One, Final Pool Party

'Sup, Internet.

Samson, hiding under Abby's bed for some reason.

Considering it's the end of August, and we're in the middle of a four-day weekend and everything, Mitch and Kelli offered to host one, final pool party for the Summer of 2025.

All the usual amenities would be provided, of course - the pool, corn hole, tons of grilled and smoked meats, bourbons of all walks and life, etc. Things were scheduled to kick off around 1pm, and since most folks were around - aside from the Colliers, who were away camping this weekend - we had a pretty decent turnout (well, the wives didn't hang out long, but they're much more lame than us dudes.)

So yeah, decent lil' closing chapter for the Summer. I'll leave you now and let the following pics tell the story (it's pretty straight-forward anyway.)

Enjoy. . .

Kris took this after spending a couple hours in the morning, cleaning out the garden (she wrestles with the garden like I wrestle with the yard.)

Abby attempts to wake up her sister. Alayna usually lies in bed on her phone for an hour before slowly getting her ass out of bed in the summer. Pretty sure that's the case with most teenagers.

Some of Kris' flowers that are blooming right now. No idea what they are.

So since Mitch was grilling up a ton of meat, he just asked his guests to bring sides. Between all the other families coming out, there weren't a lot of sides still needed, so I just went to Kroger and bought a half-gallon of Captain Morgan and a couple daiquiri mixes. After Kris and I arrived to Mitch's around 1pm, it was brought to my attention that the little security lock thing (that sets of the store's alarm) was still attached to the bottle. This makes sense, 'cause when I was walking out of the store the alarm started going off, but I didn't bother stopping to figure out why. Oh well.

Taking some ribs off the grill.

He had a few of these things going - they got eaten up like crazy.

A little while later, another thing of ribs comes off the grill.

The Johnsons and Griffins rolled in around the same time we did, and for awhile it was just us four couples there (not a ton of kids on hand today, which was kinda cool.)

Grilling some bacon-wrapped goodness.

Hope you guys like copious amounts of meat pictures. . . .

Bacon-wrapped venison, lamp, salmon, etc.

This finger food went fast as well.

Rob showed up after awhile (without his wife Lacey, as usual - she's kind of a hermit.)

Kris, Stefanie, and Kelli.

The Bos girls. They were the only ones who really took full advantage of the pool today, but I attribute that to the weather (the high was like 75, so not ideal for swimming.)

A briskett (of some kind) comes off the grill, which was good 'cause we were feeling like we didn't have enough meat on hand.

If you look closely you can see the juices running down it where he's cutting it. This dude sucks at a lot of things, but cooking meats definitely isn't one of them.

This is about the only 'pool time' the adults got this afternoon.

Some of the other dads eventually migrated out there to take advantage of the sun and water.

The Griffins.

The Kings of the Hill (minus five of us, who were out of town or otherwise occupied today): Erik, Rob, Tom, Mitch, Yours Truly, and Lonnie.

The wives, like always, hung out around this table all day. Sometimes playing games, sometimes on their phones, but always clucking about woman stuff.

As the afternoon dragged on into evening, Mitch and Lonnie broke out the cornhole boards and we paired off. . .

This is what passes as a picture for Kris. Like, she couldn't have stood up to clear all those frickin' chairs at the bottom of the frame?

After our first game (where Mitch and I managed to claw our way out of a ten-point deficit to lose by a single point), we let Rob and Tom take a turn at the boards against the defending champions.

Penny walks wherever the f*** she wants, folks.

 I helped Mitch get a fire going, but no one really sat down around it for a couple more hours.

The wives randomly decided that they would make their own Fantasy Football League and had themselves a cute, lil' draft tonight (yes, even Kris.) I guess I shouldn't make fun, some of them probably know more about football than I do.

Kris and I left around 11pm, as we had been over there since 1pm and were getting funned out with drinking and gorging on meat for hours and hours and hours. Most of the other couples ended up leaving within twenty minutes of us, too. Still, an awesome - and very much-appreciated - way to close out the summer.

