Zombie Jesus and a Crap-Load of Nieces and Nephews

Happy Easter, Internet.

I know I've said this, like, a billion times already, but I can't stand this frickin' holiday.  Lots of prep go into kids' Easter baskets, there's a scavenger hunt to plan, Easter eggs to stuff, and, to top it all off, church.

Definitely doesn't rank among the likes of Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, or Halloween, that's for damn sure.

This year was better, though.  Taking into consideration their recent trips to New York and Mexico, and seeing how they're no longer little kids, Kris and I decided to scale back Easter this year.  For the first time in over a decade, there was no morning scavenger hunt around the house (and yard) for the girls' Easter Baskets.  We didn't hide Easter eggs around, either (though we haven't done that in a few years - kids grew out of that tradition pretty fast.)  Their baskets were basically candy and beauty items - no Sunday dresses or anything like that this time around.

But we still ended up going to church in the morning.  Kris is a big fan of going to church.

After the service ended, we came home and had a couple hours to kill before heading over to Mom and John's house for an Easter lunch (and to celebrate Grandpa Chinery's belated 91st Birthday.)  We couldn't change out of our church clothes because Mom wanted some family pictures taken with Grandpa later, so Kris and the girls chalked the driveway a little and we otherwise occupied ourselves until heading over there to meet up with my brothers and their families for some much-needed food.

So here you go, folks - Easter '23, Hough-style.

Enjoy. . .

Easter Baskets for the girls (and dogs.)

Not-so-patient dogs, awaiting their plunder.

Kris randomly threw in some of the girls' old Easter crafts from when they were like 2 or 3 into their baskets this year.  I think she found them while cleaning out a filing cabinet a couple months ago - I'm assuming she was just trying to 'nicely' get rid of them. 

We had to park at Chestnut Hill Elementary's front parking lot this morning when we rolled into Kris' new church (which is located right next door to the girls' alma mater.)  When we started walking over we spotted moron's stellar parking job.

After church, we came home and all killed time until we had to go to Mom's (as previously mentioned.)  Kris and the girls (and the dogs) began chalking up the driveway and tried to soak up some of the rare-for-this-time-of-year sun.

Kris tries to get some color.

Samson had to remain on a leash at all times - because it's Samson - but Watson's fine without one.  Abby and him walked all the way down to the corner of the road and back, he's pretty good at sticking where he's supposed to.

The Cannonball and her trademark drawing, Larry.  There's a backstory here but I'll be damned if I remember it. . .

Around 2pm we drove over to Mom's.  When we got there Mom had this sitting out on an end table for Chris (I'm assuming she stumbled upon it while doing some Spring cleaning or something, who knows.)

John recently installed some built-ins in their living room.  These guys completely change the layout of this room every six or seven months, I think..

Kris wanted a family picture taken of us today - we ran out of time to take the usual pre-church pic in the Study (Kris' new church starts about an hour earlier than her former church.)

After eating lunch, we decided to take a couple family pictures with Grandpa.  Seeing how he's like 91 years old he's pretty much on borrowed time these days.  Chris brought over his camera crap and we began the long and drawn-out process of arranging various nieces and nephews on the couch.

(This took much longer than you'd think.)

Front Row, Left to Right: Levi, Samwise, Nora, and Louis. Back Row, Left to Right: Owen, Abby, Grandpa, the Cannonball, and Scarlett.

Aaaaaand one with The Borthers.

Nicole thought of getting one with Mom and Grandpa at the last minute - can't believe the rest of us hadn't thought to do that.

Eating more food in the sun room.  FYI - I thought those Easter Bunnies painted on Mom's windows (courtesy of Owen and Scarlett) had really, saggy granny boobs. . . then someone told me those were their paws.

Weather was pretty awesome today - sunny and mid-60s, so folks were in and out between this room and the backyard throughout the afternoon.

After awhile it was time for Grandpa to blow out his candles.  We figured we'd cut the guy a break and not have him blow out ninety-one, individual candles.  That'd probably kill him.

