The Nellie Spot

I get home after work tonight with the intent to mow the front yard. About halfway home, I realize I left my MP3 player at work, so I'd be mowing au-naturale (not meaning nude, but with only natural sounds...no Dave Matthews ringing in my ears). Bummed, I drive up and go inside.

I ate dinner (Ritz crackers and slices of cheese...yeah, real adult-like, eh?) then put on my mowing clothes. I had to go get gas for the mower, so I did that. I realize how amazingly / stupidly hot it is outside, even at 7:00 PM, so I'm bummed even more. I mow the front yard and weed eat the edges. Now I have a bunch of grass shaving all over the driveway and sidewalk. I turn on the sprinkler and start watering the dying grass I call my front yard. I start sweeping the front walkway with the dumb little house broom (the only broom we owned), and that took like 5 minutes because the darn thing isn't made to sweep concrete or grass shavings.

Sidenote: I hate mowing and weed eating, but absolutely LOVE a freshly mowed / trimmed lawn with a clean swept sidewalk.

So I'm sweating to death, no music or podcast or sermon to listen to, and I'm hating the thought of spending the next 45 minutes sweeping with the dumb broom. All the while LOVING the freshly mowed lawn and the sprinkler going over it. In a fit of manly determinism, I open the front door, and tell Allison that I'm going to Walmart to pick up a REAL broom. She looked at me like I was crazy and said "Ok, but get a cheap one." I'm fine with this, as even a cheap outdoor broom is better than the broom I was using.

So I get in the car, sweated-through shirt / shorts and all, and head to Wal*Mart. I'm horribly nasty looking (pit, chest, and back sweat stains on the shirt...I'm looking lovely), but rationalize that I'll only have to go into the Lawn & Garden section of Walmart, so it won't be too bad. Well, they didn't have any brooms (none!) in L&G, so I stroll to the opposite side of the store to look in the housewares section. Nothing. So I walk all the way back to L&G where I parked and headed to Home Depot.

I walk in, and a worker confronts me within 30 seconds of entering. He points me to the broom section, and I pick one up... a pretty one with a foamy handle cover and nice green bristles!
I get home and take my first big push...and fell in love with this thing! I swept the entire driveway and sidewalk in 5 minutes, leaving hardly any grass shavings behind! What would have taken me 45 minutes took me 5. Now that, in my book, is money well spent!

Having picked up all the grass and dreamily wanting to mow more just so I can sweep more, I walked inside, still sweating from the work even though the sun went down 20 minutes ago (gotta love summer in the Ozarks, when you can sweat at midnight). I look in the fridge, expecting to just get some icy cold water to refresh myself. But lo and behold, LEMONADE! And not just ANY lemonade, but a half gallon of Chick-fi-la Lemonade that the Miller's left at our house a week or so ago. Nothing ever tasted so darn good!

Then off to a shower, and then to the computer to blog about my wonderful evening!

Man, I really am weird.

This is the greatest poster ever made. It's a poster of Angelina Jolie as Mrs. Smith...and it's roughly 8 stories tall. The best use of skyscraper ever.

Looking lovely at the top of the Empire State Building. It rained all morning, and you can tell...not much visibility up here. From where we were, we still couldn't see the top of the spire due to clouds. Which really freaks me out.

Me & Al at Serendipity 3. You can see the enormous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate (their signature dessert) sitting between us.

Me and a T Rex at the American Museum of Natural History

Snapped just before we went in to see "Wicked". I also took a picture of the set while seated...then the super-scary usher lady shone a flashlight in my face and yelled at me not to take pictures. The picture didn't turn out that well, anyway.

NY Skyline from Brooklyn

I couldn't resist.

This thing is like 4 stories tall INSIDE the Toys R Us store on Times Square. Allison and I paid $8 to ride this thing. Man, what you'll pay for memories...I believe we rode in the Playschool Red Car (you know, the Flinestone kind where you roll it with your feet). Good times.

Me & Allison: on a pier in Brooklyn with the NY Skyline behind us

Johnson has a new edition...a sno cone stand! It's pretty close to Curt's Place off Main Street.
So Allison, Emma and I loaded up the car and went to get a little piece of shaved ice heaven. Allison got a Peach sno cone, and I tackled the American Flag (Blueberry, Pina Colada, and Strawberry). We took our sno cones and went downt the street to Johnson's city park. Emma ate off of both of ours, but Allison shares better than I do (fat men don't like to share their food).

