A Peek at Life as a Natic

Check out our photo gallery to see our family pictures or click here.

Last Sunday morning we went with Kara, Lin, and Alisha’s mom up to The Original Pancake House.  Although this place is a chain, I have only eaten at one once before.  Holy COW is it good!  They try to use healthier ingredients, not to say it is “healthy” in the least.  Their food is just flat out incredible!  I had bacon pancakes, yes bacon pancakes, and holy CRAP are they good!!  I added a side of delicious home fries and Alisha had a waffle and some eggs.  If you have never been to one you have to go.  To my local readers, the only one I know of in the area is on Windward. 

After breakfast we made a quick stop at Babies R Us and then headed off to Ryan and Andrea’s house.  We hung around for a bit and then headed to Andrea’s neighborhood parks to take some pictures outside.  Some of those are in the photo gallery and can be seen by clicking the link above.  It was very sunny (yeah i know…. hard to believe) so many of the shots were of me squinting and ruining the shots LOL. 

Later on, Nathan and Sarah came over with their two lovely children for dinner and to hang out.  It was a great night chilling with the DiRocco’s as always.  It was good so see them again.  Unfortunately their moving habits have us about an hour apart now .

Thanks Andrea for taking the pics!

Last Saturday we made plans to leave the kiddos at home and head out for an adult dinner at Maggianos in Buckhead.  Alisha’s birthday and Ryan’s birthday are only a day apart and we always make an annual trip to Maggianos – and this year was no exception.

In the afternoon I had tried to get all of the guys together for a good game of football.  We had about 10 people that were in but most of them backed out due to a little rain.  Four of us showed up and we said “screw it, lets play”.  We played for a while just as a QB and one receiver taking turns trying to make it into the end zone.  It was fun on its own, kept us active, and made for a good time.  We were soaked, but it was still so worth it.  Afterwards, we headed over to Taco Mac for a quick beer and then headed home to get ready for dinner later in the evening.

We made plans to leave little Preston with Alisha’s mom and head out with friends.  Bobby and Courtney came over to our house and we headed out to Buckhead to meet up with Mike, Aubree, Ryan and Andrea.  We had an excellent dinner and had a great time.  It was very nice to see everyone again and as always the food was spot on.

On Sunday we planned to hang out with Andrea and Ryan for the Atlanta Home Show.  Since we got back from Athens on Saturday night rather late we knew getting up early for lunch with Andrea and Ryan would be tough.  In addition Andrea had mentioned that Nico may not be feeling well so we sort of banked on lunch not happening – apparently this was a bad idea LOL.

I got a text on Sunday morning from Andrea that said something along the lines of No Mas lunch at 11:00?  I didn’t realize that No Mas is a restaurant LOL – I thought that she was saying no more lunch at 11:00 – sorry guys!  We would have loved to do lunch but we would have needed to make it a little later.  ha ha.

We had a good time checking out the home show.  It was not quite what we had hoped that it would be but we still got to spend time just hanging out.  We checked out the show and grabbed some coffee afterwards before heading home for the night.  It was great seeing them again and we are looking forward to Maggianos next weekend for Alisha and Ryan’s birthday!

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Football with the Guys here

SOME of the guys

Thanksgiving evening the guys in the family took a ride over to Sharon Springs Park in Cumming.  It is right around the corner from Edwin and Geni’s so it was perfect.  When we got there we found that it was a fully artificial turf field and was completely numbered!!  It was AWESOME!  Ever since that night I had been itching to play some more football with the guys.  It was a great time and was a great way to keep active.  My legs were SHOT after playing.

So last weekend I organized for a lot of the guys to get together and play and nice game of two hand touch / flag football.  While we played the ladies planned to get together at our house as well.  We had a great turnout of 17 guys!  A huge turnout even though the weather was in the low 30’s as a HIGH.  It was VERY cold but we all dressed warm and showed up to play a great game of football.  It was such a blast again!  We had some great highlights and just an all around great time.  Everyone got along very well and we had no injuries.  A total success!  I was sore for like 4 days after playing.  That sprinting over and over again really beats the hell out of inactive legs. 

