Welcome home Ava!

Yesterday our baby girl Ava Simone Pellegrini was born at the Sharp Mary Birch hospital in San Diego. It was ‘Black Friday’ and she wasn’t due for another 11 days, but as predicted by that man at Jessica’s restaurant, she came about two weeks early. She was born at 12:18pm, weighed in at 6 pounds 13 ounces, and measured 19 inches. Obviously words cannot describe the instant joy and purpose she brings to our lives. Today she and Jessica were discharged from the hospital and allowed to come home. Amy is staying with us while we get Ava all settled in and helping in every way possible. Expect many, many photos to come on our site and in our galleries, but for now, here’s a few from Ava’s first 28 hours of life.


Jessica holding Ava immediately after giving birth


Swaddled for the first time


Ava being held by Grandma for the first time


First family photo of the three of us


Holding my baby girl for the first time


Ready to come home

Happy Thanksgiving!

I haven’t had any spare time lately to post updates on our site but all is going well. Today is my first day off in over a month and I’m excited to be spending it at home with Jessica and the dogs, watching football and eating lots of food! The new job is going great, just keeping me extremely busy. I finished my first iPad app for G.E. in only two weeks, which brought positive attention from several executives at the company, and got me the position as lead developer on the Fall 2012 Nike Running App, which is the biggest project we have going on in our office. This means I’ve been working 7 days / 70 hours a week. No complaints though; I really like the company and the people I work with, and I’m learning a ton.

Now onto more important stuff… Jessica is now full–term in her pregnancy and could go into labor at any time. We actually thought she was going into labor on Monday night. She was having contractions about 8 minutes apart so we decided to go to bed and see how she was doing in the morning. Unfortunately the contractions were gone when we woke up. The funny thing was that, had she actually gone into labor that night, the prediction made by one of her customers several weeks ago would have come true. She ended up going to her doctor appointment that day and the doc said that she would be very surprised if Jessica made it to her appointment next week without having this baby. At this point we’re on high alert and ready to go at any time.

Recently some of Jessica’s girl friends from work threw her a baby shower and luckily my Mom was able to go with her because she was in town for work. Below are a few pics from that day, or you can click here to see the whole album. Guess that’s all for now but I’ll be sure to post updates once our baby Ava has arrived. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Jessica and my Mom
Jessica and Shawn

Final night in the restaurant industry

Tonight was my last night working at the Tractor Room, and ultimately my last night in the restaurant industry. It’s hard to believe that it’s been thirteen years since I first started bussing tables at El Gaucho in Seattle. Johnny, the owner of the Tractor Room, was so gracious in seeing me go. He gave me a nice bottle of champagne for Jessica and I to enjoy once Ava is born, and even ordered pizza for everyone after we got through the rush. It was a fun final night, and coincidentally, turned out to be Joe Paterno’s final day as the head coach of Penn State University. What a mess that whole situation has turned into! Anyway, I feel very fortunate to have had the career I’ve had, but am beyond excited about the new chapter in our lives. I can’t believe Jessica is due in just over three weeks!