Festivus

Hey gang. 

It's been a hectic couple of days, guys. We had two Festivals this weekend, one with Alayna and the Midland High Orchestra, and one with Abby and the Northeast 8th Grade Orchestra. At these Festivals, the schools perform three songs for a panel of judges, then have five minutes to sight-read a brand new piece that they then perform for a separate judge. Top scores are given '1's, bottom scores are given '5's. It's more for vanity's sake, there's no consequences for getting shitty scores or anything like that, but the kids all take it super seriously.

Alayna's orchestra performed Friday night, at a considerably late 8pm start time, with Abby's taking place the following afternoon around 1pm. We would have been better off just bringing along some cots and staying the night over at Bullock Creek High School, where these Festivals took place, but Kris kiboshed the idea.

Later that evening, we had a semi-formal 'plated dinner' party over at the Bos residence. Mitch wanted something fancier for a friend group hangout for once, instead of doing the usual 'everyone bring a dish to pass' and we all just graze while hanging out. He offered folks four entree options: smoked salmon, bacon-wrapped pork, sirloin steak, or grilled chicken, and then had tons of sides and wines on hand to accompany them. After that, he had a couples game tournament, featuring a couple different trivia board games and card games.

Kris and I took second place in every round of the tournament, which was definitely respectable, but I hate losing trivia games - I'm usually a powerhouse when it comes to trivia - but we lost to the Johnsons, so it was understandable (aside from Yours Truly, Erik's probably the best at trivia.)

So here you go, folks - a crazy day and a half for the Houghs. Check it out. . .

Alayna and the Midland High Orchestra (you can see her in the front center, wielding her violin.)

I apologize for the VHS-level of quality with this particular video, folks - it's like five minutes long, so I had to degrade the quality down to 480p in order for Blogger to host it. I couldn't even condense the rest of the videos, as they were all well over five minutes in length. Abby's pieces are slightly better - two of hers I didn't have to scaled down - but whatever.

The performance part of the Festival went very well, as did the sight-reading aspect that followed immediately afterwards (pics and video of that part of the Festival aren't allowed.)

It took about a half an hour for the school to receive their scores for the evening, which were posted in the hallway adjacent to this cafeteria where we all waited. Midland High ended up receiving '1's - the top score - for most of the categories, and ended up with a '1' overall. Alayna was pretty stoked.

The next day, Abby and the Northeast 8th Grade Orchestra took the stage. . .

(Abby's in the front with her cello.)

This judge in the sweater vest off to the right was pretty strict, and ended up giving the orchestra a '2.'

Northeast ended up with a '2' overall - two of the judges gave them a '2' for their performances, while they scored a '1' for sight-reading. Abby was fine with it, though - she's not as in to orchestra as her sister is.

Later that evening, we all made our way over to the Bos residence for food, games, and drinks. The dads, as usual, set up shop in the kitchen where food was easily at hand.

Mitch made up some of his usual sushi rolls as appetizers before dinner started.

Flatbread pizza.

Lonnie helps Mitch bake some sides.

Grilling up some entrees in the Bos' gazebo out back.

Dinner is served. . .

Some snacks and desserts - gotta make sure folks have enough food.

My dinner for the evening. That steak was unbelievably good.

(That's some kinda bacon/onion garnish you see there.)

The Bos girls, Maddie and Audrey, came out of the basement to stock up on some dessert options before disappearing back into the basement for the evening.

Courtney, Kris and Stephanie, clucking about wife shit.

Danielle and Kellie at the wine station.

Collier channels his inner-gangster.

The gaming tournament begins. . .

Mitch had a lot of bourbon on hand this evening as well. Here's a glass of my all-time favorite bourbon, Woodford Double-Oaked.

Kris and I would have won this, but we lost a turn twice and got some really shitty questions. Still finished in second, though.

Stephanie, Danielle, and Kris.

Skip-Bo. Kris and I got 2nd place in this one as well.

Due to the amount of people we had, it was necessary to break of into two, separate tables for cards.

Morgan, who's already tall at 6' 4", was sitting in a high-seated chair, with Yours Truly (standing at a whopping 5' 9") was seated in a folding chair. Folks found the height discrepancy hilarious. 