Ok, I wrote these posts in reverse order (Day 5 to Day 1) so they would show up in the blog in decending order (Day 1 first, Day 5 last). It's been pretty confusing...but all in all, Allison and I's short trip (aka blitzkrieg) to New York City was really fun. Exhausting, but well worth the effort and sweat. So let's start off the trip...

We left NWA around 8:00 AM, and got to La Guardia about 2:30 PM, with a brief switch over in Cinncinati. We caught a taxi to our hotel (the 414 Inn) on 46th street in Manhattan, about 2 blocks from Times Square, and 1/2 block from Restaraunt Row (46th street between 8th & 9th). We checked into the extremely small Bed & Breakfast (we didn't know that when we booked it...but all ended well), changed clothes, and started walking toward Times Square.

We meandered around the Broadway section of Times Square and soaked it all in. We stumbled around people, and clumsily figured out the walking signs at intersections. We ate an early dinner at a deli on Times Square. We got one of the best appitizers I've ever had: fried black olives stuffed with asiago cheese, with honey mustard dipping sauce. I want some right now! We split a BLT that was the size of my head. We sat near the open-air window (not sure what to call it...we sat inside, but the wall came up and we were right next to the sidewalk in the humid summer air), and just looked around, talked, and ate.

We headed back to the hotel to change again for the Broadway show Wicked. It's the back story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz story. The story line is remarkable, and it really develops the characters (Glinda the Good Witch and Elpath the Wicked Witch of the West). Check the webiste...it is really good. The musical was really funny, very real (lots of spiritual / reality comments could be made about it...maybe another time, though), and fairly emotional. I got a bit misty-eyed a couple of times during the show...Allison didn't (and yes, that made me feel like a pansy). We left the show and walked around a bit more. Then back to the hotel for a good night's rest!

What a GREAT way to start our trip!!

Busy day today! We started off early. Got a couple of White Chocolate Mocha's at Starbucks, and headed over to ABC's studio to be in the audience of Live with Regis & Kelly. We waited in line for a while and then proceeded into the studio. We sat down about 5 rows up, dead in the middle. We're thinking, "Man, GREAT seats!! Right in front of them!". Then the boom camera came out...and all I could see was the top of there heads, and their chins. During commercial breaks, they came up into the audience and chatted with everyone. It was pretty fun! I got a couple of pictures of them right up close. So, their guests for the day were "P Diddy" (Sean Combs), talking about his new Sean John clothing line. Then Vonzell Solomon from American Idol came out to sing (which Allison and I were super stoked about...we're avid AI watchers). At the end of the show, they told us they were going to tape a few segments for upcoming shows. So out came Mario and he sang "Let Me Love You", which was really, really good. Then came Katie Holmes...the chic in Batman Begins and is dating Tom Cruise. She's an idiot. Possibly one of the worst interviewees of all time. We were glad when she got off the stage.

We were starving after R&K, so we walked over to Central Park, grabbed a hog dog and a coke, and people-watched as they sunbathed on the grass of the Sheep Meadow and played frisbee. We walked around for a while there, just looking around. It's a hugely strange feeling to see so much park: green trees, grass, and ponds, all caged in by towering skyscrapers. I felt like a tiny caged animal...very difficult to explain.

After Central Park, we headed over to get in line for the Late Show with David Letterman (like 10 blocks away). If you watch Letterman, you know he always jokes about how cold he keeps the theater...he ain't jokin' folks...it was probably in the low to mid 50's in there. You could hang meat in there. We got GREAT seats in the balcony, dead center. The Late Show band is absolutley incredible...lots of energy and busting at the seams with talent. In fact, they were probably the best part of the whole shindig. Dave was pretty darn funny...unfortunately his main interview that night was Katie Holmes...again. And she was even dumber than earlier today when we saw her at Regis & Kelly. I'm pretty sure we got on TV, but we haven't watched the tape yet to see.

