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!

Check out our photo gallery to see Preston and Kaitlyn’s Playdate or click here.

On Friday Alisha and Preston headed over to Mike and Aubree’s house to hang out for the day.  I met them over there after work to chill and grab dinner with them.  Apparently Kaitlyn loved Preston.  It was cute!

Kaitlyn kissing Preston

We had a great time hanging out with Mike, Aubree, Kaitlyn, and Jessika out in Canton.  Another start to a great weekend!

Well, Thursday night it snowed and left a some sporadic ice throughout the Metro Atlanta area.  For the most part it was okay to drive on but some parts on suburban roads, were more difficult to travel especially as you got further North. 

We had a Dr. appt Friday (more on that on a future post ) and saw that the roads were pretty safe to travel on.  There was certainly some ice but it was not the blizzard that the weathermen were calling for LOL.

In the evening we headed over to Mike and Aubree’s house.  We decided to take the risk and head out towards them.  The drive was quite fine until about the last 3 miles.  It was damn near solid ice.  We just took our time and made it there safely.  We hung out with the Sassos for a while before deciding on KFC for dinner.  Damn.  I have not had that in forever!  It was pretty good but foods as an adult are not what they were when you were a child .  We had a quick dinner and then sat down to watch some basketball, The Final Destination (TERRIBLE MOVIE!!!), and then just hung out.

We headed home at about 11:30 or so and took our time.  It never made it above freezing all day so all of the ice was still there.  We made it home in about 45 minutes or so instead of the normal 30 minutes.  As always it was a good night with good friends!

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!

Yesterday we had a few visitors over to the house to check in on us and to see our little Preston.  Bobby came by in the early afternoon to hang out for a bit.  He brought Alisha a very thoughtful gift and stuck around for a bit just to catch up.  With us having Preston and him being busy at work we have not had much time to catch up.  He had to head out before long but it was great to see him for a bit.

Mike and Aubree had planned to come by last night as well and bring us some dinner (thanks guys!!!).  Aubree and Kaitlyn came by earlier and then Mike came straight from work.  We had La Cazuela which Mike picked up on his way home and watched some Intervention for a bit.  I LOOOVE that show BTW… I am addicted to drug addicts LOL.  Baby Kaitlyn was SOO cute when she saw Preston for the first time.  She started smiling and going nuts when she was next to him.  It was sooo cute!

It is crazy how big she has gotten in the 7 months she has been around.  I cant believe little Preston is going to grow so big so fast!

Man in two of these pics, the guys on TV look like they are looking at Alisha, Aubree, Kaitlyn, and Preston LOL – kinda creepy!

Monday night I was heading home from the office and on my way to the gym when I got a hell of a phone call.  It was an offer for two tickets to the Atlanta Hawks game at 7:00 that night.  I could not turn them down!  Ever since going to that last game, I really have been more into basketball and was really eager to go back.  This sounded like an excellent idea for a Monday night.  I made a phone call and got a hold of Mike and he said he was in.  We met down towards his office and rode into the city together.  Traffic kinda sucked a bit but hell… it is worth it.  We parked headed over to the arena and then ate dinner…. where else but the Taco Mac inside of the arena.  We had a few beers and some dinner and then headed to our seats for tip off. 

It was a GREAT game.  The Hawks were not looking so hot for the first three quarters.  They could not hit a shot to save their lives for a while, but what matters is that final score and they pulled it together in that fourth quarter.  They brought the game within 4, then 2, then tied… then went up by 3… with less than a second to go.. the Trailblazers sink and three to send the game into overtime!  ugh!!! so close!!  In overtime the Hawks were still on their A-game and pulled off a great win to rack up another W and lead the Eastern Conference.  Great game and great times.

The only negative to that game is that it has totally made me exhausted all week.  It is so worth it though!

On Friday night we had a chill night and just headed over to Mike and Aubree’s house to hang out.  We grabbed subs on the way over and just chilled.  Talked, watched tv, played around with Baby Kaits, and relaxed. 

Great way to wind down the week.

On Wednesday we decided to head over to Wild Wing Cafe to grab some much needed and craved wings.  Many of us had been really wanting some good wings but nothing around us will suffice.  We have some crappy places around and it would be really nice to get a place that had excellent food.  But what can you do?  Drive to Alpharetta of course!

At Taco Mac, Bobby, Jason, and I decided that we needed to go to Wild Wing Cafe to spend some time together and grab some wings.  We invited Mike, Aubree, Danny, Jason, Bobby, and Lindsay.  It was a hilarious night as we stuffed our faces.  As always Mike and I ordered China Syndrome (the hottest wings ever) and convinced Bobby and Lindsay to do the same.  This was hysterical.. Bobby took one bite and just started pouring out sweat LOL.  They are hot as HELL, but he was just dying LOL!!! After wings we headed to Cold Stone for some ice cream and then called it a night.

We had a great night talking and bsing around.  It was perfect to break up the week!  Going out on hump day is awesome!

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

Last Friday night we headed over to Mike and Aubree’s house to do dinner with them and Jamie who was in town from Boston.  He flew in for an extended weekend and we had made plans to head to dinner out in Canton and then chill back at Mike and Bree’s house.

