Tag: Nathan

Nathan from Lauren’s Perspective

It’s almost Nathan’s birthday. We’re celebrating him this weekend, and I had planned a really fun blog post where he’d answer some questions about himself. I sent him the questions, to which he responded, “geez, these are really hard. When do you need these by again?” Always the man to do everything just in time at the last minute, I scrapped the “interview” and decided instead you’re getting Nathan Lane from Lauren’s perspective.

Why is Nathan a Denver Broncos fan? Because he doesn’t like to cheer for a winning team. Kidding! He reminds me constantly that the Broncos have won more Super Bowls in his lifetime than the Chiefs. He’s a Broncos fan because his parents and all extended family are from Colorado. Nathan was born in Colorado, and then moved to Kansas City relatively young. Did a brief stint in Dallas, Texas, and moved back to Kansas City around high school for him. He jokes, I think, that his dad would tell him and all of his siblings growing up that they can cheer for whoever they want, but he only allowed Broncos fans to live in the house. (Maybe that’s not a joke at all…)

What trait of Nathan’s do you wish you possessed more of? His luck. Is that a quality? I swear the man could fall into a pig stye and come out smelling like a rose. He just seems to be naturally lucky. If luck isn’t a trait, I’d say his adaptability. He can easily adapt to change, and I hate change.

Best thing that Nathan cooks? His burgers are the best ever. There are other things that he does really well, but the burgers take the cake for me.

What is always a Nathan job around your house? Mowing the grass. I know there are plenty of women that love mowing the grass, but I have never learned how to do it, and I have no desire to learn. I’ll learn out of necessity or hire somebody.

You’d be surprised to learn that…he has a very large rare bourbon collection. It became his hobby during COVID to collect limited release bourbons and hard to find bourbons. While the collecting has slowed down as he’s honed his taste, it’s really still quite a large stock. Someday, he wants a bourbon tasting room/bar in his basement.

Where did Nathan go to college? He went to K-State (or K-Stake, as the boys pronounce it) in Manhattan, KS. He started off, I believe, as an architecture student and ended it as an accounting major. I’d describe his interest being more broad, macro-level finance based versus accounting based. And truthfully, and we still say this now, he should have probably been an architect. His mind is naturally gifted at envisioning and designing buildings and structures. He designed both his parents backyard deck and our backyard patio. He’s re-designed our house more times than I can count, although, we’ve never gone through with the renovation. Maybe it will be a second career?

Who is more competitive: you or Nathan? Nathan. I hate losing, but Nathan haaaaaates losing. Hates with a lot of a’s. Especially at something that he believes he has the full capability to win. The stories that I hear about Nathan as a kid playing anything competitive, and quite frankly anything that was competitive and the need to make it into a competition, sound very similar to Harrison.

Nathan’s oddly picky about…his hair. Generally speaking, think his hair looks the exact same. Same styling day after day. Same haircut, time after time. But he will pick apart his hair.

Let’s Look At…How We Plan & Do Date Night

First off, thank you so much for understanding the need for a break last week! Everything just seemed to go haywire, and I needed some time to catch up. But I missed you guys! My week felt like it was missing something the whole time, so I’m so happy to be back!

Given that tomorrow is Harrison’s birthday, and my post will be fully dedicated to my little guy, I’m posting ”Let’s Look” a day early! I love this link up. A fun little prompt sharing a little part of our lives. As usual, the link-up is hosted by two of my favorite blogs (Shay @ Mix and Match Mama and Erika @ A Little Bit of Everything). Before we get to this month’s prompt…a look back at what we’ve looked at this year:

And today, we’re talking date night. You guys, I love a good date night…or date day. 🙂

Here’s the guy I go on date night with for the past 10 years…

A couple of things about this topic as I thought about our seasons of life.

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Valentine’s Day Get to Know Lauren + Nathan!

Happy belated Valentine’s Day! I thought it would be fun to do an old-school questionnaire style post all about Nathan and me to celebrate Valentine’s Day!

  • How’d you meet: We met at a work happy hour. Nathan had just joined the company after graduating from K-State, and I had been working at the company for close to a year after moving back to Kansas City. He says he tried to strike up a conversation, and all of my responses were short and uninterested. He’s probably right the way he remembers this. 😊 Good thing he kept trying!

