Author: Michael Pellegrini

Although it took a while for the weather to fully kick in this year, we’re still having a summer to remember. The biggest thing we’ve done since my last post was attend the Pellegrini-Giuntoli family reunion at Wilcox park in Lynnwood. There were people there that I haven’t seen since our last family reunion in Lakebay, which was about 30 years ago. Obviously it was really cool to see how everyone has turned out. My sister Lora traveled from New Hampshire to be there, my Mom flew in from Vegas and stayed the weekend with us, and our cousin Bob and his family came all the way from China! We also had plenty of people driving from Aberdeen, Eastern Washington, and Idaho in order to be there, so it was really special to have everyone together.

The most important thing about the party was that my Aunt Norma, who recently turned 90 and is most certainly the matriarch of the family, was there with us. It wouldn’t have been complete without her. I hadn’t seen Lora since our Grandma Gigi’s funeral, which was about 12 years ago, so she had never even met Jessica, let alone met any of our kids. We ended up spending time with her (and Dana of course) on 3 consecutive days. I honestly think that was the first time in my life that my two sisters and I spent time together 3 days in a row. I guess that may have happened before when I was little, but it’s certainly the first time I can remember. It was such a nice visit and seemed to rekindle our relationship, in fact just this morning we did a Skype call with Lora and her 3 kids: Carl, Megan, and Evan. I really hope we can stay in regular contact with them, and I look forward to showing Evan, who is about to turn 15 and recently started playing guitar, my collection of guitars, amplifiers, and effects. I’m sure he would get a kick out of it, or at least he’d probably humor me and listen to me blabber on about my gear.

We wanted to get together with Dana, Brad, and Lora before the family reunion, which was on a Saturday, so on that Friday night the 3 of them came over and joined us for dinner at our house. We had first considered going out to a restaurant, but Jessica and I didn’t think that would be best for the kids. We felt better about having everyone over to our house so we could take our time, and Lora could see the kids in their own environment. Plus I wanted to cook a special meal.

I felt like the most obvious dish to make that night would be Cioppino, which was our Dad’s favorite thing to make for special occasions. If you’re not familiar with the dish, it’s a seafood stew in a light tomato broth that originated in San Francisco. It’s normally made with a variety of fresh shellfish and served with toasted sourdough, which is perfect for dipping in the broth. I made it this time with fresh dungeness crab, scallops, clams, and pacific rockfish, plus a variety of minced veggies. I was very happy with how it turned out and everyone seemed to enjoy, so that was great. We ended up hanging out and chatting for quite a while, so it was a perfect way to start off the weekend.

All this talk about food just reminded me of Enzo’s new Instagram page. Basically Jessica was showing Dana and Lora a bunch of photos she had taken of him eating, and they were pretty funny, so one of them said “You’ve got to put together a photo collage of Enzo eating.” After thinking about it, she decided it would be a cute idea for an Instagram page, so she created “Eat with Enzo” (just search for #EatWithEnzo). There’s no question that eating is his favorite thing to do these days, so hopefully this will be a good place to capture him doing what he loves most.

We were hoping for beautiful weather the day of the reunion but had to settle for mid 60’s and cloudy. It may have been a blessing in disguise though because we weren’t able to secure a rental on one of the park’s covered areas, meaning we just set up a bunch of tables and chairs in the park and had our party, but had it been a hot sunny day it certainly would have been uncomfortable. Catching up with cousins I hadn’t seen in so long was really nice, and we ended up exchanging numbers with several people. Hopefully we can stay in better touch now. As expected, the kids were a big hit at the party, and I was so proud of how they conducted themselves the whole day. We were out there for quite a while, and there was no time for rest, but they all powered through and had a great time.

In addition to the family reunion, we got together with Kristy a couple times recently. On the night of my birthday we met up with her and a friend to watch the Seafair Torchlight Parade in Seattle, then exactly two weeks later we celebrated her birthday by going swimming at Jim & Brenda’s place, then having lunch and watching the first Seahawks preseason game. We’re getting together with her and Madi again next weekend so that should be fun.

Jessica and I have been enjoying watching the Olympics this summer. I totally remember writing a post during the last Summer Olympics (when we were living in California with just baby Ava and the dogs) and saying that we would be going to the Rio Olympics in 2016. Obviously that didn’t happen, but we’ve got 2 more beautiful babies instead, so I think we’ll take that. I’m actually glad we didn’t go, considering everything I’m hearing in the news about the conditions in Rio. They’re coming off pretty 2nd world at best.

One of the sports podcasts I listen to was recently trashing on the Olympics saying that they’re sports for non-sports fans, and that real sports fans don’t like the Olympics. They went on to hypothesize that people watch the Olympics more for the stories about the athletes than they do for the actual competition. I couldn’t disagree more, and I am a true sports fan, but I totally enjoy watching the Olympics and would never consider the two to be mutually exclusive. Although I do enjoy some of the stories, the competition is still easily my favorite part. Some of the finishes in the swimming races we were watching last week had me jumping off the couch and yelling like a lunatic… with a bum foot too! And don’t get me started on the sprinting in Track and Field. That said, I was bummed last night after watching the recent HBO Real Sports episode on the IOC (International Olympic Committee). Basically the level of corruption behind the Olympics is disgusting and can only be rivaled by FIFA, so you know it’s bad. It’s not the athlete’s fault though, so I’ll continue to enjoy the competition (and the occasional heart warming story).

Speaking of a bum foot, after wearing it for 3 weeks after my skateboarding accident, yesterday was my first day out of the protective boot. I was supposed to get new X-rays that morning but they had to reschedule my appointment. I decided to stick to the schedule though by not wearing the boot to work that day and everything was totally fine. Then today we decided to get out and enjoy the hot sunny weather by going on a family hike over on Lord Hill. We ended up going about 4 miles through the forest and I had no problems, even though I carried Enzo on my back for 90% of it.

Although there is no more pain in my big toe, unfortunately I’m unable to really bend the front joint, which is the one that had both fractures. It’s funny because on my right foot (the one that has never been injured) I can easily ball up all my toes and make the foot’s equivalent of a fist. Not so much on my left foot though. I had already broken a toe on my left foot a few years ago, and now this whole ordeal, so let’s just say that when I try to do the same thing with my left foot, the range of motion is embarrassingly less. It’s so weird because I’m looking at my toe and I’m telling it to bend, but it’s just not listening. It really doesn’t matter though, and I honestly have nothing to complain about. In fact, I’m ‘all in’ with that scrunching up of the toes move as being the most useless movement the human body can make. I’m open for debate though so leave a comment if you’ve got something better 🙂

Obviously we’re still in the middle of a presidential election, and although I’ve shared my feelings here in the past, I’ve been doing my best to save that stuff for in-person conversations only. I try to keep from sharing too much on social media, and I figure there’s no reason to double down on my feelings here in the blog. Things are playing out pretty much as I expected, meaning Bernie didn’t get the democratic nomination (although I must admit I was somewhat ignorant to the rigging of the system that assured his demise), and Trump, who I always knew would get the republican nomination, appears to be self-imploding.

It’s tough because I listen to a lot of political podcasts from a variety of sources, I’ve put effort into forming my own opinions, and I enjoy talking politics (particularly with Jessica) more now than ever, but ultimately I don’t feel that this is the right place for me to spout off on all that stuff. I guess that’s all based in having respect for you, the reader, who may or may not agree with me, but either way isn’t coming here for political commentary. You’re coming here because you care about our family, and I appreciate that, so it wouldn’t be right for me to force my views down anyone’s throat, even though they are quite centrist I must say… There’s a bit of a fine line here though, because I want my kids to read all this stuff some day and have a good solid understanding of who we are as people, what our principles and priorities are, etc., but there’s a way to get all that stuff across without being forceful about it. It’s a fact of life that not everyone you’re close to is always going to agree with you politically and religiously, but I always fall back on the mindset that differences of opinion and perspective are a catalyst for strength, not weakness or individualism. Plus, to put it more succinctly, family will always come before politics.

We’ve been seeing some good live music this summer and tomorrow will certainly add to that. This will be our 3rd (and final) Zoo Tunes show of the year. We’re seeing a couple old geezers by the names of Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy. As a guitar fan, and an aficionado of playing the blues, seeing these two guys will be a major bucket list moment for me. We’re going with my friend/co-worker Chad and his wife Renee, who are expecting their first child (a boy) in October. We’ll be bringing the girls with us while Enzo stays with a friend. A couple weeks ago we went to a Zoo Tunes show with our friends the Palmer’s and saw my two favorite reggae groups: Steel Pulse, and Ziggy Marley. That was a great time, so I’m sure tomorrow will be a lot of fun as well.

In a couple weeks we’ll be celebrating Labor Day by roughing it with our friends the O’Hair’s at their cabin in Hood Canal. I say roughing it because the only form of power is an old generator, and the ‘facilities’ are basically just an outhouse. A far cry from last year’s Labor Day, when we stayed in Amy and Tom’s bus in Lake Chelan for the weekend. I’m sure it will be fun though; we’re only there for two nights and our days will be spent playing on the beach, setting crab pots, and probably putting back a few Coors Lights. I think I’m going to bring my acoustic guitar too.

Ava’s 5th birthday falls on Black Friday this year, which is funny because she was born on Black Friday. I’ll certainly never forget that Thanksgiving, even though it was just the two of us at our beach house in P.B. and we didn’t even make a turkey. We’re going to do Thanksgiving this year over at Kristy’s with her and Maid, plus Uncle Jim and Aunt Brenda, then do Ava’s birthday party that Sunday after Amy and Tom arrive. Then of course we’ve got Iowa to look forward to this Christmas.

Alright enough of my blabbering. I know you’re just here for the recent photos anyway, so here you go. Thanks for checking in on us!

Enjoying our hike on Lord Hill this afternoon

Love these girls

Ready for Daddy’s birthday dinner

Our little helpers

I guess Enzo likes birds

Ava in her happy place

My beautiful little girl is getting big

Repeat that last caption again right here

Elise doing her best lion impression. Love that mane Weese.

Who says we’re done with the bath?

#EatWithEnzo

Before I get to the story of what happened last night, I first want to wish my sister Lora a happy birthday, and wish our sweet little Enzo a happy 18 months! He’s officially a year and a half old now and couldn’t be doing better. We had a bit of a close call last night, which I’ll get to in a second, but he’s totally fine. Lora, whom I haven’t seen since our Grandmother Gigi’s funeral 12 years ago, will be in town next week for our family reunion, so it will be great to introduce her to Jessica and the kids.

I also want to give my love to my Uncle Jim, who had neck surgery on Tuesday. I’ve been speaking to Brenda and Kristy via text messages and they said he’s doing really well. He went home from the hospital last night and I’m looking forward to talking to him this weekend. I’m just thankful that he got it done and everything went well.

Okay, so last night started off no different than most other recent nights when Jessica has to work. Since the weather is so nice, the kids and I go out to the cul-de-sac to ‘scoot ‘n skate’ after work. The girls ride their scooters and I ride my longboard skateboard while holding Enzo. If you’ve been to our house then you know that we live on a basically flat street. There is a very slight decline coming down the street towards the cul-de-sac, so we ride about half-way up the street, turn around, and ride back to (and around) the cul-de-sac. Enzo loves riding with me and gets very upset if I make a run without him. Of course I always make sure he’s wearing a helmet when we take a ride.

The day before, which was Tuesday, our next-door neighbor Marcus turned 9 years old and received a motorized scooter for his birthday. On an unrelated sidenote, that day was also the 10 year anniversary of my best friend Spencer drowning in Lake Washington. Obviously he was on my mind a lot that day.

