A Peek at Life as a Natic

Check out our photo gallery to see Super Bowl 2010 pictures or click here.

Last Saturday, Mike and Aubree made plans to come over to make New Orleans Saints shirts for the babies to rock for the game.  Kara, Lin, and Bobby also came by to hang out for the day and do dinner. 

Preston's Reggie Bush shirt

The ladies bought shirts, iron on numbers, and iron on logos for to make some New Orleans Saints gear for Sunday’s game.  They came out really good!  Alisha made Preston a Reggie Bush shirt and Aubree made Kaitlyn a pink Saints shirt.  They were so cute.  Alisha and Aubree also made shirts for themselves to wear to match the babies.

On Sunday we headed up Kevin and Ash’s house to watch the big game and hang out with friends.  Alisha and Aubree were sure to get the babies together to take some cute pictures!  The game was so-so in my opinion, but the commercials and half time show were horrible.  Ill start with the commercials.  What happened to good, funny, commercials?  They were so lame this year!  Then we have the halftime show.  What the heck?!  What happened to Aerosmith with Britney Spears killing it up there?  What happened to mainstream music artists?  What is up with these multiple years of boring classic rock artists from before my time???  If you are going to do that, then throw a modern day artist in there from a different genre to get more people interested!  No one wants to see people nearly break a hip on stage in their old age!

Be sure to click the pictures link above to take a look at the two babies together.  So cute!

Last Saturday we had a busy day.  We woke up a little late and scrambled around to head to a neighbor’s child’s birthday party.  We were about 30 minutes or so late, but hey, better late than never right?  We had a good time eating some food and just chilling to celebrate Gabby’s first birthday.

Afterwards, we headed over to Hector and Reagan’s house to hang out with them for a while.  They were busy painting the nursery so we decided to swing by.  While we were there Geni showed up with pizza from Ray’s which hit the spot!  After Hector finished the nursery we just chilled and hung out for a while before heading out to dinner at Marlows Tavern.  We met Ashley, Kevin, Jason, and Amber at the one in Alpharetta for some grub.  I had been to one before in Duluth, but noone else had been to one.  Just like the Duluth location, it was a crammed restaraunt but for a good reason.  They have great food and a nice atmosphere.  We had a great dinner before heading back to the house to relax for the rest of the night.

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 up to dinner at a new restaurant with Kevin, Ashley, and Spence.  It had been a while since we had hung out so it was great to grab some dinner and drinks.

Ash, Kev, and Spence came over and had a few beers before we headed out to a new restaurant at Vickery Village called Robinhood’s Tavern.  It had just opened up earlier that week and took over the place that the excellent Atkin’s Park was in.  I always like to try out the new places so I was quite excited.  Unfortunately, I was very disappointed.  The food was so incredibly average.  For a restaurant that was taking over Atkin’s Park (which had excellent food but a little pricey unless ordering a burger or a sandwich) it was a huge miss.  The menu was very small with nothing appetizing on it and the food was just so so.  It wasnt bad… it just wasn’t anything special.  I will never think to go there when thinking about getting dinner.  Mark my words – closed within the year.  No doubt about it.  If the previous place failed, you better come with a great menu, food, and drinks.

While the dinner was not memorable, the company was.  We had a great time just BSing and talking before heading to Haagen Dazs for some delicious ice cream.  I had a Belgian chocolate shake.. holy crap!  It was incredible!  A great recomendation from the server. 

We then headed to the house to chill out and wrap up the night.  Thanks for coming out guys.  It was fun!

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!

Last Saturday was the huge Georgia / Florida game.  As you may already know, UGA has not been doing all that well this year and Florida is ranked number 1 in the country… the game showed just that. 

We headed to Ashley and Kevin’s house to meet up with some of our friends to watch the Georgia / Florida game and to hang out.  We met up with Ashley, Kevin, Spence, Paul, Rickii, Mike, Aubree, and Jamie to watch the game which turned out to be a total cluster   UGA got their ass handed to them again but at least this time it was expected.  We were not even ranked and Florida is ranked number 1 in the country… ugh.. this season is killing me

After watching the game, we hung out, had some beers and then headed out around 8:00 to grab some ice cream with Mike, Aubree, and Jamie at Cold Stone in Dawsonville.  It was an early night but we still had a great time hanging out on such a nice Saturday

On Friday night we headed out to dinner with Jason and Amber to celebrate Amber’s birthday.  Paul, Rickii, Spence, Ash, Nelson, Grant, Jason, Amber, and her roomates were all there to eat some dinner and have a great time. 

Princess Spencer

We went to La Parilla, a Mexican restaurant at Windward Parkway and Hwy 9.  They probably have the nicest staff I have ever experienced for a restaurant and food to match.  I highly recommend it to anyone that happens to be in the area.  Spencer cracked us all up as he ordered wings at a Mexican restaurant LOL.  Who does that???  ha ha.

