It's a Girl!

Oh my goodness. We're having a daughter!! Found out yesterday at our "big" ultrasound as we've been calling it. Unfortunately duty calls and I have my 2013 4th of July photo shoot today, but I have so many funny moments and great photos from yesterday that I'm just going to have to post again later.

A GIRL!!!!

Lately.

I had really high expectations for this blog when I started it months and months ago. One of the reasons, if not the reason, is that I knew that this would be the year that we'd hopefully be on our way to the Nichols 2 becoming the Nichols 3.

So let's see...last post was in February. Let's do a quick catch-up.

March: Our nephew Jackson was born!

Also in March, we enjoyed the craic in Chicago for St. Patrick's Day. Best weekend getaway ever.

April: Pretty uneventful. But I did get my identity stolen! Oh just $500 or so from the ol' checking account. No bigs. (Ugh.)

May: We were in....I was in...Costa Rica mode. Beth and I were practically throwing every spare second of our time to wrapping a year's worth of details for a week-long trip. But when there are 20 other people on that trip, well there's just a lot of details.

June: COSTA RICA!!! Zack and I tacked an extra day onto the beginning and end of the trip to celebrate his birthday and our 5th wedding anniversary. The mission trip part of the week was hard, hard work, but one of the most gratifying and best things I've ever done. This is about 3 posts in itself, so in the meantime, I'll jump to the good part.

Also in June: Was running into the craft store a few days after we got home. Felt like crap all of sudden. "It's the 105 degree, full humidity day we're having. That's all." That wasn't all. A few days later the dizziness and indescribable exhaustion had gotten so bad, there was literally only one thing I could chalk it up to.

Yep. June 27th our life really changed. Baby Nichols will be here in early March of next year!

July: I slept, puked, and cried all month. One time I beat up Zack in a hormone-induced rage.

August: I slept, puked, and cried all this month too. I also had to get through my 10th high school reunion sans alcohol.

September: Things started to turn around, but it's only be in the last week and half that my condition has significantly improved. And I'm so grateful. There were a lot of weeks that I truly believed I'd be in the small percent who was pregnant for their entire pregnancies. Minimal tears, still some nausea, but still a good but of sleeping, except at night. I don't think I've slept a full night since the day we found out. Not expecting that to change for a few more years!

So now that we're somewhat caught up, all those super fun posts that really only I care about can start! Not sure what this blog will eventually become. Likely I'll forget about it again. Possibly I'll become a super famous blogger and I'll get a book deal and become a speaker on the blog circuit because the blogosphere just can't get enough of my wisdom and super writing skills and iPhone photos. Ha. But really, I just want a place where years from now, I can pull up all of these fun memories with my son(s) and/or daughter(s) and all of the adventurous Mom and Dad had along the way, and it will serve as a great and permanent reminder that our life is full of more blessings than we'll ever deserve. (Cheesy. And true.)

Old Jobs & New Jobs, Part 2

Z started his new job at Event Operations Group today. He sent me a pic of his office. Well isn't he so fancy?

Lent Meal: Bacon-Gruyere Dutch Baby

After fighting with a whole raw White Oak Pastures chicken after work (thanks to mom for Facetiming with me and giving me some pointers on cleaning + brining the bird), I decided to do a Dutch Baby recipe from the current issue of Taste instead of the lemon spatchcocked chicken. That'll be tomorrow night and hopefully worth the wait.

When I told Zack I was making a Dutch Baby, a look of complete confusions and disgust was on his face. He said...forgive how crude this is...that is sounded like you took a poo under the covers. Yeah. That's Zack Nichols for you.

Anyway. It didn't rise up all dramatically like it's supposed to. It fell a bit flat actually. I think I had too much bacon grease in my cast-iron skillet. (Apparently there is such a thing as too much bacon grease. How offensive.) Z said he liked it. I thought it was ok. In any case, half ended up in the garbage.

