...aaaaaaand That Was January.

2016 marked the coldest start of the year for the Hough family since 2006.  Our Floridian blood, still not accustomed to the frigid tundra of Central Michigan, has made this winter particularly brutal (despite everybody and their brother saying, "this is a mild winter, guys.")

With the Holiday Season officially behind us, everyday usualness returned in due order.  Kris and I went back to work, the kids went back to school, and time slowed down.  A lot.  While not seeming as long and dull as, say, August, January is still a far cry from the three-day-long month of December.  As you can see from the pictures that follow, we didn't do too much outside of the usual grind (which definitely stands in stark contrast with the previous two months.)

Check it out. . .

Came down into the basement to find the girls playing with a bizarro-mix of Playmobil and toy dinosaurs, chanting "SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE!" over and over and over again.  Nothing creepy about that.  At all.

Reenacting Abby's favorite Star Wars movie, The Return of the Jedi, with some of her Christmas loot. . .

I forget what, exactly, she was pissed about, but one morning Abby decided to boycott our family breakfast and seek solitude instead out on the back patio.  In the middle of winter.  In her Darth Vader pajamas.

It had been awhile since I had gone vinyl record shopping, and the itch was starting to get to me.  While Kris and the girls were off visiting her mom in Clare one Saturday, Yours Truly hit up three different thrift shops in Midland over the course of a couple hours on a quest for new jams. . . 

I ended up spending a total of $12, and scored 8 LPs and three 4-record box sets (all, surprisingly enough, in Near Mint playable condition), two books, and one old PS2 game for the girls.  It took a little conversational prowess with a flirtatious girl at the register in order to get that price, but at the end of the day I was able to walk away with a pretty sound collection of plunder (mostly classical.)

(FYI - those Tijuana albums are GOLD.  Especially that Tijuana Christmas LP. . . I imagine that gem will get some pretty heavy rotation next Holiday season. . .)

The boxed sets

See that Bird Sounds boxed set at the right in the previous picture?  The records inside are slightly smaller than your usual 33 RPM, and are insanely flexible, which I've never seen before.  Kinda weird, but the kids get a kick out of them. . .

Another retro videogaming session, featuring the NES and PS2.

Dad and Cindy got me a Bose Color Soundlink bluetooth speaker for Christmas this year, and while it was the color that I wanted (standard black), I felt that the speaker could use some definite 'snazzin'' up.  I therefore bought this leather, Old World-styled case off Amazon, and the sum'bitch fits like a glove. . .

The cut-away areas accommodate all the usual plug-in areas for chords, as well as buttons, and there's a protective mesh covering for the speaker faces, meaning I can keep this thing on at all times and further protect my speaker.  To make things even more awesome, even with this protective case on, the speaker still fits in my foam-fitted, hardshell zip-up case I have for the speaker and chords.  Consider this Nerding Out at a Master Level. 

Kris recently started a new series of books with the girls as part of their nightly, wind-down, reading session:  Baum's Oz series.  The Wizard of Oz - the most prolific book in the series - is the first book, but there's, like, twenty or so books that follow it.  So far the girls are really into it, so we'll see if Kris can complete the entire run.

Our basement, on any given weekday.

The girls had a weekday School event at the Roll Arena a couple weeks ago:  Chestnut Hill rented out the entire place and the girls were able to skate around (or awkwardly try to do so, at any rate) with their friends from school.

Abby spent more time on the planks than her sister did, as the Cannonball was too busy socializing and ohmygoshing with her friends from school around the arcade and ticket-spewing games. . .

Winning some tickets with one of her friends from class. . .

Abby wasn't very happy with her sister's lack of enthusiasm for skating. . .

Kris showed up after she got out of work, just in time to get some usual scolding in. . .

