A Peek at Life as a Natic

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.

Alisha has been wanting to stay active so that we she asked me last week if I wanted to go to Athens on Saturday night.  Are you kidding me?  Of course I want to go to Athens on Saturday night!  Bobby was in for the ride in a heartbeat.  I asked Hector and Reagan to join as well as Reagan still has never been out there and she was actually quite interested in going this time!  She has been wanting to come along but being pregnant and not able to drink has deterred her thus far. 

We had Alisha’s mom watch Preston for the night and we headed off with Bobby, Dan, Hector and Reagan out to Paradise City; I mean Athens.  We headed to Terrapin, as always and enjoyed some great local brewery beers and then over to Copper Creek for some excellent dinner.  Dinner and drinks were great but man was it FREEZING.  It was in the teens in Athens and unfortunately Copper Creek’s heating system was not working so we froze.  LOL.  Hell, it was still worth it.  We then headed over to Trapeze for a few more drinks and hung out.  By then we were cashed in.  We are old now but we still had a great time.  I Love Athens!!

I am so glad you came Reagan.  I hope that you had a good time and I look forward to you being able to come when you are able to enjoy it more!  Little Preston did well with his Grandma at home.  He slept and ate well and was very easy to care for while we went out.

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!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our Thanksgiving here

The setup

On Thanksgiving we headed over to Edwin and Geni’s house to stuff our faces like we have not eaten in 2 weeks  – ohh and spend some quality family time.  This Thanksgiving (and quite a number of  past) was about 15 minutes away at Edwin and Geni’s house.  The whole family as well as Reagan’s family all gathered for some good ol’ family time.  Geni made two turkeys, ham, rice, and stuffing.  Everyone who attended brought a dessert and a side dish to share.  We brought sweet potato casserole and s’mores brownies for dessert to add to the long list of other items that people brought. 

When we first got there we took pictures with Susan (some of which you saw in the belly album) for about 45 minutes or so.  We then headed inside to get ready to stuff our faces.  We ate and ate and ate and demolished the food plates that were setup.  It was excellent. 

After eating the guys decided to head out to Sharon Springs Park to play some football on their field before it got dark.  Man…. we are old…. and even worse…. we are out of shape.  We played on a 50 yard field and we were dying.  At least the adults were LOL.  It was miserable and great all at the same time.  As we played some of Reagan’s family showed up to watch and happened to record one play.  It happened to be the touchdown pass from Hector to me in the end zone.  Hector sat back looking for an open reciever and patiently watched for someone to break free.  He threw it to me in the back of the endzone and it was tipped by Danny / AJ and I dove for it keeping the ball from hitting the ground, bringing in the reception.  It was a great catch.  In the video it looks like it may have touched the ground.  I promise you on anything that it didn’t and Dan was in the area from the opposing team to confirm it.  As you could tell I was a little hyped up by the catch as I celebrated LOL!

After football we headed home to spend the rest of the night with the family.  We had a great time as always and loved the food till the very end.  Thanks for having us Edwin and Geni!

Well, it was Friday and I thought that going out for some Cuban would be the best thing to wrap up a good week.

While we were at our neighbor’s house we had been talking about good restaurants around the area and they had told us about a Cuban place called Tropical Breeze up in Flowery Branch.  It is a bit of a drive, but it was supposed to be excellent.  We decided to give it a shot and asked Hector, Reagan, Bobby, Danny, and Kelly to come along. 

After work Hector and Regan swung by our house to pick us up to head to Bobby’s house to pick Danny, Kelly, and Bobby up to head to dinner.  It was actually a little further away than I had originally thought.  Everyone was saying how this place better be good LOL.  When we arrived and walked in we were hit with the instant relief.  It smelled awesome!  It was a small little restaurant which seated us immediately.  We ordered our food and waited…. and waited….. and waited…..and waited.  Once we got our appetizers we quickly said “it was worth the wait!”  The food was excellent and it didn’t stop there.  Our main courses were excellent as were our desserts.  What a place!  I will certainly be going back and would recommend it to anyone looking for good authentic Cuban food. 

Give it a shot and let me know what you think:  http://www.tropicalbreezerestaurant.net/home.aspx

After dinner we headed home and called it a night.  We had a great time and a great dinner.  Makes me want to eat it again now!

