Author: Michael Pellegrini

Today was my first day back at work after a nice long four-day weekend. Before we reached the weekend however, we had to go out for dinner on Wednesday night (July 1) to celebrate making it through June, which we affectionately dubbed ‘Health Month’. Jessica and the kids picked me up from work that day and we headed straight to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. Not surprisingly, dinner was delicious, but all that greasy cheesy food didn’t do my stomach any favors. For the rest of the evening I had a stomach ache, but I wasn’t going to let it stop me from enjoying the concert we attended after dinner, or the frozen yogurt we had later on for desert. The concert, ‘British Invasion Rock ‘n Roll’, was the first of the Wednesday night Summer Concert Series at Mill Creek Town Center. The band played a variety of hits by groups like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and several others. They actually sounded really good, and the girls had a blast dancing and running around throughout the show.

After dinner we picked up frozen yogurt at a place near our house, then headed home to sit in the front yard and enjoy our sweet treats. The yogurt certainly didn’t help my stomach ache, but it did taste good. I was a bit jealous of Jessica, who wasn’t affected at all by everything we ate, but this is my new reality. Afterwards I went onto my Fitbit account and logged the foods we’d had. When I saw that I had consumed more calories in just those couple hours than I had in any entire day throughout the month of June, I couldn’t help but feel a bit down about it. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with going out and enjoying yourself from time to time, but when it makes you feel like crap you can’t help but wonder if it’s actually worth it. No biggie either way though, we had a lot of fun that night and plan on attending more of those Wednesday night concerts throughout the Summer.

Saturday, which was the 4th of July, turned out to be a really fun and busy day. When I woke up that morning and came downstairs, Rick was already sitting at our kitchen table having a cup of coffee. He and Chris flew into town the night before and will be here until tomorrow afternoon. Since it was Dana’s birthday we called her and had a nice chat; definitely looking forward to seeing her at Elise’s birthday party. We wanted to get the kids out to play that day so we went back to Forest Park in Everett, which is where we went last year for Rick’s 4th of July visit. Grandma Chris came to join us shortly thereafter and enjoyed watching the kids play in the playground while Rick and I played frisbee in the adjacent field. Later that evening we were joined by Butch and Carol, who came over to enjoy the neighborhood holiday festivities. There was a big barbeque in the early evening, then we all settled in to watch the fireworks, which were being shot off in every direction. Rick grilled up some beautiful steaks for everyone to enjoy, and there was no shortage of Dungeness crab to chow down on since our neighbors had been out on the Sound two days in a row filling up their pots. Another highlight of the evening was when my neighbor Mike took Rick, Butch and I down to his garage to check out his beautiful 1957 Chevy, which he recently finished rebuilding. It was a long day, but tons of fun.

Sunday was a day I’ve been looking forward to for several months because Michael Don Rico and I had tickets to the Van Halen concert at the White River Amphitheater down in Auburn. We wanted to make a full day out of it, so I met up with him in Seattle at 12:30 and we just headed south without much of a plan. We ended up going to a park on Lake Tapps and hung out there for a few hours swimming, playing frisbee, and catching up. It was super hot that day but the water was perfect, and you’re so close to Mt. Rainier that it feels like it’s just looming directly over you. I’ve never been to Lake Tapps before but it was beautiful. After picking up food at a nearby grocery store we headed over to the concert venue well before showtime. The concert was everything I wanted it to be and we had an awesome time. Kenny Wayne Shepherd band, which was the opening act, was really good, and Van Halen played every song I wanted to hear. The people-watching throughout the crowd was pretty entertaining as well.

After the show we decided to take our time in terms of leaving. We had heard horror stories about the traffic getting out of there, mainly because you’re stuck on a two-lane road for 5 miles with 20,000 other people. By the time we got to the car we decided to pull out the lawn chairs and relax while everyone else fought to get out of there. Michael had brought a cigar to smoke, and I didn’t have to work on Monday, so we just hung out for an hour or so talking about the show and eating snacks. Unfortunately there was one downside, which was that my phone must have slipped out of my pocket while I was sitting in my lawn chair. I didn’t realize it was gone until the following morning, which meant that for the first time in my life, I had lost my phone. I was pretty disappointed about it, mainly because I never do that sort of thing, but it was an honest accident. Luckily I have insurance on my phone, so all I had to do was file a claim and pay a small deductible to get a replacement. My phone was nearly two years old, meaning they don’t make that model anymore, and I’m not very happy with what I’m getting as a replacement, but I just need it to hold me over until the new iPhone comes out this fall. All things considered it was no big deal; losing my wallet or wedding ring would have been much worse, so I decided not to dwell on it. I’m just glad we got to have such a fun day together.

While I was off reliving my youth on Sunday with an old pal, the rest of the family decided to go downtown and take the kids to the aquarium. The following day I heard plenty of exciting stories from the girls about all the creatures they saw. Ava was playing with a toy Orca whale she got at the gift shop, so I commented on it by saying “hey that’s a nice little whale you’ve got there Ava” and she replied “it’s not a whale daddy, it’s an orker.” Monday was my final day off, but it turned out to be pretty productive. Rick and I had to get back to work on the dog run because Bella has been getting out again. She even managed to break the fence! With Rick’s help we were able to build a new gate, as well as reinforce the loose fence post by pouring concrete. At this point it’s like a fortress over there and I’m (mostly) confident that Bella’s jailbreaking days are over. Only time will tell though.