Marcus has been out on the street riding his new scooter as much as possible, so when he saw the kids and I outside riding, he came out to join us. We all rode up and down the street a couple times, then the girls went to draw on the sidewalk in front of our house with chalk. I think Ava was a bit upset with me because she wanted to ride with me on the skateboard, but I was still holding Enzo. I figured I’d get her for the next run and started heading back up the street. As I was on my way I noticed Marcus coming up behind me to do a run with Enzo and I.

Now here’s where it gets weird. I can’t explain this at all, but I absolutely promise this is true; as I was turning around to head back down towards the cul-de-sac I felt a strange sensation that something was wrong, and I knew Marcus was going to crash into us. I specifically remember saying to myself before making the run “Don’t crash into us down there Marcus.” It’s not like this was the first time I’ve been out there with him either, and nothing like this had happened before, but in some very strange way that I cannot explain, I knew we were about to crash a full 10-15 seconds before it happened. Why I didn’t listen to this strange instinctual feeling is beyond me though, so I headed down the street for another run. I’m not trying to sound weird by saying this, and I don’t even know how to explain it, but I definitely sensed it before it happened.

As I approached the cul-de-sac I went left, then looked back and saw Marcus go right. So basically we took opposite sides of the circle but soon found ourselves coming at each other towards the back of the cul-de-sac. Not unlike riding a motorcycle, when you’re riding a skateboard (or snowboard), where you look is where you’ll go. I made eye contact with Marcus from 25 feet away and he had a look of panic on his face. I turned to go inside and so did he, so then I quickly tried to turn back outside, but so did he. Not because he wanted to hit me, obviously, but because he was looking at me, and where you look is where you shall go.

As we got closer I tried to stop the skateboard by dragging my back foot on the ground, but it was too late. Since I was holding Enzo with my right arm, my primary concern was to fall to my left and shield him from the blow. I was wearing my Crocodile clog sandals and my left (front) leg slammed into the front arm of his scooter, fracturing my big toe in 2 places and opening up a cut on my shin that would later require 5 stitches to close up. I fell to my left, as I had hoped to, making contact on the ground on my left kneecap and the palm of my left hand. After that there was nothing I could do to stop myself from falling to my right. I kinda bent my right wrist outward while holding Enzo and was able to fall onto that, but his helmet still hit the ground.

Of course the fall scared him to death, and a second later he was screaming uncontrollably. I was a bit disoriented, and poor Marcus was sitting there very scared and silent. My only concern was Enzo, because I heard his helmet hit the concrete and I was so afraid of a head injury. I think I cursed once or twice but don’t remember exactly what I said; I was just so worried about my little guy. Marcus’ dad Jim heard all the screaming and came out to see what was going on. I just remember him saying “Was there an accident?” and I said “Yeah we ran into each other head first.” I stood up while still holding Enzo and realized as soon as I took my first step that something was definitely wrong with my big toe on my left foot. I looked down and there was a fair amount of blood starting to run down my leg, and I was missing my shoe. By this point Ava and Elise came running over and they were totally freaking out. I had a big abrasion on my left knee cap that was full of gravel, a nice gash on my left shin, and another abrasion on my right wrist. Ava definitely didn’t like seeing all the blood and had a hard time calming down.

Jim’s wife Cara came running out to see what was going on and I told them Marcus was okay, but that I was worried about Enzo. Cara took him for me and started examining him very closely. I was in a bit of shock and didn’t know exactly what to do. I went into our house to try and clean up my wounds but quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to do it by myself. I then shifted focus to my toe and tried to bend it. Let’s just say that the pain I felt at that point was insane. There was no question it was broken. I’ve broken/fractured multiple bones before this, including a toe when we lived in San Diego, but the fact that this was my big toe made it different. Obviously that toe carries more weight when you walk than any other toe, so the only way I could walk was to put all my weight solely on my heel when stepping on that foot. Placing any weight towards the front of my foot simply wasn’t an option.

I knew I had to see a doctor immediately, but I didn’t want to act like it was that bad because I could tell Ava and Elise were really scared, so I sent Jessica a couple text messages explaining what happened and then called El Gaucho Bellevue to leave a message for her at the front desk. I then (slowly) walked back outside with the girls to see how Enzo was doing. Immediately Jim and Cara told me Enzo was totally fine, so that was a huge relief. I watched him for a couple minutes anyway and could tell that he was completely back to normal. Though I couldn’t help but think of what could have happened had he not been wearing his helmet. It may have saved his life.

I then told Jim and Cara that I needed to go to the hospital because my big toe was broken and they looked mortified. They felt so bad about what happened, which in turn made me feel bad because I certainly wasn’t mad at Marcus. He’s just a kid and obviously didn’t intend for this to happen. If anything I’m the adult out there and it’s on me to avoid him. Their whole family have become good friends of ours over the past 2 years and I didn’t want them to worry about anything. The only person I was mad at was myself. Riding my skateboard while holding my child probably wasn’t the best decision to begin with, and the collision with Marcus was a total accident.

Luckily Jim and Cara immediately offered to watch the kids so I could go to the ER. Jim offered to drive me but I said no, just stay here with the kids. I knew Jessica would be heading home immediately once she got my messages. Although my plan was to go to the same ER everyone in our family not named Elise has been to this year, which is Swedish Mill Creek, Cara recommended trying Mill Creek Family Practice, which is where both of our families go, because it would be much faster and much less expensive. I didn’t realize they could do X-rays there but it turned out they could. I called them once I was on the way and they said their office was closing in 30 minutes but if I could be there in 10 minutes then that would be fine.

Jessica called me while I was on the way and of course she was a bit panicked. Her main concern was Enzo, as it should be, so I did my best to assure her that he was totally fine. She left work immediately, came straight home and did a full examination of him last night, then another one this morning, and literally couldn’t find a single scratch or bruise on him. His helmet was the only thing that hit the ground, and we’ll be replacing it today.

So I got to the doctor’s office and hobbled in, for some reason still carrying the clog for my left foot. I was a disoriented. By this point the pain was ridiculous and I think I was in shock because I was overly chatty with everyone I came across. Since I was bleeding in multiple locations, they did a quick makeshift patch-up of my cuts, then took me back for X-rays. This was rather unpleasant because they have to put these big foam wedges between the big toe and the rest of the toes in order to get a clear photo of it. Even the slightest movements of the toe were incredibly painful at this point so I couldn’t wait to be done.

After X-rays they took me to a new room to start cleaning up my wounds. I immediately loved my nurse so that made things better. She told me about having 4 sons and being no stranger to these types of injuries. She was just so cool the whole time, but for some reason I forgot to get her name. As soon as my X-rays were developed she stepped outside the room to check them out. The first thing she said was “Whoa, your pain is legit. This is pretty bad.” Although that’s generally not something you want to hear, I have to admit I was actually a bit relieved. I guess a small part of me was worried up until then that I was overreacting and that nothing was actually wrong. She offered to show them to me, so I hobbled out there to take a look. She showed me two crossing fractures in the joint of the toe that basically formed the letter T. It also looks like part of the bone was splintered. I’m not gonna lie or pretend to be tougher than I am, seeing and hearing all that made me a little queasy.

We went back to the room to continue cleaning up my wounds and she decided to take my blood pressure. She strapped that thing onto my bicep, started pumping the little ball, unstrapped me, then less than a minute later she was strapping me up to do it all over again. This should have been a red flag to me, but I’ve always had normal blood pressure, and was still a bit out of it, so I didn’t think about it. She told me my blood pressure was very low and that it was a bit of a concern. All I remember was that thing getting tighter and tighter on my arm, and then I started seeing stars. I sort of meekly spoke up and said “Can I have a glass of water? I think I’m about to pass out.” She was on it immediately and a few seconds later there was another nurse in there in position to catch me in case I actually did faint. I think the combination of the pain, seeing the X-rays, hearing about the damage to the bone, seeing the gash in my shin and gravel-crusted abrasions on my knee and wrist, punctuated with that ever-tightening strap on my arm was about as much as I could handle. I didn’t pass out though. I slammed 2 glasses of water while they removed the blood pressure strap and I kinda snapped out of it.

The doctor came in shortly thereafter, but before entering the room I could hear him and my nurse discussing my X-rays. She was pointing everything out to him as she had to me, and I just remember him saying “I don’t know what that is.” Not exactly very confidence-inspiring. He came in and explained that I would need to see a specialist about my toe. He said that if it were any other toe it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but the big toe (or Great Toe as they call it) is different because it carries so much of your weight. He explained that I had a “comminuted intra-articular fracture of the distal end of the proximal phalanx left great toe.” This was written down, otherwise there is no way I could have remembered all that. Only a podiatrist would know the best way to treat this type of fracture, so he gave me a referral, then moved on to sewing up the gash in my shin, which required 5 stitches. Obviously they numbed it before sewing, but those 4 numbing shots he gave me right on my shin may have been the most painful part of the entire evening.

He said it wasn’t crucial that I get to a specialist immediately, like the next day, but that I needed to stay off my left foot in the meantime. They gave me a set of crutches, a CD with the images from my X-rays, and a prescription for painkillers. By this point it had been a couple hours since the accident and I still hadn’t had anything to help with the pain, so I was pretty eager to get that script filled. It’s that type of pain that’s kind of dull but just keeps building and building. Then you accidentally put some weight on it and it turns into this searing acute pain that takes your breath away.

As I stood up to walk with crutches for the first time my nurse says “Michael how are you feeling right now?” I told her I was okay and she said “Really? Because you look pretty green. How about we wheel you down to your car?” I reluctantly accepted and went from walking on crutches for the first time to riding in a wheelchair for the first time. Once again everyone was so nice and helpful, they even helped me in my car and got me all situated. I really can’t say enough good things about Mill Creek Family Practice, in fact I plan on writing a really nice review about them on Yelp. There’s no question that our whole family will continue going there.

On my way home I drove through the Bartell’s pharmacy near our house and dropped off my prescription, then when I got home Jessica got me all setup on the couch before going back to pick up my pills. By the time I actually took a pain pill it had been over 3 hours since the accident and the pain was just wearing me out. Normally pain pills don’t bother me much, but as luck would have it this time was different. It didn’t take long before I started feeling nauseous, then soon found myself dry heaving over a mixing bowl in the kitchen. Not fun.

I considered sleeping on the couch last night so I wouldn’t have to deal with the stairs, but I felt like I’d sleep better in my bed, so I came up with a system for going upstairs. Basically I sat on my but facing the living room on one of the bottom stairs, then while keeping my left foot elevated, I used my arms and right leg to lift myself up one stair at a time. It was a slow process, and I felt a bit like Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump, but it worked. I’ve been upstairs ever since.

Luckily I was able to get an appointment with the specialist tomorrow morning at 8:30, however I’m a bit nervous because I don’t know what to expect. Are they going to re-break it to straighten it out? Or are they going to put a pin in my toe, which the doctor last night said was a possibility. I’m kinda just hoping for one of those big black boots and my crutches, but we’ll see.

I’m refusing to let this affect our plans though. We’re still meeting Kristy for the Seafair Torchlight Parade on Saturday night, still meeting Jodi, Leon, and Miles for the reggae concert at Woodland Park Zoo on Tuesday evening (Steel Pulse baby!), and certainly still attending the family reunion next Saturday in Lynwood. I’ll be zipping around on these crutches in no time.

