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!

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 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

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!

Friday morning I read that Taco Mac was releasing a new Terrapin beer at 5:00 PM.  As you know I am a Terrapin addict and I HAD to stop by and try this new beer.  It was actually being released for charity… and that is the only reason I was going (okay – I lied LOL).  After seeing this beer release, I made some phone calls to see who wanted to join for a quick Friday Happy Hour.  We had a nice crowd lol.  Bobby, Dan, Jason Lucas, Spencer, Paul, and Rickie all decided to meet up at Taco Mac in Cumming at 5:00. 

Once I got work I headed up to meet Dan at the Avenues in Forsyth.  He mentioned that some shorts were on sale so I ran up there to snag a pair.  We did some shopping with my dad and then headed over to get his haircut at Sport Clips.  I love that place, but he didn’t get the same vibe.  He was not a fan of the steam towel and head massage that they give you while washing your hair… he is crazy!  Anyway, after getting his mophair cut, we headed over to Taco Mac for a few beers.  Alisha was still out with Ryan and Anne so we took some time to grab a few beers and catch up.  Terrapin’s new beer was a double white and I thought that it was quite tasty!  A few of the others did not agree completely but I was very happy with it.  It is not a style that I would typically drink but it was good.  Light, different, good!

After grabbing three beers we headed back to the house to make dinner and chill.  Dan rode back with me and Spencer and Jason joined.  Bobby had a date so he did his own thing.  I (yes I not the pregnant one lol) had been craving IHOP all day… but apparently i could not get anyone else to join LOL.  Alisha decided that she was in the mood for french toast so I picked up stuff for that and we did french toast and chilled on the patio. 

We had a great dinner with great company and a few beers.  It was a great start to the weekend!

Saturday morning I woke up and headed to Publix to pick up some waffle mix as Alisha was really wanting them for breakfast.  I woke her lazy butt up when I got back and we made waffles and ate breakfast together.  They definitely hit the spot for me.  I hadn’t had waffles in forever!  Alisha then got ready and headed out with Kara to do some shopping and run some errands while I edited a picture for Mike and Aubree and played a little Playstation 3. 

Saturday night we had plans to head over to Kevin and Ashley’s pool to celebrate Matt’s birthday.  Laura picked up a keg for everyone (but me – I cant drink that beer ).  We had a nice group of people and were just hanging out.  It was a hot day but was more bareable as the evening went on.  This summer has been more than brutal already!  We will just say that as the evening progressed it was nothing short of a cluster.  Eventually everyone  kinda went their own way.  We decided to go with Mike, Aubree, Krystle, and Phil to IHOP at the outlet malls for a late night snack.  We had a great time just BS’ing and catching up which turned out to be the highlight of the evening. 

Saturday was interesting, but hell, I had a good time…

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.

Lyerly Wedding

On Saturday afternoon we headed over to a church right by our house to attend Krystle and Phil’s wedding!!!  It was a rather large wedding with nearly 200 people attending.  The ceremony was great, short, and was very nice.  After the ceremony we headed out to the Windmere Clubhouse for the reception.  It was well setup with drinks, food, and people.  They had such a great turnout.  The place was packed!  We had such a great time hanging out with our friends to celebrate such a great occasion!

Krystle and Phil's Wedding!

We are so happy for Krystle and Phil and want to take some time to wish them many many many years of happiness and love throughout their marriage.  We are so happy to have been a part of your wedding.  Congrats guys!  It was beautiful!

Be sure to look at our pictures from the wedding here.

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Aubree’s Baby Shower at pictures.neilnatic.com  or here.

Aubree with her two sisters Chelsee and Kylee

Sunday was setup to be another great day of fun.  Alisha had all the girls coming to the house at 11:00 for Aubree’s baby shower so the guys planned to get together and have some food, and of course, drinks.  Since I was not there for the shower, I cant tell you much about it but I can tell you that she did well on the gift portion because a certain two ladies made Mike and I load them up and take them home… so congrats on that.  ha ha  Alisha, stop being lazy and post something

While the ladies were getting to the house the guys decided to head out to IHOP for some devine cuisine.  Bobby, Mike,  Spencer, Ryan, Brett, and I all ate and then headed to the Man’s Bar – Taco mac for drinks.  We chilled there for a while and the ladies finished up and summoned two of the guys back.  Mike, Bobby, Spence and I stayed to chill and the ladies called us to let us know that they were going to another shower and that we would meet up with them a little later on. 

We finished a few more beers and then headed up to Mike’s house to hang out and eat dinner.

It was a great day out and a nice way to wrap up the weekend.  Thanks for coming out everyone and congrats Aubree and Mike!!

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our snow day and 2nd time shooting at pictures.neilnatic.com  or here.

On Sunday morning we woke up expecting some snow throughout the day and Erin’s flight was scheduled for 3:00 – yeah that didnt happen.  It had not even showed a sign of snow ( but it did rain all morning) and all flights out from Delta were cancelled for the day.  Erin was automatically placed on the 6:30 flight for tonight.  The small amount of snow that we got caused havoc this morning.  Many schools were closed, businesses opened late, and roads were a mess.

Everywhere else in Georgia it was snowing like crazy… everywhere except where we were.  It came down pretty heavily for about 30 minutes but it didn’t stick at all and was quite wet.  It was a mixture between snow and rain really.  Since it was not quite cold enough to be an issue we decided to go through with our plans of meeting Ashley, Kevin, and Spence at the shooting range for a little fun. 

I went on a hunt for bullets so that we could go shooting but unfortunately bullets are scarce as ever right now.  Apparently gun sales are through the roof with Obama in office and bullets are up even more.  People cant even get ahold of them anymore.  It is crazy.  Last time we went to shoot, we went to three walmartsbefore we found any and in addition to that the warehouse is out of them as well.  The shelves are just bare! 