Today, while I was at work, the rest of the family spent the day at Woodland Park Zoo. I’m looking forward to hearing about it once I get home. As usual, the long weekend that you’ve been looking forward to for so long ends up flying by in the blink of an eye. Thank you to Rick and Chris for coming out to visit us and making it such a memorable holiday. July is going to be a very busy month for us, so this was a great way to start things off. Next up we’ve got Madi coming over for another sleepover on Friday night, then Saturday we’ll be doing a small birthday party for Elise with Kristy, Madi, Jim and Brenda. Should be a lot of fun. Here’s a few pictures from our holiday weekend.

Today we celebrated Enzo turning 5 months old by going to our first baseball game as a family. Rather than fight the crowds in Seattle, we decided to attend an Everett Aquasox game, which is the Single A short-season minor league franchise of the Seattle Mariners. I’ve never been to a minor league baseball game before, but honestly it was a lot of fun. The atmosphere is very family friendly, the people working at the ballpark are also very friendly, and the crowds are very small. There was a friendly police officer who kept coming over to play with the kids, and Ava thought it was hilarious to keep taking his hat. He was a good sport about it though.

We sat in the General Admission section, which was perfect because it allowed the girls to run around rather than be stuck in a seat the whole time. Today’s game was the ‘Mascot game’, meaning there were at least a dozen mascots running around the ballpark taking pictures and doing fun stuff between innings. At one point Ava was saying ‘hi’ from a distance to the mascots in the next section over. She says “Hi frog, hi hotdog, hi clam, hi Santa.” I’m like, Santa? Then I realize she’s talking to the old guy with the long white beard who works at the ballpark. Of course he heard her, but luckily he got a big kick out of it. Only Ava…

Our friends Jamie and Melissa, along with their 2 year old daughter Ellie, joined us for the game, which made it even more fun. The capstone to the game was letting all the kids go out on the field and run around the bases. Ava got around remarkably fast, while Elise decided to sit and rest a couple times between bases. It was a funny way to end a nice afternoon.

Last week was pretty crazy for me, both at work and at home, but this week marks the start of back-to-back 4 day work weeks, separated by a 4 day weekend. Not only was last week extremely busy for me at work, but Jessica also worked two nights, meaning I was back on full-time dad duty for both of those nights. Luckily I don’t have any crazy stories about either of my nights, and I can say with confidence that each night we spend together without Mom gets a little easier. Friday night I was even able to give Enzo 3.5 ounces of milk from a bottle, as well as a good amount of solid baby food. This was by far the most success I’ve had feeding him, so that was encouraging.

Tomorrow is Ava’s last day in day care. She’s going to take the summer off, then start attending preschool in September. At this point she’s basically on a normal school schedule that any kid would have, but she’ll go to preschool for two years before entering kindergarten. I’m not sure what the plan is for Elise regarding day care and preschool, but it will be at least another year before she starts anything like that. We’ve been talking about getting them into some type of activity together, maybe a dance class or something similar, so we’ll see how that turns out.

Tuesday is the last day of the month, meaning we will have made it through our health month successfully. I must admit that I cheated a bit today by eating some popcorn at the baseball game, but I’m not too worried about it. Considering that’s the worst thing I’ve had all month I think it’s okay. There’s no question that it’s working, and we’re continuing to see results; I weighed myself yesterday and at this point I’m down 12 pounds from when we started. It’s certainly not all about weight loss, but that can be a nice way of quantifying your success. Ultimately it’s about making long-term changes to improve our health, and not surprisingly it’s starting to rub off on the girls. Suddenly they’re more open to eating raw veggies because they constantly see us eating them. The other thing we’re noticing is that our appetites have shrunk significantly; it simply doesn’t take nearly as much food to fill us up. All that being said, I can’t wait to go out for Mexican food and frozen yogurt on Wednesday night. I think we’ve earned it.

Wednesday night will be fun not only because of the delicious meal we’ll be having, but we will also be attending a free concert at the Mill Creek Town Center. It’s part of a series of concerts going on every Wednesday night, each one with a different theme. The theme for this week is British Invasion Rock ‘n Roll, so we can expect to hear lots of tunes by the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Some of the other nights we hope to attend this summer include Classic Rock, Blues & Soul night, and Rock from the 70’s & 80’s night.

With June coming to an end, that means we can expect things to start getting very busy for us. Rick and Chris will be visiting for the holiday weekend, and I’ll be going to the Van Halen concert down at the White River amphitheater on Sunday night with Rico. We’re going to have Madi over for another sleepover the following week, then do an early birthday party for Elise with Kristy, Madi, Jim and Brenda that Saturday. There is a chance that my Mom will be coming up for that as well, so hopefully that works out. The weekend after that we’ll be doing another party for Elise with Amy, Tom, Dana (and family) plus a few friends.

Amy hasn’t been out since Enzo was born so she’s going to stick around for a while on this visit. Having her here will be a big help for Jessica, whom I know is ready for a break. We’re going to take advantage by going to a Mariners game the day before my birthday, then dinner that evening. I’ve got plenty of personal days to use at work, so I’m taking Wednesday the 29th off so we can go to the game and dinner, then Thursday the 30th (my birthday) off as well. Should be a lot of fun.

There isn’t too much else to update on. Enzo is growing fast and rolling over regularly; he seems noticeably stronger and heavier. We’re still working on potty training with Ava and only having moderate success. Some days she does great, while other days are a hair-pulling catastrophe. I know we’ll get there soon enough but I honestly never thought it would be this challenging. Guess that’s about it for now; there will definitely be a lot more to write about in July. Here’s a few photos from the past few days.

Ava looking patriotic

Elise feeding Pippo a bottle

Enzo hanging out in the backyard

Hanging out in the bleachers

Ava wearing the police officer’s hat

Family photo on our way out of the ballpark

Mom and her little ball player

5 months old

I think it’s probably safe to say that today was the best Father’s Day I’ve had yet. In addition to keeping busy all day with lots of fun activities, it was my first Father’s Day with all three of my kids, so that made it extra special. However before I get into the fun day that we had today, I first need to share the misery that I experienced earlier this week.

