There was talks all week that we were supposed to get snow here in Atlanta.  Everytime they mention it I roll my eyes and just tune it out.  We have not had snow where it sticks for at LEAST 7 years.  I think it has been even longer. 

At first it was supposed to come on Thursday, then it was Friday morning at 6:00, then at 9:00, then at noon, and finally at 2:00.  Well, they were wrong at elast 4 times before getting it right.  It certainly did snow here in Georgia and it was actually decent.  We ended up with 3.75 inches of snow at our house and the area was just gorgeous!  The snow just kept falling and falling.  Everyone was out with the kids playing in the snow, building snow men, and sledding down the hills in our back yards.  It was great!  We took a few pictures with Preston and then headed out for some more fun in the snow! 

We headed to the neighbors houses to hang out and sled down the hills in their back yard.  It was an absolute BLAST!  Man that brought out the kid in me again!  We went down a ton of times, wiping out time and time again to avoid sledding straight down into the woods and the creek LOL.

Thanks to our awesome neighbors for letting us come play and hanging out with us.  We had a great time!!!

We took a bunch of pictures of our time in the snow.  Be sure to check them out from the link at the top of the post.  Some are just beautiful shots of the neighborhood and others are just haveing a great time!

I can’t believe that our sweet little boy is already 1 month old!  He has already gotten so big!  I remember when we were in the hospital, I would just hold him in my arm like a football.  Yeah… not anymore.  He is already out of most of his newborn clothes and weighs somewhere around 10 lbs.  Jeez.  His facial features have changed so much.  He moves so much more, and has many more expressions.  He feels much more solid and has quite impressive head control.  He is no longer the limp baby that we took home from the hospital. 

This month has been tough from getting used to the lack of sleep and constant care to the issues with his poor little tummy.  Everytime we think we make some headway on that situation it seems to rear its head yet again.  Man… we HAVE to find out what the heck is causing him so much discomfort and / or pain at times.  It is heart wrenching to see him like that.  He is so young, but already dealing with things like that.  He is currently taking Zantac (not for much longer), Prevacid, gripe water, and a tummy relaxer.  It is like he is an old man already – jeez! 

Even through the tummy issues it has been such a great month and we love our little boy so much.  We cannot wait to see how much he changes in the coming months!  While I am away I just want to rush home and hold him as he sits so contently in my arms.

Click here to check out his pics from tonight.

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!

With Preston being born such a short time ago, we were very hesitant to take him to our family Christmas Eve gathering that we do each year.  Since we have such a large family, it is usually about 35 people getting together to celebrate such a great time of year.

We were thinking that it would be too many people to worry about, all in once place, at one time.  The last thing that we would want is for Preston to get sick from someone who was not feeling 100%.  We decided to check with our doctor and see what she thought when we were there this past week and she said “dont do it!  Blame it on me if you have to.  Just dont do it.”  We decided to go with the doctor’s orders.  She mentioned that fortunately swine flu was on the decline but RSD was on the rise and unfortunately that would put our little bundle of joy in the hospital .  It is just not worth the risk.

We were home alone for evening which made for a boring night.  We love hanging out with our family and it was really tough to not go.  We watched a lot of tv and just relaxed.  Before long I got a text from our awesome neighbors asking us if we wanted some sushi.  They had people over and ordered way too much and wanted to know if we wanted some.  HECK YEAH!!!!  Heather came over to see Preston and to drop off a ton of sushi.  It was excellent!  Thanks guys!

We headed off to bed shortly after and had a decent night’s sleep.  He was up for a bit, but all in all, we couldn’t complain.  We got dressed and came downstairs for breakfast and to open the gifts that we got.  After that we sat around while Alisha’s mom went crazy cooking.  She was cooking up a storm as we were having my parents (with the kids) and Kara and Lin over for Christmas dinner.  The food turned out excellent and we had a nice chill evening together.

It was a very chill Christmas but was a much needed one.  Hope everyone had a safe and great Christmas as well.

I have been to a few games this year and it has really changed my mind about the sport of basketball.  In the recent years I had really begun to just not care for it at all and going to a few games has really changed my mind about it all.  I have loved it every time I have gone and now will actually check the scores to see how the Hawks are doing.

Jarrod and I headed down to the city for the game on Tuesday and grabbed dinner at Taco Mac before catching a royal butt whipping at The Highlight Factory.  The Hawks killed it and went up by 30+ points making for a huge win with plenty of action.

We had a great time and a great way to break up the work week.  Thanks for inviting me Jarrod.  I had a blast as always.

Alisha had a hair cut appointment in the morning in Alpharetta and somehow convinced me to tag along…. ohh yeah…I remember how… she rubbed Athens in my face LOL.  Since I had so much time to kill I decided to get a haircut of my own at a Sport Clips up the road.  After getting all trimmed up we headed over to Einstein Brothers Bagels for a quick lunch before heading back towards the house to get ready for Athens. 

