Saturday, August 22, 2015
Yet Another Reason to Love Nick Lachey
SOURCE
by
Ruthie Fierberg
We have one more reason to love the Lacheys. Yesterday, Toys “R” Us released its annual Toy Guide for Differently-Abled Kids
and we couldn’t be happier that Nick was featured on this year’s cover.
Growing up with a special needs brother, Nick is dedicated to showing
love and respect to all kids—especially his son Camden, 2, and daughter
Brooklyn, 8 months. Parents chatted with the singer about
raising respectful children, how he keeps his loves close to his heart,
and the potential for another album(!).
P: How much does it mean to you to be on the cover of the
Toys “R” Us special guide, particularly having a brother on the
spectrum?
NL: I was very honored. The shoot was a real treat. I
got to spend the afternoon with four fantastic kids and their families.
As someone who grew up with a brother who has Asperger’s
and is a special needs child, I feel like I got to see firsthand that
there needs to be some considerations. This guide is a perfect resource.
Whether you’re a family member or a caregiver or a friend of the family
who is wondering what to get for a birthday party you can make sure
you’re getting something that is good for that child.
P: Our culture has recently made strides to be more
inclusive—to show special needs kids with typically developing children.
What in your mind do we need to do to continue that forward progress?
NL: I think it’s about understanding and it’s about
inclusion to use your word. I think the worst thing for a kid is to feel
like they’re different or feel like they don’t belong. What’s great
about this guide is these are all toys they can play with alongside
their siblings or their friends. These kids may learn in a different way
but they’re still a part of families and still a part of classrooms and
we need to make sure they feel that way.
P: How do you plan to teach Camden and Brooklyn to be accepting and look past differences between themselves and other children?
NL: My parents were always very good about
emphasizing that no matter who you come in contact with—no matter their
race, their status in the economy, whether they are special
needs—everyone is deserving of being treated with respect. That’s
something we teach Camden and we’ll teach Brooklyn. Camden thankfully
has been able to spend the last year in school and when you’re put into a
school you’re automatically thrust into a situation where you’re around
so many different types of kids. It’s been great for him to learn that
everyone is deserving of being treated with respect. When you’re a
2-year-old that means don’t put your hands on them, you share your toys with them. Those lessons are good to teach at any age.
P: You recently opened Lachey’s Bar with your brother and he has two kids. What is the cousin dynamic like?
NL: It’s really cool. His youngest is a boy and my
oldest is a boy. Huddy’s 5 and Camden’s almost 3, and Drew and my age
separation was about 2 years and 9 months so they’re roughly the same
gap that he and I were. It’s fun to watch their dynamic. They’re at the
point now where they can run around together and have fun together. And
his oldest is 9, so she’s getting into babysitting
age. The biggest thing about moving back to Cinci, at least part time,
and having houses next to each other is a chance to get those cousins
together all the time and spend time together.
P: Even though Camden is your oldest it’s almost like he has an older sibling.
NL: It really is. Huddy is the first one to knock
him to the ground and whoop up on him a little bit, which I’m sure I did
to Drew growing up. Drew’s getting his little semblance of revenge
here, next generation.
P: You travel a lot living in Cincinnati part-time, but in
New York for “Big Morning Buzz.” What do you do to carry a bit of your
family with you wherever you go?
NL: With technology it’s easier. When I was in New
York I would wake up at 5:45 in the morning and click on the baby
monitor and watch my kids sleeping. Whether it’s getting my makeup done
and watching Camden while he’s sleeping or saying goodnight to him with
Facetime, singing him to sleep, those things make it easier to be away.
It still is hard, but it makes it a little easier to stomach. I have a
dog tag that Vanessa
gave me with Camden’s birthdate on it and now with Brooklyn’s birthdate
on it. That’s my little symbol that they’re always with me. That’s why I
always wear it.
P: You released “A Father’s Lullaby” for Camden about a year
after he was born and you said you don’t want to play favorites, so is
there anything in the works for Brooklyn?
NL: I’m getting pressure from home and now on the
phone! Gotta get this going. Let’s be honest and I’ve thought about it.
Nothing imminently planned but it would be something cool to do so maybe
I’ll have to get on that.