Ava confided in Mommy this morning that she is mad at me for walking with crutches. She wants me to stand on my own two feet. She’s been so sweet all morning though; she keeps coming up to check on me. She says she’s going to take care of me until I’m all better.

Honestly this whole thing is a bit embarrassing, but more importantly I just feel thankful that Enzo and Marcus weren’t hurt. If anyone was going to take the blow it needed to be me, and I’m glad it was. Jessica also made a good point that I’m lucky it was a toe getting broken rather than a finger. Not being able to type wouldn’t be good for me professionally. Obviously I won’t be riding my skateboard again anytime soon, but I’ll eventually get back on it. Yesterday wasn’t the first time I got stitches from a skateboarding accident, however my days of holding a child while riding are officially over. At least I’ll always have my guitars.

Last Saturday we celebrated Elise’s 3rd birthday by holding a dinosaur-themed party at the house. Although the official theme of the party was ‘dinosaur’, I think this one will be remembered as the Bouncy House party. Basically we rented a bouncy house for a day and set it up in our driveway for all the kids (and adults) to play in. I would have written sooner about the party but was waiting to get the photos back from my good friend Leon, who was taking tons of pics throughout the day.

We were joined by Amy, Uncle Jim & Aunt Brenda, Kristy, Dana, Brad & Anna, Leon & Miles, the Lester’s, the O’Hair’s, our neighbors the Schreiber’s, and our neighbors the Brown’s. It was a pretty full house, but we had more than enough room because Jessica put a lot of work into converting our garage into a party space. There were tables and chairs setup everywhere, plenty of fans, and more importantly, plenty of food. Like last year, we put out a taco bar (including my homemade guacamole) for everyone to enjoy, plus lots of snacks. Then later of course we enjoyed a nice big birthday cake from Costco.

We were expecting hot weather like last year, but this summer has been much milder than we’ve had in the previous few, so we ended up with a 70 degree, partly cloudy day. It was totally fine though. Considering how much jumping everyone was doing, had it been much hotter it probably would have been uncomfortable.

All I can say about the bouncy house is that it was a huge hit. Obviously it was mostly filled with kids, but every once in awhile one of the parents would get it there as well. We ended up having it for a full 24 hours, so on Saturday afternoon we just kept it going even after the party had ended. Kids from throughout the neighborhood kept coming over and everyone had a great time. Several parents were also coming over to say thanks to us for allowing their kids to bounce, which of course was totally fine with us. Next thing we knew, some of these parents started breaking out some bottles of wine, and all of the sudden we had a full-blown block party on our hands. The Brown’s even got out their mobile fire pit and started making s’mores for everyone. It was a really good time; so much so that Jessica and I are actually considering getting our own bouncy house someday. We figured if we only got it out 3-4 times a year for the next 10-12 years it would be worth it. We’ll see how that turns out, but regardless I’m glad we got it for this party because everyone had a blast.

As usual our guest were far too kind – not only to Elise but to all 3 of our kids. Thank you so much to everyone who came for all the presents. You’re too good to us but we appreciate it very much. It was definitely a day to remember.

I’ll keep it short this time and let the pictures do most of the talking, however I did want to mention that this month PellegriniPage.com turned 5 years old. It’s hard to believe it’s already been 5 years, but when we started this thing we were living in a little shack by the beach in San Diego, Jessica was pregnant with Ava, and I had just made the decision to switch careers and get back into web development. I guess it’s fair to say we’ve come a long way since then.

Big thanks again to Leon for taking such great photos. We’re quite lucky to have such a talented photographer in our inner circle. We’ve got plenty of fun stuff to look forward to in the near future, including the Torchlight Parade with Kristy on the night of my birthday, then the Pellegrini-Giuntoli Family Reunion the following Saturday, followed by Kristy’s birthday the Saturday after that.

Happy 3rd Birthday Elise – we love you to the moon and back!

The birthday girl with her new tiger

Settling in with the bouncy house

Love that smile Ava

Sweet little Elise with her new doll Chloe

Best friends forever

Although cautious, Enzo enjoyed the bouncy house as well

Elise savoring her birthday cake

There were plenty of presents to open

Ava loves cheese puffs. Actually they all do.

Happy Birthday sweet Elise

Today our sweet little Elise turns 3 years old! Since her party isn’t until the day after tomorrow, and I know I’ll be writing a post about it shortly thereafter, I promise to keep this short and sweet. I just want her to know how much Mommy, Daddy, Ava, and Enzo love her. As Jessica and I often say, she’s our little Peanuts character; she’s always got something either smeared on her face or tangled in her hair (or both), she’s usually wearing her shoes backwards, and she’s always dragging Pippo around everywhere. It’s pretty hilarious.

These days Elise’s favorite characters are Arlo (The Good Dinosaur), and a dog named Chase from Paw Patrol. She loves bread enough to make any Italian proud, and she looks up to her sister Ava like you wouldn’t believe. On Grandpa Rick’s recent visit he commented on how much she has grown and matured since he last saw her in January. She still says she’s going to play the drums once she and Ava form their band, but for now she’s content with ponies, trains, and dolls.

Elise frequently says to me “I love you Daddy, you’re my best Daddy.” She’s so sweet and loving with everybody and already knows how to make others feel good. Her favorite color is orange, and her favorite animals are tigers and kitty cats. Like Ava, Elise can haul ass up and down our street on her scooter, which kinda freaks Jessica and I out, but to attempt to stop them may as well be futile. Ava frequently likes to say to me “Daddy I love you around the volcano” and then Elise always follows with “Daddy I love you around the rock climber”. Although I’m not exactly sure what to make of that, I’ll stay in that same vain and simply say: Elise I love you around the volcano being climbed by a rock climber, over the moon, around the sun, and back. Looking forward to celebrating your birthday this weekend.

Today Grandpa Rick flew home after spending a nice long weekend with us. As usual with his visits, Jessica had a long list of house projects for him to work on, but just as usual was Rick’s willingness to go above and beyond with all the help he provides. Painting, hanging chandeliers, installing fans and lights, cleaning the gutters, and manicuring the front yard were all standard daily activities. In the end it all turned out looking great and of course we appreciate the help so much. I could only wish to be a fraction as handy.

Besides all the time spent working, there was still plenty of time for fun. Rick made us nice steak dinners on Thursday and Friday night, so on Saturday afternoon I got a wild hair to get down in the kitchen and make a seafood feast. I took the girls to the park for a bit, then off to a couple different stores to get groceries for the evening. It was one of those great nights where you’re in the kitchen all night long, taking your time with each course, then sitting down to enjoy it before beginning on the next. We enjoyed Japanese Kusshi oysters on the half shell, a seafood salad with all kinds of fresh shellfish, grilled octopus, and various fresh fruits and veggies. Then for entrees we went to work on some beautiful jumbo Alaskan King crab legs, with roasted carrots and sauteed brussel sprouts on the side. Dinner turned out nicely, but more importantly it was a great night full of conversation, stories, and catching up. Before we knew it the clock struck midnight and we were still sitting around the kitchen table.

Sunday ended up being a really fun day as well, and it almost happened by accident. I was supposed to have band practice from 11:00 – 1:00, but it got cancelled the night before due to a scheduling conflict. Jessica immediately got on her phone looking for things going on, and ended up finding a vintage car / plane show at Paine Field in Everett. I always love going to car shows, but I’ve never been to one like this where not only did they have a sick collection of cars to look at, but they also had a variety of old WWII bombers that were flying around overhead and parking up close for people to check out. I couldn’t believe how loud those things are when they fly over you! There were so many vintage planes to check out, plus they had a few cars that I’d never seen in person before, including a 1966 Ford GT-40 and an original Shelby Cobra. Rick loved checking out the planes, but couldn’t help going down memory lane a few times when seeing an old car that he used to drive back in the day. It was a really cool event.

After the show we went down into Downtown Snohomish for lunch. They’ve got a really cool little scene down there in Snohomish and we always end up having fun. Lunch was great, then we strolled around a bit and did some window shopping. Shortly after getting home I had to throw the girls in the van and head down to our friend Miles’ 3rd birthday party. They rented out a gymnastics gym and the kids had the place to themselves, so they could run and jump to their heart’s content. I was walking across this huge trampoline to find a place to sit, and let’s just say I stepped in the wrong spot near the edge. What I thought was solid turned out to give away beneath me like a trap door and I basically fell one entire leg down between trampolines. Then some mom comes over to rescue me and the embarrassment just completely washes over me. Luckily I was with friends.

The girls loved it though and I couldn’t believe how much energy they still had considering what a busy morning we’d already had. Both of them would run full speed back and forth and jump into these huge pits filled with foam blocks. Then next thing you know they’re bouncing on a trampoline or swinging on a rope. One thing that surprised me was how much they both enjoyed the balance beam. It was definitely fun to watch.

We finished off the weekend with a trip to our favorite Mexican restaurant. Jessica and I had been eating healthy since getting home from the cruise, but we decided to break our streak during Grandpa’s visit, and I’m glad we did. Rick couldn’t believe the way the girls can put away some chips and salsa, and Jessica enjoyed a much deserved margarita. The final game of this year’s Copa America soccer tournament was on all over the restaurant, and everyone was really into it, so we hung out and watched as it came down to penalty kicks.

The kids were sad to see him go today but we’ve got a white Christmas to look forward to in Iowa this year. I’m sure it will be here before we know it. We always have fun when he comes out so hopefully it won’t be too long before we get another visit.

Last weekend was Father’s Day, and for the second year in a row, we met up with Jim, Brenda, and Kristy, at the car show in Burien. There were tons of classic cars, food trucks, performances, and a bouncy house for the kids to enjoy. Later that night we had King crab legs (yep two weekends in a row) and watched game 7 of the NBA Finals. Definitely my kind of day. I’m glad to have the Father’s Day car show as an annual tradition and even more glad we got to spend it with them. We’ll be spending the day with Kristy and Madi for the Fourth of July so we’ve got that to look forward to next.

In other family news I had a nice talk with the owner’s of Card Player Cruises this morning and decided that it would be best for me to transition out of working for them. It was nothing negative or uncomfortable in any way. I just explained that as I continue to take on more responsibility at my day job, I have less and less time to devote to them. The only thing that was able to give lately was family time, and I soon felt like I was ignoring my family in order to get work done. As I told them, I don’t want to be one of those Dad’s who thinks bringing in a paycheck is the only thing that matters. They’re only going to be little for so long and I don’t want to look back down the road with regrets because I spent too much time working and not enough time involved in my kids’ lives. They totally understood where I was coming from and agreed that family has to come first, so it couldn’t have been more amicable. Since there’s basically no limit to opportunities for career advancement at Microsoft, it seems pretty logical to keep my focus there and not distract myself with anything else moving forward.

Elise’s 3rd birthday is coming up in a few weeks and we’re planning a fun party for her. We’ll be renting a bouncy house and inviting a bunch of families over. Then a few weeks after that we’ve got the Pellegrini/Giuntoli family reunion. This will be the first time in many years that I’ve seen quite a few family members, most of whom have never met Jessica or the kids. It’s far overdue so I’m glad we’ve finally got this nailed down. We changed the location from Moscow, Idaho, to Lynnwood, WA, mainly so my Aunt Norma, who just turned 90 this month, could go. There would be no point having this event if Aunt Norma couldn’t be there so I’m glad it all worked out. I just spoke to her last week on her birthday and I truly can’t believe how great she sounds. So vibrant and full of life, just as I remember her 30 years ago. Jessica and the kids made her birthday cards and dropped them off at the front desk of her building the day before her birthday, along with flowers, balloons, and a recent photo of me with the kids. When I spoke to her on the phone the next day she was beaming. She loved everything, but what I loved more than anything is when she said Enzo, whom she was seeing for the first time in that photo, had an uncanny resemblance to my Dad when he was a little boy. Of course I was happy to hear that, but most of all I can’t wait to introduce them at the party.