We got to their house at about 6:00 and then headed out to Provinos out in Canton for some good Italian food.  We had a great dinner and then headed out to Walmart so that ladies could shop.  This is when the night became the best ever!  I found ….. Rice Krispy Treats Cereal!!!!  I was in heaven and quickly picked up three boxes of it.  I was so stoked!  I had not had this in sooooo long and it was one of my favorites when I was younger, but have not seen it in years!

After Walmart we headed back to their house to hang out.  We spent time, hanging up some curtains, watching some basketball, and just talking.  It was a great chill night with great friends.

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of the Gwinett Gladiators home opener here

We had a full plan for Saturday which slowly seemed to slip away.  In the morning we headed over to my rents to give them our opinion about picking out tile for their master bathroom.  It is currently carpet (i know it makes no sense, but that is what the builder did when the house was built) and they really want to do all tile.  We went to Lowes, Home Depot, and finally Coastal Flooring to pick out what time we think will look the best in the house.  They still have some decisions to make, but I think that they are making progress. 

After looking at tiles, we headed over to IHOP at John’s Creek to meet Mike and Aubree for breakfast.  Mike was in the area to help his parents as well and to hopefully sell his RX7 that he had on Craigslist.  Let me just say once again that I love IHOP!  Those pancakes are just unreal. mmmmm!  After breakfast we realized that the rest of our day just was not going to happen.  It was quite cold and it was just raining and raining all morning which would have made Burts farm a total waste of time.  We were supposed to go with Andrea and Ryan to spend the afternoon with them and the kids and they agreed that it was just not worth it.  We then gave Bobby a call.  He was supposed to go to the Gwinnett Gladiators (local minor league hockey team) home opener that night.  We asked him if he minded if we tagged along and he was more than happy to have us. 

Mike and I watched the UGA game at the house (finally a win!) while the girls organized and went through Preston’s nursery.  We then picked Bobby up and headed to the box office to pick up tickets.  Because it is a minor league team, tickets are much cheaper and much more available.  We walked up there 2 hours before the gates opened and picked up 5 tickets all together 1 row behind the glass behind the Gladiators team bench.  It was awesome… and the best part – 18 bucks a piece!!    We then headed out to dinner at Arena Tavern up the road.  The food and service were both just mediocre but it was food I guess. 

After dinner we headed to the game.  We had a great time.  We had awesome seats, great people, and great people to laugh at.  We had an old smelly guy in front of us for a while followed by his daughter which we didn’t find out until we mentioned that there was an old dude sitting there before LOL.. whooops   ohhwell.. it is what it is.  Bobby and I took an immediate liking to the trash talking, big mouthed player named Tom Zanowski.  He was always antagonizing and threatening people on the ice… heck that is what we are there for!  We want to see fights and trash talking…. and we got what we asked for.  It was a great game and the Gladiators walked away with a 3-1 victory!

It was a great day even if we didnt do what we had originally planned.  Its okay though…we just pushed that back to Sunday which was expected to be a nicer day out.

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of the Stone Mountain Laser Show at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

Us minus Phil at Stone Mountain

Last Saturday afternoon we headed from Andrea and Ryan’s house over to Stone Mountain to meet Aubree, Mike, Krystle, and Phil for some food and the laser show.  We stopped by Publix on the way and continued over to grab a spot on the lawn.  Soon after everyone else showed up.  We ate a nice sub dinner and got ready for the laser show to start.  I had spent a ton of time playing with our camera to get it to grab pictures of the laser show.  The lighting for the show is very poor (for a camera) so it was tricky getting the right ISO, aperture, and most importantly shutter speed setting.  You had to leave the shutter open longer to catch the light but beware of creating blurry images due to you holding the camera in your unsteady hands.  Taking pictures in auto came back with absolutely black images. 

Spooning at Stone Mountain

I had not been to the laser show in years but as always it was a great show.  Afterwards we spent time just talking and having a great time.  Before leaving we had noticed that one couple had been underneath the covers for a little longer than you would expect.  After a little bit of staring at them, we quickly found out that they were having sex in the middle of Stone Mountain!!!  Really?!?!  You could not take that to the house..especially since there are so many people around including many children?  People never cease to amaze me.

On saturday we had a full change of plans.  We were really looking forward to going to ENC CPA’s annual oktoberfest at the office but the rain forced a cancelation of this event.  In addition we were hoping to make it out to Stone Mountain to go to the annual Chili Cook-off they were holding.  The rain kept us away from this as well

We decided that with such a waste of a day, why not have people over at the house for some dinner, drinks, and football – okay I decided on the football part LOL.  Kara and Lin came over early and we spent some time watching some football and talking before heading out to Target to grab some stuff to brew beer with and for some party food and then to Home Depot to take a peek at a rug for the playroom.  We then grabbed lunch at Atlanta Bread and headed to the house to get ready.

We had Mike, Aubree, Kara, Lin, Spencer, and Bobby over and had a great night.   I ordered some pizza, we drank some beer, and watched a lot of football  The UGA game was on late and was a very stressful one – that seems to be the damn trend lately.  A win is a win, but I swear I stress out more during those games than I do at work LOL.

Everyone had a good time and we spent the night with good people.  That is all that matters.  Thanks to all that came!

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!