P: Is there a song when you are with her that seems to soothe her?
NL: It’s funny because I’ve gotten so used to
singing the song I wrote for Cam called “Sleepy Eyes” and I sing it to
him every night to this day and I’ve already handed it down to her. I
feel like maybe I’ve given her the raw end of the deal. I might have to
write her her own, to your point.
P: I think just hearing dad’s voice is probably nice.
NL: You like to think that if no one else in the
world wants to hear you sing your kids still do. But no matter where you
are in your career, that’s the concert that matters the most: the one
at the crib.
P: Now that you have two, how do you hope to cultivate closeness between Camden and Brooklyn and minimize rivalries?
NL: Maybe I’m overly hopeful with this but I feel
given the fact that he’s a boy and she’s a girl the rivalry thing will
be less so than if they were both girls or both boys. At least that’s my
hope. I’ve already started to tell Camden, “You always protect your
little sister you want to look out for your sister.” I think that as
family it’s all about love and respect. They’re gonna be kids. They’re
gonna hit each other and steal each other’s toys and that’s sort of part
of the fun of it in a sick way. At the end of the day, if you as a
family teach respect, that will trickle down to the next generation.
P: What’s one thing you want to do as a family before summer is done?
NL: We were fortunate to take a vacation to the
beach so that was nice. We talked about going to Disneyland. Camden’s
very much into Mickey Mouse clubhouse He’s at the age now where he
really would have a blast with it. So we may see Disney on the agenda
before we get back into the fall.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Nick Lachey: “Great Ride” of Fatherhood Is “Just Starting” — Exclusive
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
I Did Hot Yoga With 98 Degrees and It Crushed My Teenage Dreams
SOURCE
Leigh Weingus
When an email asking if I wanted to do hot yoga with 98 Degrees' Nick
and Drew Lachey landed in my inbox last Wednesday, I was beyond
excited. Sure, the last time I listened to their music was maybe 2002
(peak middle school angst), but how could I pass up an opportunity like
this?
After all, I really love yoga. I love vinyasa
yoga, hot yoga, aerial yoga, I even love teaching yoga. Then there was
the whole 98 Degrees element and bittersweet memories of blasting "The Hardest Thing" in the midst of emotional teenage breakdowns until the track started to skip on my scratched-up CD.
The
few days between finding out I was going to do hot yoga with the Lachey
brothers and actually doing hot yoga with the Lachey brothers were full
of anticipation. I barely slept the night before (this probably had
more to do with me drinking coffee too late in the day, but let's just
give the credit to 98 Degrees for now).
But when I arrived at the Bikram Yoga
lobby on Fifth Avenue at 7:30 a.m. all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I
was bombarded with tons of Bud Lite paraphernalia (they were sponsoring
the event), a water bottle and a bunch of forms to sign. Although those
first few minutes bore little resemblance to previous hot yoga
experiences, I was still fully prepared for a sweaty, hour-and-a-half
long yoga class set to some of my favorite '90s tunes.
When I stepped foot in the actual studio, Bud Lite yoga towel in hand, my teenage dreams officially started to crumble down.
The
images I had conjured up over the past few days of Nick and Drew calmly
leading me through tricky Bikram poses couldn't have been more wrong.
Actually, the class was led by a real-life yoga teacher and the Lachey
brothers acted as "assistant," assigning 98 Degrees-themed (and kind of
lame) names for every pose like, "I Could Be A 98 degrees Backup Dancer
Pose." OK ...?
Also, Nick isn't even that into hot yoga. In fact, this was his first time doing it. WHAT?!
Other
things I took issue with: The class was only 40 minutes long, I don't
think it was 98 degrees in that room -- "It felt hotter than 98 degrees
in that room," the Lachey brothers told me via email, but I'm not
convinced -- and not one 98 Degrees song was played during the entire
class.
OK, so maybe I'm being a little hard on Nick and Drew.
Bikram yoga isn't traditionally set to music, so I'll have to let that
one slide ... and they were also really nice and funny guys. And
although they're not crazy into yoga, they still have admirable health
routines that I can get behind.