Thursday night Jessica had to work at El Gaucho, so that means I was home alone with the kids. As you may know from reading these posts, this was only the second time I’ve been home alone for an entire evening with the kids. The first time didn’t go very well, specifically because Enzo refuses to eat when I try to feed him, but I was confident (more like hopeful) that this time would be different.

Jessica and the kids met me at work on Thursday afternoon, we exchanged cars, and the kids and I headed home in the van. We got home at about 5:00pm and the first hour went great. No problems with the girls, and Enzo didn’t make a peep. For a second I remember thinking we were home free and in for an easy night. Then the crying began. Enzo started crying at 6:00 and I kid you not when I say that he did not stop until 9:30. No exaggeration. For 3.5 hours I tried everything I could possibly think of: bottles of milk, solid foods, walking around in the house, walking around outside, bouncing on my knee, changing his diaper, sitting in his bouncy chair, giving him a toy to hold onto, laying in his crib, etc. I did everything I could think of several times over, but nothing worked. He just kept crying, and I fell into a downward spiral of hopelessness.

Eventually I ended up laying him down in his pack ‘n play, which is in our living room, and pulled up a chair to sit with him. No matter what the crying continued and there was nothing I could do. Seeing those big alligator tears streaming down his face made me feel horrible, and I knew he was hungry, but he simply refused to eat. All he wanted to do was cry, and I just had to sit there and take it.

At a certain point, around 8:30, Elise was sitting in my lap next to Enzo’s pack ‘n play, and she fell asleep in my arms. I don’t know how she could sleep through all that commotion, but she passed out regardless. I moved her over to the couch and resumed my post sitting next to Enzo. Finally at 9:30 he fell asleep and I felt rejoiced. I couldn’t believe it was finally over, so after a minute or two I headed over to my office to relax. If it wasn’t for the diet we’re on this month I definitely would have poured myself a drink, but no, I was more than happy enough to sit in my office and just enjoy the silence.

A little earlier in the evening I had gone upstairs to check on Ava and she was doing fine. I got her into pajamas and set her up with something to watch on TV. I hadn’t been in my office for more than 10 minutes when I see Ava coming up to me with no pants or diaper on. As you may know, we’ve been working on potty training with her, but honestly it’s not going very well. She is the epitome of a strong-willed child, so getting her potty trained has been more difficult than we ever could have expected. She has recently developed the bad habit of taking her diaper off, particularly when she has to poop. I get the logic; she doesn’t want to walk around in a poopy diaper, but the problem is that she will take her diaper off and literally poop anywhere. We keep explaining to her that the potty is the only place she is allowed to poop, but she just doesn’t get it (or refuses to get it, which is probably more likely). Not too long ago she pooped in our cul-de-sac right in front of the neighbors. I was at work when it happened but of course Jessica was mortified.

When I saw Ava approaching me with no diaper on I knew there was a problem, but I had no idea how bad it really was. I jumped out of my chair to see what was going on and as I approached her I instantly saw that her hands, feet, and legs were all covered in poop. She had obviously removed her diaper, pooped somewhere in the house, then smeared it all over herself. I couldn’t believe it. After the night I had already had with Enzo this just didn’t seem possible. Remember, I was only 10 minutes relieved from the nightmare I’d endured with him, so her timing was impeccable.

I immediately brought her to the bathroom and started scrubbing her down. While getting her clean I repeatedly asked her (rather harshly) why she had done this. I kept telling her that this is not okay and that Mommy would be very upset about this. It probably took 10 minutes to get her clean, but it wasn’t over yet; I still needed to clean the area where she pooped. I asked her to take me to the spot of the crime, so she took my hand and lead me to her bedroom. Once we arrived there she pointed to a spot on her pink shag carpet, but at first glance there was nothing there. I got down on my knees to look a little closer and only found the tiniest little poop pellet. This didn’t make sense. I knew there had to be more than this, so I looked even closer and what I found was a little tuft of Bella’s hair. Remember that Bella isn’t allowed in the girl’s bedroom, so finding her hair in there could only mean one thing – Bella ate the poop.

At this point I was equal parts angry and disgusted, but in the back of my mind I could see the humor. I knew there was humor in all of this, but I was incapable of consciously acknowledging it. I was too heated by the culmination of the night’s events. The good news is that there was no mess to clean up, so I headed downstairs to sulk on the couch. Not a minute later Bella came down and proceeded to pant her nasty hot breath right in my face. Needless to say, it smelled like shit.

By the time Jessica got home after midnight she found Elise and I asleep on the couch, Ava passed out on the living room floor, and Enzo wide awake in his pack ‘n play, not making a sound, but looking at her as if to say “Finally!” I wish I could say that I wouldn’t have to worry about this again anytime soon but the unfortunate reality is that Jessica will be working two more shifts next week. Stay tuned for the next adventurous tale of yours truly, the dopey dad, and the three niños running the show. I can’t wait.

Before I get to the great day we today I’ll quickly say that our ‘Health Month’ is continuing to go really well and we’re consistently seeing results. At this point we’ve both lost nearly 10 pounds, and more importantly, we’re feeling great. Earlier this week I used part of my fitness allowance at Microsoft to purchase a Fitbit, and I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying it. I wear it all day and night, and it tracks everything I do. At any point in the day I can see how many steps I’ve taken, why my pulse is, how far I’ve walked, how many flights of stairs I’ve climbed, and how many calories I’ve burned. Everything gets logged to a website that I can check from the computer, or with the Fitbit mobile app on my phone. In an effort to increase my stats, I’m finding myself running up two flights of stairs at work every time I need to use the restroom or fill my water bottle. It’s gamification at it’s finest.

