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

Cinco de Mayo (feat. Yardwork)

Buenos Noches, niños.

So Cinco de Mayo isn't something the Houghs generally choose to celebrate.  While I have absolutely nothing against Mexican culture or Mexico itself (I've been there, I enjoyed it), I personally don't get any satisfaction from reminiscing about Mexico's fight for independence from France (yes, France - they used to own Mexico.)  I have no Mexican heritage, so I honestly don't care.

While that may sound harsh, I also don't care about Bastille Day.  Or Throne Day.  Or Czech Founding Day.  Let other countries have their days of independence and cultural heritage, I'll keep mine on the f***ing 4th of July.  'Cause 'Merica.

Other folks, however, seem to get a serious kick out of celebrating the independence of some other country, regardless of whether or not their heritage reflects it.  And while I can't say we have any friends that throw a bitchin' Canada Day party, we do have some friends that choose to honor their non-existent Mexican heritage by throwing Cinco de Mayo parties.

We have a lot of whatever these flowers are. . .

Because who doesn't like Mexican food and tequila, am I right?

(Time to step up your food game, Canada.)

Anyway, so as it turned out, we had ourselves a Cinco de Mayo party to attend this evening, and up until then Yours Truly spent the majority of the morning and afternoon re-mulching some of the garden beds throughout the yard.  'Cause Spring.

So here we go - cómo la familia Hough celebró el Cinco de Mayo.

Todos disfrutan. . .

A sound majority of our many, many garden beds had mulch that was in pretty rough shape, so even last summer Kris and I knew we were going to have to drop a small fortune on mulch in the spring.  I ended up buying 30 or 40 bags of mulch (Kris wanted black) from Lowe's that had gone on sale, so we actually got a pretty awesome deal on it.  After mulching the front garden bed, we turned our sights on the backyard's foremost garden bed - the biggest and most-cared for garden we have.

The black looks pretty sharp now, clearly, but as small animals, kids, and Watson tear through it for whatever reason, the lighter mulch underneath is sure to spill out and get mixed in with it.  I'm sure that's going to look like pure shit.

Before. . .

. . . and After.

Before. . .

. . . and After.

Before. . .

. . . and After.

It took me a couple hours to mulch the whole thing, which I did by myself while Kris had the girls working on cleaning up the inside of the house.

We're not going to mulch anymore of the yard, as the perimeter beds along the back and sides of the backyard we're thinking about doing in rock at some point (as well as the garden bed by the shed.)

Before heading out to the Shepherd residence for their annual Cinco de Mayo party, Kris whipped up a home-made jug of Sangria.  When in Mexico. . .

The Kentucky Derby just so happened to be taking place while we were all at this party, so everyone chipped in $5 and we all bet on a horse by drawing a name out of a hat.  We ended up with a real stinker (I forget the asshole's name, but he ended up in, like, fifth place or something). . .

So long, Five Dollars. . . 

Taco-shaped pinatas?  "Es muy bueno," says the Cannonball.

Someone else - not our kid, obviously - ended up smiting the shit out of it, and accordingly thereafter the entire backyard exploded in a frenzy.

She ate the majority of this plunder while still at the party, and declined to share any later with her little sister (who was away staying the night at a friend's house.)

Ummmm. . . . yoga?

There was a ridiculous amount of food on hand - everyone brought Mexican-ish dishes to share, so we all ate like a bunch of fat-asses.

There was also some of this done by the padres.

And then you have the Macarena.  'Cause it, too, is Mexican.

- Brian