"I try to get in as much cardio
as I can, but I also love to play golf and get outside and be active in
other ways as well," Nick told me, while Drew added, "As I have gotten
older, I have moved away from weights to more Pilates and yoga-based
workouts."
Plus, they have some great suggestions for music if they did
have the opportunity to play some during a yoga class. "Eminem's 'Lose
Yourself.' It's not very yoga-esque, but it's a great workout song,"
Drew said. As for Nick? He just wants to play "anything Stevie Wonder."
Even
though it didn't live up to my very high expectations for all things
yoga and 98 Degrees, at the end of the day I still get to say I did hot
yoga with 98 Degrees. Hey, that's pretty cool.
I Did Hot Yoga With 98 Degrees & It Was The Stuff Of Teenage Dream
SOURCE
Elizabeth Kiefer
I AM NOT GONNA LIE... I AM SOOOOO SUPER JEALOUS OF THE GIRL IN THIS ARTICLE
Full disclosure: I'm no stranger to hot yoga with celebrities. Once upon
a time — during another life in Los Angeles — I regularly practiced
with a certain Hunger Games actress.
Turns out, exercising as though your body is made of hot taffy is more
tolerable when there is star presence to distract you. Which is why,
when the opportunity to take a heated class with the two most famous
members of 98 Degrees presented itself, my motivation to get back on the
hot yoga horse was renewed. Also, I am a sucker for puns, and this
experience was rife with them, obviously. A 98°F (and rising) room with
98 Degrees? Color me sold.
So, early on a muggy Tuesday morning,
I dragged my spandex-clad body to the Flatiron district of NYC, with
the goal of sweating somewhere near the Lachey brothers. It's pertinent
to mention that this experience was part of Budweiser's #UpForWhatever
campaign. Yep, the same one that spawned
the controversial "remove 'no' from your vocabulary" hashtag. For that
reason, the studio was bathed in the cobalt blue of Bud Light, pretty
much from floor to ceiling.
Subsequently, I am now the
proud(ish) owner of a heavily ad-laden yoga mat, which has definitely
elicited some weird looks from fellow practitioners in other studios. To
this I say: Whatever dudes. A free mat is a free mat, even if yoga and
beer don't really belong in the same 103°F room.
Anyway.
Along
with a host of other media folks hoping to get a glimpse of their high
school heartthrobs, I crouched on the floor in a creaky childs pose,
wondering why class hadn't kicked off yet and when the guys would make
their debut. We were coached by the Bud folks to keep our foreheads on
the sticky PVC surface, like a grown-up game of Heads Up, Seven Up.
Suddenly, the room became very still, save for the clicking of ankles.
We sat up, and there they were: Nick and Drew, looking every bit like
the boy band fantasy of my tweenage mind. Except for the Budweiser
T-shirts. Those were not part of the fantasy. Let's be honest: The hope
was that this would be a slightly more shirtless experience.
Things
got sort of weird after that. We were being filmed by a camera crew,
which was not something I had anticipated, or I would have worn fancier
Lululemon gear instead of boring black leggings. Apparently our shock
and awe of seeing the guys was not significant enough during their first
romp through the room. We returned to child's pose and reacted to their
presence a second time for the cameras. I'd give the authenticity
rating of that moment a seven, at best.
Next, the guys led us
through a series of postures, modifying the names to be more
Budweiser-centric. For those of you out there unfamiliar with hot yoga,
it can basically be summed up thusly: 26 poses, done twice, in the heat.
We did more like six postures, done mostly twice, in uncomfortable
warmth that I don't think was quite 98°F.
Instead of calling
poses by their normal names (example: chair pose), though, the brothers
called out things like "reaching-for-the-last-Bud-Light-in-the-fridge"
pose, and "all-my-friends-have-FOMO" pose. I don't remember the rest; I
may have purposely blocked out the new monikers. I did, however, check
with my friends: They do experience FOMO every so often, including when I
am doing hot yoga with 98 Degrees.
Other highlights from the
30-odd-minute session included: Nick saying every six minutes that he
had never done hot yoga before, the actual instructor assuring him that
he was doing just fine, and, on a personal note, pulling an unknown
muscle in my right shoulder during standing bow pose, which was probably
called "I-drank-15-Bud-Lights-and-I-can-still-balance-on-one-leg" pose.