The other cool thing is that I’m logging everything I eat on the Fitbit website, which means I can see how many calories, carbs, grams of protein, fiber, etc are in each of my meals. I’ve never watched what I eat so closely before but I’m finding it very interesting. You can’t help but feel good about yourself when you see that you’ve burned 2,500 calories in a day and only consumed 1,500. The other cool thing is that it tracks my sleep patterns and graphs it all out on the website. On any given day I can look and see exactly how long I slept, when I was awoken throughout the night, and what my ‘sleep efficiency rating’ is. For someone like me who likes to nerd out on data, this is awesome. I don’t even have to set an alarm on my phone anymore because my Fitbit has a built-in silent alarm. If you’re considering getting one (or something similar) I would definitely recommend it.

Okay, finally onto today, which is Father’s Day. We started off the day meeting up with Uncle Jim, Aunt Brenda, Kristy, and her friend Edgar at a car show in Burien. When I was in high school Jim and Brenda used to take me to tons of car shows, so the idea of going to a show with them made perfect sense. We walked around and checked out all the beautiful rides. Jessica and I have been somewhat interested in the idea of a classic truck lately, so we paid particular attention to those, plus I fell in love with a beautiful convertible GTO Judge. Strangely enough there was a stuffed tiger sitting on the back of the car, and since Elise loves tigers so much, she was instantly attracted to it. We were both in love with that particular car, but for wildly (get it? – wildly) different reasons.

After walking around for a while we settled in near the stage to watch a variety of performers. The girls love live music and once again they practically stole the show dancing in front of the stage. I think Ava even took a bow at one point. To say that Ava likes the spotlight would be
a total understatement.

We left the car show at 1:30 and headed to Lincoln Park in West Seattle to attend the 2nd birthday for our friends Jodi and Leon’s son Miles. There was a great turnout and we got a chance to catch up with lots of our old friends from the restaurant business. There was a ton of delicious food available, but Jessica and I held strong. The unhealthiest thing we had all day was a bit of pulled pork, but we never delved into the sweets. I know it was tough for Jessica so I was proud of her. We ended up hanging out there for about three hours and had an absolute blast. The weather was perfect, there were tons of great people to talk to, and there was a big playground for the kids to enjoy. All in all it was a great way to spend a Sunday.

As expected the kids slept all the way home, which gave us time to have a nice long talk with Rick about his day, and their upcoming trip for the 4th of July. We gave the kids a bath once we got home and at this point they’re all exhausted and temperamental. I’m hoping we can get the girls to settle down and watch a movie. I recorded the final round of the US Open (which is being played down in Tacoma at Chambers Bay golf course) and will be watching that for the rest of the evening. To all the Dads in our lives, Happy Father’s Day; we hope each of you had a great day. Time to go make a nice salmon dinner and enjoy the remained of this awesome day with my babes. If every Father’s Day is as good as this one I think I’ll be doing all right.

Kristy and Edgar hanging with Enzo

Aunt Brenda and Baby Enzo

Uncle Jim and Enzo having fun

Enzo sees his first Ferrari

Elise and I with the GTO Judge (and the tiger)

Hanging out with my little guy

An instant classic. I love this picture so much.

Ava and Leon playing with the bubble rope

Daddy and his big girl

Our second week of ‘Health Month’ is drawing to a close and things are continuing to go well. For the second straight week we have stared temptation in the eye and slayed it with a barrage of carrot sticks, unsalted almonds, and fish filets. The plan, as it stands, is to continue doing what we’re doing for the month of June, then slowly start to allow fringe foods like cheese, beans, and brown rice back into our diet. As of July we’re also going to be allowing ourselves one ‘cheat day’ per week. This way we’ve always got something very nearby to look forward to when it comes to food. For now we already have plans to have dinner on Wednesday July 1 at our favorite Mexican restaurant, then after enjoying a local blues rock outdoor concert, take the kids (and ourselves) out for frozen yogurt. Should be a good night.

There have been plenty of temptations throughout the week for both of us, but together we stand strong. For Jessica, it usually comes when feeding the girls breakfast each morning, or when rewarding them with a piece of candy after using the toilet. For me it’s usually at work; earlier this week we had a breakfast potluck in my office, meaning I was surrounded all day with doughnuts, chocolate croissants, muffins, etc. Plus it’s not uncommon for our manager to buy us pizza for lunch if one of us does a lunchtime presentation about a particular technology. I’ve found at this point that I don’t care in the least about junk foods like doughnuts, nor do I miss sugary drinks or alcohol. I feel like I could go on easily without any of that stuff, but what I do miss is bread, pizza, and pasta. It’s all good though, this is why we’re soon going to have cheat days. The point of doing all this is so that we start paying attention to what we eat and therefore don’t eat all the wrong foods on a daily basis.

Results are starting to appear, albeit a bit slowly. We each weighed ourselves for the first time this morning and have each lost five pounds. The results were about what we expected; a bit underwhelming but better than nothing. After doing an image search of five pounds of fat I felt considerably better when I saw how much it was. The other thing for us to consider is that we’re both exercising on a regular basis, meaning we’re building muscle while we lose fat. I’m sure a more extreme change in diet would yield faster results, but something like that would also be harder to maintain for the long-term, and that’s exactly what this is about.