- Brian

Labor Daze

Bullshit. Our next holiday is motherf***ing Halloween.

How's it going, Internet.

This Labor Day Weekend - which saw the Houghs scoring a rare four-day weekend - was somewhat different than in previous years. Traditionally, our family stays up at Eight Point for the entire weekend in order to get one last round of boating and sandbar'ing in (not to mention the lake association's annual firework display), but with our kids getting older their desire to just stay up at the lake for a few days has lessened. That, and with Alayna's new job at Taco Bell, our dogs, and other social obligations, it just wasn't possible this year.

Instead, we decided to make it a simple day trip, and Kris, Abby and I ended up leaving for the Lake around 11am (Alayna had to wait to pick up her paycheck before she drove up separately.) We first had to stop off in the Butthole of Michigan (Farwell) first in order to grab some ice and a birthday card and some cash for Bradley and Jax, and finally rolled in to the Lakehouse around noon. Later in the evening, Kris would ride home with Alayna (that south-bound traffic outside of Clare where the highways merge can get a little dicey with traffic), and Abby and I would follow suit about an hour later. 

The next day, we'd all be heading over to the Bos residence for one, last poolside grill-out in their backyard with those families in the Tribe that were around this weekend. Despite it hovering in the mid/high-80's for the foreseeable future, Summer is basically dead now, what with the School Year back in full swing. No more pool parties, no more lake, no more free time, no more nothing.

Now only the Grind remains. Dark, dreary days lie before us.

But before all that bullshit sets in, let's check out Summer's death rattle, shall we. . .

Chris and his fam were already up there at the lake by the time we rolled in, with Jeff's family pulling in about ten minutes behind us. The kids hit the water straight away, with the younger kids playing in the sand (as usual.)

Adults, settling in.

Jeff brought out a set of junior-sized cornhole boards for his kids to play on at one point, so we ended up playing a quick match to appease Owen. These boards were super frustrating, they were too small and it took a few dozen throws to get it dialed in.

Kris checked Life360 at one point in the early afternoon to see where Alayna was, and saw the car icon by her name (indicating that she was driving.) She noticed a difference with this icon, though - there were flames coming out the back of the car, something we haven't seen before. Basically that means Alayna was hauling ass on the highway, going around 90mph. Rest assured, the girl got a solid talking-to when she finally arrived at the Lake.  

Little kids, playing on the Lilly Pad. You can spot Abby off to the left on the dock, wearing a life vest and quasi-patiently waiting for an adult to take her out for tubing or a jet ski ride.

Chris and Nicole face off against Brian and Jax in Hobbit-sized cornhole.

Someone had this life-vest coozie up at the lakehouse, which made this old Upper Hand offering (from Brocation '20) all the more adorable.

Us, The Whites, and Jeff and his fam decided to spend some time up at the Sandbar, seeing how the weather was great and the Michaels clan was already up there. Chris and his family opted not to go, which wasn't all that surprising (they're not big on social gatherings), and took off while we were away.

The boat was pretty loaded with kids and adults, we were definitely exceeding the legal passenger limit. 

Kris, clucking about who knows what, up at the Sandbar.

Sitting on the boat, bronzing and listening to music.

The Eastern side of the Sandbar, as usual, was pretty busy, but it wasn't so slammed that the Western side was filled up with boats.

Brian and I always end up in the water entertaining kids, while wives and kids get to lounge about on the boat. Shit isn't fair.

After a couple hours, we decided to return to the lakehouse for some snacks.

The Cannonball requested a pic of her parents on our way back across the lake. We've taken better pics, for sure.

Back on dry land, Abby, Scarlet and Levi hang out with the parents' new dog. . . whose name I forget.

My parents are big fans of dogs that look like Muppets.

Dad and Cindy (with Brian White's help, I assume), had been smoking a pork shoulder for like twelve hours, thereabouts - we were doing pulled pork for dinner, which I was really looking forward to.

Jeff and Levi

The Cannonball, hanging out with Scarlet and entertaining from her various Spotify playlists.