Alayna sent me this.  She's a bitch.

After cake and ice cream, most of us migrated outside to take advantage of the sun. . .

Abby man-handles (girl-handles?) her little cousin.

Jeff's been working with Owen on catching and throwing a ball around, the kid's pretty good at it.

Mom thought it'd be a good idea to give the little kids bubble guns.  I get it, it's a 'spring' sorta toy.  Still, after you take what equates to a gallon of soap suds in the face throughout the duration of an afternoon, the toy wears on you a smidge.

Lotta stuff to process here. . .

Meanwhile, around the house, Abby and Scarlett chalked up Mom's driveway.

Touching up Alayna's Larry drawing.

Levi and Louis tossing a ball back and forth. . . over a distance of like 16".  Levi complained the entire time.

Larry looks pretty gay here, not gonna lie.

My nephews are weird.  They must get it from their dads.

Around dinner time - not that anyone was hungry after Mom's house - we came back to the house.  The weather, still amazing out, dictated Kris and I enjoy a beverage on the back patio.  Behold, America - the first Oberon of the season.

Later that evening, winding down with the girls and watching some TV.  This very well might be the laziest dog in the Tri-City area.

- Brian

March Madness

Welcome back, Internet.

Our March was nuts.  Crazy busy, continuing the trend for sure.  Abby's involvement in Pom and Basketball took up a lot of our weekdays and weekends (respectfully), and our ever-present social obligations were in full-swing this month (Danielle's 40th, St. Patrick's Day, etc.)  Makes the time fly by, which is awesome at this time of year when it's cold and the warmth of summer is so far off it seems like it'll never return.

There's a crap-load of pictures and video to peruse this month, folks, so I'll cut this short and just leave you to it.

Enjoy. . .

See?  I wasn't jokin'.

Following the girls' final pom performance at Northeast (at a basketball game), we finally got off our asses and got a pic of Harper, Ella, and Abby in their uniforms.

They demanded a Charlie's Angels-esque one, of course.  Hammin' it up as always.

The never-ending ceiling debacle.  As previously discussed, the contractor we had hired to repair our drooping ceiling in the Study did a half-ass job on removing the popcorn ceiling from the room (though fortunately he did a really good job at securing the ceiling itself, which was our top priority.)  Since we had only paid him half up front, we basically told him to f*** off and kept the second half, which was cool because what we paid him for - securing the ceiling - was a fair price and we were fine with it.  That left the ceiling's finish less popcorn-ish than it had been, but not what we had been hoping for.  So Kris spent an afternoon towards the beginning of the month smoothing it out a bit more on her own.

The first week of the month, there was an award ceremony at the Midland Community Center for the Northeast Pom team, with the coaches presenting awards for each player at the close of the season.  Abby got an award for Best Sportsmanship, since she had 'the biggest smile' during routines.  Or something like that, I forget.

The Northeast Pom Team

Abby and her coaches.

. . . and of course there's one of these frickin' poses.

At the close of the ceremony, all the team members were walking around crying hysterically and being super dramatic seeing how it was the close of their season.  As if they weren't going to see each other at school the very next day.  Parents felt this was worth taking a picture of, I guess.  I'd make fun, but, you know, I took a pic, too.

Picking up a Batman pizza on my way home from work one Friday.  I give zero f***s about superhero movies.

Alayna, Kendall, and Amelia at some orchestra function at the school (a festival, I think. . .?)

My high school band numbers were better.  Just sayin'.

Weird pictures taken off Alayna's phone.  Her and Lexi at school, being teenagers.

Me and my friends should use heart stickers like this in our pics. . .

Kris makes a friend at the Midland Mall.

The Storm take the field (er, court) for their first game of hair-raising basketball. . .

These guys have made a lot of progress over the course of their few practices, considering most of their team has never held a basketball before.  Abby is more comfortable with defense than offense, for sure.