Old Jobs and New Jobs

Today is Zack's last day as Art Director at Amerson Engraving! So bittersweet! He had the opportunity to do all kinds of awesome things over the last couple years, including working with the top college and football teams in the state. So proud of him and what he has accomplished! But, we're so excited about what's in store for him at his new job at Event Operations Group as their new Project Manager! Seems like he's going to work with a pretty impressive group of people!

I made Z send me a pic of his desk at Amerson :)

Español

Also, started this today. Haha. Yeah. For Costa Rica. It's really weird because I used the same program to learn French for the trip I just went on with my mom. It's all the same dialogue, with the same guy but with a different girl. When I was learning French, I kept slipping into German. Now that I'm trying to learn Spanish, I'm inevitably already slipping into French SINCE IT'S THE SAME DIALOGUE I USED TO LEARN FRENCH! Oy.

Lent. Let's Do This.

Zack and I joined Church at Cahaba Bend about 3 years ago. We both were raised Baptists, so while we had heard of Lent, we never practiced it. We had never given anything up, or taken on something, or really ever even considered it. But our church...a Methodist church...takes Lent and all the events surrounding Easter very seriously, which I love. Two nights ago Zack and I participated in our second-ever Ash Wednesday service. (last year we were unable to attend because we were flying home from a two-week trip to Europe, more on that later.) During the service, our pastor, Lyle Holland, talked a lot about the importance, as Christian, to participate in Lent. It really struck me this year, for some reason.

That said: here's what I decided to do, and why. I think Zack is pretty much on board, more or less, in doing this with me. Truth is, we eat out...a lot. Whether it's an awesome local burger or bbq joint or Domino's Pizza on Valentine's Day, many meals, and many dollars, are spent this way. Also, why I am a pretty solid baker, I'm not the best cook, simply because I don't cook enough! I work for a food magazine, and everyday of my life I'm surrounded by gorgeous food and food photography, and I also figured it's high time to learn my way around the grocery store (past the baking aisle anyway) and get to cooking fresh, with in-season ingredients, and (relatively) healthy. I figured in the process, we'd save some money that we can put towards future things like a bigger house and a bigger family :)

Also let me say that the there are some exceptions to this: Wednesday nights with our students at Little Italy's is a tradition that we can't break! And next month we're going to Chicago for a long weekend.

So last night officially began all the fun, and I was really excited to get started! I kicked off the season with an adaption of a Jamie Oliver recipe: linguine with slow-braised leeks and crispy pangrattato. I was a little leery of the leeks, but thought I'd give it a go no less. The results were fantastic. Zack loved it, and even tweeted about it. The resulting comment thread made me laugh :)

(the ahpatatas bravas bit was a reference to the aforementioned Europe trip. Still makes me laugh a whole year later :)

Anyway, photos from dinner:

Leeks: cut lengthwise, then on the diagonal at 1/2" intervals. Ok Jamie.

Leftover French bread from a shoot last week. Perfectly stale enough to go for spin in the food processor with some S+P to make breadcrumbs for the pangrattato.

Toasted with olive oil and some rosemary sprigs. 

Terrible photo. Good food. 

Brazilian Night...finally!

Before all the fresh ingredients I bought last week went bad, I was determined to make our Brazilian-themed Valentines dinner happen. Confession, I don't cook a lot. But when I do, I go all out.


We took dinner to the coffee table, as per usual, and watched a pretty epic episode of How I Met Your Mother (it seems Ted has *finally* moved on) and one of the best episodes of Bizarre Foods yet. Detroit. Detroit? Apparently you can eat Southern Asia, the Mediterranean/Middle East, and Eastern Europe without a couple square miles, PLUS it has the largest farmers market in North America. Srsly.
Detroit.

Mixing all the veggies and herbs and spices together. 

Fresh out of the oven. See the hearts?? Zack said that's what made them taste extra delicious. Ha. 

Meat pie goodness! Zack is such a glutton for chorizo. He got extra. 

One of the beers I got him for Valentine's Day. He loved it. 

I made my own twist on the Batida de Cafe (rum with iced coffee and egg white. I poured a shot of espresso over vanilla bean ice cream and added a shot of rum. It was pretty good! 