Scarlet is to the age now where she'd rather hang out with her older, cooler cousins that slum about with the younger boys.

Jax and Owen took turns pitching to one another in the backyard for awhile, seeing how both little doofuses are really into baseball these days.

Yours Truly spent about three hours on the jet ski this afternoon, entertaining my kids, Jeff's kids, everybody's kids. It's not terrible, but after a couple hours of it you're really sick and tired of jet skiing. Like, it'd be awesome for another adult to step in and help out with kid duty. Like, say, any of the three bitches you see sitting around here doing nothing but talking and drinking.

F***ing deliciousness.

Carissa and Kris, hanging out on the dock before dinner.

Food time, at long last.

This was amazing. I particularly like the charred end pieces, that's my jam.

Finishing up grub on the back deck.

While I was out jet skiing more kids about (surprise, surprise), the parents busted out some cupcakes for the September birthdays - Bradley, Jax and Scarlet.

Jax spent some time pulling Jax across the lawn with this giant rope. Kids will resort to some weird, weird shit in order to keep themselves entertained.

Full blown tug-of-war breaks out - always super fun to watch.

Beautiful sunset over the lake (sadly, no cruise to close out the summer, though.) The Whites had left by this point of the evening, and Kris and Alayna were about ready to head out as well.

Shortly this last hang out on the dock, Kris and Alayna rode back to Midland. After collecting all our things - which took a bit, seeing how someone threw one of Alayna's rings into the kitchen trash for some reason - Abby and I headed out as well. No more Eight Point until Memorial Day now.

The next morning, Kris and Courtney took Abby and Ella out dress shopping for Homecoming, which is taking place later this month. They always go to Saginaw to do this, hitting up stores like Macy's and David's Bridal and whatever else. I'm soooo glad Kris tackles this every year instead of me, this is my personal idea of Hell.

(Neither girl ended up getting this dress.)

The girls spent a few hours this morning trying on dresses, with varying degrees of success.

This one looked really good on her, but this is ultimately the one that Ella ended up getting.

Abby instead opted for this black dress, which also looked super cute on her.

While Kris, Courtney and the girls were out dress shopping, Erik and I ran to Kroger in order to pick up some ingredients for the dishes were were contributing to the Bos' Labor Day pool shindig. Mitch requested I make my chipotle beer cheese dip (taken from that book I won in the White Elephant gift exchange at the Sheahan Christmas Party) and told Erik and I to head over to his house and we could make our food there. So, randomly, I spent about a half an hour in Mitch's kitchen making my acclaimed cheese deep. Turned out pretty awesome, I think.

With meat cooking on the grill and most of the sides out, we kinda just hung out around his bar watching TV as folks - like Lonnie Big Balls here - began to trickle in.

Pork belly bites.

Bacon-wrapped awesomeness.

Mitch pulls his meat off the grill.

Kelli brought out some cheese and crackers for us dudes as she kept slaving away in the kitchen.

Bacon-wrapped pork goodness. Like I've said a hundred times before, this tribe of ours knows how to teat.

The Pro

By the time we were pulling stuff off the grill, most of the wives and kids had shown up.

These peanut butter thingies were awesome, but super rich - and not at all healthy.

This was supposed to be a pool party today, but it was like ten degrees cooler than I'd prefer, and it was a little windy out, so no one besides the kids got in (which sucks, because I was really looking forward to swimming and getting some color.)

After grazing on dead animals for awhile, Erik and I faced off against Lonnie and Mitch in a few games of cornhole.

We were pretty well-matched - despite Mitch being one of the better players in our group, Erik and I won the second game and came damn close to winning the third. The third, tie-breaking game was reset to 15 about six or seven times due to both of our two teams repeatedly throwing over 21, but ultimately Mitch and Lonnie prevailed.

As night came on, Mitch started a fire and the remaining adults hung out for a little bit and enjoyed one, last night of 'Summer.'

Now comes the Fall. . .

- Brian