Waiting for the doc at the Pediatrician's Office (they let kids pick out out a free book to take home, so Alayna scored herself a National Geographic reader about Sharks.)  Alayna had been complaining about her stomach on and off for a couple weeks, and the night before we took her in she actually woke up crying due to the pain.  The docs where we take her (I forget the name of the place) are pretty thorough, and they determined her stomach pains were caused by her switching back to dairy milk after years of drinking soy.  Consequently, Alayna was put on a two-week, no-dairy diet, which eventually cured her of those nasty stomach pains. 

Dolled up and ready for school (usually Kris takes the girls to school in the morning, so I wasn't sure if the make up thing was even allowed.  They eventually talked me into it.)

Some creepy Spanish poster at work, featuring that "know what I mean, Vern?" actor.  Ernest, I think.  Right?

Playing in the snow in the back/side yard

No idea why she's so happy - it's cold as shit out.

I had been out there shoveling the driveway and decided to have a pipe so I could watch the kids frolic in the snow like a couple of idiots.

Abby moves in for the kill, snowball in hand.  Even at close range, her aim is comically terrible.

The onset of another lightsaber battle in the basement, exchanging some Force throws/pushes. . .

(It should go without saying that this is one of Abby's favorite past times. . .)

. . . and no, you can't borrow my shirt.

I hate kids.

- Brian

Janus Randoms

The Christmas decor resiliently stays up in this house. . .

Welcome back, everyone.

So January tends to be a pretty chill month (no winter pun intended) - it takes nearly a full thirty days to decompress from the two-month, holiday juggernaut that proceeds it.  We Houghs tend to not do anything during this period in time besides getting readjusted to the Grind, as it were.

With that in mind, here's another installment of around-the-house randomness from the Roman god Janus, their god of new beginnings, transitions, and doorways.

Yes, doorways.

Enjoy.

After years of suffering from listening lackluster radio stations and meh segments on NPR, following the untimely demise of my mp3 CD player in my car, I finally got around to installing an old CD player a buddy of mine from work handed down to me.  Nothing fancy, of course, but it does have an auxiliary jack (see above). . . which means now Yours Truly can finally listen to his iPod in his car, and proudly join the 21st century.  Of course, I won't go into the fact I've had this radio for about a year, and haven't gotten around to doing this before due to my own laziness. . .

You know you work at an awesome school when crap like this is allowed to happen. . .

Fortunately, this turned out to NOT be an alien invasion akin to that shown in Independence Day. . .

Alayna has been having to write short stories in her class lately, using a set of her weekly spelling words for each one (usually ones that have the same vowel sound or word structure - you know how first grade rolls.)  This one here, as well as the one that follows, are apparently about Papa. . .

I don't know about you, but I think these things have Wes Anderson written all over them. . .

Another piece of writing from Alayna - this one found in her backpack.  Clearly a love letter to a boy in her class (I'm glad she  changed her mind and scaled it back a little bit in the revision process - guys hate clingy chicks.)

Following the success of the girls' introduction to Star Wars via the Machete Order, they've since become hooked fans, and we watch the movies on a regular basis (all except Episode I, obviously.)

Thankfully, the originals still get more viewing than the prequels - the girls like the main characters in those movies much better than the cardboard cutouts from II and III. . .

Alayna, not-quite-enjoying her celebratory ice cream and pizza from a week of good work at school. . .

No idea what's happening her.

Or here.  Kris took these.  Obviously has something to do with Girl Scouts, since she's wearing her vest. . .

Yes, we're at that age now.

Playing at the neighbor kids' house.

Everyone in my family is lazy.

Everyone.

Bubblebathin

Alayna playing - and apparently acting out - the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for the SNES.

16 bits of awesome

You'll be good to note that my Study (shown here) looks a hell of a lot different than in previous posts - over the course of the last few weeks, following the Holiday season, Kris and I (well, just me, really) have been been boxing up crap around the house for the upcoming move back to Michigan.  While the garage is basically full of stuff to take in the first truck to head north (the first week of April), some items have to be stored inside - like the boxes full of vinyl records shown here.  I don't want any of the records warped from sitting in the garage, and you can't stack them either.  I'm still not sure if I'm sending these boxes back in April or June. . .

Target practice

- Brian