This whole deal was inspired by this post on my favorite food blog, What Katie Ate. In my wildest dream, I am as awesome as her. 

Our Honeymoon!

Truth is, I'm a sentimental fool. If I don't get this written down soon, I'll never remember it. And on our 50th anniversary, quite frankly I'd love to tell our grandkids about our honeymoon to Niagara Falls and all the fun things we did. It was almost 5 years ago now, and this was way before we tried to take awesome pictures of our travels so the pics are few and un-awesome. But I'll be spending the next few minutes walking down memory lane, fools.

A few months before we got married, Zack was over at his parent's house. He called me and said, "mom suggested Niagara Falls for our honeymoon. What do you think?" Without hesitation I said, "book it." Listen, I know NF seems a bit cheesy, especially for two kids in their early 20s. But Z and I are experts at having a blast no matter where we are. Also, we hate hot weather and humidity, and we got married in June in Alabama. Caribbean? No. No thanks. Not our style. Canada? That's more like it. I was wrapping up my internship at Cottage Living magazine when we got married, and Z had to do play out-of-town conferences with the band, so we decided to go on our honeymoon a month later. Yeah, it was bummer to have to go back to work THREE DAYS after getting married (quick side story: two days after the wedding we were driving down Caldwell Mill Road apartment hunting, and in the distance we saw smoke coming up from the trees. Turned out it was Inverness Country Club burning to the ground. 36 hours before, we were having a blast with our friends and family at our wedding reception at that very place. Two years later we were hanging out in Italy with the match-happy kid who did it.). Anyway. It really had its pros though, I'm glad we didn't do it any other way. We had a whole month to get excited, look forward to, and rest up for the trip. Plus, we were there on our 1 month anniversary, my 23rd birthday, and 7-7-2007, which was pretty cool.

Zack parents hooked us up on our honeymoon. We had a driver pick us up in Buffalo and drive us across the border to the Fallsview Marriott. It was ballin'. This was the view from our window. Believe it or not, there aren't a lot of fallsview rooms in Niagara. 

Our first night we toured the Niagara Daredevil's Museum. A bit morbid. This Greek dude died in here. Why am I giving a thumbs up? What's wrong with me?

The greatest anticipation of the trip, for Zack anyway, was the Marvel Museum. Much, much, to our dismay, it turned out to be an indoor amusement park with things like Hulk mini golf and a Spiderman laser game. Total disappointment. But again, we're champions of having fun no matter what. This pic however, was taken before my new husband went inside and realized what it actually is.

I love this pic of us in front of Horseshoe Falls. A really nice family took it for us while we were standing in line for the Maid of Midst. Funny story, when I posted this photo on Facebook/printed it to be framed years ago, I Photoshopped out Zack's left arm tattoo (the only one he had on his arm at the time, imagine that!) so that his parent's wouldn't see it! 

A really flattering picture of us on the Maid of Midst.

The Journey Behind the Falls! I remember is was sunny, pleasant day in the low 80s, until you stepped onto this platform, and it was about 50 degrees and was like a constant thunderstorm. We loved this attraction.

Yay! Hitched!

Zack's parents sent us on a wine tour of the Niagara region. There are more vineyards here per square mile than in the Napa Valley. We spent a whole day doing this. We went to four different wineries (two German one, an Italian one, and a French one), all makers of the area's famous ice wine. We had a great picnic lunch made by the hotel's restaurant, the Terrapin Grill, and sat with a lovely older couple from Scotland. I remember them telling us that they were due to fly out of Glasgow on the day there was a terrorist attack at the airport! So crazy. 

Here's my new husband at Chateau de Charmes, our first stop. By time we got to the last vineyard,  Iniskillen, everyone was ice-wined out...except for this one. When the sommelier at Inniskillen were offering more glasses, everyone declined, but a man in our group said, "the gentleman from Alabama would like another though." That's my Irish husband. 

