Month: October 2013

It’s been another really busy week around here. Elise just turned 3 months and is growing fast. She smiles a lot now and is showing more and more personality all the time. She enjoys sitting upright and has quickly taken to the Bumbo chair (see below). Ava continues to surprise me with new vocabulary and knowledge. Her new favorite thing to say is “Lets do it!” and says it when you ask her just about any question. Jessica has been working 3-4 nights a week and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult not having her around. School is actually challenging now that I’m in my final year, and Elise simply doesn’t like giving me any time to get my assignments done. She’s generally fine as long as you’re holding her, but writing papers and computer programs while holding a baby is basically impossible, so I end up working in 3-5 minute stretches.

Luckily Ava is surprisingly self sufficient for being so young. She’s very aware of Elise and understands that she’s supposed to be quiet when the baby is sleeping. We’re still working on the actual application of that rule however. In other news, this is the busiest time of year at work so things have been crazy lately. I’ll be traveling to Southern California at the end of the month to help conduct a simulation of a new version of software I’m working on. I was very excited to see that there’s a new Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school opening one block from my office. I spoke to the owner and found out they’re hoping to open in the next month; just waiting on permits from the city. I’m definitely going to check it out. Hopefully I’ll have a situation like San Diego where I can go to a couple classes a week on my lunch break.

Last weekend I got a chance to meet Adam Carolla at the BevMo in Bellevue. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time and regularly listen to his podcast at work. It was just a quick photo but he was cool and I ended up making some friends in the line. Ava’s second birthday is only about a month away and we’re looking forward to having everyone out for a visit. That’s about it for now. Here’s a few recent pics.

Elise in her Bumbo

Elise at 3 months

Ava watching the flying pumpkins at Remlinger Farms

With Adam Carolla

Its been a crazy last few weeks. We have all been keeping very busy with various activities. I started back to work two weeks ago and had 4 shifts back to back. It was a big adjustment for us all. I think Michael now has a better understanding of what life can be like trapped in a house with two small children. It was rough on us all but we survived and have had the past week at home together. It seems like we are all still trying to get back into our normal routine since everyone was sick. Ava’s sleep habits have improved the past few nights but we have been having frequent late night episodes with her. She either wants to get up and play or she just wakes up and cries. Either way it’s tough on everyone because we all have bedrooms so close to each other. Since she is normally such an awesome sleeper even a few nights with interrupted sleep feels like a lot.

We have been embracing fall by collecting leaves in the front yard, visiting the pumpkin patch and farm, making plans for Halloween and taking every opportunity we can to enjoy the beautiful fall colors of the Northwest. I have to admit I have already been finding myself preparing for the up coming holiday season. One thing at a time though. First we have Halloween to enjoy; both girls already have their costumes and Michael and I have decided that we are going to pass on costumes for ourselves this year. I figure we will have plenty of opportunities to dress up with the girls in the years to come.

This past Saturday we spent the morning with some family at Remlinger Farm. It’s about 30 minutes away from us out in Carnation, WA. They have a fall harvest all October long. Its a celebration with hundreds of pumpkins, scarecrow, fall foods and lots of fun rides and activities for all ages. The highlights of the day were the Flying Pumpkins ride and the mini train. Ava loved both. She rode the pumpkins with both Michael and I separately and both times she rode with a huge smile plastered across her face yelling “weee”, “so cool” and laughing. I thoroughly enjoyed riding with her. Her least favorite attraction was the mini pony. We tried to get her to go for a pony ride but she wanted no part in it. She also had a strange aversion to the hay maze. It was a fun trip for everyone. I’m sure we will visit again in the future. We may even try to check out another pumpkin patch this season since we never bought one at the farm.

Today, Elise turned 3 months old. We had a great day to mark the occasion. Both of the girls, myself and my friend Laurel went the the Woodland Park Zoo. It was pretty busy because it’s Columbus Day but that just made it more fun for Ava. More kids running around meant more excitement for her which was the whole point so I was happy. We walked around almost all of the zoo and stopped a few times to feed some animals and run off some energy. The zoo is having a pumpkin bash coming up the weekend of the 26th. We are entertaining the idea of checking that out and giving the girls another opportunity to dress up in their costumes.

I’m about to start another busy week of work for Seattle Restaurant Week. I’m sure it will be incredibly hectic and I’m totally looking forward to it. It’s so much easier to tackle that kind of craziness after juggling two kids. Work feels more like social time to me now than anything. Although it’s not always easy to leave Michael and the girls at home I am glad to be working again. I did cry a few tears when leaving the first week. I always feel like I am going to miss out on something hugely important while I’m gone. Or I feel like I need to be home to help make everyones’ night easier and therefore better. I’m sure all working parents feel like this to some extent. Ava did take her first steps while I was at work so my fears aren’t completely irrational.