Guess that’s about it for now. Happy 4th of July weekend to all, and of course happy birthday on the 4th of July to my amazing sister Dana, or Auntie Dana as we call her around these parts. We love you so much and hope you have a great day!

Ava is quite the little photographer these days. You never know when she’s going to strike!

Grandpa’s girls

Yesterday morning we returned home from a week at sea with my Mom aboard Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas. We visited ports in Juneau and Skagway, Alaska, as well as Victoria, British Columbia. The Explorer was the largest cruise ship ever to sail out of Seattle, and was also the largest passenger ship to ever visit any port (or glacier) in Alaska. As expected we had a great time, as well as a few challenges along the way, but without question we will never forget our first true family vacation, and I’m so thankful we got to spend it with my Mom. This week was the longest visit she’s ever had with the kids and I think it was good for everyone.

Before I get into the details of our trip I want to pay my respects to Bella. I know Jessica already wrote about her passing but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something. As I’ve said in several posts, the past 8 years have been the best of my life, and the only daily constant for me other than Jessica during this time, has been Bella. I remember when Jessica and I first started dating and her saying to me “I hope you like dogs because we’re a package deal.” I’ve never had a dog as long as I had Bella, and although I frequently complained about cleaning up her poop in the backyard, or vacuuming up her hair inside, the truth is I’d gladly trade it all back to have her with us once again. Her passing taught the kids (Ava especially because she’s old enough to understand) an important lesson about the meaning of life and death. Losing her has been sad for everyone and we will always have a special place in our hearts for her. Love my Bellers.

This past Christmas Jessica got me a present that I’d been talking about wanting for a long time. She found a deal on Groupon to drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini 3 laps on a track, and I was thrilled. I booked my ‘driving experience’ for Friday May 20th and marked my calendar. A few weeks later my Mom brought up the idea of us going on the Alaska cruise, which also happened to be on Friday May 20th. My plan was to stay the night at Kristy’s house (because it’s much closer to the ‘track’, which isn’t an actual track but just a big parking lot setup with a bunch of cones) on Thursday night, drive the supercar on Friday morning, then bust a move back to my house up north to pick up Jessica and the kids, then head off to the ship for our vacation. It was going to be a very busy day.

Everything seemed good until the week of, when I started going through the 20 page release form they required me to sign before driving the car. As I read through everything I started getting very concerned. I won’t go into all the details but basically it quickly became apparent to me that the discounted rate Jessica paid on Groupon was just a scam to get me in the door, then all the real expenses would start piling up. They were trying to sell you on all kinds of specialty insurance for different parts of the car that could become damaged, even though your personal insurance still had to be used for primary coverage. Then they warn you that if you rev the engine too high it’s an automatic $2,500 charge to your credit card. Any damage to the car would incur an immediate $7,500 charge just to get started on repairs. On top of it all they expect you to tip the driving instructors 25% of the original cost of the package.

It all seemed pretty sketchy so I went online to read reviews. There were over 100 reviews on Yelp and the average rating was 2 out of 5 stars. Not a good sign. There were a few people who gave it 5 stars, but even they said you’re out there for 90 minutes but only in the car for 5, and only driving for about 2.5 minutes, never going above 40-50 mph. The number of 1 star reviews was ridiculous and after reading most of them I was convinced that the whole experience was nowhere near what I was hoping for and would have been a major disappointment. I felt bad because I knew how excited Jess was to get it for me, but even she agreed that the whole thing felt like a scam. So long story short, I skipped it and just focused on the cruise. We’re going to contact Groupon about a refund since the package didn’t seem very well advertised. I definitely appreciate the thought though, and came out of it with a story none-the-less.

Anyway, enough with all that and onto the good stuff. Although I must admit, the first day of the cruise was definitely our most difficult. We left our house at 10:30 am and proceeded to basically stand in various lines all day. It started with the parking lot (we parked in an offsite lot that shuttles you to and from the ship). There were lots of people and only so many shuttles, so we waited about 45 minutes there. Then we got to the ship and waited in a long line to tag our bags. After that was a long line to go through security, followed by another long line to check in and get our sea passes. By the time we actually got on the ship it was nearly 3:00 pm. My Mom said that of all the cruises she has been on, these were the worst lines she’s ever seen.

Once we got on and got to our rooms we were in good shape. I say ‘our’ rooms because the way my Mom booked it, we had side-by-side balcony rooms with a private door in between them. This turned out to be great because the kids could run back and forth between the rooms. There ended up being plenty of space for everyone, and Jessica and I ended up getting the best of it because the girls insisted on sleeping with Nana every night, leaving us only Enzo to share a room with. One thing that we hadn’t thought about but turned out to be a nice surprise was how well everyone would sleep on the ship. The slight rocking motion was really nice.

If you’ve never been on one of these ships they’re basically like little floating cities. They have everything. There’s a street-style promenade with a bunch of shops, various bars and restaurants, swimming pools and hot tubs, a theater, conference rooms (which is where the Card Player Cruises poker room is located), a casino, an ice rink, a Flowrider for surfing and boogie boarding, sport courts, rock climbing wall (which Jessica scaled with ease), video arcade, chapel, and more. It’s crazy. At first it’s somewhat daunting, but before you know it you know your way around everywhere. One thing that was funny was that as soon as we got on the ship it felt very similar to the ship we sailed on with my Mom to Mexico back in 2010. As it turned out, this ship was the sister ship to the one we’d been on before, so the layout was identical.

We set sail Friday evening around 5:30, then spent all day Saturday at sea, before arriving in our first port, Juneau, Alaska, on Sunday morning. Juneau was the only stop of the trip where we’d be doing an official ‘excursion’, which in our case was whale watching. Since we didn’t think Enzo would get much out of it, we decided to leave him with Nana for the day and spend the day with the girls. As we rode the bus to the docks where our boat was located, we learned about the history of Juneau. I was surprised to learn that Juneau, which is the capital city of Alaska, has only 33,000 residents, yet is the third largest city in the United States (based on square mileage). The other two largest cities are also in Alaska. There are more miles of hiking trails in Juneau than there are paved roads, and as we learned from our guide on the boat, there are only 3 ways into Juneau: by boat, by plane, or by birth canal. There are no roads leading in or out of Juneau.

The whale watching excursion definitely ended up being one of the highlights of the trip. The funny thing was that for several months now Ava has been saying she wants to see Orcas, but to be more specific, she wanted to see a baby Orca. We weren’t sure what to expect when we got on the boat, but our guide soon explained that we would be seeing humpback whales. A slight bummer but certainly not a big deal. On our way out I was chatting with the guide and I mentioned that my daughter had been hoping to see some Orcas, but that I’m sure the humpbacks would also be amazing. He paused for a minute, then leaned in and whispered to me “Don’t tell anyone yet but we’re in for a surprise today. We’re heading out further than normal so we can see some Orcas.”

I kept my lips zipped, then soon enough the boat slowed down and our guide (or ‘Naturist’ as they call themselves) told us the news about the Orcas in the area. We all headed out to the deck and literally within a minute or two we started seeing them. The best part was that it was a whole family and Ava got to see her baby Orca several times. She was going completely nuts and screaming the whole time; everyone was getting a huge kick out of it.

After viewing the family of Orcas for a while we turned around and headed to another area to check out the humpbacks. They too are amazing, and because our guide Brendan was so knowledgeable, we ended up learning a lot about the differences between them. We also got to see a glacier while we were out, so it was a pretty incredible experience. On our way back the captain told us that last year, out of over 100 days in the whale watching season, they only saw Orcas on 15 of them. It’s definitely something we’ll never forget.

After the whale watching we went into downtown Juneau to enjoy some snacks at Tracy’s Crab Shack. We were seated outside at these big picnic tables surrounded by people from all over the place. There were a bunch of New Yorkers at our table, then at the table next to us were people from Alabama that kept yelling “Roll Tide!” A crow landed on the pier and one of the New Yorkers excitedly started yelling because they thought it was an eagle. It was quite entertaining. We actually did see several eagles that day in Juneau, but this crow certainly wasn’t one of them.

The next day we woke up in port at Skagway, Alaska. It was much more of an old-timey frontier town. There was a 19th century steam engine, and lots of people dressed up old west style. It’s not a very big town so the 6 of us walked around all day. We did some shopping, had a nice lunch at the Skagway Brewing Company, and found a great little local park for the kids to play at. The snowy mountain backdrop was gorgeous and everyone had a really nice day.

Tuesday morning our ship sailed up to an area called Endicott Arm so we could view the Dawes glacier. All I can say is I’ve never seen anything like it, and it was beautiful. One thing that really stood out to me was the color of the water. It was this crazy shade of greenish blue, but it was so crystal clear. There were all of these little glaciers floating in the water that had obviously broken off the the main glacier. Then the whole backdrop was entirely mountains. There’s no shore or flat ground either; it’s literally water right up to the base of the mountain, which is covered with green trees, and topped with snow. It’s how I imagine New Zealand to be. We saw tons of waterfalls where the snow runoff was heading back to sea. I’ve heard people say several times that Alaska is beautiful but until I saw it with my own two eyes I didn’t really get it. It honestly is an amazing place that everyone should have a chance to see at some point. I took a bunch of pictures but they don’t really do it justice; there’s just something about being in the middle of it that can’t be replicated, or explained.

We spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday at sea and kept busy with all of the ship’s attractions. The kids loved going up to the arcade and the girls now love playing air hockey together. It’s funny because when you’re out at sea like that it’s really easy to lose track of time. Consequently they change the sign in the elevator daily so you know what day it is. We did some family activities like art projects and dancing, we saw an ice show, but the main activity for us was ‘mucking’ chips for Nana.

If you don’t know what that means, basically the poker room is open whenever you’re at sea, and the house (Card Player Cruises) gets a little piece of every poker hand that gets played, in the form of chips. It’s called the rake, and it’s standard operating procedure for all card rooms. It’s how they pay their expenses and make a profit. As you can imagine, at the end of the day the house has raked in a lot of chips, and those chips need to be sorted and racked, or as they call it in the poker world, mucked. Well, the kids fell in love with it and insisted on helping Nana muck chips each day. So we would dump out these big buckets of chips, gather up a bunch of empty racks, and start mucking. As you would expect, Ava was in charge, and made sure that only she got to muck the red chips, which were of course, the highest in value. If your rack accidentally included a chip of the wrong color, Ava would call you out for having ‘dirty stacks’, another poker term she picked up on this trip. It was most entertaining.

Ava was also a huge hit with all the people on the cruise. To be fair, all 3 of the kids were, but Ava really ate up the attention. We would get on an elevator with a bunch of strangers, and as if on queue, Ava would announce “My name is Ava. This is my little sister Elise, but she’s a little shy, and this is my brother Zoey.” Everyone got a kick out of her, but there were also a few instances where she refused to listen to us and ended up getting in a bit of trouble. The worst of it was at the formal dinner on night 2. To her credit though, she was overly stimulated by everything going on, and couldn’t help but be on 10 the entire trip. I don’t know how she does it, but that kid just goes and goes and never slows down. She would usually outlast us at night and still be up before us the following morning. That’s just my Ava P. She’s like the Energizer Bunny (another musty stale reference from my childhood that they won’t understand by the time they read this).