There hasn’t been a whole lot going on with us besides that. Ava is continuing to make progress with using the toilet. We’ve certainly still had our share of accidents, but they seem to be getting fewer and further between. The difficult part is when you feel that she does it on purpose as a way of testing you. Keeping calm is an important virtue that Jessica is definitely a step (or two) ahead of me on, but the way I see it, Ava is always going to be the guinea pig on these types of things because she’s the oldest. Most likely we will have an easier time with Elise and Enzo because we’ve already been through it, whatever ‘it’ may be.

This weekend has been a pretty nice mix of getting stuff done and relaxing around the house. Yesterday Elise and I took Ava to soccer, then went home to pick up Mommy and Enzo for a trip to Costco. We spent some time that afternoon watching the Women’s Soccer World Cup (Ava really enjoys watching the ‘Big Girls’ play soccer), then went to a ‘Draft Party’ at our next door neighbor’s house. Their son Alec was drafted this week as a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers farm system and will be heading out to Florida next week. Generally our neighborhood is willing to throw a party for just about anything, so this occasion was more than special enough for everyone to get together.

Today we all slept in (a rare treat) then got to work on reorganizing the garage. I’ve decided that reorganizing the garage is a thankless task because every three months it always feels like a disaster badly in need of some serious reorganization. Regardless, we got a ton of work done and are happy with the results. The rest of the evening will be spent preparing meals for this week (we got some beautiful fresh Alaskan King Salmon at Costco yesterday), and watching the NBA Finals.

Next Sunday, which is Father’s Day, should be fun because we will be attending a birthday party for Miles, the son of our friends Jodi and Leon. Other than that June looks like it should be pretty non-eventful, but that’s totally fine with me because July is going to be a whirlwind. We’ve got Rick and Chris coming out for a visit on 4th of July weekend, then I’ll be going to the Van Halen concert with Rico on Sunday July 5th. After Rick and Chris leave we’ll be having Madi over for another overnight visit, and there’s a chance that my Mom will be coming out for a quick visit. The following week we will have Amy and Tom in town for Elise’s second birthday, then at the end of the month I’m going to take a day off work so Jessica and I can fulfill our summer tradition of going to a weekday afternoon baseball game. Definitely a lot to look forward to, so for now we’ll enjoy the figurative (not literal) peace and quiet.

Future makeup artist

Ava doing her finest table pose

The many faces of Elise

Thumb sucker

Yesterday we drove down to Des Moines, picked up Madi, and brought her up to our neck of the woods for a fun sleepover with us and the kids. With the beautiful weather on our side, we piled into the minivan and promptly got stuck in typical Seattle traffic as we passed by the city. Our destination was the beach at Silver Lake, which is a small lake very close to our house, but it seemed like everything was working against us in getting there. Enzo was quite unhappy about all the stop and go traffic, and therefore proceeded to cry for what seemed like forever. He has this uncanny ability to know exactly when my right foot moves from the gas pedal to the brake pedal, and instantly lets out a strident shrill whenever he senses it.

Eventually we made our way through all the traffic, got off at our normal exit, and headed to the lake. As we approached from the other side of the lake I could see that it was much busier than normal. This wasn’t totally unexpected considering how nice the weather was, but I also noticed something else that seemed pretty unusual; there appeared to be some type of boat races going on. We made our way over to the entrance and could immediately see that something was going on. There were a few derelict teenagers posing as parking officials near the entrance, one of whom mentioned in passing that the lot was full. Undeterred, we took our chances and promptly found one of the few remaining parking spots.

As we unloaded the van I felt like we were more prepared for a week in the Alaskan wilderness than a day at the Silver Lake beach, but we eventually got everything in order and made our way down towards the water. As we approached the entrance I read the sign saying that there was a special event going on today, and that although admission was free, there would be no water or dock access, and limited access to the remaining facilities. Unbelievable. Of all the places we could have gone to we specifically chose Silver Lake because we’ve had fun there multiple times in the past and knew that it had everything we would need, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

We had come too far to turn around at this point, especially since everyone was exhausted from carrying everything down from the van to the lake, so we setup our beach umbrella, rolled out some blankets, propped up a chair, and proceeded to watch all the boats zoom their way around this relatively tiny lake. Jessica and I joked that had we stumbled upon this with a nine year old boy as our guest, he probably would have been thrilled, but it’s not exactly what we had planned for our afternoon with Madi.

We made the most of our situation, but it was difficult considering that it’s the hottest day of the year and we can’t get in the water. After about 45 minutes I called an audible and suggested we pack up, head home, and play in the sprinkler and kiddie pools in our backyard. Everyone seemed to agree, however we didn’t leave without casualties; our trusted set of sandbox toys was forgotten on the beach. Hopefully some kid found them and made use of them.

We got home and I quickly mowed the lawn so it would be ideal for running around on. We got the kiddie pools filled and the sprinkler turned on, then spent the next hour splashing and running around. Everyone but Elise seemed to have fun, but Weese just wasn’t into it. I remember Ava being the same way last summer, so I suppose it’s just her age. Either way, Ava, Madi and I had a blast playing in the water.

It didn’t take long to work up an appetite, so we eventually all sat down on the back patio for a snack in the sun. After that everyone was pooped, so we came inside to relax for a bit. Pretty soon Madi thought it would be fun to go to a park, so we all packed up in the van and headed to a brand new park near our house. We had fun playing there for a while, then stopped by a frozen yogurt place on the way home to get treats for the kids. Jessica and I have been eating super healthy since Monday (more on that in a bit) so watching them enjoy their treats was a bit difficult, but we didn’t cave.

