however, snap a quick, crappy picture of their tour bus in my school's parking lot. . . so you got that, instead.  Enjoy the hell out of it.

Alayna smuggled her camera to school one day, and snapped off a series of pictures throughout her day.  Here she is during  a Girl Scout meeting.  No frickin' clue as to what she's supposed to be (a Mexican pirate, perhaps?)

Again.  No idea.

. . . aaaaaand here's a random picture she took of her little cousin, Scarlett, during Before School Care at the girls' school.  Why not.

- Brian