We had a great time and shot a few of Kevin’s guns as well.  It was our first time shooting any of his guns.  It was a good time!  Thanks for taking us Kev.  It was fun!  Ohh and take a close look of the pic of Alisha shooting in the photo gallery for a rare shot of the gun firing – while I was trying to catch that shot, it was still a very lucky one.  That happens so quickly I didn’t think that I could possibly catch it.

This weekend we made plans to head up to a new pub in Cumming called the Firkin and Crown.  It was a hit for sure.  We had made reservations (after some drama) for 11 people and planned to meet there at 8:00.  Dan didn’t initially plan on going but last minute decided to tag along as well as he was really looking forward to going there soon.  He met at my house as did Bobby, Jen, and Spence had a few beers, and then headed out as planned.  When we got there it was pretty damn packed.  Seems like it has been a hit since it opened.

We sat down and everyone else got there fairly shortly after.  Alisha and I ordered some cajun seasoned chips that were insane!  They were so delicious!  Bobby and Jen ordered these waffle fries covered in cheese and bacon – HOLY CRAP they were good.  We were so impressed with the food thus far and it did not end there.  Alisha got a Reuben which was excellent and I got a mac and cheese with ham that was also excellent!  The beer was a little to domestic and typical for me.  Yeah they had Guinness, and Smithwicks, etc. but nothing you cant get at a decent bar.  I was really looking forward to something different and unique.  I stuck with Boddingtons the whole night which was not my preference in beers.  All in all, this place was excellent!  The food was perfect, the atmosphere was awesome, and everyone had a great time together!  We will definitely be back there again in the future.

If you have not been there yet – and most likely you haven’t, you need to go!

I had seen a few times from Facebook and some professional photo websites where people take a photo, convert it to black and white, and then bring the color through to certain parts of the photo.  I have always thought that this looked so cool, but had no clue how to do it.  Well I took some time this week to figure it out.  Here is a picture that we took in Decatur when we went to the brick store that was originally a color picture.  I converted it to black and white and then brought the color of Kevin and Dan’s UGA emblem and lettering back through the black and white conversion.  This makes for some cool pictures.  Below is a pic of Spence’s eye ball tattoo that I did the same with. 

Whatcha think?

This week we had a lot going on which was really nice and definitely helps the work week go by that much faster.  On Monday I met Alisha, Andrea, Ryan and the boys for lunch at Fridays.  It was great to see them again!  Later in the evening Alisha and I watched they typical tv shows – House, John and Kate Plus 8, and Midgets (aka – Little People Big World).

Tuesday we went up to Kevin and Ashley’s house to do dinner and hang out with them Spencer, and Jason.  Kevin was expecting some new furniture and thought he would need help as well but unfortunately they did not come when planned and they had to push it back to Wednesday.  We had a great time eating dinner, hanging out, and have a beer or so.

On Wednesday I had some free time and figured I would give Kev a quick hand with the chairs before heading up to Bingo with Edwin, Geni, Joe, and Carol.  Wednesdays are the best!

Thursday I met up with Spence and Jason Lucas for some after work drinks.  We met up at taco mac and upped my passport while we chilled out and had a great time. 

Then came the weekend!  I wish every week was so full of things to do.  Felt like the week just flew by.

Valentines day was this Saturday.  Hopefully you remembered   The guys decided that it was a perfect opportunity to go out and play some golf.  Spencer works at a local golf course and was a hell of a guy to allow Kevin, Grant, and myself to come along.  We had such a great time.  It was so great to hang out with all of the guys again and play some golf.  The course was totally empty which was awesome as we were not rushed at all.  I guess we are the only guys to leave our wives on Valentines Day to play golf?  Weird.  Who would have known? :crackup:

After playing golf we headed to Taco Mac to grab some beers and some lunch.  Before too long Ashley and Alisha met up with us to hang out before going our separate ways for a bit.  Alisha and Ashley had met up with Laura to go look at her wedding dress and Ashley’s Bridesmaid dress.  After ohhhing and aweing they went to Maggianos for lunch – SO jealous! – before doing some more shopping and meeting up with us.

After Taco Mac, Kevin wanted to head over to Dicks Sporting Goods (trust me – their website is not Dicks.com.  Don’t ask me how I know) to look at some golf stuff.  He picked up a pair of shoes and I drooled over another that was also on sale.  I decided to hold off and look online to see if I could get mine cheaper with full plans to purchase them.  I really liked em!

We went back to our house for a bit, picked up Envy, and then headed to Kevin and Ashley’s to eat some quesadillas and watch a movie called Righteous Kill.  It was a good movie.  After the movie our old ass bodies gave out and we headed home to pass out.

Thanks a ton Spence for getting us on the course.  We had a really great time man.

On Friday night we drove over to Brett and Theresa’s house out in acworth GA (about an hour out) to celebrate his birthday with many of our friends.  It was a fun night!  He definitely had a houseful!!

About halfway into the night and a few beers, Ryan Barlock decided to talk smack about his running speed that he maintains from high school.  Since we all wanted a laugh we talked him and Kevin into racing up the street to see who was faster.  Kevin beat him by a decent distance which we all laughed about in good fun.  Shortly after Ryan started to feel worse and worse until he eventually puked over the deck several times.  Somehow I managed to leave in just enough time so that I did not add to it.  I ran away gagging and coughing ready to throw up myself.  GROSS!

We had a great time eating some food and drinking some beers and then headed home.  It was great to see them again as we dont get to very often.