We got out of Letterman around 5:40 PM, and had 6:00 PM dinner reservations at Serendipity 3 about 20 blocks away. Did we take a cab? No...the streets were super rush hour packed. So we power walked (which felt good for the first 2 blocks...then I got really tired). We got to Serendipity 3 about 6:10, and they graciously let us keep our reservation. I had a mediocre bacon cheeseburger, and Allison had some turkey thing. But the main reason to go there is for their Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. It's a favorite of Oprah's, thus the reason we ate there. It was pretty tasty, but not "to die for" (or in NYC accent 'to die fa"). I also got a strawberry cheesecake dessert with icecream...incredible.

We meandered back toward Times Square (you'll hear me say that a lot...our hotel was just off Times Square) and just took it all in. While waiting for a light to change, we got behind a HUGE fella and another guy. A teenage girl ran up to the litler guy and said "Nick, we were standing in line to get a picture...could we still get one?". He said sure, and I offered to snap the photo for them, which I did. He looked SOOO familiar, but couldn't place him. Then Allison said, "I think that's Nick Carter". I agreed, but couldn't place why we knew him, or who he belonged to. As we were walking across the street behind him, we realized who he was: a Backstreet Boy (they were singing at the Today show the next morning), and the guy who dated Paris Hilton. It was pretty cool. Then we went to bed, completely exhausted.

This was by far the best day we had in New York! First off, it was our 5 Year Anniversary! We celebrated by sleeping in an extra hour. Then we hit the city. But when we walked out of the hotel, it was raining pretty hard. I was sporting a beautiful clear poncho, while Allison was more kosher in a raincoat and umbrella. By the time we walked to Times Square, got our bus tickets and loaded up on the bus, the rain had pretty much stopped. We went past the Madison Square Garden building (which is ironically circular), the NYC Post Office (larger than Fayetteville's entire square), and stopped at the Empire State Building. We went to the top, though they said there was zero visibility due to the storm that just moved through. We went anyway. We could see a couple of miles around, still enough to impress me. I'm petrified of heights, but I handled it pretty well. After coming down, we hoped back on the bus and went to the SoHo district (interesting fact: the "Ho" part of SoHo stands for Houston street, but is pronounced in NYC "howsten", not like the city in Texas). We shopped around SoHo for a while and ate lunch at a little deli place...very tasty.

We walked on down to Wall Street, stopped at Starbucks, then went to Battery Park and to the Statue of Liberty pier. We missed the last outing that goes to the island and into the Statue, but we could use our tickets (that were included in the bus tour price!) for a 1 hour cruise around the bay and up the Hudson. We got to see Ellis Island, took some good pictures of the skyline, and got pretty close to the Statue of Liberty. I have to admit, I was only midly enthusiastic about seeing her...but when we got closer, I was overcome with her majesty and her symbolism. Truly amazing. We went on around and under the Brooklyn bridge, then back to the dock. About the time we got off, it started pouring on us. We jumped on the tour bus and rode it to the Fish Market. From there, we took a cab across the Brooklyn Bridge into (yeah, you guessed it!) Brooklyn. We took the recommendation of Andrew & Virginia Steger to eat at a pizza joint called Grimaldi's, and we weren't disappointed! It was voted the best pizza place in New York City, so it was also really crowded. Thankfully, we beat the crowd by about 3 minutes. The place is pretty much underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, so after a fantastic pizza, we walked down to a big pier where we could see the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and the NYC skyline. I got some super photos here that I'll post later. There's an ice cream shop on the pier, so we got some ice cream while we were there...again, great stuff.

Now the REALLY cool part. As we were walking back toward Grimaldi's to catch a cab, there was a line formed outside waiting to eat there. We walk by the line and I take a double-looksies at a guy that looks really familiar. I stop and grab my camera...whisper to Allison "that looks a lot like Mike Myers!". She turns and looks, then get excited. We watch him for about 15 seconds trying to decide if we should bother him for a picture. As we were walking up, the owner of Grimaldi's approached him and ushered him inside. I missed my photo-op with him, but seeing a famous person was pretty freaking sweet. I always wondered what I would be like if I saw someone famous (like Mike Myers famous...super famous)...and I thought I'd be cool and not get all that excited. I was wrong...I wanted to pester him for a photo and get him to do Dr. Evil's finger pose for me. Oh well...

We caught a cab back to Times Square where we walked around for a bit, then went back to the hotel. What a fantastic anniversary!!!!

Today is our last REAL day in NYC, and there's a ton left to do! At this point, my body hates me. I'm not, how do you say, in shape. At all. All the walking and standing is killing my legs!