After the game we all headed over to Taco Mac for some food.  The ladies and kiddos came up there as well to meet up with us.  We had TERRIBLE service (always do at 141!!!) but ohh well… we still had a good time.

Shirt Lin and Kara bought

After Taco Mac everyone kinda did their own thing.  We headed back home to hang out with Andrea and Ryan (and the kids).  We all just hung out and talked until about 11:00 or so and then they took the trek back to D-Vegas (Douglasville).

We had such a great Saturday.  Man did I have a great time playing football.  It was awesome!  We are hoping to get the guys together every other Saturday to play.  Hopefully we can make it happen!

The shirt that is on Preston is quite a funny story.  A while back Kara and Lin came over to watch a football game.  Lin and I were in the living room watching the game and Alisha and Kara were in the kitchen.  So Alisha must have caught a glimpse of two linemen pushing and shoving at the line and said, look at those two guys fighting at the hut-hut line LOL!!!!!!!!!  She was referring to the line of scrimage but did not know any better.  She will NEVER live that down.  When Preston was born Kara and Lin got him a shirt that says future member of the hut-hut line  on the front and Natic with a number on the back.  It was a perfect gift!

On Friday night we headed into the city to check out a brew pub that I had been keeping an eye on with some of our friends.  It was called Max Lagers which was located right by the SunTrust building in downtown Atlanta. 

We went down with Bobby and Dan to grab some dinner and drinks and met Andrea and Ryan there.  We had a great time just talking it up but I will say I was not impressed at all with the beers.  I felt as though they were very watered down.  It was almost like good beer Bud Light style…I don’t know… there was absolutely no beer taste there.  Let’s put it this way.  We all know Alisha hates beer…. she actually liked this. 

I dont know if we had a bad batch or something, but it was no good in my book at all.  We were one of three tables on a Friday night and that may be why.  The food was okay, nothing great really, but the service was great.  Our waiter really went out of his way for Alisha and that was really cool of him.

It was a chill night with some good company to wrap up my birthday.

On Monday night we went out to dinner with Andrea and Ryan to Wild Wing in Alpharetta.

Ryan and Andrea had planned to be in the area and asked if we wanted to do dinner while they were out this way.  We said of course and met up with them as well as Matt and Jess for some wings.  We had a great night catching up with them and having a great dinner. 

We miss Alpharetta, and miss having Andrea and Ryan living in our same neighborhood.  Those were the days!

It was great seeing them again and as always we had a great time.

We had pics to post but when Ryan took copies of the pics of Dominic and Nico, he removed them from the card

Saturday morning we woke up and got ready to head over to Andrea and Ryan’s house to celebrate Nico’s 2nd birthday with their family and friends.  We had to run by a few stores to search out some shoes for his present which ended up in a big negative.  I think that we need to get into the children’s clothes business.  How hard is it to make some shoes that look decent…. you know without velcro and stuff.  They make they for adults… why not for children.  We were forced to get him a toy at Target and then give them some money to pick up some shoes that Andrea can decide on when she finds them.

The party was ball themed and it was very cute.  Nico just loves sports balls and had a blast.  Between those and the balloons he would be entertained for days.  We bought him a bowling set and that became his favorite thing immediately LOL.  It was cute.  He was very insistant that it was his toy and he was going first.  He didnt even want to eat cake because he didnt want to stop playing with the bowling set LOL.    Speaking of which, it was hysterical when everyone sang Happy Birthday to him and Harrison (Nathan and Sara’s son – they are on our links on the right side of the page) blew out Nico’s candles as the singing concluded.  Watching Nathan come running to bring Harrison outside for a little talk was hilarious! 

After the party and everyone left, Alisha and Andrea headed upstairs to take some pictures of Dominic.  We hung out for a bit later but had to head home as we had the dogs crated at the house. 

