January: The Month Nothing Happened

Weird.

So we're one month into the new year, and things look. . . well, pretty boring.

Not that that should shock anyone, really - January is notoriously low-key.  Middle of the winter, void of holidays or days off, everyone still dazed and shell-shocked from December's Holiday Gauntlet.  The kids went back to school, I went back to school, and - like September - the month more or less just comprised of the Grind and getting back to normalcy.

As such, things have been quiet around here.  The Houghs haven't done shit lately.

This sign was on Abby's door New Year's Eve.

We're not big on New Year's Resolutions around these parts, which January is arguably most known for; I know that's some folks' thing, but we Houghs tend to see the writing on the wall when it comes to 'fresh starts' and 'starting over.'  We know that pledging to finally get in shape is, most likely, a fool's errand for us:  if it hasn't happened by now, it's probably not going to.  Not with beer and snacks and couches and Netflix so frickin' awesome.

Anyway, here's your monthly installment of all things Hough, the January Edition.

See ya later. . .

My old winter coat from college - now known as my snow-shoveling coat - wins a couple more fans.

Abby approves of her new sequin mini-skirt.

A year ago, Radio Wasteland opened up in town (you may or not remember my lackluster performance while being interviewed for the event on NBC 25), and the second Saturday of the month they hosted a party commemorating their 1st Birthday. 

I wasn't going to go (I've spent a little too much on vinyl these last couple months, honestly), but they had a few raffle giveaways (see above) and some other promotions they were running, so I changed my mind later on in the morning and made my way down there.

I didn't win anything (unfortunately), but I did pick up five or six solid albums and scored some free merch from Discogs in the process.  Hooray for free shit.

Alayna's bedroom door.  Yes, we're already to that point.

At a family dinner over at Mom's, getting some cousin-bonding in.  Alayna's pretty indifferent when it comes to all of her little cousins (see sign on her bedroom door in the previous picture), but Abby really likes holding the twins.

Grandma wrangles some grandkids.

Bunch o' Houghs

Samwise is a perv.

Our resident Star Wars fan (aside from Yours Truly, obviously.) 

Speak Out: Kids vs. Parents.  One of the scariest games your family will ever play.

Guinness limited release, in commemorative vintage packaging and cans?  Can life get any more rad?

Alayna went out to the Midland Mall with some of her squad to celebrate her friend Alaina's birthday.  I'm SOOO glad I wasn't involved with this.

Maddie and the Cannonball, getting some nails done.

With her friend, Dani.

Blowing through some gift cards at Target.

I took this off some Mid-Michigander's Facebook post, but it accurately sums up what the weather was doing up here half-way through the month. Hoth-like conditions, followed by a day of low-60s awesomeness, then another crapload of snow and coldness.  Go home, Michigan, you're drunk.

Both girls have been assigned Chromebooks this year, so they bring them home every day from school and are responsible for their well-being (they're both pretty good with technology - I'd like to think I had a hand in that.)  Alayna usually has homework assignments and leftover work she has to do via Google Classroom (which I use religiously in my school, too), but Abby is tasked with just learning the ins and outs of basic computer use.  Kids today are f***ing spoiled. 

This month saw a surge in popularity of this obscure Google Arts & Culture app - it was all over social media and the Internet, with people uploading pictures of themselves matched up with existing portraits in museums throughout the world.  Sometimes the matched results are hilariously bad, but other times they're eerily accurate.  Here's the Cannonball's pairing. . .

At least they got the bags under my eyes right. . .

. . . aaaand here's Abby's.  Kris never got around to doing it, because as the rest of us were all fine with taking pictures of ourselves sitting around in the morning, unshowered and still in our pajamas, Kris wanted to do her makeup first and make sure she looked good. As such, she never got around to it.

The girls 'teach' Watson a 'new trick,' which is more or less just teasing him with his favorite squeak toy.

Some joint in the mall was dishing out free Henna tattoos for some kids event later on in the month.  I have no idea what any of this was, as I wasn't there.  My apologies.

Kris took the girls and their friend, Sophie, out to see The Greatest Showman at the Midland Cinemas.  Everyone was hyper and all over the place, but the theater was experiencing trouble with their projector.  Kris had to endure 45 minutes of trying to keep three kids from totally losing their shit before the theater apologized, refunded everyone their money, and closed the show.  You can imagine how happy I was that I skipped out on that family 'adventure,' too.

The last week of the month, Alayna's Girl Scout troop cooked, prepared, and served a dinner to all their families in the basement of some church on Ashman St (I forget the name of it, but it's the same church where I fruitlessly voted for Bernie Sanders and, later, Gary Johnson, back in 2016.)  It was a cute outing, the girls really got into it and Alayna was pretty proud of herself.