I don't think I have any pics from it, but we also spent the afternoon in an adorable town called Niagara-on-the-Lake. Completely lovely, but I remember being so miserably hot that day and scarfing down multiple scoops of ice cream (logically), and then feeling really sick :(

We rode a ferris wheel! It was pretty. 

We also had fruity cocktails at the top of the Skylon Tower which had a rotating restaurant. I remember getting into a fight with our waiter because we didn't want to dinner (we were poor newlyweds!), just drinks, and apparently there was a minimum you had to spend to eat there. I whimpered that "it was my birthday and honeymoon! Please let us just sit here for a few minutes and have drinks! Please!" and the sweet manager politely and firmly told the waiter that he would serve us himself! Such a fun night!

The view from the ferris wheel.

We ate at an overpriced tourist-trappy restaurant on my birthday, but we were right by the window and had a great view of the Falls. The thing is, there's plenty of stuff to do in NF. A lot of it is stupid, some of it is great, and all you have to approach with a sense of humor. But by the end of the trip, we realized that the Falls are so incredible, you could spend a week just staring at them. 

A few other fun random memories before they leave my head:

-The best dinner was at Terrapin Grill at the hotel. We had sun-dried tomato-stuffed chicken served over risotto, and the hotel's magician (yes, magician) came to our table and did some really fun slight-of-hand tricks. We went to his show later that night and had a blast with, along with all the little kiddies and their parents. We even participated in one of the tricks. I had to think of something completely random and he had to guess what it was. I was thinking "Hulk," and that son of gun guessed it. Mind: blown. We got back up to our room just in time to watch the fireworks show over the Falls. Great night.

-I pitched A FIT over the "History of Niagara 4D theatre show." What a freaking joke. We paid about $20 each to be sprayed with water, shaken in our seats, and watch a poorly put-together documentary about the Natives who lived in the area centuries ago. I complained to the manager, who never refunded our money, but gave us free entry to the Skylon Tower that evening. Hence, the above story of us going up to the restaurant without having to pay the minimum meal amount. This girl gets what she wants. 

-Our first meal was the Subway down the street. Something we'd NEVER do now. But we were soooo hungry, and Canada is expensive! They had three taxes on everything in Niagara. We also had to eat standing up because they didn't have stools, which made me super irritated. Later that night we ate at TGIFridays. Good lord. How far we've come. I got four-cheese pasta. I was so lame.

-We were soooo pysched about the all-you-can-eat pancake buffets that were all over town. We hit that stuff up one morning and made ourselves sick. So worth it.

-I admit it. It's so embarrassing, but there was a point in my life where I loved to go to Hard Rock Cafes. There, I said it. We went to Hard Rock Cafe for dessert one night. It was awful and overpriced. And yet, we continued to go back to them. Thank goodness we know better now.

-My great-grandmother, Grandmama Ellison we called her, died while we were on our honeymoon. It was so sad. The last time I saw her was the day before we left. I remember telling her about me and Zack going to Canada for our honeymoon, and even though she was virtually unresponsive at the point in her life, she looked at me with wide eyes with this look that she was so happy for me! I knew she understood. It was probably one of the last reactions she had to anything in her life. I loved that lady so much, and the day she died, I remember feeling really sad all of a sudden and I started thinking about her. It wasn't until I got home that my mom told me the news, but I still think I knew, ya know? I'm so glad I had that one last sweet visit with her before she passed. 

-The bus driver on our winery tour told us that if we went to the NF Visitor's Center, we'd get a parchment certificate signed by the mayor, two Niagara Falls pins, and a coupon book that gave free entry to looks of attractions for the bride when the groom paid full price. We still have the certificate and those pins around here somewhere. 

-There is 5-year old bottle of ice wine somewhere in this house. We have plans to drink it on our 5th anniversary. But we'll be in Costa Rica that day. Hmm. We need to bust that open soon, honey. 

-Niagara Falls is cheesy, and it is awesome. We couldn't have had a better honeymoon, and I'm so thankful to my wonderful in-laws who made it possible. 

Blast from the Past (I)

Since we've been married for almost 5 years now, and together for almost 7, there will be a lot of random "Blast from the Past" posts mixed in. Here's the first!