Saturday morning was a big day as Hector and Reagan were heading back to the 3d/4d ultrasound studio to get their gender confirmation and I was excited to watch the UGA Auburn game with Lin.  It was bound to be an excellent day!

So in the morning we woke up, got ready, and headed out the door to meet Hector, Reagan, and Geni and the ultrasound studio on Marketplace blvd to do their gender confirmation.  This was the same place that helped us out when we were in need and I highly recommend them to EVERYONE trying to get a 3d /4d ultrasound done.  See the bottom of this post for a full shout out.  We went back and confirmed…. ITS A BOY!!!  Looks like Preston is going to have another partner in crime to hang out with just like I did with Hector when we were young.  It is going to be great for these two to grow up with another family member their age.  I know it was huge for me.  After the ultrasound we headed over to ihop for breakfast with Hector, Reagan, and Geni.  We had a delicious start to the day and then headed off to go shopping at the outlet malls while they headed up to North Point Mall to do some shopping of their own.

After brekfast we headed up to the Dawsonville Outlet Mall to check out Baby Gap and pick up a few things for Preston.  I have fallen in love with that store and before anyone gives any lectures, I’ll be sure to mention that we buy things when they are on sale and they are no cheaper than any other place we look for clothes and they are much cuter and nicer.  We use coupons and watch the sale racks and love every bit of it.  I can’t wait to dress Preston!!!  We then grabbed lunch and headed back towards the house to meet up with Kara and Lin before the UGA Auburn game.

As you know I am a UGA fan and Lin is an Auburn alumni and huge fan as well.  Well… today was the day.  UGA was playing Auburn in Athens and it was bound to be a great game.  Before it all got started Lin and I headed out to Home Depot to pick up some double sided sticky tape and then over to Taco Mac to grab a few beers and watch a little bit of the games on the tvs there.  We had a some good guy time and then headed back to the house to meet up with the ladies.  We caught some shit about disappearing for a while, but hey… we had some bonding time right?  When we got to the house Jason Lucas had come buy on his way home from work to drill a hole in a keg for me before having to head back up to his house to get things done preparing for his move back to MD… damn you Jason…. we will miss ya buddy!  Courtney was also there as she was in the area to work for the night and stopped by.  I did not get to see her much but it is always great to see her.

We had Bobby, Danny, Kelly, Kara, and Lin over to watch the game and had a blast doing so.  Auburn took an early lead and then after the half it was a battle to the end.  UGA pulled off a HUGE win over the Auburn Tigers making my weekend!!!  GOOO DAWGS!  It was a great day full of things to do and excitement.  Congratulations to Hector and Reagan!  We are so happy for you two!

I want to recognize A Window to the Womb on Marketplace Boulevard in Cumming GA for helping us out when we were in need and providing such a great service to people.  It was a beautiful studio with a huge screen and amazing technicians.  If you are in the market for this type of ultrasound, please support them!  Window to the Womb

You may have noticed that we stopped playing BINGO quite some time ago.  I think everyone got a little tired of the food and we all got busy for a few weeks in a row and BAM! no more BINGO on Wednesdays.  Well, Alisha and I got bored and missed everyone so we decided that it would be a perfect time to get everyone back together for a hump day dinner.

I sent out an email to everyone and we got a ton of positive responses.  We initially wanted to do dinner at Chepe’s, a Mexican restaurant in the area but they could not accommodate the reservation so we moved it to Jim and Nick’s BBQ.  We had a huge table!!!  It was Joe, Carol, Dan, Hector, Reagan, Geni, Edwin, Danny, Kelly, mom, dad, Zach, AJ, Chris, Patti, Dave, Cookie, Frankie, Alisha and I. 

We had a great time getting everyone back together.  We love our family and our family friends.  They are great and make for a fun time.  We laughed, drank,  and joked and just had a hell of a time.  It was so great to see everyone again!  We will need to do it more often for SURE!

On Sunday morning, I woke up early to start brewing a beer that I have been dying to do.  It is a Banana Cream Ale!!  It is a medium bodied beer that after fermenting will sit on 5 lbs of bananas for about 2 weeks.  I cannot wait to taste this!  It will have lactose added to it for a creamy mouthfeel and a hint of vanilla.  Should be a hit just as my Caramel Vanilla Cream Ale was.  I spent about 4 hours cleaning everything and getting it all brewed up outside on the back patio.  It was nice to brew again.  Yeah it takes some time, but it is still fun and oh so rewarding.  Heck, I am drinking a homebrew that I brewed almost a year ago as I type this.