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Friday Favorites {06.25.21}

This summer seems to be flying by. Can you believe that next week is already Fourth of July weekend? Where has the time gone?

We had so much fun last weekend celebrating Father’s Day with our favorite dad around! While I barely survived making breakfast with both of the boys for Nathan (i.e. there were absolutely no pictures taken! Only repeated “don’t touch that’s!” and answering endless requests to “taste test.”) We went on a family walk to the park, where Harrison showed off his ever improving climbing skills, and went out as a family for a barbecue dinner! We love our Dada!

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A Birthday Interview with Nathan

It’s Nathan’s birthday today! At a full three years younger than me, he’s turning 33 today. I sat down with Nathan to do a quick interview so you all could get to know him a little better. 😊

When you were younger, what did you think you’d be when you grew up?

N: How young? Um. An athlete.

L: Like a professional athlete? What kind of professional athlete?

N: It varied. Depending on the season. But that was probably the most common answer I’d give as a kid.

L: At what point do you feel like you had to give up your professional athlete dream?

N: Who says I have?

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Our 6th Wedding Anniversary

Sunday was our sixth wedding anniversary. We celebrated by going to the pumpkin patch with the boys and cousins. 🙂 For our five year anniversary, we took a trip to New York just the two of us and had so much fun. This year, with a new baby and COVID, we got take-out sushi, popped a bottle of champagne, but switched to bourbon after one glass, and just enjoyed a dinner together after the boys were asleep.

I thought it would be fun to do a little Q&A on our last six years together with both Nathan and me. When I pitched this idea to Nathan, he was excited to finally be included in the blog. 🙂

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Friday Favorites: Our Valentine’s Day Tradition

Many years ago maybe a year or so after Nathan and I started dating, we started a tradition on Valentine’s Day. Rather than going out and fighting to get a reservation at a fancy restaurant for Valentine’s Day, we decided that making homemade pizzas and sharing a nice bottle of wine or limited edition beer would be the way that we celebrated the holiday.

Valentine’s pizzas from 2016

Sure, we still exchange cards and small gifts of some of our favorite things. But, this tradition of our Valentine’s meal has continued each year since then. We’ve perfected our pizza sauce. And this year, even Harrison will get in on the action.

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Photo Diary: A Spectacular Christmas

We had a magical Christmas. It was quite the departure from our first Christmas with Harrison, where we spent the whole day home with the stomach flu and exiled from all family’s houses. This year, we did Christmas morning at our house. Harrison could have played with his kitchen set from Santa the rest of the day. Then we did Christmas brunch at my parents, and we were lucky enough to have my sister and brother-in-law’s family here for Christmas this year. They split their holidays between KC and South Dakota, where my brother-in-law is from. And then finally, we finished out the day with Nathan’s family for dinner and round three of Santa and presents. We had so much fun watching the excitement and wonder in our little boys’ eyes.

This is going to be a whole bunch of pictures capturing our day, including Christmas Eve services. Buckle up!

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A Year in Review: 2019

I love looking back at old pictures. Putting together this post let me re-live so many happy moments, including watching our little baby grow up before my eyes. We had a wonderful year, really getting into our groove as a family of three (four if you count the dog!). Here’s how our year unfolded…

In January, our year started with Christmas! Yes, Christmas. Harrison shared his stomach flu with our whole family for actual Christmas Day, so our year started with a make-up Christmas Day with my family…

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New York City – Stay & Play

Right before Thanksgiving, Nathan and I got away for a few days in NYC to celebrate our anniversary. We had so much fun getting to spend time talking, playing around the city, and eating so much! Earlier this week I shared all of the amazing food and drinks that we loved in NYC. Today I’m going to share some of our favorite activities from this visit to NYC! I’ve saved down to my Instagram Highlights all of my favorite clips from the trip too.

Nathan and I have been to NYC numerous times, both together and as kids with our families. So, the things that we chose to do this time around were mostly off the beaten path. If you’ve never been to NY before, you absolutely need to to the big touristy things – The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the World Trade Center Memorial. They are not to be missed things as an American city, or anyone visiting NYC.

Nathan had never done the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island before, and it had been 15 years since the last time I went, so we did hop over to Ellis Island for the afternoon one day.

Ellis Island

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