At the end of the shortened series, somebody brought out a cooler of
Bud Light. It was just past 8:30 a.m. I reached for my coconut water,
feeling a little as though I had not earned it, and the guys stood by
the door smiling million-watt smiles and holding bright-blue beer
bottles as we fled toward the changing rooms.
About an hour
later, I had a chance to catch up with the Lacheys, who are just as
sweet, delightful, and toothsome in person as anyone could hope. Nick is
slightly more dreamboat-esque than Drew, but at 41 and 38,
respectively, they could both pretty much pass for the age they were at
the height of their careers. We spoke for fewer than 10 minutes, which
was not enough time to trick them into saying there was another, more
preferable way to get sweaty so early in the morning, theoretically
involving sheets.
Nick did, however, admit that he'd been
hearing a lot of puns since kicking off this #UpForWhatever journey, and
that the name of their band luckily had some staying power. It could be
worse, he told me, laughing. "We could have named it skunk piss."
I'll just leave you to ponder that one. Namaste, folks.
Lachey's and the $12,000 bourbon barrel
SOURCE
Are you Team "Stupid Freaking Idea" or Team "Investment?"
Those were the competing sides in Wednesday's "Lachey's Bar," the fifth episode of the A&E reality show documenting the journey of opening Lachey's in Over-the-Rhine.
Those team's namesakes: The sibling's two quotes explaining their position in the bourbon barrel debate.
Nick
Lachey's negative response – he's the captain of team "stupid freaking
idea" – to Drew Lachey's purchase of – or "investment" in – a
one-of-a-kind Woodford Reserve bourbon barrel prompted the biggest
conflict of the series so far.
The battleground actually stretched
all the way to Kentucky. About three weeks before the expected opening
of the sports bar, the Lacheys and a group of friends, including fellow
98 Degrees member Justin Jeffre, planned to trek the Bourbon Trail.
The idea was for the brothers and bandmates to purchase something special along the way for the bar.
"Ninety-nine percent of the bourbon in world is made just across river," Nick says. "Bourbon is a huge deal in Cincinnati."
Nick,
however, is delayed by West Coast work and Drew, a non-bourbon drinker,
is sent to 100 miles from Cincinnati without his bourbon-loving
brother.
First stop: Town Branch Distillery in Lexington. "This
looks like something from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," Drew
says of the still.
The scenes along the trail serve as education
for both Drew and the those in the show's national audience who may not
be familiar with Kentucky's bourbon heritage. Distillers, for instance,
explain why Kentucky produces so much of this particular liquor: It's
because the area's water is limestone-filtered, with no iron in it.
"This is definitely not my wheelhouse," Drew says.
Ultimately, the spotlight that's been shining on Cincinnati in the first four episodes shined a bit to the south this week.
But that doesn't mean the Queen City was put in a corner. While Drew goes to bourbon school, we follow Nick back at the bar.
He's got to decide which television to buy. And goes with the largest option at 90 inches. "Go big or go home," Nick says.
The weekend is about to get even more expensive for the budding business owners.
At
Woodford Reserve, Drew decided to take home a lavish souvenir. You
know, the $12,000 barrel of bourbon we talked about earlier.
His
friends do the math: The barrel is equivalent to some 220 bottles,
making it about $54 a bottle. "I want to make sure it's cost effective,"
Drew says.
The master distiller also claims that there hasn't
been a bar in the United States that's opened with a unique double-oaked
single barrel from Woodford Reserve.
That superlative plus the results of the cost effectiveness equation is enough to get Drew on board with the barrel.
Nick,
however, drops some of the only bleeped-out expletives when Drew shares
his purchase. The result is the most heated argument of the series. But
it's still mild. Think a low simmer, not a boil.
Still, Nick's
visiting wife, Vanessa, is the one who turns off the stove, "putting in
perspective what's ultimately important," Nick says.
The duo invites Drew over and Nick quickly raises a white flag with an apology. So, the battle of the bourbon barrel concludes.
The final words on that peace treaty? A joke, of course.
"I need a $12,000 loan," Drew says.