After our early dessert we came inside to watch ‘Planes’, which is one of Madi’s favorite movies; this gave everyone a chance to relax for a bit. After the movie we had a late dinner, then settled back down to watch one more movie before bed. I’m sure Madi was up later than her normal bedtime, but it was a special occasion so hopefully Mom won’t mind. This morning we all had a nice breakfast together, then headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather some more. After coloring pretty pictures with sidewalk chalk on our back patio, we shifted our attention to playing in the front yard and driveway, then took a walk around the neighborhood to search for ducks and bullfrogs. By the time we got back from our walk it was time to come in, relax, have a snack and watch ‘Despicable Me 2’. Kristy should be here to pick Madi up soon, so thank you for letting us spend this time with her. Hopefully we can do it again very soon!

In addition to the fun we’ve had this weekend, we have also had a very interesting (and somewhat challenging) week for ourselves. As mentioned briefly above, this past Monday signified the start of a health movement for Jessica and I (and ultimately for the kids as well). Although I referred to it in my last post as a diet, I’m hesitating to use the ‘D’ word going forward for two main reasons: I think it has somewhat of a negative connotation, and I think it infers more of a short-term mindframe, while our plans are for making long-term changes.

To recap our goals from last week, we’re cutting out junk food, starch, and liquid calories. Our meals are focused on lean proteins, veggies, fruits, and nuts. We’re drinking a gallon of water a day, plus coffee and/or tea. Today is day 7 and, not surprisingly, we’re already noticing a difference. We’re feeling better with a noticeable increase in energy, and we’re even starting to notice some changes in the way some of our clothes are fitting. In addition to these changes in our meals, I’ve been doing yoga everyday, which I’m also starting to notice some changes from. I’m getting up earlier on weekdays (around 5:45) and doing 20-30 minutes of yoga to start my day.

We’re certainly not living under any false pretenses that we’re never going to eat another cookie or go a day without exercise in our lives. That’s obviously not the case, nor is it our intention, but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have months like this every so often to cleanse out your system. I think it’s equally important for us to get into a habit of modifying our meals going forward. We now know that we can eat super healthy and still have meals that we love. I’m not expecting myself to give up pasta and bread, or Jessica to give up brownies, but stuff like that needs to be a rare treat rather than the norm. All that being said, I can’t wait for our first ‘cheat day’, which will probably be on July 1.

The biggest adjustment so far has been meal preparation. It’s important for us to have the right things available to eat at all times, otherwise it’s too easy to cheat. I’m finding myself making two meals at night rather than one; one is for us to have for dinner that evening, and the other is for our lunches the following day. Obviously this is more time consuming than normal, but it’s good to know that we both have something hearty and nutritious to have for lunch, especially when I’m gone at work. Even if Jessica wanted to, there is no way she has time to prepare a good lunch for herself while watching the kids, so I’m glad she doesn’t have to worry about it.

Another adjustment for me is that I like to have a drink while I’m cooking. It’s usually only one or two, but I like to sip on a beer or a whiskey while in the kitchen. It’s just become something I associate with cooking, but now I’m replacing that with sparkling water and lemon. Again, it’s not like I’m never going to have another drink while making dinner, but breaking that habit is a good thing. It needs to be the exception, rather than the rule. Whenever I think about stuff like this I always come back to my Dad’s golden rule: “Moderation is the key to life. Too much of anything is no good, but a little bit of poison won’t kill you.”

As if all this isn’t enough to deal with (particularly in the first week) we’ve decided to complicate our lives even more by going full steam ahead on Ava’s potty training. As of Tuesday, Ava doesn’t wear a diaper during the daytime anymore. We still put one on her at bedtime, but that’s it. As expected, we were both a bit grumpy this week (for obvious reasons), so adding in the necessary patience required for this type of endeavor was challenging, to say the least. Overall Ava is doing well, but there are still daily accidents. Our general attitude is this: if she truly has an accident, you can’t get upset with her, but when she does something on purpose, she gets reprimanded.

An example of doing something on purpose would be walking up to you, pulling down your pants, and peeing on the carpet, or even worse, pooping in her room and smearing it everywhere. I wish these were fictitious examples, but of course they are not. In those cases Ava gets to learn about the word ‘consequences.’ I’ve been explaining to her that there are consequences in life, meaning when you do something wrong, you will have to suffer the consequence of it. She may not completely understand it yet, but she will soon enough. For now we’re just trying to keep our cool and rely on each other rather than some artificial crutch to get through the troubling times of raising a ‘threenager.’

As we have said many times before, someday we will look back to these types of issues that we’re currently dealing with and laugh about how good we used to have it. I can only imagine that dealing with a teenager is going to be much more challenging than dealing with a ‘threenager’, but at the same time it’s probably all relative. There’s always going to be a ‘phase’ that we’re currently in, and a subsequent light at the end of their proverbial tunnel for us to strive for. The important thing is that we get through it together.

Before I go I’ll also mention that Enzo had another checkup with the doctor this week and he’s doing great. He has grown so much lately that he’s suddenly in the 90th percentile for height, which is exactly where his sisters are as well. He got a few more vaccinations, which he obviously didn’t love, but pulled through like the little champ that he is. He is already outgrowing some clothes and getting ready to expand his diet to include rice cereal. Hopefully this will make it easier for someone other than Mom to feed him.

I also just realized that it was a year ago today that we signed the papers on our house. I remember last June as being such an important time for us; we purchased our first house and I graduated from college. It’s crazy that it has already been a year, but of course we’re already onto exciting new challenges. Once again, thank you to Madi and Kristy for making this such a special weekend. Here’s a couple photos of the girls during her stay, plus one of Kallan and I jamming during his visit last weekend.