That kid in the white headband was the opposing team's player Abby was charged with defending.  She was like 5' 8" and clearly had been playing for years.  Totally fair match-up.

Needless to say, our team was beaten like a red-headed step-child.

Like, it wasn't even close.  You know those '80s movie tropes about a team of plucky underdogs that have zero chance of success at the beginning of the movie?  They suck for the first half of the movie before their gruff, unlikely coach manages to get them to play together as a team, and they somehow - miraculously - manage to defeat the championship team of dickheads at the end of the movie?  You know what I'm talking about?  Think Bad News Bears or Mighty Ducks.  Well, this was like that, except, in our team's case, it was just the first half of those movies where the underdogs are getting totally curb-stomped without end.

Painful to watch.

Later that evening, I had a Zoom/Drink session with these two assholes.  Always a good time.

After we had the popcorn ceiling knocked down a bit more, John came over and helped me re-hang the ceiling fan (it's heavier than you'd think, definitely a two-man job.)

Family game night (feat. dogs.)

Following a sleepover at the Johnson residence, Abby was treated to a healthy McDonald's breakfast.

The following week, another game for the Storm.

Fortunately, this time around, the other team was equally terrible, and our girls mopped the floor with 'em.

Abby's still seemingly afraid of the ball, but she played a lot better.

Kris' coworker made affirming window decals for all the employees in her office.  I should get me one of these for my car.

St. Patrick's Day.  Acknowledged.

Since we don't have recessed lighting in our Study yet (that's the ultimate plan for this spring), and our previous lights - which had been illuminating the bookshelves and fireplace - were removed during the ceiling repair, it had been pretty dark in that room.  I decided to remedy this by pulling the trigger on an LED light system that I had quite extensively researched on Amazon.  By spending a bit more than usual on a set, I was able to get one that had multi-color changing abilities (most LED light strands you can change only whole-string at a time, where the ones I got can change individual bulbs at a time), Alexa-enabled, and app-centric.  I'm pretty stoked about it.

I'm gonna nerd out here for a quick sec.  This app allows you to sync the lights up to music - either through your phone or through the microphone, capturing the sound of the room (perfect for vinyl) - but it also allows you to browse through multiple pre-programmed 'scenes,' perfect for any occasion. 

Some of these are better than others, obviously, but the range of variety with this LED set was well worth the extra I spent.

You can create and customize your own lighting system, too, but I doubt I'll ever get around to messing with that, since there's so much already available through the app that controls the lights.

Over at Mom's at the beginning of Spring Break in order to celebrate Grandpa Chinery's 90th Birthday.

Chris and his brood were in town for the occasion.  Here is his only peaceful child, Nora.

This one's a trainwreck (shown here, shortly after punching me in the face.)

Abby and Nora (Abby's great with kids, unlike her sister.)

And another one.

I'm like 99% sure I came down with Covid at the beginning of Spring Break.  Despite a rapid test coming up negative, I didn't bother going out to an urgent care in order to get a legit test because, let's face it, it doesn't really matter anymore.  So I was pretty sick for a solid four or five days, and basically hung out on the couch downstairs and played videogames.  The girls, however, made good use of our occasional decent weather to play in the backyard (with Alayna's friend, Ava, who lives just around the corner on Waldo.)

A super shitty game of 'baseball'. . .

The Johnsons, who had also neglected to go anywhere for Spring Break, opted to get a hotel room at the Holiday Inn half-way through the week in order to break up the monotony.  They invited the friend group out to enjoy the pool with them and we all had dinner poolside while the kids enjoyed the pool and the joint's bizarre half-inside/half-outside hot tub.

Tom, Erik and Ryan.

Houghs, Johnsons, Colliers, and Sheahans chowing down on bar pizza.

I've been getting unsolicited texts from the Democratic Party lately, asking me if I want to run for office.  They must be pretty frickin' desperate these days if they're scraping the barrel like this. . .

- Brian