One thing that I really enjoyed about the cruise was how friendly the entire staff was. Everywhere you go you’re greeted by a staff member and they’re always so genuinely nice. You end up meeting people from all over the world, but one that I absolutely cannot go without mentioning is Vanessa, our room attendant. There was an instant connection between her and our kids, and we just loved her. She has a 6 year old daughter back in the Philippines, and because of her work schedule, she goes 6 months at a time without seeing her. I cannot imagine. She was completely in love with Enzo and kept joking about packing him up and bringing him home with her. She also continuously joked with the girls about bringing her a baby Orca while we were out, so I went into a gift shop in Skagway and bought her a toy stuffed Orca from the kids. She was just the best all week long and really helped make the trip special for all of us.

We also met quite a few of our fellow cruisers on the boat who were from Australia. As it turned out, the Explorer started out a month earlier in Sydney, Australia, before heading to the Pacific Northwest as it’s new home. As I’ve said before, Aussies must be the friendliest people on Earth. I spoke to so many of them on the boat and they were all great. It just reaffirmed to me that we absolutely must visit Australia at some point in the future.

The last stop of the trip was in Victoria, B.C. on Thursday. I’d been there once before with my Mom, Uncle Jim, and Aunt Brenda, but that was about 20 years ago, so my memory of it wasn’t great. We had a nice day exploring the city, eating lunch by the water, and taking a nice long walk back to the ship. They were preparing for a yacht race (going on today actually) so there were lots of pretty boats to look at. Victoria is also the city of Orca’s and everywhere you go you see Orca-related art. The girls just loved it.

That night we had the Card Player Cruises farewell party, as well as a goodbye parade put on by the ship on the Promenade. It was a busy week, and yet it flew by so quickly. Before we knew it we were scooting off the ship Friday morning as they prepared to do the same voyage all over again with 3,000 fresh faces. They will continue doing this exact same trip until September. The timing worked out nicely for us though, because we returned home on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, meaning I had a four day weekend at home to look forward to before returning to work on Tuesday; a mini vacation in it’s own right.

By the time we got home we were all ready to get back to our routine, as well as enjoy a home cooked meal and a night in our own beds. I was especially anxious to get home and play guitar; it’s been awhile since I’ve gone a full week without playing and I didn’t want to get too rusty. The main focus of this weekend is potty training for Elise. She did really well with it on the ship, so we went shopping yesterday afternoon to pick out special underwear for her. As expected, there have been some accidents, as well as the occasional outburst (by parent and child alike) but we’ll get through it just like we did with Ava. In Elise’s case we’re doing this a full year earlier than Ava did, so it won’t be easy, but we know she is ready and up to the challenge.

Before I go I just want to say thank you again to my Mom for making this trip happen. If it wasn’t your insistence, we never would have gone, and I’m so glad that we did. As I said in the title, this was our first family vacation. Yes, we’ve traveled together as a family before, but always to visit and stay with family. Although there certainly was a family aspect to this trip, it was still our first time going on a true vacation together. It’s something that we’ll never forget and I hope she enjoyed it as much as we did. Here’s some of our favorite photos from the trip.

Just before boarding the ship for the first time

Formal night dinner with Nana, night 2.

Elise being a good girl at formal night

Looks can be deceiving because this was not exactly Ava’s best night. Memorable though.

Like a boss

Nana having fun with the girls

Setting sail on day 1

Visiting the bear chair in Juneau

Getting started with the muck

Visiting one of the many Orcas we found in Victoria, B.C.

On the docks in Juneau

‘Hanging’ out in Skagway

The little monster

On the lookout in Alaska. Elise kept using her binoculars backwards.

Mom climbing the rock wall. When she rang the bell at the top Ava yelled out “Mommy I’m so proud of you!”

Playing with the selfie stick in Victoria

At work with one of my little helpers

Lunch in Skagway

First and foremost I want to start this off by wishing my wife, my Mom, my Mother-in-law, my sisters, aunts, cousins, and friends (basically all the Moms in our lives) a very happy Mother’s Day! It’s a special day that you all very much deserve, so I hope it’s a good one. Normally I’d be spending this morning making a nice brunch for Jessica, but this year is a little different. Jessica will be working brunch at El Gaucho Bellevue while I spend the day with the kids, then tonight we’ll do a nice dinner at home. Yesterday I stopped by Central Market (which is the really nice grocery store in Mill Creek) and picked up fresh Kusshi oysters, dungeness crab, jumbo prawns, scallops, and calamari. I’m looking forward to treating her to a seafood extravaganza this evening.

To explain to the kids a little bit about the character of their mamma, Jessica received a phone call from Tony, the GM at El Gaucho Bellevue, asking for a favor. Although she normally only works Wednesday and Thursday nights, and of course he knows she is a Mom, he had to ask her if she was willing to work Mother’s Day brunch. They already had over 600 reservations on the books and basically needed all hands on deck. He also promised her that she would be the first one to get called off, should they end up over-staffed. Without hesitation she said yes, and later on decided that even if she were given the opportunity to get called off, she wouldn’t take it. It’s too good of a shift to pass up, and we’re going on vacation in a couple weeks, so working made sense. Yesterday she got another call from Tony saying they actually could get by without her and offered her the day off, which was cool because he stayed true to his word, but so did she, and declined his offer. That’s classic Jessica – always putting what’s best for our family ahead of herself. Obviously we’re quite lucky to have her and greatly appreciate everything she does. Happy Mother’s Day honey, as Ava would say, we “love you around the volcano.”

Although I won’t get to spend Mother’s Day with my own Mom, I’m very much excited to be spending a week with her on the Alaska cruise, which is only two weeks away! We’re all getting very excited for the trip. The girls seem to really understand that we’re going on a trip with Nana on a big boat and we’re going to see all kinds of exciting things. I know this is something my Mom has been looking forward to since she presented the idea several months ago, and of course getting this week with her grandkids will be something she never forgets. Hopefully this will suffice as a delayed, but unforgettable, Mother’s Day gift.

Finally, speaking of Grandma’s, Amy and Tom left earlier this week after a nice long visit. Amy was here for 2.5 weeks, and Tom joined her with us for the final week of the stay. We always enjoy spending time with them, and they always provide so much help with the kids. It sort of dawned on me that first night after they left while Jessica was at work that I hadn’t made dinner for the kids, or given them a bath, or barely even changed a diaper for that matter, in two weeks! They really take on the kids head first when they’re here and it gives Jessica and I a lot more free time, so we appreciate it very much. As far as I know they’re in Germany right now. Tom had to go for some work he’s doing with a company based in Colorado, and Amy went along with him to visit her niece Lauren, who lives with her family in Frankfurt. Lauren’s husband John is an officer in the Marine Corps, so they have already had an opportunity to live in some pretty exciting places. Randomly they were stationed in San Diego at the same time we were there, which is when I got a chance to know them.

Regarding the kids, everyone is doing really well. Ava is such a little helper these days, and she really seems to thrive when given a task. Maybe you need her to run upstairs to grab something, or keep Enzo busy while you change Elise, whatever it is she is always eager to help. She also likes helping with things that you don’t really need help with, like vacuuming or making dinner, but I usually do my best to find some way for her to help. She definitely understands that she is the oldest of the kids and seems to thrive in that role. She’s also doing well at school and looks forward to going every Tuesday and Thursday.

Earlier this week Jessica and the kids met up with my sister Dana at the Snohomish Aquatic Center. Everyone had a blast and Ava couldn’t stop talking about it all night. She’s still unwilling to go completely underwater based on an incident we had at the pool last summer, but we’re getting there. She definitely loves to go swimming, but I think we need to get her into lessons ASAP. Jessica said Elise was absolutely fearless in the water (much like her Daddy) and Enzo, who unexpectedly went under a few times, always popped right back up and kept going. All night Ava kept saying, I want to go back to the pool with Auntie Dana and Anna.

Speaking of my niece Anna, I guess we know who the star athlete in the family is. Anna, who is 15, has been playing soccer as long as I can remember. She set a goal as a very young child to become a soccer star and get a college scholarship out of it. Her dedication throughout this whole time is beyond impressive, especially to someone like me who tried so many different things growing up. Her ability to stick with one thing and become great at it is so inspiring, and I hope my kids take notice of it. We really need to take them to one of Anna’s games sometime soon. In her last game, Bellevue High (Anna’s team) won by a score of 13-2. Anna scored all 13 goals.

Elise is doing great and growing so fast. Based on one of my recent posts when I talked about Elise and how sweet she is, Jessica said I need to be careful because I seem to favor her a bit. At first I felt bad when she said that, but then thought about it some more and agreed with her. I do favor Elise, but not because I love her more or anything like that. Obviously my love for all 3 of the kids could never be compared. The reason I favor Elise is simply that at some level, I think she needs it. Being the middle child is rough, and let’s face it, she will always be Ava’s younger sister. At this point I think it’s fair to say that Ava is always going to have a big personality; she’s the life of the party and people are naturally attracted to her. Like her Mom, Ava is going to be the ‘cool kid’ in school (something that I definitely was not) and so I can’t help but worry about Elise feeling like she is always in Ava’s shadow. I hope they both understand this when they get older. In many ways Elise’s personality is closest to my own as a child, and in all honesty she needs a little more coddling than Ava. I have to be careful with it though because she recently said to Jessica that sometimes she gets sad on purpose because she knows that when she is sad Daddy will pick her up, take her outside to ‘search for tigers’, coddle her, etc. She’s a smart little girl so I have to be careful in how I reward her. It’s too bad this parenting thing doesn’t come with an owner’s manual. Not to worry though, it’s just part of the dynamic when you have three distinctly different little personalities all forming in the same household.

Enzo is doing great lately and continues to prove his fearlessness on a regular basis. He hasn’t needed any breathing treatments in about two weeks and seems to be fully recovered from the bug he had. It’s a good thing he has his little Star Wars helmet because Jessica caught him the other day barreling down our driveway on Elise’s scooter with the biggest smile on his face. Thankfully she was there to catch him before he bit it going over the curb. I just love how he’s only 15 months old and is already riding scooters! He recently had a checkup and has finally come back down onto the charts; he’s now at 98% for height in his age group. He’s such a little boy too. I guess I’ve gotten used to having girls so Enzo’s insistence on climbing everything in sight is new to me. If you come to our house now you’ll see the dining table out near the middle of the kitchen, because that’s the only place we can put it where Enzo isn’t able to climb up on it. He just loves to climb on things and stand there with this little grin on his face because he knows he got away with something. He’s also doing really well with his vocabulary. He’s even starting to string a couple words together and make his own little sentences. As I’ve said before, the girls deserve plenty of credit for his advancements with walking and talking at such a young age. He’s such an awesome little dude and has completed our family in ways we never could have imagined.

Regarding the title of this post, Jessica has been asking me for at least the past few years to go get my eyes checked. I’ve always resisted because I have good vision and can easily read tiny print, or things that are far away. However over the past 6 months I’ve been noticing that my eyes feel really fatigued at the end of the day. It makes sense considering I’ve basically been starting at a computer screen for the past 5 years. So finally this week I went to see the optometrist to get my eyes checked. They did all kinds of tests including blowing a puff of air into each eye to test your eye pressure, taking pictures of the back of my eyeballs, and doing all the typical stuff where you read random letters at various sizes. I have to admit I was feeling cocky throughout the tests because I was able to read the smallest letters they put in front of me without too much difficulty.