Tried a glass of this next. A very, very expensive and rare bourbon, I almost felt guilty having a glass of it. Almost.

We had to break off into teams for Mind the Gap, which - again - we almost won.

We teamed up with the Colliers for this one. Mees definitely carried us with the Gen Z knowledge.

The battle rages on.

Lonnie and Omkar took a selfie at one point because they thought they were 'twinning,' despite the fact that, you know, one's black and the other's Indian.

Mitch, being inappropriate as usual.

A celebratory toast at the end of the tournament.

(Kris, your Farwell is showing.)

- Brian

Resurrecting the Yard

These tulips always sprout up in the Spring, then die off after a couple weeks.

'Sup gang.

Here we are in the first weekend of May, at long last.  This month is like Summer's Pre-Season (similar to what November is to December), and this is when we Houghs really start itching to be outdoors throwing back drinks with friends, boating on the lake with family, or being out in our backyard bronzing and doing yard work. 

This weekend didn't see as much of the former two activities, but plenty of the third.  Kris had been pestering me for weeks - nay, months - to set up our gazebo (yes, Kris bought a gazebo last fall and the large box has been sitting in our garage taking up all kinds of valuable space.)  I've kept telling her 'no' because the rain and snow kept coming and I didn't want the assembly to get all jacked up, but this weekend we've had nothing but awesome, sunny weather.

We have this magnolia tree in the backyard that is absolutely gorgeous. . . for about two weeks, while the flowers are in bloom.  Then all the petals wither and fall off the tree and the tree looks like any other tree.  Still. . . for those two weeks we get some pretty awesome pics.

Well, today I finally relented.

Alayna and Kris start assembling the infamous gazebo on the patio. 

While she and Alayna threw together the gazebo, Yours Truly began trimming a crap-load of trees in our backyard that I've been wanting to scale down for years now.  I then, rather stupidly, decided to burn all the brush so that I wouldn't have to worry about bagging it up in those lawn bags you can pick up from hardware stores.  The trees took forever to catch on fire, as they were still full of moisture, so when they eventually did catch fire they shot up the most ridiculous amount of smoke I've ever witnessed in a backyard bonfire.

Whoops.

Anyway, we had ourselves a labor-intensive but enjoyable Saturday, and felt pretty damn productive by the end of the evening, all things considered.

Check it out, folks. . .

Close up shot of the magnolias (is that the name of the flower, or the tree?)

I offered to help them a few times, but they were being 'independent women' about needing a man's help.  Oh well.

(You can spot the smoke starting to climb up from my fire in the background, there.)

I took a long, long time - with plenty of cardboard, firestarter, kindling, and gasoline - to get this thing going.  Those tree branches were far from dead.

Kris attempts to hang the hook from the center of the structure.  Almost has it.

She loves her picture being taken.

Just about finished with the gazebo. . .

Guess which child this is.  Go ahead.  Guess.

The neighbors must have LOVED me today. . .

Taking a break (and yes, I'm aware my lawn shoes are gross.)

Finished product (though Kris and I later this weekend went out and bought a set of black-and-white matching chair cushions - I'm sure you'll see pics of those in May's installment of monthly randoms.)

Not a lot of smoke now - after hours of burning trees, I had a solid bed of coals going.  Anything that fell into that pit of death instantly caught on fire.

Spied the girls 'fighting' in the backyard - I took this of the two of them screwing around from inside the kitchen.

Spotted.

After dinner, we decided to play some cards with the girls under our newly-assembled gazebo.  I honored the occasion with one of my all-time favorite beers.

The dogs love the recently-mowed grass (while my rider was being worked on by the folks over Ace Hardware, I had to push mow the entirety of the property - takes about two frickin' hours.)

I hate this game.

Umm. . . time to play a new game.

This squirrel fell out of the tree once and the dogs almost got him.  He then clamored up this super-thin branch - a mere seven feet off the ground - that was on the verge of snapping under his considerable girth.  This squirrel must eat babies or something.

The girls wanted to 'do my hair' while we were winding down from cards.  Not sure if I'm gonna keep my hair like this or not.

Later that evening, winding down with our usual couch hang-out in front of the TV.  Definitely deserved after a day toiling way in the yard, I'll say that much.

- Brian