Here are a few recent pictures of Ava and Elise. We will post more this week as well.

Elise all wrapped up

Ava throwing a bedtime fit

Having fun at the park

On our way to the park

Today I’m excited to announce that our Family Recipes website/webapp is now live! It’s been a fun project that I’ve been obsessing over for the last few weeks. I must say that I have a very loving and understanding wife because she’s had to deal with me working on this constantly lately. I’m very appreciative of that because this has been a really cool project.

During the course of developing this project I’ve been thinking a lot about family, food, and the connection between the two. It’s brought a lot of good memories and stories to mind. Hopefully these recipes will re-kindle some nice memories for everyone that visits this site, as well as present some great new dishes for everyone to try.

The part of this app that I’m most proud of is the search functionality. For every recipe that I’ve added, I’ve created an extensive list of keywords associated with the dish. Everything from the list of ingredients, the title, and the person that submitted or created it is included. This means that you can search for names, titles, and ingredients. Want to know every dish on the site that contains garlic? Just search for garlic. Want to see every dish associated with Jessica? Type in Jessica and hit enter. The results are paginated by course type, just like they are on the home page.

I wanted the interface to be really clean, simple, colorful, and easy to use. Although I’m not a designer by trade, I work with several great designers and hear them talk about design all the time. One of the most popular new trends in graphic design is something called ‘flat design.’ What this means is that there is no concept of depth or dimension in the design. No shadows, no bubble or button textures, just flat clean shapes and colors. This style can be found most notably in the new iOS 7. Although my interest in iOS has been waning, I’m still a fan of flat design and wanted to incorporate it into this project.

This project also gave me an opportunity to get some experience with a web development framework called Backbone.js. I’m going to be starting a new project with Backbone at work next week so I’m glad to have some experience before it begins. I’m going to continue to work on the site in terms of features and coding, and I’ll always be adding new recipes to it. All recipe submissions are welcome so keep them coming. Also, if you see something on the site for a recipe that you submitted that you’d like to change, just let me know. Adding a photo, changing a description, updating an ingredients list, anything like that is no problem. Just email me and I’ll take care of it.

All that being said, the site can be found at:

www.PellegriniPage.com/recipes

Hope everyone likes it and gets some use out of it. Any feedback or update requests are welcome. Be sure to check back regularly because new recipes will continue to be added. Enjoy!

Although Jessica has worked a couple private events for El Gaucho in the past month, tonight is her official first night back at work. It’s hard to believe her maternity leave with Elise is complete. Obviously her going back to work has certain benefits, but its more bitter than sweet. I’ve definitely gotten used to having her home every night over the past few months so its going to be a significant adjustment for the girls and I without her here. I’m equal parts happy and nervous; happy that Jess will be able to get out of the house and interact with adults, but nervous that I won’t have as much time for homework due to my Dad duties. I’m sure everything will be fine but right now I can’t help but worry a bit.

Luckily I’m on the tail end of a two week break from school as we transition into the Fall quarter. I just got my grades from Summer quarter and was pleased to see I pulled off straight A’s again. I figure if I can pull off those grades during the busiest summer of my life I should have no problem the rest of the year. Either way I’ve only got three quarters to go. New classes start up on Monday and I’m ready to jump back in.

I haven’t written many posts lately because I’ve been really busy working on the Family Recipes site. For those that don’t already know, my Uncle Jim recently had an idea about doing a Family Recipes website that we could use to share all of our favorite dishes. I immediately thought it was a cool idea, but then when I realized that this was the perfect excuse to develop a project using a JavaScript framework called Backbone.js, I was sold. I’ll spare you of the technical details, but we recently decided at work to use a popular web development framework called Backbone.js for an upcoming project that I’ll be working on. I didn’t want to go into that project with no experience working with Backbone, so I used this project as a way to learn the framework.

It’s been a really fun project that I’ve learned a lot from, and I’m actually almost done. My goal is to launch the site this weekend before I get back into school. I wouldn’t have been able to build the site this quickly if I was in school, but with this two week break I’ve been able to crank through just about everything. If you’re thinking about submitting a recipe, please do! This is a site that I’ll be managing for the long–term and there is no cutoff date for submitting recipes. Hopefully over the years it will become an ‘encyclopedia’ of our family’s cooking.

All else is well in our world. Ava is coming up on her second birthday and she’s doing great. I can’t believe how much her vocabulary continues to grow. She loves to count now and can usually count to ten with no problems. Elise is 2.5 months old and going strong. She smiles more and more everyday. I was holding her the other night and Ava came up to talk to her. She got so excited and had the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. It was funny because Ava kept saying “Good morning baby” even though it was 8:00 at night. I think it was their first real interaction and felt pretty special to see.

Keep an eye out for the official announcement of the launch of the recipes site. My goal is Sunday so we’ll see what happens. Keep the recipes coming!