I think it’s fair to say that the girls enjoyed their frozen yogurt

Yesterday baby Enzo turned 4 months old. It’s a bit hard to believe he has already been here that long, but he’s growing and maturing so fast that it all makes sense. He’s sleeping so much better at night now, and it doesn’t take much to coax a smile out of him. You can tell he already loves his sisters because he totally lights up whenever they approach and talk to him. I feel like he’s got the biggest eyes I’ve ever seen, mostly because he’s always so alert and interested in what is going on around him. He’s very sensitive to sounds and startles easily, which is usually followed by a look of sheer surprise and confusion.

The girls are both doing great as well. The weather has been really nice lately, so they’ve been spending a ton of time outside playing in the yard, the sandbox, riding bikes/trikes, etc. As mentioned in a previous post, Ava is doing really well on her balance bike, so hopefully it won’t be long before she graduates to a pedal bike. Elise loves riding her tricycle, but is usually just as content to be pulled in the wagon. It’s not uncommon for me to come home from work and find them playing outside together. You can’t help but smile watching them running around having so much fun.

We had a nice holiday weekend recently, which included some painting in my office and the guest bathroom upstairs, as well as a fun trip to a car show in downtown Everett on Monday. Not only did we enjoy checking out the ~700 cars on display, but we ran into our neighbor Mike, who was showing his beautiful 1957 Chevy, as well as my co-worker Josh who was there with his family showing his 1966 Dodge Dart and his Uncle’s 1970 Pontiac 442. As a GTO fan, I was blown away by how many I saw at this show (at least 20 including an Orange GTO Judge) and couldn’t help but fall in love with a black on black 1964 GTO. We also enjoyed watching a band of old guys play great songs from the 60’s. I joked to Jessica that someday I would be one of those old guys rocking out on stage, and she replied by pointing out this old Granny showing off her moves near the stage and saying that would someday have to be her then. The girls absolutely loved the live music and couldn’t stop dancing and spinning around. They drew so much attention that even the guys in the band were enjoying them. Jessica and I couldn’t help but laugh. We also saw a Pacific Northwest version of Elvis, who had the perfect hair and glasses, but was dressed in a fleece jacket and blue jeans. Good times.

Tomorrow should be a fun day, as well as an interesting night. We’ve got Ava’s soccer class in the morning, then our nephew Kallan is coming over for a visit at noon. This will be his first time meeting Enzo, so that should be fun. Hopefully we’ll also be able to squeeze in some time to play guitar together. Later that evening Jessica will be heading downtown to work a shift at El Gaucho. Although she isn’t going back to work on any type of regular basis, she told them that she could be available from time to time for special events. This will be her first time working since Enzo was born, and I’m happy for her simply because it allows her to get out of the house and spend some time with adults without having to worry about any of the kids. My only concern is that Enzo has never taken a bottle from me, so feeding him may be an issue. Strangely enough this will be my first time home alone with all three kids for more than an hour or so. I’m sure everything will be totally fine, and if anything it’s long overdue, I just hope Enzo figures out this bottle thing sooner than later.

Sunday we’re heading to Costco with a different type of shopping list than usual. Jessica and I have decided to go on a diet together starting on Monday, so we need to load up on all the right groceries. I told a couple friends at work about our upcoming diet and the question I got from both of them was “Oh, which diet are you doing?” I didn’t really have an answer for them other than to say “a sensible one.” We’re not doing any type of fad diet; nothing with a name or anything like that. We’re simply cutting out junk food, starch, and liquid calories. We’ll mainly be eating lean proteins, lots of vegetables and nuts, plus some fruits. As for beverages, we’re limiting ourselves to water, coffee, and tea. That’s it. I realize it’s pretty boring, and it probably wouldn’t sell any books because there is nothing particularly extreme or exciting about it, but it’s sensible, and that’s what I like about it. I’m just glad we’re doing it together; I don’t think either of us would have the fortitude to go through with it if the other one wasn’t doing it, but together I have no concerns.

I think the biggest adjustment for us will be to make sure to always have appropriate snacks on hand, and to eat more frequently. I generally only eat lunch and dinner each day, and both meals tend to be large, with lots of starch. The goal is to eat smaller, healthier, more frequent meals and snacks throughout the day. Most likely I’ll spend time Sunday afternoon preparing as many appropriate snacks and meals as possible to help prepare us for the first week, which will undoubtedly be the toughest phase of the diet. After two weeks we’re going to evaluate everything and decide what to do next, so for now all we have to think about is the first two weeks of June. Most likely we will continue on the same course beyond those two weeks, but I’m not even thinking about that for now.

Not much else going on for us these days, hence the short(er) post this week. Not even many new pictures to share, but here’s a couple 🙂

Earlier this week my Mom went home after spending a nice long weekend with us. She arrived last Friday after completing Card Player Cruises’ annual trip to Alaska, and stayed with us until Tuesday. This was an especially exciting trip for her, and for us, because it was her first time meeting baby Enzo in person. I vividly remember her meeting Ava for the first time at our little house in Pacific Beach , as well as her first time holding Elise at our house in Bellevue. There was no way I was going to miss this first encounter with Enzo, so I decided to work from home that day, which was a first for me since joining Microsoft in early March.

As usual, Nana arrived with lots of presents in tow for the kids. Some of the highlights included light-up Easter Bunny glasses, new clothes, and best of all, two brand new pink ‘Daisy Rock’ acoustic guitars for the girls. She found these guitars on a Las Vegas auction website and purchased them from a music store that was going out of business for pennies on the dollar. In all honesty I couldn’t believe how nice they were. I was expecting something that was more of a toy, but these are actually really nice guitars. They are scaled down in size in order to be easier for a child to play, and in this case they’ve got the whole Daisy Rock little girl theme going on. For now we’ve only taken one out of the box and are keeping the other one wrapped up. Neither of the girls are old enough to take on an instrument quite yet, but I love the idea of keeping this guitar on display and easily accessible for them. It is there for them to play with, so hopefully inspiration will strike sooner than later.