When we got home I was excited about watching the Georgia game.  I have been watching every game this year and was excited to watch the dogs win at home on senior day for the last game at Sanford Stadium for the year.  They started out looking good.  Up at the half and that is where it ended.  It got worse and worse until they blew the whole damn game.  I was incredibly pissed off.  I just wanted to throw my remote through my damn TV.  It was ridiculous.  Between huge costly penalties and four turnovers how the hell do they expect to win.  It really just ruined my day.  I guess I just care way too much.  Ugh.. it makes me sick just typing this.  Apparently I am not the only one though.  I signed onto facebook to display my disgust and that was all i saw.  Just pages of posts about UGA’s crappy game and how ridiculous it was that they blew it.

Tuesday night after work we headed out to Mall of Georgia to see if Alisha could pick up an outfit for Preston to wear to Mike and Denae’s wedding in April.  She had been sent a link by Andrea an un-named friend of ours that wanted to see my wallet fade away. 

Before stopping to go clothes shopping we made a stop up at Honda Mall of Georgia to test drive an 06 – 07 Honda Pilot.  We had been looking at them online and figured that we would try and drive one to see what we thought.  I thought the outside was not bad but wanted to see what if felt like and what the inside looked like in person.  We drove it and it really did drive pretty well.  The inside was just not what we were looking for though.  It is definitely not a bad car, but after having our hearts set on the Volvo they just didn’t compare.   Back to the drawing board.  Do we cough up the extra doe or do we just bit the bullet and find something else.  Damn this money thing.  Why cant we just be rich?! 

We then left the dealership and headed over to H&M inside of the mall.  Alisha had been online on their site and checking out their clothes so we had to make a stop over there to pick a few things up.  The clothes were very cute but they did not have correct sizes for some of the clothes that we wanted to pick up.  We grabbed a few things but we are still on the hunt for some others.  We left the mall and headed over to Olive Garden to grab something to eat before calling it a night. 

It was a nice night out with the wifey!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Alisha’s baby shower here

Last Saturday was the friends baby shower that Aubree and Andrea threw for her.  The ladies planned to come over for the shower while the guys headed out to tour the Atlanta Brewing Company. 

Andrea and Aubree came over to setup and get things ready for the shower and that was the perfect time for the guys to get the hell out of there.  Bobby, Hector, Mike, Spence, Brett, and I headed out to head to Atlanta Brewing Company which are the brewers of Red Brick beers, the beer for Mellow Mushroom, and the house beer for Jim and Nick’s BBQ.  This is the first time that ABC was open on a Saturday so the crowd was quite small compared to what I normally hear about the weekday tours.  The brewery was a lot cooler than I thought it would be.  It had a nice calm bar atmosphere up front with a TV (which had the college games on) and the bar with their beers on tap.  The brewery was connected to this bar area and was open to walk back into where there were plenty of other tables and stuff to sit at. 

The brewery tour there was probably the most informative of any of the breweries that I have been to although it was a little lengthy and drawn out.  They also seem to somewhat cater to home brewers a little as they had a $4K + homebrewing system setup in there on a stand and the employees certainly mentioned that they brew on it as well.  The beers were pretty good but seem to be the most mild of the other breweries in the state.  For some this may be more enjoyable but I do enjoy when breweries push the styles with their beers.  All in all they have great beers and a great atmosphere. 

On the way home from the brewery I was reminded how fragile my stomach is and reminded me that I need to be very worried about being there for the delivery.  Hector was pretty hammered and had to pee really badly so jokingly we told him to pee in a 24 oz cup that was empty and in the car from an earlier fast food stop…. well obviously he had to go!  He peed in this cup in the back seat of the van and was like oh shit… it is filling up.  we definitely didnt believe him but we were quickly corrected.  I pulled over to verify but he opened the lid and the sight of 23 ounces of pee and the smell of it hit me at ounce.  I threw the door opened, eyes watering and all, and gagged out the window nearly throwing up.  It had the best of me for sure.  I am just such a wuss

Alisha's Baby Shower Cake

Well… onto the ladies… yeah I have no clue what they did… so let the pictures tell the story LOL.  Click the link above above to check them out.  yeah…. so … now that i have gone through the pictures many had to be left out… most you could see almost straight up Alisha’s dress and others had the funniest of expressions on people’s faces so they had to be left off of the internet LOL. 