At the end of the tests the doctor explained to me that I am far-sighted, meaning I can see things well at a distance. To me that just means you have good vision, but it doesn’t account for the constant fatigue I’d been experiencing. As he explained, I’m good at seeing things far away, but not as good at seeing things clearly up close. To compensate for this, I’m using the muscles in my eyes that are normally reserved for seeing far away, to see things up close. Those muscles aren’t meant for seeing up close, so they end up getting worn out, and that is what I’ve been experiencing. He said I would benefit greatly from wearing glasses whenever I’m on the computer, and that it also wouldn’t hurt to wear them when watching TV or driving. I’m certainly not required to wear them when driving, but at the same time it wouldn’t hurt.

So I swallowed my pride and said okay, let’s get glasses then. I tried on quite a few pair and finally ended up choosing something I really liked. I felt a little guilty because the ones I selected are Ferragamo’s, and they weren’t exactly the cheapest pair available, but they were definitely my favorite. I couldn’t help but notice the resemblance I had to my Dad when wearing them. I was a little nervous to tell Jessica what I’d chosen, but she was totally cool about it. I joked with her that I’d always wanted a ‘pair of Ferragamo’s’, but always figured it would be a pair of shoes, not glasses.

When I first put them on yesterday it was crazy. The best analogy I can make is it was like going from regular TV to high definition, although by the time my kids read this they won’t know what the hell regular TV even means. To put it another way, it was like going from an analog world, to a digital one. Everything snapped into such a level of focus that it honestly made me dizzy for a second. I remember walking around at the grocery store right after getting them and feeling slightly off balance; not because the prescription was wrong, but because I wasn’t used to this level of detail and clarity, and it was playing tricks on my mind. It was really weird. I also felt like random strangers were looking at me differently, which is obviously all in my head, but I couldn’t help it. I’ve been wearing them constantly since then and have basically gotten used to it. When I got home the girls saw me and giggled. Ava says “Daddy you look funny” and Elise says “Daddy why are you wearing Mommy’s glasses?” It was pretty cute.

Finally, during Amy and Tom’s stay, we got all new carpet upstairs. Unlike the visit when they helped us with the wood floors downstairs, this time we had a professional installation company come out to do the work. We went with a nice carpet as well as a nice padding underneath it, and all I can say is that it’s lovely. I’ve never had brand new carpet before, but it feels so nice to walk around barefoot on. I’m just as excited about this as I was with the new wood floors downstairs. At this point the only rooms in our house that don’t have brand new flooring are the two upstairs bathrooms.

We got to do another band practice on Friday and things are better. I was under the impression that the house was empty while we practiced, so I was slightly self conscious when finding out at the end that Dana and Anna were home the entire time and heard everything. Oh well, gotta get used to people hearing you at some point, I just wasn’t expecting it. We’ve added the song ‘Cold Shot’ by Stevie Ray Vaughan to our repertoire and are having fun with it, as well as all the others. I’m struggling with ‘Texas Flood’ the most, but we’re getting there, and most of all, we’re having fun in the process.

Here’s just a few recent pics, but something tells me we’ll have plenty more to share after our vacation. Plus I’ve got that whole Ferrari/Lamborghini thing going on the day we leave. Lots of good stuff coming up in the very near-term, including a visit from Grandpa Rick shortly after our vacation. Until then, Happy Mother’s Day!

The little climber, doing his thing

Grandma and the girls at Mommy’s birthday dinner

Jessica wanted a selfie after I picked up my specs.

Fun at the park with the girls while Zo stayed home with Grandma & Grandpa

So at this point, since the start of 2016, the majority of our family has needed to be seen at an emergency room.. The only ones who have not made this ‘right of passage’ so far are Elise and myself. I hope I didn’t just jinx it by saying so, especially since we’re not even half-way through the year!

The latest Pellegrini to make their way to the Swedish Mill Creek emergency room was Enzo, who had to go there at 2:30 am on Thursday night / Friday morning. The poor little guy was a bit out of sorts all day with a fever and cough, but he went to bed easily at his normal time, so everything seemed fine.

Jessica was at work that night doing a really cool auction fundraiser for the Seattle Seahawks. She actually had head coach Pete Carroll and team president Peter McLaughlin at her table, so that shows you how much confidence the management at El Gaucho Bellevue has in her. Apparently it was a ‘Celebrity Server’ type of event where Seahawks players were pairing up with Gaucho servers for the night and serving all the patrons of the event. She actually had two players assisting her, but I have to admit I’m not familiar with either of them (one was a rookie and the other was going into his 2nd year). Regardless, she got to chat with Russell Wilson, who was mostly busy playing songs and singing on the piano all night, but made a few stops to visit the Pete’s at their table. The team’s GM John Schneider has a child who is autistic, so the event was held to raise money for autism research. She said people were raising $30,000 donation paddles during the auction like it was nothing. One guest ended up spending over $100k! Although I love the new career I’ve carved out for myself over the past 5 years, I have to admit that these are the types of nights that I miss from my restaurant career. I’m just glad Jessica was there to experience it.

Anyway, she got home from work around 1:00 am and could hear via the baby monitor that Enzo wasn’t doing very well. She went to check on him and saw that he had a high fever, as well as significant trouble breathing. She gave him some medicine to break his fever but it wasn’t working, plus his breathing troubles were getting progressively worse. She deliberated for a bit but ultimately his doctor’s office didn’t open until 7:00 am and she knew there was no way she was going to sleep knowing he was struggling to breathe. So at 2:30 am she woke me up and said “Michael don’t freak out but Mom and I are taking Enzo to the emergency room.” Obviously this got my attention immediately so I woke up as she explained what was going on.

Since the girls were sound asleep there was nothing for me to do besides lay there in bed. I couldn’t go back to sleep because I was worried about Enzo, so I just layed there and waited for them to return. They got back at 4:00 am and said he was doing better. They did a chest x-ray on him and it came back negative. All they really knew was that he had a virus, but there was nothing they could do besides break his fever and give him a breathing treatment. They also gave him a prescription for an albuterol inhaler, which requires a baby mask in his case.

After all this commotion in the middle of the night I decided to work from home on Friday. I try not to abuse that privilege but it certainly comes in handy from time to time. Enzo has been getting better each day since then, and today he went in to see his regular doctor, so I’m anxious to hear how that went.

If you read Jessica’s most recent post then you know all about the trouble she experienced on our anniversary. That was so crazy. I kept telling her on that Saturday evening that something was wrong and she needed to go get checked out, but of course she didn’t want to go. By the time 10:00pm came around I basically forced her to go to the emergency room. The only other times I’ve seen her in that type of pain was during childbirth. It was scary so I’m glad she finally gave in and went to get checked out. I also owe a huge thank you to my cousin Kristy for helping us out that day. She was 90 minutes away and still arrived at our house at 5:00am so I could get to the hospital to be with Jessica. If it wasn’t for Kristy I wouldn’t have been able to be with Jessica for her surgery. The timing was crazy because all of our friends in the neighborhood were on vacation for Spring Break, so Kristy really saved the day.

I ended up getting an unexpected week at home with everyone and I must say it was a really nice surprise. Although I’ve always had respect for all the hard work Jessica puts into caring for the kids, I can’t help but respect it even more now that I’ve walked a mile in her shoes. Selfishly there are times when I wish she could go be a software engineer at Microsoft for a week and let me take care of the kids, but unfortunately that’s never going to happen. Regardless the kids and I had a blast. We got really lucky with the weather that week, so basically everyday I would take them out to the park while Mom stayed home to rest. She recovered quickly and before I knew it my week was over and it was back to the grind. One positive thing we’ll take from this experience is the value of the ‘stay-cation.’ I think I’m going to start taking a week off every Spring Break to spend with Jessica and the kids. There are so many fun attractions in the Seattle area to visit, so hopefully we can make a tradition out of this.

I have to apologize for not writing a post recently. I just looked back and saw that it’s been over a month since my last post. I think that may be the longest stretch I’ve ever gone without writing since starting this blog nearly 5 years ago. During that time writing posts has become the 2nd most cathartic thing I do (behind playing music of course) so going on this long of a dry spell kinda sucks.

In my last post I basically put it all out there in terms of my take on the current political campaign season, so after that I figured I should probably put my money where my mouth is. On the day before Easter, while Jessica and the girls were out at an Easter Egg Hunt, Enzo and I went to the Washington State Democratic Caucuses to show support for Bernie Sanders. I have never caucused before and honestly didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I can easily say that it was a very positive experience. Not surprisingly Enzo was a big hit, but it was a nice opportunity to meet some of my neighbors and have a good political discussion. I hadn’t planned on speaking up to the group, and certainly didn’t have anything prepared, but after a woman spoke up about why she is supporting Hillary Clinton the mediator for our group asked if anyone would like to speak up on behalf of Bernie. Instinctively my hand raised and suddenly I found myself in front of our group, holding Enzo, explaining why I support Senator Sanders. I won’t go into all of that again because it’s not important; I’ve already made all the points I need to in my last post. The important part is that we were there showing our support, listening to what others had to say and not being afraid to make our own points and share our own perspectives. I’ll definitely be doing this again in the future.

Regarding the length of time since my last post, all I can say is it’s been quite a month. I don’t want to say I didn’t have the time because I don’t care for that excuse, but I’ve added a couple things to my schedule that have been taking up the majority of the little free time I already had.
For most people having a full-time corporate job at Microsoft, plus a wife and 3 young kids is more than enough to keep them busy, but I’m an odd duck who likes to pile it on, so I’ve decided to add a second (part-time) job to my life, as well as join a band. Yep, for real.

First my new job: for the past few months I’ve been working on a new website for Card Player Cruises, which is the company my Mom has worked for over the past 9 or 10 years. The pace has really escalated over the past month though, as we prepare for the launch of our new website. Don’t bother going to look for it right now because we haven’t launched it yet. I’m still working 7 days a week to get the new site ready to go live. I can’t wait to launch it and will definitely share the link once it’s ready. I’m very proud of it and consider it the best solo project I’ve ever done. Plus it’s nice to be in such regular contact with my Mom. Once it goes live the number of hours I’m working for them will decrease, but I’ve already got plenty of ideas for future improvements and new features.

Now regarding the band, I’m really excited to be playing music with people again. It’s been far too long since I’ve jammed with people on a regular basis and I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy it. It all started off innocently enough: Jessica’s Uncle Butch and Aunt Carol have a niece named Shayla who is married to a really nice guy named Greg. He’s about my age and recently took up playing guitar. We talked about it a few times at family get-togethers so I invited him over to jam sometime. He started coming over to play guitar and we pretty much hit it off. Although he was brand new to it I could tell he had potential, so at a certain point I asked him if he would ever consider playing bass. If so we could hook up with my nephew Kallan, who is a good drummer, and form a blues rock trio. Greg jumped at the opportunity, went out and bought a nice bass guitar and amp, and the 3 of us quickly started jamming.

Kallan is currently playing guitar in another band with his Dad (who is a drummer) but he’s been telling me for a while that he wants to play drums in a blues band. Right now we’re just working on cover songs but hopefully soon we’ll start writing some original material as well. We’ve currently got 5 songs in our repertoire: Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix), Sunshine Of Your Love (Cream), Texas Flood (Stevie Ray Vaughan), La Grange (ZZ Top), and Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix). If we can add about 5 more songs we’ll be ready to start playing gigs.