Saturday morning in NYC Midtown was pretty quiet...most people were still sleeping from the hard partying the night before. We walked over to Rockefeller Plaza and saw Brian McKnight singing on The Today Show. It was really good, and pretty crowded.

Then we caught the NYC Siteseeing Tour to Uptown (Harlem, Central Park, Museum Mile, etc). We saw Grant's Tomb, Bill Clinton's office, the Apollo Theater, The American Museum of Natural History (went in for a while...cool dinosaur bones in there!), The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum. The tour guide was incredibly passionate about the history of Uptown...to the point where he was yelling at us. I felt like I was being guided by the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine! But the info was great and very detailed...good stuff to know. We tipped him well when we got off at Central Park.

From Central Park, we walked back to FAO Schwartz to pick up a gift for Emma..a little pull-behind-you dog that wiggles as you pull it. We were stupid that morning and wore jeans into town...so we went shopping for some shorts. After about 5 stores, we finally found some reasonable prices, and changed in the stores...walked out to take on the city again.

We walked over to Times Square and caught the Downtown tour bus. We got off in SoHo and shopped around there a bit. Walked over to Little Italy and Chinatown afterwards. A huge thunderstorm came up and it started pouring on us. We bought 2 umbrellas from a street vendor ($3/each...very reasonable) and tried to decide where to eat. However, neither of us wanted Italian or Chinese...so we were in the worst spot for what we wanted. We dove into the closest subway station and tried to decide where to go eat dinner. We decided to just go back to Times Square and look for something there. After getting our Metro tickets and entering the subway area, we studied the maps and signs for about 10 minutes. And we still utterly confused by what train we needed to take. So we took an estimated guess and got on the Q. While on there, Allison asked if we were going in the right direction...and I had no clue. Thankfully, we got on the right train and ended up in the middle of Times Square.

We ate at a place called Manhattan Chili. I had 2 chili dogs with fries, and Allison had some burrito thingy and a margarita. We knew we had to get up early the next morning (4:30AM!), so we headed back to the hotel around 9:00 PM. We packed and got to bed around 11:00.

Well, after a good 5 hour nap, Allison and I got up at 3:30 AM to leave for La Guardia airport. We lugged our luggage (is that why it's called luggage?) down the narrow stairs to the front lobby and hailed a taxi. First of all, I found it incredible that there were many taxis available in our area at 4:30 AM. We loaded up the taxi, and headed through Midtown to the East River and up to La Guardia. It's absolutely insane, but there were hundreds of people about town, walking around and hanging out at 4:15 AM!

Nothing special happened on the flight home...left NY at 6:00, got to Atlanta around 8:15. Left Atlanta around 11:30 (slept during the layover), and hit NWA around 12:30 PM. It was SO fun to walk around the corner and see Emma in the arms of Papa (her grandpa Shell)! She wasn't all that excited to see us. Rather, she was more interested in the escalators up and down.

The trip was incredibly fun, overall. Very busy, lots of walking, lots of standing in line, and LOTS of people...all the time. As we sat on the couch this afternoon just doing nothing, we felt a bit fidgety, but it was still nice to just sit and relax.

I would highly recommend going to NYC for vacation. But take at least 5-7 days...there's a lot to see there!

Well, in the past 2 days, Emma has acquired some serious plastic items. First, Allison went garage saling (is that the term??) on Saturday. She picked up one of those kiddie kitchens along with some plastic groceries. Emma's loving it. We noticed in the nursery at church that the kitchen is where she heads first when dropped off. Now she has one.

The fam took an outing to Toys R Us last night to look around and kill some time. We walked right past this big plastic play house, but Emma stopped and went right in. She loved it! It was on sale, too, for the reasonable price of $50. Usually these kind of things go from $100-$250 depending on the "fun" level. Well, this is just 4 sides and a roof with a door and 3 windows. Apparently, the fun level is low, but it works well for a 1 1/2 year old.

I was thinking to myself, "How fun it will be to give this to her and see her face...her happiness." I wasn't let down.

My mind kept coming back to the passage in Matthew 7:7-12.

