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Weeding the front bed while Kris enjoys a coffee on the porch. 

How's it going, Internet.

Well, the Ol' Lady turned the big 4-2 today.  No longer the spring chicken she once was, Ol' Ma Hough decided to celebrate her big day in a pretty chill way - no raging parties, no fancy dinners, nothing.  We spent some time soaking up the sun at Plymouth Pool (because our own kids rarely use the season passes we bought for them this summer), then heading downtown to hang out with some of our friends and take advantage of The Commons while that's still a thing.

A PG affair for sure, but that is, as you know, Kris' cup of tea.  And the Birthday Girl gets to call the shots around here on August 3rd, folks.

Check it out. . .

Plymouth Pool. Definitely full of child pee.

Kris and I went up there late in the morning, and about an hour or so later, Abby and Ella made their way down, where they began repeatedly jumping off into the deep end, over and over again.

While we were away at the pool, the City of Midland decided to pave our street. I'm assuming because it was Kris' birthday, and they figured she'd appreciate that.  So, consequently, we had to park our vehicles on the adjacent Mt. Vernon street and walk to our house from there.

On our way downtown, I had Kris and the girls pose with one of these giant frickin' road vehicles, and a particular sign that we've been seeing ALL AROUND TOWN ALL F***ING SUMMER LONG.

The main attraction downtown this evening was the launching of the annual hot-air balloon race (at least I think it's a race.) They have these basket thingies set up throughout the Commons area, where kids can go in and take turns pulling the lever that shoots up a pillar of fire (to make the balloon go up, I guess.)

While downtown, Ella spotted this famous Tik-Tok star (who also has that weird disease where you can't grow hair anywhere on your body - forget what that's called.) Ella asked for a pic with the quasi-celebrity, who politely obliged, and Abby snapped the pic for her. Abby then proceeded to work herself into knots because she hadn't been brave enough to ask for a pic with her, too.

The Tridge

We met up with the Colliers, Johnsons, and Mitch while we were downtown - something we usually try to do on a weekly basis while the city holds its annual Tunes by the Tridge thing.

Gallivanting around with drinks.  All of our kids had run off by this point in time, old enough know to do so without parental supervision.  It's pretty awesome.

The Commons of Downtown Midland.

Main Street.

Alayna's friends took off so she followed us around for a bit, in that awkward phase where she's too old for the younger kids and too young for the older adults.  I hated that phase.

Alayna took this pic of us old folks that Kris requested.  Wouldn't be a night out with the gals if they didn't get a group pic at some point in time during the night.

Back down by the Tridge, it began to rain, and so we quickly took cover under a nearby pavilion to wait for it to blow over.

Folding up the lawn blankets, which had been hastily snatched up in the sudden downpour.

That dude's hardcore.

Some of the other kids (you can see 'em there) had managed to duck into a neighboring pavilion.

The rain passes by and the sun returneth.

Ella spotted that Tik Tok person again downtown, and convinced Abby to grow a pair and ask her for a picture. Mission accomplished.

Back downtown, enjoying the dry weather.

Ah, the ol' Lodge building. . .

As you can see here, there's a Masonic meeting taking place upstairs (we light up the bulb of the corresponding body that's meeting that night.) Erik and I both opted to skip out of this month's regular meeting in order to celebrate Kris' birthday.

Erik makes a friend.

Kris wanted to hang out at Brinstar, which had recently installed a series of pinball machines. Erik and I bit our tongues, not overly-excited to revisit this place, considering how bad the customer service had been last time we were there.

Well, no duh.

Rock and roll.

Nyuck nyuck.

The newly-purchased pinball machines.

As we said our goodbyes for the evening after a couple hours of arcade-gaming, snacking, and drinking, we began to walk back to Kris' van. Along the way, I spotted this random dog, just left chilling on the dashboard of a parked car.  At least it wasn't like 100 degrees out.

A family selfie at the end of the evening, because Birthday Girl demanded it.

- Brian

Randoms from the Month of Caesar

What's up, Internet.