Our ultimate goal is to be able to play local shows for our friends and family to attend. I joked with the guys that the pinnacle for me would be for us to play shows and earn enough money from our performance to pay for babysitters so Jessica and Shayla could leave the kids at home and come watch us play. We don’t have a name yet, but it’s Kallan on drums, Greg on bass, and myself on guitar and vocals. I get plenty of practice playing guitar at home every day but practicing singing isn’t quite so easy, and trust me – I need it. The only way to practice singing is to really belt it out, which isn’t something you can do at home with kids, so I’m limited to the car and band practice. Doesn’t matter though, we’re all just there to have fun and enjoy the moment. No one’s trying to become rich and famous here, but it’s still a lot of fun. Not to sound too much like Phil Jackson, but the journey is the reward, so I’m glad to be able to share this experience with them. Hopefully sometime around the end of this year we’ll be ready to start playing shows. I would assume we’d mostly play at bars and small clubs, plus maybe the occasional outdoor event. A car show would be cool…

Tomorrow Grandpa Tom arrives to spend a week with us. Grandma has been here about 10 days and has been super helpful with the kids as usual. Thursday is Jessica’s birthday so I think we’re all going out to dinner that night, then Friday night Jess and I will go to dinner alone while the kids hang out with G&G. Friday will also be an exciting day for us because we’re getting all new carpet upstairs at our house. That means that in the past 9 months we will have replaced the flooring on literally 95% of the house. It’s going to look really nice, and of course we picked the environmentally friendly carpet with corn-based fibers.

Since I probably won’t be writing another post in 3 days I just want to wish my amazing wife Jessica a very happy birthday. Thank you for being so supportive and always putting everyone else’s needs ahead of your own. The excitement never seems to end around here but I’m thankful to get to share it with you!

Not only is it March Madness for the sports world right now, but it’s also March Madness at Microsoft. Our fiscal year ends on June 30, which means we’re just about to begin our 4th quarter. One thing I’ve learned working for large publicly held corporations over the past few years is that Q4 is always crazy. It’s your last chance to drive annual revenue before reporting to the shareholders, and in the world of Azure that means unveiling a bunch of new cloud computing services, as well as supporting broader company initiatives.

Microsoft’s annual Build conference is going on in San Francisco March 30 – April 1. It’s the biggest conference we do as a company, it’s aimed at software developers, and the Azure website is doing a lot to promote it. We’ll even be streaming the event live the whole time it’s going on. There’s obviously a lot of work to be done in order to support this, and I’ve basically insisted to our team leaders that I take on the majority of the development work required to support the conference. This ain’t my first rodeo, but it is how you earn your stripes. I’ve learned over the last few years that becoming more senior in my field is more about your growth as a leader than your growth in technical skills. Hopefully these next few weeks (and months) will contribute in that respect.

A couple weeks ago, on March 2nd to be specific, I had my one-year anniversary at Microsoft. I won’t say it’s hard to believe it’s already been a year, because it’s been so busy since I started, but I will say that my first year has gone by very fast. As I’ve shared in many previous posts, March 2nd, for whatever reason, has been a pivotal day in my life. Yes, it’s the day that my Dad passed away, but it’s also the day I started working at El Gaucho, as well as the day I started working at Microsoft. You can imagine the joy I had when I realized that Jessica’s first night serving tables at El Gaucho Bellevue was, of course, March 2nd.

Speaking of Jessica, I enjoyed reading her post last week, mainly because many of the observations she shared were as new to me as they would be to anyone outside our direct family. For example, it’s impossible for me to know how Elise acts when Ava is gone at school because I’m always working at that time. I don’t even know where Ava’s new school is for that matter. So it was fun to hear her perspective like that in long form. After reading her post I was inspired to do the same thing in my next post. Although I certainly don’t get as much solo time with the kids as she does, I still get my fair share (every Wednesday & Thursday night to be exact), and it’s reasonable to think that my perception of the kids as their father would differ at least somewhat from Jessica’s.

I’ll start with Elise, my little Daddy’s girl. The first word that always comes to my mind when thinking of Elise is ‘sweet’. Everything about her is sweet to me. She’s got the sweetest little smile, the sweetest little voice, and the sweetest little ponytail. When she hugs you, she wraps completely around you and basically melts into you. She simply embodies that word in every way for me. She’s also our most emotional child, and considering that she is now going through the terrible two’s, that means there are plenty of emotional outbursts to deal with. Whereas Ava’s way of dealing with the TT’s was to be downright mean at times, Elise tends to internalize things (like her Daddy) and it all comes out of her in uncontrollable waves of emotion. I’ve found she’s not that hard to console though. If you hold her, take her on a short walk, and give her your undivided love and attention, she’ll snap out of it pretty quickly. It’s probably fair to say that Elise isn’t quite as graceful on her feet as her big sis, but it usually comes off nothing shy of endearing. The other night she fell down the final four or five stairs leading into our living room. Jess and I were sitting there watching a movie and Elise basically did a cartwheel down the stairs, except rather than using her hands to brace herself, she just used her head. For a couple milliseconds she was literally standing on her head on the 2nd step, before crashing to her feet on the hardwood floor. Not something you want to see as a parent, but she’s a tough cookie and she bounced back pretty quickly. We couldn’t help but laugh later once we knew she was okay. Never seen anything like it. Love you so much Weese.

Enzo is approaching 14 months old and he’s doing great. He’s still waking up most nights, which is something the girls grew out of much earlier, but he’s been quite advanced at basically everything else. He was our earliest crawler, our earliest walker, and now our earliest talker. We’re just getting into that exciting phase where his vocabulary is growing noticeably on a regular basis. He’s got beautiful big eyes, although I still don’t know what color they are. Jessica thinks they’re green but I think they’re brown. Enzo’s favorite activity these days is climbing, so if you leave him alone for any length of time you can expect that’s what he’ll be doing when you return. He also loves to get into everything, and I do mean everything. Like his Daddy, he loves playing with pots and pans in the kitchen, but if that’s not an option he’s more than content to simply unload everything from every drawer he has access to. Like his big sisters, he’s a very sweet kid with an infectious smile. And he’s my little boy. I love him to the moon.

Ava is the leader of the group, and sometimes I think she thinks of herself as the leader of the whole family. She has a strong personality, an incredibly natural sense of humor, and fierce determination. She’s also the toughest little kid I’ve ever seen, and I love that about her so much. Other kids are naturally attracted to her, and she always rises to the top as the leader of the group. I don’t have that quality but I admire it in her so much. I’ve already seen it time and again, yet she’s not even 4 and a half years old! Going through the various phases of adolescence won’t be easy with Ava, due to how strong-willed and determined she gets about everything, but hopefully getting through something with Ava will mean it’s all downhill with Elise and Enzo. She’s showing an interest in playing music, which I’m thrilled about, but regardless of which direction she chooses in life I know she will be a success. She’s got a special spark and I love her so much.

Jessica told me something funny yesterday, which was that she and the kids were at the park enjoying the sunny weather, and they came across another family with a daughter named Ava and a son named Enzo! Can you believe that!? What are the chances!? I thought it was the craziest thing. Jessica said she overheard their Mom talking to the kids and simply had to go over there and introduce herself. I told my neighbor about it and he said I should run out and buy a lottery ticket. Too bad I’m so anti-lottery.

What I did go out and recently buy, however, was another electric guitar. I know, I know. What could I possibly need another guitar for? I’m not going to waste anyone’s time trying to justify it, just rest assured I’ve justified it to myself, and more importantly to Jessica. In all honesty it was the least expensive guitar I’ve purchased since high school, and since giving one away to Kallan for his birthday I’ve just felt like something was missing. The best part about it is that Elise loves it! Although it’s official color is Transparent Amber, Elise has already started referring to it as “my orange guitar.” Of course it would be. It’s her favorite color (orange) and it has stripes like a tiger. I asked her recently if she would like that one to be hers someday and she said “yes, that’s my favorite orange guitar.” Guess we know where that one will be going.

I was listening to one of my podcasts this week and heard a great interview with Warren Buffett. The interviewer was asking him why we’re so enamored with rich people and wealth. It turned into a deeper conversation about money and happiness, but then Buffett said something that really struck me. “I could have 20 houses but I wouldn’t be as happy as I am living in the same house I purchased in 1959. I could have 20 cars but I wouldn’t be as happy as I am with my one car. The problem with having lots of possessions is that they begin to possess you.” I loved that statement so much, but also instantly realized that there was a lesson for me to learn there, particularly when it comes to guitars. I’m certainly going to enjoy this new one, but it’s going to be a good long while before my collection begins to grow again.

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about my fascination with this year’s presidential campaign. At that time I was in more of an exploratory mode and wasn’t completely sure which candidates I was in support of. Well, a lot has changed since then, and although I’ve waffled internally about whether or not to share my opinions in our blog, based on Jessica’s encouragement I’ve ultimately decided to do so. I would never write anything political on social media, mainly because I wouldn’t expect the hundreds of people I’m ‘friends’ with to really care about my political perspectives, plus I feel I’m much better conveying an idea long form rather than short, but this blog has a much smaller audience, and therefore has a better chance that someone reading it cares a little bit more about my opinion than someone I haven’t seen since high school. I fully realize that whenever you share your political opinions, it’s a guarantee that someone who reads it will disagree, but that’s a good thing. Some might even call it your birthright. I think it’s what part of what makes us great.

I came into this presidential campaign season fairly certain that I’d be voting for a Republican candidate. Please don’t get me wrong – I’m not anti-Obama in any way. I actually think he’s done a remarkable job considering the situation he inherited 8 years ago. I remember how tough those times were for many people, but besides all that, these past 8 years have been the best 8 years of my life, both personally and professionally. In that time I met my wife, had 3 amazing children, got my college degree, bought my first home, and changed careers, so it’s been a very good stretch for me. However I’m a big believer in the pendulum of life; doesn’t matter if you’re talking about politics, sports, music, whatever. The pendulum keeps on swinging, so it seemed natural to me that after 8 years with a conservative leader like George W. Bush, we would shift to Obama, who has been the most liberal president of my lifetime. Now that we’ve had 8 years with Obama, it once again seems natural that we would swing back to the conservative side, and I have no issue with it at all.

Early on in this race I even said to myself “There’s no way I’m voting for Hillary Clinton for President” because she was, in my opinion, the embodiment of the establishment. As it turns out, however, there was one way… One very specific way. As someone who was considering an allegiance to the Republican party I have to admit that the overall buffoonery that has been displayed thus far by the GOP has all but entirely pushed me away. It’s unfortunate too because I thought several of the candidates had some very interesting things to say, but unfortunately Donald Trump has ruined it for me.

I have to admit that when Trump first got into the race I was intrigued. Jessica most certainly was not. She saw right through him from day one, but I’ll admit it, I drank the Kool Aid for a bit. I remember thinking to myself “Hmm, this guy isn’t worried about being politically correct. I kind of like that. He’s also not a professional politician; he’s a businessman, and a successful one at that. He’s got his own money, so he won’t be in the pockets of all the political pundits out there.” Based on those reasons I decided to start paying more attention to Trump, although I quickly realized how short-sided my argument really was.

Quickly the red flags started popping up. Initially all I wanted to hear from Trump were some policy proposals, but he kept not giving them. I quickly grew tired of hearing that we’re going to be great again and we’re going to win so much we’ll be tired of winning. What does that even mean? When did we stop being a great nation? It’s funny because I hear all these people mimicking Trump saying we’re going to make America great again, but I certainly didn’t hear any of them saying we weren’t great before Trump came along with his stupid slogan. All he wants to talk about is building a wall between us and Mexico, and having Mexico pay for it. That’s not a policy proposal, it’s a construction project, and a ridiculous one at that. That was the first red flag. The he says he’s going to ban all Muslims from entering the country. Another red flag. Then he says he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose any voters. Another red flag.