Terrapin Brewery

Alisha has refused to come along and decided to stay back while Lin, Dan, Bobby, and I headed off for one more night of fun.  Kara and their mom left in the morning to head down from Pittsburgh as she is now living in Georgia!  As you should already know I LOVE Athens and could not wait to head up there to enjoy what may be my last trip up there for a little while.  We had a blast!  The night started off with the traditional visit to Terrapin Brewery.  It is my favorite brewery period.  That place rocks and their beer is just unmatched.  We enjoyed many of their year round beers as well as some special brews.  They had their Wake and Bake (an oatmeal stout with coffee added to it) and Pumpkinfest (an octoberfest with pumpkin) which were both stunning.  That Pumpkinfest has come a long way since it was first introduced and the spices are starting to come through so well.  The Wake and Bake this year was just insane.  I think they may have reduced the amount of coffee added this year which made it the best it has ever been.  mmmmmm!!!!! 

Copper Creek Brewing Company

After Terrapin, we headed off to Copper Creek, another one of our must have stops for Athens.  It is a brew pub that makes some absolutely incredible beers and serves the best food.  I wish this place was in Cumming becuase I would live there!  We had a great dinner and a great time.  MMMMM  I love that place.  Afterwards we headed off to The Globe which happened to be our last stop this trip.  We ran into this chick at the bar that Dan called out for wearing a Tim Tebow jersey.  Turned out that Lin knew her from college and that started a whole night of interesting conversation.  She was a trip.  Next thing you know we are at a table with her and her friends just talking all kinds of college football trash LOL.  This chick was a total trip and her friends were hilarious too.  We had a great time just talking it up before calling it a night and heading back home.

Ahhhhh Athens… I love you

After brewing Bobby came over and we headed to dinner at Bucca di Beppo.  We had a great time catching up on events from the week as well as enjoying some good food.  I will say that I was very shocked by the new pricing.  It costs quite a bit more than Maggianos and the food is NOWHERE near as good.  That may be my last trip to that place for me.  Great atmosphere but those prices are kinda ridiculous even though you are supposed to share. 

After dinner we headed to Cold Stone for some ice cream and then to Taco Mac so that Bobby and I could have the limited beer from He’Brew called Jewbilation 13.  It is a 13% alcohol beer and is made with 13 hops and 13 grains.  It was pretty damn smooth for that kind of alcohol content and was a perfect way to wrap up the night.

notes:  The cider (Graff) has an OG of 1.064 (expected an OG of about 1.060).

She made a nice baked ziti with cheese toast (LOVE IT!) and let me tell you… I ate that UP!  LOL.  We then had an apple pie with ice cream dessert that I also stuffed down my face ate so Diana would not be offended LOL.  It was excellent and we had a great time chilling with our lovely neighbors.  We ended up staying and talking until after 11:00 or so and then headed back home to get to bed. 

Thanks for having us over Diana, it was a great and hilarious time!

We had gone out shooting the week before and had some dinner and a few drinks at Taco Mac and he shot me a text stating that he could not make it to the game and wanted to know if I wanted the tickets.. hell yeah!  I have not been all that into basketball but you never turn down tickets to see an event live.  It is a totally different thing compared to tv of course.  I tried to convince Alisha to come with me but she was not interested LOL.  I called Bobby up and of course, he was down.

We planned to leave my house at about 4:00 to make it there around 5:00, grab some dinner and then head into the arena to check out the game.  On the way down we decided to head to a place called Porter’s which was in Little 5 Points.  That was the 2nd to best decision we made all day!  That place was excellent!  They had great food, a huge beer list (like brick store, or like Taco Mac with not as much on draft but TONS of bottles).  It was fantastic!  We had a great dinner and wrapped it up with a Wells Banana Bread Ale.  That was tasty as well and made me want my banana beer that much more that is fermenting at home LOL.

After Porters we headed over to the arena to watch the Hawks take on the Indiana Pacers at Philips Arena.  Once we got in we stopped by Taco Mac (inside the arena) and then headed up to our seats.  They were quite nice.  They were on the first row of the upper level of the end which made for a perfect view.  It was really great.  The game was awesome especially since they won!  The crowd was into it and there were plenty of exciting plays to cheer on.  I had such a great time and am thinking about picking up tickets to head back for another game.

It was an excellent way to spend hump day (Wednesday)!  Porters may be my second favorite non-Athens bar to go to behind Brick Store.  The food was unbelievable and the beers the same.  I highly recommend you go!  The game was excellent as well.  Thanks a ton to my neighbor for the tickets.  We had a freaking blast!