So July this year ended up being a study in contrasts.  We did a ridiculous amount of vacationing this month (look at all those damn posts off the right, guys), but we also did a hell of a lot sitting around the house and doing absolutely nothing.  So while there's plenty of pictures of our shenanigans up in the Upper Peninsula, or on Eight Point Lake, there wasn't a lot of captured moments from our day-to-day mundaneness during the down time.

I've been playing a lot of Skyrim on my new Nintendo Switch, a game that's nothing short of incredible, as well as working on nerd projects on the ol' MacBook Pro, not getting much exercise, and otherwise maintaining my yard (which has been a challenge, due to a nasty dry spell we suffered earlier in the month.)  The girls have been kept busy with play dates, luncheons at Plymouth Park, and multiple trips to 7-11 for much-needed Slurpees.  It's been a fun month, America.

So yeah, not a whole lot of pictures this time around, but what you see more or less wraps up the month (unfortunately there are no pictures of the kids drinking Slurpees, or my lazy ass sitting on the couch playing Skyrim.)

Enjoy. . .

The girls got into the habit this month of picking flowers out of the backyard gardens and leaving them on Kris' pillow for when she got back from work.  These plants would then sit there throughout the day, so that by the time Kris came home from work and found them, they were all dried up and shriveled.  So this is the sort of thing she came home to a lot of the time.

Screwing around on the Zipline over at Central Park Elementary (the new waaaay over-rated STEM school that opened up in Midland.)  They, like Plymouth Park, also host Midland's summertime Meet Up and Eat Up program, so we try and hit up any of the locations a few times each week for the free lunch and fresh air.

One afternoon, the girls set up a 'horse and carriage' in the basement, dressed up in period clothing, and pretended they lived on a 19th century farm out West. . . 

"Sleeping on the Trail."  Seriously.

Not sure if you remember or not, but I had scored a few German 45 RPMs from the Goodwill store up in Sault Ste Marie earlier in the month, and was eventually able to give them a listen on the ol' turntable.  And in case you were curious, they sound EXACTLY like the pictures suggest.

Halfway through the month, we made it down to Romulus for Kris' cousin Merry Lynn's Graduation Open House.  For whatever reason, this is the only picture we ended up taking of the day-long visit downstate - it was brutally hot and humid out, and despite the fact it was an outdoor party, we spent a lot of time indoors, taking advantage of the A/C.  This meant ducking into nearby Uncle Wayne's house, where we' bump into his bear-of-a-dog, Captain.

This month saw some pretty nasty weather, especially for one's yard.  We hadn't gotten any rain for weeks, but the humidity levels were off the charts, so the grass was dying from lack of water, but the ground was growing fungus due to the sticky atmosphere.  I ended up dropping $50 on fertilizers and fungicide in order to combat the spread of this crap throughout my yard, but I was able to restore it to full awesomeness in about a week or so (by the time we got back from Eight Point, the grass was back to its usual dark green. . . I just never got around to taking an 'after' shot, my apologies.)

While spending some birthday money at the Midland Mall (and hitting up Barnes and Nobles for some leather-bound Collector's Editions for Yours Truly), the rain - which had been absent for so, so long - finally decided to show up.  With a vengeance.

Re-sleeving some vinyl.  This is waaaay more fun for me than it should be. . .

Alayna had a playdate with her BFF, Maddie, and I decided to take the girls up to Plymouth Pool for a swim session. . .

I didn't think they'd hit the waterslide up right out of the gate - it usually takes a little bit of coaxing on our part to get the girls to do it - but Maddie's presence must have instilled some confidence/courage in the Cannonball.  Those girls went right over to the waterslide and couldn't be pried away from it for over an hour.

Fortunately, it wasn't too busy today, so there was rarely a line for the slide.

I can think of far shittier ways of spending one's hot, summer days. . .

Bought a stylus scale recently in order to better calibrate my tonearm weight.  I was aiming between 2.5 and 3, so I was pretty cool with this.

One morning, Alayna decided she wanted to try making pancakes all by herself. . .

Too bad she can't do the dishes by herself. . .

More culinary aspirations.  Abby made stir-fry in a wok.  What the hell.

And, in closing, here's a couple shots of our central garden in the backyard. . . 

This ground cover is out of control.

- Brian