Alayna and her friend, Sam, gather up drinks for their respective families (whom we were sitting at a table with.)

As an added bonus, Alayna made sure that while they were arranging fake flowers on all the tables, she swiped all the fake lilies and placed them facing the seat she wanted Kris to sit at (they're Kris' favorite.)  Needless to say, I heard more than once the whole 'at least SOMEONE gets me flowers' speech.

- Brian

''The Christmas Pre-Season,'' or, ''November''

One of television's greatest villains, making a dastardly SNES appearance. . .

What up, players.

November flew by this year, which is to be expected:  the second Halloween is over we all put on our Christmas pants and start counting down towards Thanksgiving Break and the beginning of the Holidays.  Aside from stuff we've previously mentioned - getting ready for the Holidays, etc. - November could basically be summed up as The Month of Leaves and Girl Scout Cookies.  That's about all we did this month.

Think I'm joking?  Check this out. . .

Okay, so Kris did take the girls out to see Wicked - one of her favorite broadway plays.  They didn't see it on Broadway, though, but the DeVos theater in Grand Rapids (pretty sure that's what the theater is called.)  She bought the tickets over the summer (I won't even begin to talk about how much those cost us) and over the course of the last couple months has been playing songs from the show for the girls.

Can you tell they're excited?

Me?  I don't fancy myself a theater fan, and I don't care for musicals.  So, while Kris and the girls went to their show, I had them drop me off in Rockford (some fifteen minutes or so north of the theater) to BP's house, where we passed our time drinking beer and playing Super Nintendo.  Which, obviously, is waaaaay more fun than watching the backstory about the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

They ended up getting medium-quality seats (I'm not sure the actual name of the section is, but it's not the super-nice seats, but they're not in the nosebleed section where you can't see anything, either.)  They ended up being good for the kids, I guess.

Hough girls are big fans of selfies.  As I'm sure you know by now.

Meanwhile, back in Rockford. . .

Here's a shopping list we found on the kitchen counter that the girls made.  Seems pretty legit to me.

An outtake from this year's Hough Family Christmas Card, which I shot the second week of the month.  Can you guess how much fun Kris is having?

We took our family portraits with all the leaves on the ground ('cause leaves are Fall-ish), but afterwards it was one of my main weekend goals to clear the yard of all the tree debris.  We had experienced a fairly long - and noticeable, for this time of year - cold snap towards the beginning of the month, and as a result, all the leaves from the trees fell all at once.  Thank God I invested in a Ghostbusters-esque backpack leaf-blower, which made short work of the raking process.  In an hour I had blown all the leaves into a 4 ft x 20 ft long leaf pile (the pic shown here was after we had hauled several tarp-loads away.)  I seriously need to invest in larger tarps, though.

Making progress

(These guys aren't very much help.)

These pictures don't do this pile justice - it stood above the curb by a couple feet, extended about six feet from the curb, and ran the duration of our property line.  It was insane.

. . . and, of course, the next week I had to start over once again.  I f***ing hate Fall.

Cookie Season begins.  I hate Girl Scout Cookies with passion:  Kris is a co-leader so it's become a pretty big part of our Fall lives, with both girls running around collecting orders, and cookie boxes from various members of their respective troops taking up space in our house.

This was after several orders were picked up from our house by various parents.  It's like living in a warehouse.

Hawking wares at a booth outside a Home Depot.

Collecting food for the poor - pretty standard Holiday season charity work.

On a Girl Scout field trip to. . . the Dentist's office.  Edge.  Of.  Your.  Seat. 

Studying geography and science.  We celebrate all things nerdy in this household.

Abby and her BFF, Larkin, on a play date while Kris took Alayna and her BFF, Maddie, out to a theater to see Wonder.

I had no interest in seeing a movie about a deformed kid who gets bullied but somehow ends up with a happy ending.  I like my movies with explosions and one-liners, thank you very much.

Fancy sleepover dinner for the ladies.

Setting up my classroom after Thanksgiving Break (I took other pictures showing off more Christmas lights and decor in my room, but unfortunately my students' names and work were visible in those shots, so I can't post them (FERPA.)

Our 8th grade team this year adopted a sturgeon as part of some Michigan Tech math/science unit, and our science teacher is raising the fish in her room throughout the school year.  Our 8th graders named it Bubbles (I know, it's horrible.)  In the spring, we're going to go on a field trip to release the fish into the Tittabawassee River.  Something to do with science and conservation or something, I don't know.

On yet another Girl Scout quest, collecting toys for the less-fortunate.  'Tis the Season.

My classroom, all primed and ready to roll for our annual Constitutional Convention simulation (one of my favorite - and the students' favorite - activities we do in class this year.)

- Brian