It's like COST, as in $, with a K

Or at least that's how I try to explain it. I should have been more prepared, I guess. After all, Stan warned me that I would be spelling and correcting mispronunciations of our name for the rest of our lives. He was right. Since we've been married, I've been called Mrs. Kost (pronounced coast), and I've had to correct spellings like K-O-F-T and C-O-S-K (this happened recently when I said, "It's Kost, with a K."). And, we've only been married a little over a month. It becomes even more frustrating when people default the spelling of my first name to N-I-C-H-O-L-E. One would have thought that the popularity of Nicole Kidman would have made that particular spelling obsolete.

So, in case you've been wondering, it's Nicole, not Nichole, and we're the Kosts (pronounced costs) and not the Koasts, the Kofts, or the Cosks.