Back in April 2009, we bought my Vespa from a sweet family near Chattanooga. We took Tallula the day we drove up to get it. Poor thing.

July/September 2009: my first big tattoo! Chad Soner at Non-Stop Art here in Birmingham did it. Pretty awesome, huh?

August 2009 at Starz Karaoke for Stik's birthday!

Also from Fall of 2009, us at one of the many Bama games we've been to. Roll tide. 

The Roaring Twenties at Speakeasy

By awesome cousin Craig invited us to an invite-only event at Speakeasy a couple weeks ago. It was a "prohibition-era gala" complete with a swing band and some great drink specials! You had to have a password to get it, and you also had to go in through the back door. We were at a speakeasy after all! And of course, you had to dress up to look the part. Gangsta!

If there is a load of Sharpies and a note that instructs to brand the bathroom walls, you can't ignore it. I drew a claddagh with an "N" of course. 

My costume. Such a nerd!

Costa Rica 2012

Zack and I are SO excited to be going to Costa Rica in June for a mission trip with our wonderful church, Church at Cahaba Bend. Z has been the youth director there for almost 3 years, and taking our students overseas has been a dream of ours since day 1. This past Sunday we had a big team meeting over at the Crandall's house. We had good ol' burgers and hot dogs and had a great time talking about some of the specifics of our trip. We went around and said a little about ourselves...Z said "My name is Zack, and I'm kind of a big deal." McKenzie piped in that his office is full of leather-bound books and smells of rich mahogany. I'm so glad that we have students who can quote Anchorman with us.

Some of the team! I don't know why everyone looks so mad. I promise we were having a great time.

I'm always one to contribute baked goods to any occasion. Nutella brownies, y'all!

'round the bonfire

 

Carol took this pic of our team. It's a bit blurry, God love her.

 

Matching Tattoos!

No secret that Zack and I love, like LOVE tattoos. In fact, we had barely even gone on a real date back in 2005 when I sat with him for a tattoo on his back. Poor thing, that's still the worst tattoo he has. Thank goodness we found a tattooer that we really like a lot. His name is Jacob and he's at Skinworx over in Pelham. One of his favorite bands is Flogging Molly too, so there was no doubt that he'd be doing our matching Claddagh tattoos. A Claddagh is an old Irish symbol of love (the heart), friendship (the hands), and loyalty (the crown). The first claddagh ring was forged many years ago in the tiny Claddagh Village in west Ireland, off the Corrib River in Galway. This village was loyal to its own monarchy (hence the crown) until the last king died in the 1950s. Sadly, the town of Galway destroyed where the tiny village and all its charm once stood for development purposes, but the Claddagh symbol is still a famous and traditional sign in Ireland, often used as engagement/wedding rings.

Zack bought be a claddagh ring on our trip back in 2010 in a tiny town called Kilfenora at small craft shop run by a sweet Irish lady (I'll never forget she told us to "mind the dressers!" when we walked into her little store). We wanted to get these tattooed on us in Dublin later that week at a place called Johnny Eagle, but we didn't have quite enough Euro for it!

So on January 28 we went in and talked to Jacob about it and made our appointment. Zack went in at 6 on February 2 and got his done in one session (almost 5 hours!), and I went back that Saturday to get mine. We didn't even start till almost midnight with it! But Jacob and I had a great time talking about all kinds of things, and we listened to Flogging Molly and Fiddler's Green the whole time. Here's some of the million pics I took those nights!

Jacob getting started! This was before Zack started really started hurting with all of the scrubbing necessary for all that gorgeous color. He said it wasn't too bad until he got to the upper part under his armpit. Lots of nerve endings. Lots of pain. But Zack is a pro tattoo sitter :)

Z has so many great tattoos, but this is his favorite, and mine too :)

All the wells of ink for mine!

 Me and my side ponytail mid-tattoo.

My stencil

 I guess we're in this whole marriage thing for good. We have matching tattoos!!

Rock and roll. 

I love it so much.