Brewing my Banana Cream Ale

Kara and Lin spent the night over Saturday as Kara was going to come with us to Edwin and Geni’s house to hang out since Oktoberfest was canceled due to the rain.  Lin had a kickball game in the city that he had to go to so he was unable to hang out with us.  Edwin and Geni invited all of the family and a few family friends to come over to enjoy the catered food and just hang out.  It was a great relaxing day.  We talked, watched some football, drank, and just hung out. 

This weather is excellent!  I am so glad fall is here!!!

For my own notes the beer finished at an OG of 1.052.

On Friday night we got together with Hector, Reagan, and Bobby to head out to dinner at a new place in town.  We had not seen Hector and Reagan in a week or even longer so we figured that we would get together and catch up.

We met up at the restaurant and man were we shocked.  This place was P-A-C-K-E-D!!!  I have not seen a place this busy in a long, long time.  The parking lot was full, the dirt space beside it was totally full and people were parking on side of the road across the street.  We were thinking that the wait would be insane, but fortunately it was only like an hour long wait.

We had a great time chatting, eating dinner, and having a few drinks at the new digs.  The service was a little slow, but it was absolutely slammed!  You cant expect the best when they are that busy.  I found the food to be average but again they were really busy.  Will I return?  Yeah probably – but I am going to expect more when I do and if I dont get it, it will most likely be my last visit.

If you are in the area, check it out…. let me know what you think when you do.  Maybe you will have a better experience than I did and end up loving it.  I hope that you do!

After eating at Cookoo’s nest, Bobby and I decided we were not quite ready to call it a night.  We tried to get Alisha to tag along, but she said no way and told us to go by ourselves LOL.  You guessed it!  TACO MAC!!  We got there and had a few beers and called it a night.  It was great.  We sat with one of our favorite waitresses, Lindsay and just chilled.  While we were there a few friends from high school showed up including Drew, Krystle and Phil as they came back from a high school football game.  It was great to see everyone again and we had a great time.

Another solid Friday night!!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Labor Day at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

Corn hole

On Saturday afternoon we headed over to Geni and Edwin’s house for our normal Labor Day Weekend party.  We spent time with friends and family eating great food, having a few drinks, and relaxing.  It was the opening week for college football so we were sure to watch some games including the UGA game which was a huge disappointment.  Made me think about how tough this season may be to watch.

My dad passed out as always!

Bobby’s brothers were in town (Ted, Danny, and Danny’s girlfriend) for the holiday weekend.  I had never met Ted or Danny’s girlfriend before and had not seen Danny in quite some time.  It was great to meet / see them.  We had a great time with everyone playing corn hole and just BS’ing around.  We made fun of everything and just had a blast.

Labor Day is under-rated!

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!

My cousin Hector and his wife Reagan are expecting! 

It is very early but very true… we are excited that our little boy will have a cousin to play with!  Hector and I were very close growing up and we look forward to Preston having someone to grow up with as well.

Congrats Carmona’s!!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our day with the family at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

The New Pool Area!

This weekend was our much anticipated meeting of Justin’s new girlfriend. 

She flew in this week to spend some time with him and meet the family and Edwin and Geni had sent out invites to have the family come over and meet her as well and enjoy the great day.  We spent some time drinking, playing, joking, and just chilling.  It was hot as hell outside, but it was all worth it.  We had a great time as usual.

My Injury

Unfortunately I had an injury exiting the pool as I busted my ass hard on the new stamped concrete section around the pool.  In doing so, my big toe dragged across the concrete leaving me without a chunk of skin.  Yeah – it hurts so badly!

Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Brick Store and Sweetwater at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

The Group

Wow!  What another great Saturday with friends and family!

Phil, Krystle, Hector, Reagan, Bobby, Danielle, and Dan all met at my house in the morning to head down to pick up Amber and Jason before heading to lunch in Decatur.  As you may know, I am in love with Brick Store Pub and this was the perfect opportunity to head down there for drinks and some grub.  We got a table upstairs near the Belgian bar and had a great time talking, laughing, drinking, and eating some great food.  Everyone else seemed to have the same opinion as I as we were leaving.  You have to love that place.  It is excellent.  If you have never been, you HAVE to go.  It is incredible with a great atmosphere, huge beer list, great food, and good prices.  A complete hit!  Check out their site here.  Here is our blog entry of our first time at Brick Store.