Then came the rallies, and that is when my general attitude towards Trump turned from malaise to disgust. I saw him telling his security to kick protesters out into the freezing cold and not give them their jackets. I heard him encourage his crowd to be violent towards protestors, and even offer to pay their legal fees. Since when is it acceptable for grown men to push and shove teenage girls? To spit in other people’s faces? To punch people in the face because you don’t agree with them politically? I kept asking myself “Aren’t we better than this?” If this is our path towards greatness then our definition of greatness has been skewed.

Overall, I can’t vote for Donald Trump because he’s not presidential. I’m not one of those people that wants to elect a president that they would be comfortable sitting down and having a beer with. I know plenty of guys that are great to sit down for a beer with and none of them (myself included) are anywhere nearly qualified to be president. I want my president to act presidential; I want him to take the high road when someone takes a cheap shot at him, rather than fire back with some sophomoric double entendre. I want someone representing us that the rest of the world won’t mock us for electing. Can you even imagine how our reputation would suffer globally if we elect that guy as our leader?

It’s too bad too, because I think there were some interesting candidates for the Republicans this year, but none of them were able to grab headlines like Trump, and apparently that’s what it takes these days. I’m still a big fan of John Kasich, but at this point he has been mathematically eliminated from receiving the nomination, even though he is still technically in the race. I love his message based around unity, rather than Trump’s message which is based on division and segregation. I nearly lost it the other day when I heard a leader from a white supremacist group say that if you’re not going to vote for Trump you should be forced to renounce your citizenship.

I’m not overly concerned though because I feel quite confident that Trump will not win the presidency. I hope we’re all ready for President Hillary because it looks like that’s what we’re going to get. In all honesty I’m not sure that I am ready for her, but at this point it definitely feels like the lesser of two evils. What is more concerning, however, is that even though Trump isn’t going to be president, you cannot deny the fact that he has struck a chord with millions of people throughout this country. Their frustrations are real and should not be overlooked. When Trump’s campaign is over, all those people will still remain, and dealing with those frustrations needs to be a high priority of our next president. The system needs a shakeup in my opinion, I just hope we can find nonviolent ways of doing it.

On the positive side, I’ve used the last couple months to figure out which issues matter most to me. I used to complain about taxes, but that was the easy way out. What I’ve realized is that I don’t mind paying my share of taxes, I just want them to go to the right places. For me, the basis of the issues that matter most to me is the safety and well being of my family; and those issues are gun control and climate change.

As a parent of young children who will soon be entering the school system, I’m concerned for their safety. The fact that I’m scared for my kids’ safety at school is ridiculous, but that’s the world we live in. Or should I say the country we live in? When I was a kid we did earthquake drills, now they’re doing active shooter drills. To be clear, I have no problem with people owning guns, even though we personally do not and never will own guns. I have several family members who own guns and one thing they all have in common is that they all did it the right way. They registered for a license, went through a background check, and attended training courses. They also keep their guns locked and safely stored in a safe. That’s how it should be done. If someone wants to own a handgun for personal protection and target shooting, I’m totally cool with that. I also have no problem with someone owning a rifle or shotgun for hunting.

What I do have a problem with is civilians owning assault rifles. Those types of guns are designed for one thing and one thing only – to kill humans. So I can think of no good reason that civilians should be allowed to own them. I also think that there should be no loopholes in the law when it comes to purchasing a gun. If you want to buy a gun you’re going to have to go through a background check. Period. If you’re a felon, or you have any form of mental disease, I feel you shouldn’t be allowed to purchase a gun. I realize there are other (illegal) ways of obtaining guns, but it doesn’t change the fact that stricter gun control has already been proven in a number of countries to lead to a reduction in gun-related violence and death. Why do we have to continue to learn our own lessons the hard way? Why can’t we accept the proof that is already out there? Sometimes I feel we’re too hard-headed as a nation, and this is a good example of why.

Regarding climate change, I took a science course at the University of Washington many years ago on this topic, and even then the evidence was overwhelming. The increase in burning of fossil fuels is damaging the ozone layer, and causing severely negative effects on our planet. Global temperatures rise and set new records year after year, yet we do so little. There’s no debate to be had. Anyone that doesn’t believe climate change is real simply needs to educate themselves. Remember, people used to believe the Earth was flat and wondered where the sun went every night as well. I will admit that even though I’ve never doubted the effects of climate change, it wasn’t always a top political priority for me. For a while there my political agenda was almost entirely based on finances, but then I put my views in the context of my family, specifically my children. Obviously I want my kids to live long lives, to have children of their own, and eventually grandchildren. If the longevity of your family is a high priority for you, then how can climate change not be a priority as well? This is why I loved it when Leonardo DiCaprio said in his Oscar acceptance speech that climate change is the biggest threat we face as a species.

So there it is – that’s where I stand. Once again, I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I’m glad it’s okay that we’re allowed to disagree. You know where you’re not allowed to disagree politically? The Middle East. Is that what we want to become? One of my favorite quotes from this campaign season came from Chris Christie. He said “If you’re looking for the candidate that you agree with on every single issue, the only place to look is the mirror.” What’s been most important to me over the past couple months is that I’ve been able to narrow in on what is most important to me politically. Although I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, I would hope that at least no one could question my motivations. I write about them constantly, in fact I’m writing this directly to them (as always), and I want them to understand not only what is important to me, but why.

Must. Play. Pac man.

Sunday lunch with our favorite bugs

Swing fun

Visiting an old friend at the park near our house in Bellevue

My sweet little Elise (and Pippo of course)

Weese playing her orange tiger-striped guitar

Well, it was bound to happen. We’ve been incredibly lucky over the past 4 years in the sense that none of our kids have ever really been sick or injured. I don’t want to make this out to be some type of serious injury, because it’s definitely not, but it did require a trip to the emergency room, along with 3 stitches, and of course it happened on the only Saturday of the year that I’m away from my family.

Saturday a couple of my co-workers and I attended a web development conference in Seattle. There was a little chaos before the event started because everyone was told that the event was taking place in South Lake Union, but then when we arrived it turned out that it was actually taking place in the heart of downtown, near Benaroya Hall. So we had to scramble to get downtown and find parking. 5 minutes after the conference started I get a phone call from Jessica. It seemed odd that she would be calling me at that time since she knew I was at a conference, but I answered.

Long story short, Jessica and the kids were at the gym with our friend Solana and her two boys. They do this regularly because the gym provides childcare to members while they’re working out. The kids always love going there. I don’t know exactly what happened but the gist of it is that Ava was dancing, she was on a hard surface, and she fell and hit her chin on that hard surface. The cut was pretty deep and they weren’t able to stop the bleeding with a band aid, so they found Jessica to see what she wanted to do.

Apparently Ava was totally fine throughout this whole experience, which doesn’t surprise me one bit. She constantly impresses me with her toughness and this ended up being just another example of that. She was wearing Enzo’s new Russell Wilson jersey because it’s much too big for him to wear right now, and amazingly she didn’t get a single drop of blood on it.

Anyway Jessica explained to me what was going on and of course I offered to leave the conference and come home, but she convinced me to stay put for now. She just wanted me to know what was going on, but had control of everything on her own. She took the kids to Swedish Hospital Mill Creek and was shown into a room immediately. I guess when a single mom comes in with 3 young kids she tends to get a little preferential treatment. I’ll always remember that hospital because that’s where Jessica had the ultrasound when we found out we were having our little Enzo. I remember the technician saying “I’m pretty sure it’s a boy”, then after a long silent pause I replied “How sure are you?”.

According to Jessica, Ava did amazingly well the whole time. The only time she got a little freaked out was when the (male) doctor got right up in her face to look at the cut in her chin. She has always been leery of strange men, which is totally fine with me, and didn’t care much for him invading her personal space. She ended up getting 3 dissolvable stitches and a special band aid. I spoke to them on speaker phone once they got in the car to come home and she said “Daddy my owie doesn’t hurt anymore!”

After all that excitement Jessica thought it would be best to just go home and relax for the rest of the day. I got home from the conference around 5:00 with a special box of ‘Frozen’ band aids. They were such a hit that Elise eventually decided to wear one of her own (see photo below). By the next day Ava was completely back to normal, so it was all no big deal. Jess and I agreed that it was best that it happened to Ava, since she’s the oldest and most likely the toughest at this point in time. Again I’m just so proud of her for being so tough and so good throughout the entire experience. It’s ironic that all this would take place the one time I’m away doing my own thing, but of course Jessica rocked it and took care of everything perfectly well.

We’re getting excited about our upcoming trip to Alaska and Canada. It’s still 3 months away, but we’ve been talking about it regularly. I spoke to my Mom yesterday and she said we’ve got side-by-side balcony cabins with a private door connecting them, meaning the kids can run back and forth between the two. That’s going to be really nice because it means all 5 of us won’t be crammed into a single room. We’re looking forward to seeing whales and icebergs, as well as doing some fun shore excursions like dog sledding. We’ve been watching that show Gold Rush lately, so maybe we’ll even pan for some gold.

Speaking of upcoming trips, we recently made plans to go back to Iowa for Christmas this year. Rick and Chris were quite generous in offering to fly us out, and after talking about it over dinner, we decided to go for it. I know traveling with the kids during Christmas won’t be easy, but it’s worth it. We had a great time in Iowa last month and already when I think back about that trip I don’t think about our travel difficulties, I think about the great time we had with family and friends. Plus we’ll be staying for a week so our travel days will be spaced out a bit.

In between these two events we’ve got my family reunion in Moscow, Idaho in July, so there’s already a lot to look forward to. We’ve also got some work planned for the house this year, including a new front porch and new carpet upstairs. Just like that our year is basically planned out, and we haven’t even made it through February yet.

Jessica and I recently worked Valentine’s Day weekend together in the Pampas Room at El Gaucho. We worked all 3 nights (Fri-Sun) and by the end of it I was exhausted. I haven’t done a string of consecutive bartending shifts like that in a long time and it wasn’t easy. I have to be honest, I was pretty happy to come back to my desk job on Tuesday. Anyway it was basically the same burlesque show we worked on New Year’s Eve, except rather than doing a Prohibition Era theme like before, this time we did a Venetian theme. The employees were all dressed as Gondoliers with black and white striped shirts, red scarfs, and ridiculous hats. I’m not big on themed service, but we had fun. Jessica would have had to work anyway, so I’m glad I got to be there with her. Plus our babysitter worked out extremely well so we’re hoping to have her over again soon.

Tomorrow night is Jessica’s last night at El Gaucho Seattle. It feels a little crazy because between the two of us we’ve got many years at that restaurant, but she’s transferring to El Gaucho Bellevue, meaning she’s staying in the company and will continue to be a part of ‘the family’. A bunch of our old friends from Seattle are now working in Bellevue, so I expect her transition to be seamless. She’ll be training there on Friday night, then working her normal Wednesday Thursday schedule starting next week.

That’s basically it for now. Off to work! Here’s a few recent pics of the kids, as well as their silly Gondolier parents.

Kallan’s 21st Birthday dinner in the 410 Room at El Gaucho

Bartending on Valentine’s Day weekend

Elise enjoying her Valentine’s Day treats

Ava showing her love for Minnie Mouse

Enzo trying out his new PJ’s from Nana

Sister love