Family Portrait Session

Collier works his magic while posing the girls.

'Sup, Fam.

As some of you guys know, we Houghs didn't send out Christmas Cards last year. Totally dropped the ball. It's not like we didn't want to, mind you, but rather we never worked out how to get decent family pictures done in our hectic schedule in the months leading up to the Holidays. And we didn't have anyone to take them.

In previous years, our friend Collier - a freelance wedding photographer - takes portraits of all the families in our extended friend group. We, like the other families involved, end up using pictures from these sessions for our annual Christmas Cards. Alas, he was otherwise occupied last year with his wedding photography crap, but this year - thank God - he was able to once again schedule a random Sunday and assign people 20-minute slots for family photos.

So, for twenty minutes this afternoon, over at Midland City Forest this time around, he took pics of me, Kris and the girls. Weather was a little overcast but otherwise good, and for a small donation of $50 he took a bunch of pictures, touched them in Adobe Lightroom, and kicked 'em back to us in a week or two.

Not a bad deal at all, folks. And now this year, once again, you will all be receiving some flashy, new Christmas Cards. So, you know. . . keep an eye out on that ol' mailbox.

Here's a few from today's session, folks - enjoy.

The Houghs, ca. 2023.

Standing in the middle of a trail, for no reason. Like we always do.

Collier's a big fan of taking 'candid' pictures of families walking in a line towards him. He says 'just talk to each other and walk towards me,' and we end up with pics like this.

The Hough Girls.

(This one seems more accurate.)

We had to coerce them into actually touching one another for these pics - they usually shove each other off.

Abby

The Cannonball

And one of us, sans kids.

On our walk back towards the parking lot - the Larsons were next on his schedule - Collier spotted this rickety, wooden fence at the top of the ol' sledding hill and had us pose behind it.

And finally, for whatever reason, our kids requested Ryan take a picture of them at the top of the sledding hill, shaking hands.  I have no idea why - kids are weird - but Collier obliged.

- Brian

Country Clubbin'

Finished getting her hair did.  Dolled up and ready to go.

It was only a matter of time before I had to run the ol' Daddy Daughter Dance gauntlet with the younger kid.

Back in Orlando, I took the Cannonball twice (2014 and 2015, if you'll remember) to dances held at her school, John Young Elementary.  These were pretty simple affairs, held in the school cafeteria/gymnasium, and cost about $8 for admission (with $10 'official' portraits available upon request, which we always ended up purchasing 'cause Kris got more excited about these dances than Alayna and myself combined and wanted the mementos.)

Well, that was Orlando.  Here in Midland - "City of Modern Explorers" - that's apparently not how people choose to take their daughters out for an evening of crappy food and shallow dance pop.  No, here in Midland, the Dads of Dow choose instead to escort their girls to the Midland Country Club, an over-priced, swanky establishment that still, inexplicably, offers the same, cheap, Daddy Daughter Dance food fare:  fried chicken fingers, box-mix brownies, curly fries, and the like.

Way to splurge, Country Club.

Instead of $8 tickets, this event ended up costing us FIFTY DOLLARS.  You'd think with such a hefty price tag a joint like this could spring for something fancier than chicken fingers. . . 

The Girl Scouts of Midland (or whatever the hell they're called) hosted the event, opposed to a bunch of separate, local Elementary schools putting it on.  The event sold out quickly - even at $50 a pop - so only a few girls from Abby's Daisy troop ended up showing up.  Due to the ridiculously high price of admission, we had Alayna - who's already been to two of these dances with me already - sit this one out.  She didn't mind (thank God.)

As she did with Alayna, Kris took Abby out dress shopping for the big event.  This, as usual, led to the additional purchase of new shoes, earrings, necklaces, and accessories as well.  Par for the course, really.  Abby was really excited about the dance from the get-go, but, by the end of the night it was clear that she is definitely not her older sister.

Check it out:

Abby's "big reveal."  Kris and the girls like waiting until my date's completely ready to go before showing off their look for the evening.  Must be a chick thing, I don't know.

Comparing hair styles.  

Striking a pose (you can see Watson in his usual vantage point in the background, there.)

Some shots Kris took of Abby's hairstyle for the evening.  She bought some kind of a loofa-ish, donut-looking thing to wrap her hair around, which looks slightly more complicated than my standard 'ponytail.'

There's no keeping windows clean in this house.

Showing off her new shoes, which were probably her favorite article of attire for the evening (they're heels, too, which - knowing Abby's knack of falling into things - was definitely tempting fate.)

Suited up and ready to go

Some portraits on the back patio before heading out

I was a little bummed I couldn't get any valet service for my Ford Focus at the Country Club.  This thing's a real beaut.

Outside the Hall of Snobbery

We showed up about ten minutes after the event started, and found ourselves at the back of a VERY long line of dads.  This was for the official portrait (fortunately included in the ridiculous $50 price tag), and we ended up spending about 30 - 40 minutes in line.  Not the greatest way to start off our evening, but Abby handled it pretty well.  Whoever organized this event didn't have the foresight to hire more than one frickin' photographer, though . . . 'cause apparently, when you have a line of two hundred people, one portrait photographer is more than adequate.

Chowin' down on some ghetto dinner, courtesy of the Midland Country Club and the Girl Scouts of Midland.

Meanwhile, Kris gave Alayna some new earrings (shown here) and took her out on a date of their own to a restaurant of Alayna's choosing.  More or less as a consolation prize, if you will.

They broke up the main hall into three areas:  a dance area (the dimmer section pictured), with two dining areas on either side.  Everyone was assigned tables (we were at Table 4), and tables were excused in section to get food (which was in a buffet-style 'come grab what you want' fashion.)  By the time we cleared the portrait line, grabbed food, and found our table, everyone was gone and already dancing, so we had to play catch up.

Abby shows off the result of her fondness for ketchup.  We attempted protecting her pristine, white dress with a cloth napkin, but there was ketchup on that as well, so we spotted her dress a little (I got most of it off, fortunately, and Kris cleaned up the rest later on) and marred the table cloth.

What's left of Abby's corsage.

Alayna wanted Chinese food, so Kris took her to some random joint in town for a heaping of greasy, not-healthy-in-the-slightest rice.

After eating, Abby wanted to dance. . . and dance she did.  She's much more animated than her sister in that regard, and was shot out of a cannon for two or three songs.  Alas, the minute a slow song came on, she shut down, saying she was bored and wanted to go home.  At 7:30pm (the event was from 5:30 - 8:30, and we didn't sit down with our food until 6:30 or so.)  I tried getting her back out on the dance floor, or to look for friends of hers from her troop, but she wasn't having it.  She had expected ballroom dancing, apparently, and not Taylor Swift.  Needless to say, we didn't really get our fifty dollar's worth. 

One last picture on the way out.

When we got back to the house, Kris couldn't remember if she had gotten any full-body shots of Abby in her evening outfit (she had), so she snapped a few in the girls' room before forcing Abby to take the dress off (in order to obliterate the ketchup stains.)

Next year, we definitely won't be returning to the Country Club.  No.  Frickin'.  Way.

- Brian

The Ninth Circle of Matrimony

Once we hit 16, we're going to have problems.

Well, here we are again:  another wedding anniversary.  This one makes 9.

Fortunately for us, we weren't celebrating our tenth anniversary - being only quasi-employed at the moment, we didn't want to stress out over marking the occasion on a shoestring budget.  See, we have a rule in this house that we only do something grand for the bigger anniversaries (5, 10, 15, etc.)

Nine?  Not so much.

Our wallets were grateful.

- Brian