Paul

After dinner we headed out to Cold Stone for dessert before going to Durty Kelly’s Public House.  It was quite a nice place.  It was layed out very neat and had the typical pub feel.  The only thing that I can complain about is that the band was just ridiculously loud.  You literally could not talk to the person sitting right next to you even if you were screaming and we were as far from the band as you could possibly get in there.  It was rough.  They had the typical pub type beers, and what looked like great food.  I would give it another shot for sure as it may have just been that band…. but it was just so darn loud!

Wings at a Mexican rest???

Happy Birthday Amber!  We are glad we got to celebrate with you!  And how did we not manage to get a single pic of you??  LOL

Holy Taco

Friday was much needed – as it always is!  It was Danielle’s birthday on Thursday so we went up to Alisha’s dad’s house to eat dinner and cut a cake for her birthday.  He had made some pulled pork for dinner and they had a red velvet cake for dessert.  We hung out for a while just spending some good ol’ family time.  Before long we headed out to head back to the house. 

As we hopped onto 400 I asked Alisha if that is where Kevin and Ashley’s new house was and she said yes.  I decided to pull a u-turn to swing by real quick.  We got the tour of the house and hung out for a while.  We had not seen them in about a month so it was great to do so.  The new house is beautiful.  Congrats guys!  We got to see Kevin, Ash, Stan, Kristen, Grant, and Spence.  It had been forever so it was good to catch up.

We ended up leaving not too long after as we had a big day Saturday and we were exhausted.

On Friday night we headed over to Ashley and Kevin’s place to have a chill evening with some friends.  On the way up there we stopped for some beer (Terrapin India Brown Ale – mmmm!) Moe’s and then some ice cream from cold stone. 

Ashley and Kevin have sold their house (under contract) and are packing up to move to a house they plan to close on shortly after they have to move out – unfortunately that may mean two moves but they will do what they have to do.  We had a chill evening listening to music and chilling on the back porch with Nelson, Grant, Kevin, Ash, Veronica, Matt and Laura.  Before too long we headed out as Alisha was really tired.

That may be the last time we are ever in that house – feels so weird!  We will miss it… it is beautiful!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures Preston’s Nursery at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

Preston's room painted - visit the gallery for chair rail pics!

Saturday was the day!  Earlier in the week I had gone to pick up the wood that we will need to complete the nursery as well as the playroom downstairs.  Our plan is to put chair rail in the nursery, paint sheen stripes below the chair rail, add crown molding in the nursery and the play room, as well as bead board with chair rail in the play room.  Yeah – lots of work!!

In the morning my dad came over to get a start on this whole project.  We are trying to get it done before Alisha’s family shower, but we dont know how possible that really is.  Either way we are going to give it a serious shot.  The worst part about these projects is that none of them can really be done on my own.  I always need an additional hand measuring, or cutting, or nailing… it kinda is frustrating.  I know that other people have lives of their own and I feel like I am always bothering them when I ask for help.

Well throughout the day we did pretty well.  We got the chair rail up in nursery and it looks great.  Now I need to caulk it and paint it.  We really tried to get the crown molding up in the nursery as well but we were confused as hell.  Seriously, we wasted about 16′ of crown molding before giving up for the day.  We were told it was a chore, but I had no clue.  The cuts just didnt make sense at all. 

Time flew by and we grew more and more tired and to top it off the damn mitre saw kept tripping my breaker so we had to call it a day.  I was not too happy about the ending and it just put a damper on a rather successful day.  I just get frustrated when things should be easy and end up being so darn hard -ugh!

btw, dont mind the wall color in the pictures.  The lighting is very poor in there and the color just comes out very off at times. 

Kevin and Mike's steak trumping Alisha's and mine lol

So after working all day we headed over to Mike and Aubree’s house to watch the UGA game, cook some steaks, have a few beers, and just relax.  The game was painful to watch and was a nail biter for sure, but it was still great to watch it with our friends.  Kevin and Mike had steaks to throw on the grill as well, but both of them were like 4 times the size of mine LOL.  They were massive!!!  It was a great night – Sunday was set to be another busy day!

Last Friday we headed over to Alisha’s parents house to eat dinner and have dessert for Tiffany’s birthday.  We chilled out there for a while before heading over to Cinco’s to celebrate Ashley’s birthday.  We met up at Cincos with about 25 other people to enjoy the night.  They had a DJ and all of our friends which led to a great time.

Happy birthday Tiff and Ash!

Friday night was a big night for everyone.  We celebrated Spence’s birthday by enjoying some dinner and then headed downtown to celebrate Grant’s upcoming wedding.

Spencer had originally wanted to go to a new bar in the Cumming area but unfortunately they did not get their liquor license in time to be open for the weekend.  Because of this, Spence decided to move the party to Taco Mac – you wont hear me complain!  Alisha was a little less thrilled but came out to spend time with good friends.  We had a nice sized group of almost 20 and had a great time just BS’ing and eating / drinking.  We didnt have the best service (okay maybe the worst ever) but we made the best of it!