Spence and Envy

After the shower and the Atlanta Brewing Company everyone came back to the house to hang out for a little while.  We ordered pizza, had a few beers, and called it an early night.  Damn we are all getting old LOL!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of the Atlanta Gay Pride Parade at pictures.neilnatic.com or here

On Sunday morning we woke up and tried to figure out what we wanted to do.  We had been talking about heading down to Andrea and Ryan’s house as we had not seen them in a while but were not sure what to do for the morning.  Alisha then got a call from Kara who was heading down to the Gay Pride Parade in Midtown Atlanta so we decided to go as well.

It is no secret that Alisha and I support gay couples and believe that they should be treated equally and we figured, why the hell not?  Let’s check it out.  We hauled ass to meet Kara, Lin, and their friend Bobby down at Kara’s apartment.  We then headed off to find parking and get a spot for the parade.  We certainly underestimated the parking situation as we got down there but it all turned out fine.  We had to walk several blocks to the parade but at least we got to check it out. 

The parade was NUTS!  There were so many people there to watch that I NEVER would have thought it would be such a long parade.  We were there well over 2 hours and it was still going.  There were just a ton of groups walking to support their cause and it was a good time.  It was really incredible to see so many people support equality and pride for gays.  While we were certainly outnumbered as a straight (pregnant) couple, but our support was certainly welcomed by everyone.  It was a good time even though it was as long as it was. 

Check out our link above for pictures from the parade.   

After the parade we headed out to Ryan and Andrea’s house to hang out and have dinner with them.  When we got there Andrea had told us that they also invited their friends Nathan and Sarah over as well.  We had not seen them in a while and really like to hang out with them as well so it was a great surprise.  We brought Andrea our Kitchen Aid mixer so that she could whip up some of her oh so delicious pumpkin cookies.  DAMN those things are soooooo good!  You just can’t stop eating them.  MMMMM!!!  Ryan and I took Anthony and headed out to his data center down town to grab some pictures for their website while the ladies baked away.   Shortly after we returned Nathan, Sarah and the kids came over and we threw some chicken and pulled pork on the grill to get dinner started.

As always, we had an excellent time with the DiRoccos.  We dont get to see them as often as we wish we did, so it is always a great time seeing them whenever we can.  Thanks for having us over Andrea and, of course, thanks for the cookies… I wont thank you for the 5 lbs I’ll gain eating them though LOL

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Amicolola Falls and Burts Farm here

On Sunday we made plans to do what we originally planned to do on Saturday – Burts Farm!  We planned to meet up with Andrea and Ryan over in Dawsonville at a huge pumpkin patch called Burts Farm.  We go there every year as it is tradition now.  Each year we go it is busier and busier and let me tell you, this year was NO different! 

Bobby came over to our house in the afternoon and we headed up to Amicolola Falls as he has never been there.  We grabbed subs and chips for lunch at Publix and brought a 2L bottle of my homebrew to have a nice lunch at the falls.  We headed up and were very rudely awakened when we hit traffic damn near the entire way up there.  With the rain on Saturday, I think everyone rescheduled their outdoor North Georgia activities for Sunday.  It was insane! 

Once we got up there we headed straight to Amicolola Falls to have lunch and then head up to see the falls.  I will certianly admit that we far underestimated how chilly it was.  We were actually quite cold!  We ate lunch right next to a mini water fall as the water was racing beside us.  It was awesome!  We then walked up towards the base of the falls.  Alisha would have had a very tough time getting up there as the walk is quite steep, so she stayed near the base as we hurried up to get back to her.  The falls were awesome!  There is so much more water coming down now with all the rain we have had recently.