⁷"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ¹²So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

I amaze myself at how self-sustaining I think I am. I forget to ask of God for most things, because I think I can do them myself. But all God asks of me is that I ask of him. Why is that SO hard to do??? Man, when the Bible refers to us as 'sheep', God was spot-on in the parallel...you have to push my head down to the grass to get me to eat.

Well, I'm following in the footsteps on others (namely the Captertons and Jason Miller), who have created separate sites for their pictures. For all my family members who read this (which I think is only Cathy and Allison), here is the new site for all pictures Emma.

Check out the John Nelson gut on THAT!!!!

Well, it's been a while since I posted last, so here's a quick update of the happenings in the Nelson clan.

Work:
Nestle's been pretty great the last little bit. Our entire team went to Dallas for a few days for an offsite team "meeting". We met for like 6 total hours over 3 days. The rest of the time, we played golf at the TPC in Los Colinas. We stayed at the Four Seasons...nice, but almost TOO nice. They waited on you hand and foot SO much, that I barely got to finish my meals. Everytime I'd stop to talk to my neighbor, a waiter would reach for my plate. I'd brashly let them know that I'll tell them when to take the plate away. (this happened 4 times during 1 meal...I felt that being brash was justified). All in all, good meetings and good R&R.

All this past week at work was dedicated to Wal*Mart's Shareholder's Meeting. Up at 5:00 AM, meeting begins at 7:00 AM, lasts until noon. The bright spots of the meeting: Free orange juice, Jessica Simpson sang the Star Spangled Banner, Jon Bon Jovi did a 3 song accousic set, and Garth Brooks closed down the meeting accoustially. It was pretty sweet. On top of the meeting itself, Nestle flew in many of it's CEOs and big wigs in to attend the meeting. So there was lots of office cleaning, huge number crunching for their meetings, and large amounts of stress.

Family:
Memorial Day has passed since my last post, so that means summer has officialy begun. During the Memorial Day weekend, we had some friends over for a hot dog cookout and hang out. Lots of kids, and lots of dogs...real dogs, not hot dogs. We hit up some disc golf the next morning and had a grand old time. I avoided getting poison ivy, and Belle (my dog) almost died. She likes to chase the discs as we throw them, naturally. The one hole has a huge dry creek surrounded by trees going through the middle of the hole. The drop from the top to the bottom is about 6-7 feet, with concrete steps going down the side to help the golfers get down to the bottom. Well, Belle thrashes off after my toss, going full speed over the edge. We hear nothing and see nothing. I start running for the edge about 15 seconds later, and Belle runs up the other side. She's covered in dirt, but seemingly unhurt. You could see where she hit in the dirt at the bottom of the creek. Needless to say, I'm thankful she's OK, but it still scares me to think about it.

We went to Allyn & Aaron's new house on Sunday night for a cookout there. Lots more kids, great food, and I found a red wine I actually like: Ecco Domani. Later this past week, Adam & Sarah Eichler had a cookout for all their friends. They are leaving on their honeymoon on Monday, in which they'll go to Rome and be prayed over directly by the Pope. I think it's pretty cool, and I'm not even Catholic! From there, they hit Ephesus and and a bunch of other cool Biblical cities. They'll be gone for 27 DAYS!!! A freakin' MONTH!! I think that may be longer than Paul's second missionary journey! They'll have a blast, and I'm looking forward to hearing all about it and seeing the pictures.

Allison and I leave for New York this Wednesday!!! We're getting pretty excited about it, though we're kind of sad to leave Emma for 5 days. I guess she'll be ok by herself...she's pretty smart. Ok, Allison's parents and sister are coming to watch Emma and Belle for us while we're gone. Everyone will have a super duper time.

While we're in NY, we're going to see the musical Wicked, go to Letterman, Live with Kelly & Regis, and hit a neato restaraunt called Serendipity that is famous for its frozen hot chocolate. We'll be eating there on our anniversay (the 10th), so it'll be extra special. We're also hitting that pizza joint that the Steger's mentioned (Grimaldi's). We're doing a tourist thing where you get on a bus to a siteseeing spot, hang out there as long as you want, then catch the next bus (they're on 30 minute cycles) to the next spot. Hopefully, I'll be able to post some pics of our trip when we get back.

Sorry for not posting in a while...and by the way, Fish died the day after Buggy, so the tank is sitting empty and cleaned out on my desk. Emma still points to it and says "Fiss"!!