After dinner, the guys headed downtown to spend time in Buckhead, the Highlands, and then back to Buckhead.  We started out in a bar that turned out to be the visiting football team’s bar of choice.  We had to get the HELL out of there!  We headed out to the highlands and had a few drinks at a few bars there before heading over towards East Andrews in Buckhead.  They still wanted a cover charge even though they were closing in about 30 minutes, so we decided to head out of there.  On the way home we grabbed food at IHOP before making it to the house.  It was a long night of fun and we made it back to the house at about 2:30 or so.

Saturday was the day that I was looking forward to for months!  Motley Crue was in town doing Cruefest 2 with several other bands (including Godsmack Drowning Pool, and Theory of a Dead Man).  Before the concert Bobby, Dan, Courtney, Hector, Kevin, and I all went out to Sweetwater Brewery to have a few beers and to try out the beer that we picked blueberries for several weeks ago called Big ol Blue Balls.  It was a great time at Sweetwater as always – until Courtney broke her sandal walking out LOL!!! 

We took a side trip to Target to get a replacement pair for her and then went into Atlantic Station to eat a quick dinner and head to the concert.  While we were out Alisha hung out with Kara to pick out the dress that they are going to get for Denae’s wedding next year.  She tried to meet up with Ash as Kevin was out with me, but schedules did not happen to match up.  We’ll catch you next week girl!  Reagan was also free because Hector was with me so the two of them did some shopping and hung out for a while.  With Reagan being pregnant, they have been spending a lot of time together and talking a lot.  Its an exciting time for both of them and it gives them so much in common to talk about!

The concert was awesome – for me at least ha ha.  Not too many others knew much Motley Crue stuff but I loved it!  They played the entire Dr. Feelgood album cover to cover.  I bet they may have been kinda bored, but whatever – it was awesome!  Aside from the music, I have never seen so much trash in my entire life.  These people must live in the woods or something.  Within 10 minutes of us getting there, two fights broke out with multiple people fighting the security staff and all kinds of crap.  It was CRAZY!  90% of the concert goers must have just come from a Meth party or something.  These people were cracked the hell out, dressed like total trash, and just nappy!  While we were there we also ran into my old boss from Publix.  That was pretty crazy too.  Hadn’t seen her in like 7 years plus. 

We got home at about midnight and spent some time talking to Alisha before we headed off to bed.  Unfortunately Courtney woke up with flu-like symptoms and left before being able to go to Andrea’s baby shower.  Hopefully she does not have the flu, but it sure sounded like it.  Alisha headed out to Douglasville to celebrate Andrea’s baby shower today while I just killed some time at the house.  I started trying to paint the nursery but unfortunately I really need another set of hands to get any of it done.  Trying to just mark off where the chair rail was going to go was nearly impossible and I just got too pissed to continue.  Another day – ugh… I really want to get it done!

On Saturday morning we woke up and headed over to IHOP in between exits 7 and 8 to grab breakfast with Mike, Aubree, and Kaitlyn.  After stuffing my fat face with far too many pancakes, hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon we headed up to see Mike’s dad.  It was great to see him doing so well.  As you may know, they are like family to me… hell, they were a second family for about 6 years of my life and I owe them lots for everything they did for me during that time and it continues all the way until now.  They are some of the most geniune and sweetest people you will ever meet and I am glad to see them all doing so much better.

After hanging out for several hours, Mike and Bree headed up to her parents house and we headed home to spend time with Envy before going out for the evening.  After spending a few hours with Envy and watching a bit of the Atlanta / Detroit preseason game, Dan came over and we headed off to Ashley and Kevin’s house for the night to celebrate Grant and Allyson’s upcoming wedding in Florida.  Alisha was invited to Allyson’s bridal shower while the guys chilled downstairs until it was over.  We had a great time.  I spent a lot of time hanging out with Allyson’s and Grant’s dad talking about everything from sports to beer to sex.  We really had an excellent time!  They were a riot!  Allyson, I love your dad… he was a ton of fun.  I have known Grant’s dad for Y-E-A-R-S now so catching up with him was equally great.

We spent the evening hanging out with many of our friends.  It was a great time and we were glad to be a part of it.  Unfortuantely, I did not grab any pictures as I was just chilling and when I did shoot some, I was using Amber’s camera.

Thanks for having us Grant and Allyson!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Matt and Laura’s Big Day at pictures.neilnatic.com or here

Saturday morning we woke up, got ready and headed out to Roswell for Matt and Laura’s big day!!!!

Matt and Laura got married in Roswell at Founder’s Hall on Saturday afternoon.  It was a gorgeous wedding with their friends and family there to celebrate!  A few of our friends were in the wedding party and many others in attendance.  It was a great wedding.  We are so happy for them and wish them a lifetime of happiness together.

NO - She was not really drinking them LOL

Congrats guys!!!

note:  unfortunately we did not get to take many pictures.  We allowed family to be closest to them for their big day and were further away from most of the action.  If they post pics from their photographers I will edit this post and link back to them.