After the falls we headed back towards Burts Farm to meet up with Ryan, Andrea, and the kids.  Holy crap was it packed!  I have never seen anything like it.  They have tons of parking… well maybe I should say they had lots of parking… before we got there lol.  It was insane.  People were EVERYWHERE.  The hayride line was almost through the entire pumpkin patch!  Once we got in we had a great time as always.  We took a TON of pictures of the boys for Ryan and Andrea as well as some with all of us.  We then headed to pick out some pumpkins.  Bobby picked one up, I picked up too and Ryan and Andrea got a few including one MASSIVE pumpkin.  That darn thing was so heavy we could literally barely lift it off of the ground to get it into the wheelbarrow.  It was a great time as always!  I cant believe that October is almost over already

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Alisha’s Family Baby Shower at pictures.neilnatic.com or here

This past Saturday was Alisha’s baby shower which was thrown by Kara and Alisha’s mom.  Her grandmother and her Aunt were scheduled to fly in from Pittsburgh in the morning so Denae picked them up and headed up to the house to finish getting ready. 

They were cleaning, cooking, and decorating which was my cue to get the hell out .  I took Envy to my parents house and picked Dan up to head to Taco Mac to watch the UGA game.  Mike and Bobby also met us up there for some lunch and drinks.  We had a great time – until kickoff that is.  The Dawgs played like total shit which really ticked me off!  They have had a terrible season so far and it has been very tough to watch the games each and every week.  Hopefully it gets better, but I have to be honest, it is not very likely.  We may just need to write this season off and chalk it up to experience. 

Well, obviously I was not at the shower, so I cannot say much about it, but I can tell you to here click the link above to see the pictures, and maybe it will bring back memories, or it will tell the story for itself

Thanks to everyone that came.  It means a lot to us and your gracious gifts are SO appreciated.  We cannot thank you enough. 

After the shower and cleaning up, Denae and her mom had to go back to the airport.  Yep you guessed it – she flew in and out in the same day and Denae was here for one full day.  That was so nice of them to fly in for this shower.  Once everything settled down, we headed to the Cumming fair for the evening.  We had a good time people watching (a must at the Cumming fair) and just hanging out.  We had some carnie food, walked around, and then headed out.

It was a great day!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Anthony’s FOURTH Birthday Party at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

Anthony's Cake!

Holy cow!  Anthony is already four years old.  If feels like not long ago Andrea was telling us that she was pregnant…wow!

We took the drive out to Douglasville (AKA D-Vegas) to spend some time with Andrea and Ryan to join them in celebrating Anthony’s 4th birthday.  The theme was transformers so it was Transformers everything – especially the cake which their friends baked for them.  It was awesome!

We had a great time spending time with the DiRocco’s and their friends and family. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANTHONY!!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Dominic Gerard DiRocco at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

Dominic and I

This past Wednesday Andrea headed to Northside Hospital (Perimeter) to get induced!!!  After a short labor, Dominic Gerard DiRocco was born!  CONGRATS GUYS!!!!

We headed to the hospital after work to spend time with them and see the baby.  He was sooo tiny born at 6 lbs 7 ounces 20 inches at about 12:30ish in the afternoon.

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our night at Capital Grille with the DiRoccos at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

I made a comment on our blog regarding going to Capital Grille now that we know we are having a baby boy and Andrea offered to join us.  We had not seen them in a while so we made plans to head there on Friday night. 

Andrea and Alisha both Pregnant

As you know, Capital Grille is by far my favorite restaurant!  The calamari, steaks, and truffle fries are to die for…. and the flourless chocolate cake (topped with espresso) is even better than all of it combined.  While at dinner, Andrea gave Alisha a present for Preston.  It is his first Lovie embroidered with his name.  We had a great time at dinner celebrating Andrea and Ryan’s pregnancy as well as ours.  Andrea does not have too much longer before she has her third little boy!

Thanks for joining us guys!