Great times with great friends

After Brick Store, we headed up towards Sweetwater Brewery.  As you know I am a huge fan of supporting our local breweries and fortunately we have three great breweries in the Atlanta area that make it easy to support them.  You may have read about Sweetwater Brewery on our blog here and here.  It is an excellent microbrewery with excellent beers but due to some previously tough tour hours, we never made it out to check out the brewery.  After helping out with the blueberries down at Serenbe Farms, we were told about Sweetwater’s new Saturday tour hours from 2:30 – 4:30 beginning today.  They have a live band, excellent atmosphere, great crowd, and of course excellent beer!  For $8 they give you a souvenir glass and 6 tickets to get beer each of which allows you a half pint pour.  They allow you to sample all of their year round beers and whatever seasonal beer is on tap at the time.  We had a blast talking, drinking, and hanging out with great friends.  I highly recommend you make it out to Sweetwater Breweryand encourage you even more to support your local breweries.  Sweetwater as well as the others make it easy to do so by producing beers that are nationally recongized for their excellence. 

At Sweetwater Brewery

After leaving Sweetwaterwe headed back towards the house and had everyone back over to hang out.  Hector brought some games and people played, drank, cooked, and chilled for several hours.  Being that we started the day early, everyone got pretty tired and headed home around 10:30 or so.  It was a great day and a hell of a way to start off the weekend.  If you have never been to Brick Store or Sweetwater GO!  You will not be disappointed.  I don’t get anything for bragging about these great local places.  I love great beer, food, and people and establishments like these keep Atlanta excellent! 

The taps with liquid heaven

We had such a great time today.  Thanks to all that came as well as the guy rapping about “eight ball in my corner pocket” to himself walking around Decatur.  Peace up.  A-Town down homie!  – for our not so urban readers… A-town is Atlanta. LOL

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of  our time at the Renaissance Festival  at pictures.neilnatic.com  or here.

Alisha at the Renaissance Festival

On Saturday Hector and Reagan came over in the morning to head out to IHOP for breakfast before heading out to the Georgia Renaissance Festivaldown by Hershey’s house.  After grabbing a nice breakfast at IHOP (yes we ate healthy) we headed out towards Peachtree City for the festival.  As we got closer traffic was REDICULOUS!  I noticed that the traffic seemed to not make much sense so I went with my own senses and hopped back into the moving traffic and took it all the way up to the exit.  It turns out a few morons thought that they needed to be on the right side of some barrels blocking off a lane and it was backing traffic up for miles on 85.  I just exited the highway the way you were supposed to and avoided it all.  I was livid when I saw that all of that time could have been saved if 1 donut eating cop would get his / her ass up and direct the traffic the way that it was supposed to go. 

After getting off the exit, traffic was still really bad in the right lane so I decided to take the left lane as far as I possibly could before getting back into the right lane.  These two maneuvers literally saved about an hour and a half to two hours of traffic.  It was insane!!

Once we got to the festival we headed in and went  straight to a Pet adoption area that they had set up.  Reagan happened to fall in love with a dog and within 20 minutes they had a new family member LOL.  They told us to walk around and do our thing and to stop by there on the way out and they would give us the dog to take home. 

Hector with a Green Thing

The festival itself is….well…..interesting.  There is a game called World of Warcraft where people waste their lives playing an online game in a world of trolls and crap – this is the real life version of that game.  The visitors all dress up like freaks with crazy costumes and parade around with fake accents like they live in the times.  It was quite odd. 

Thelma - The Carmona's New Dog

We spent about 5 hours there and had a good time before picking up Hector and Reagan’s dog and headed back home.  Once we got to the house Hector and Reagan headed home and we headed up to Alisha’s dad’s house for dinner and meet their new family member – a mutt blood hound.  We had a nice dinner and chilled out by their fire pit and headed to that house. 

I spoke to Spencer on the way home and we was thinking of heading to Taco Mac.  Alisha did not want to come along so she asked that I drop her off and then go afterwards.  I did and met Spence there for about 2 hours and headed back to the house. 

It was a nice and busy day.  We had a good time for sure.