The Hive

Hi, I’m Nikki (otherwise known as “Nicole” to some and “Nik”, to a very select few). And Five in the Hive is my family. We are Nikki, Mark, Caitlynn, Cameron and Jacob. The Hive started with Caitlynn (nicknamed “little bee”) before she was born, and the sobriquet stuck around for every subsequent child. True to their nicknames, the kids haven’t stopped buzzing since their births (nor have mom and dad). They are fun-loving, energetic and all-around good kids. And it’s pretty clear they take their skiing seriously – especially the 2-year old.

There’s not much else to explain then. Well, except to understand why this website is what it is. Nikki (most references around this site are really about me, fyi), got into the web business back when people thought a “web” was something in which you could get tangled (or the near-invisible gossamer a spider calls home).

So it should come as no surprise that in the past couple of decades, not only have I seen a LOT of code, but I’ve also tried my hand in it more times than I can count.

This also means that my family was a benefactor of (or cursed by) an endless number of domain names and website designs. What can I say? I was a bit of an addict. (I just wish I had discovered the addiction when I was purchasing domain names in the mid-90’s. I could have snagged “Gap.com” or “Nike.com” for a few bucks and turned around to find millions of dollars in my pockets.)

Safe to say, I’ve collected a few good ones (at least according to my personal needs) but that have been strewn about over the years.

One of the more important ones is www.fivethirtyone.com, a place (though in need of updating itself), tells you about what I actually do for a living when I’m not wrangling three kids.

Now that WordPress and other fun templates make it so easy to maintain a site, The “Hive” is my latest attempt to corral those errant efforts and continue to record our work and play.

Most of the inspiration for this site comes by way of my passion for photography and projects (random and unexpected as they may be sometimes). And in the last year or two, I have become a bit obsessive about the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra so I’ve been working on sharing some inspiration there, too.  That said, you’ll find the landing page (the blog) to be the focal point of the site. I needed a long-term plot of web-estate on which to share my work and play and fiveinthehive seemed like the perfect landscape.

So, while I don’t pretend to be a famous (or even bona fide) blogger, it’s possible that I might inspire just a single person to unleash his or her creative or handy (or better yet, RECYCLING/REUSING!) spirit within his/her own life. In the same breath, I can keep the circle of family contented with regular updates at our house. Lord knows I don’t need to maintain two-hundred and sixty-one websites for just two purposes. (No, I never really bought two-hundred domains – it just felt that way.)

Go ahead, jump in. It’s all in fun and it won’t sting, I promise.

 – Nikki (and the rest of the hive)