One of my favorite things to do for my Mom while she is in town is cook for her. I know she doesn’t take the time to cook nice meals for herself (unless she’s having family over for dinner) so it’s important to me that she always eats well while visiting us. After finishing up working from home on Friday, Ava and I went to Costco to load up on groceries and supplies, then later that evening I served three grilled filet mignon, grilled vegetables, and a tomato burrata salad. It was a nice way to start off her visit.

The following morning we got ready for soccer, and of course Nana came along to watch Ava play. Unfortunately, however, the class was cancelled because Ava’s coach was sick. We didn’t know this because we didn’t check the website before class (we never do) so we were pretty surprised when we arrived at an empty field. There were several other kids and parents there who also didn’t get the memo, so several of us made our way over to the adjacent playground to let the kids have some fun before heading back home.

Upon arriving back at our house I got back to work in the kitchen. I wanted to make my Mom a nice belated Mother’s Day brunch, so she, Jessica, and I enjoyed another version of Eggs Benedict. This time I did a crab prosciutto Benedict with homemade hollandaise and hash browns. Pretty similar to what I had made for Jessica the previous weekend, but this dish had crab instead of smoked salmon. After brunch we all got ready for a nice day out and about. We knew we’d be staying home on Sunday, so it made sense to get the kids out for a bit of an adventure on Saturday, plus it was nice to finally be spending a weekend doing something other than yardwork.

We all went down to the Ballard Locks to watch the ships come in and see the water levels change. Nana told the girls stories of doing the same thing on huge ships going through the Panama Canal. We walked all around the gardens, smelled the flowers, and enjoyed ourselves with no real agenda at hand. After that we drove just a bit up the road to Golden Gardens and let the girls play on the playground for a while. Before leaving we took them down to the beach to let them play in the sand and look at the water. By the time we got home everyone was exhausted, which was exactly what we were going for, so the rest of the evening was spent relaxing at home. Since I still had leftover crab and prosciutto from brunch, I used it to make a nice pasta for dinner.

Sunday we stayed home because we had plans with Dana, Brad and Anna. The three of them came over at 2:00 for a nice visit, as well as an early dinner. We watched some basketball and played soccer in the backyard. It’s so nice having a usable backyard now, and Bella seems to have adjusted nicely to her kennel, so it’s all good. After playing outside with the kids, I got to work making dinner for everybody. While at Costco with Ava, I picked up a nice wild Alaskan King Salmon, so we had that for dinner on Sunday. I tried a new preparation where I seasoned it with salt, pepper, chili powder, and brown sugar, then seared it skin-side down in my cast iron skillet. I deglazed the pan with lemon juice, then added a fair amount of garlic butter before placing the entire skillet in the oven and letting it bake for another 10-12 minutes. I was really happy with how it turned out, but the ultimate compliment came from Anna, who said she normally doesn’t like salmon but thought this was delicious.

Monday was Nana’s last day in town, so Jessica and I decided to take advantage by going out that evening for sushi. Going out to dinner just amongst ourselves is a pretty rare treat these days, and of course Nana was more than happy to stay home with her grandbabies. We had a really nice meal, and even made a point to stop by a popular neighborhood bar for a quick after-dinner drink. I was sad to see my Mom go home on Tuesday, mainly because her trip went by so quickly, but I’m so glad she was here. I love watching her play with the kids and wish we got a chance to do it more often. It sounds like she will be coming back up in July for Elise’s birthday party, so that’s definitely something to look forward to.

It’s been pretty busy around here for the past several weeks. We’ve had back-to-back-to-back visitors, so now it’s time for some downtime. We don’t really have any plans until July, but we need to enjoy it because July is going to be a crazy month. Rick and Chris are coming out for the 4th of July, then right after they leave Amy and Tom will be arriving to help us do new flooring in our house. As soon as we finish all the housework we’re going to do a (late) 2nd birthday party for Elise and hopefully have lots of people over. I’m not really looking forward to the flooring project because I know how much work it’s going to be, but I also know I’m going to learn a lot and I can’t wait to see the finished product.

In other family news, the kids are all doing so well. Enzo is sleeping for longer and longer stretches throughout the night. In fact, just last night he slept from 10:00 pm to 6:45 am, which is easily the best night he has ever had. He’s growing so fast and continues to show more and more personality each day. Elise’s vocabulary continues to amaze us; her ability to put together sentences is most impressive, and we probably have Ava to thank for that. There is no doubt that Ava wasn’t communicating this well at that age, but that’s probably because Ava didn’t have an older sibling to learn from the way Elise does. Although Ava still has a hard time sharing her toys with Elise, it’s obvious how much she loves her little sister. What’s equally as obvious is how much Elise looks up to Ava. She copies most of Ava’s actions (which is a double-edged sword) and does her absolute best to keep up with her when playing outside with the neighborhood kids.

As for Ava, it looks like June will be her last month going to daycare on Mondays. Considering all the family we’ll have in town, it doesn’t really make sense keeping her there in July, then come September she (should) be ready for preschool. I say ‘should’ because we absolutely have to get this potty training thing figured out with her. If we don’t she won’t be able to start preschool on time. Honestly I never expected it to be this much of an ordeal, but we’re just not there yet. During Nana’s visit she went about 20 hours between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon without the need of a diaper, and we really thought we had turned the corner, but after Nana left we’ve had another regression. It’s the classic ‘two steps forward, one step back’ scenario. The weird part about it is that Ava knows exactly when she has to go potty, and when she has gone potty. Her new standard is to come and ask you to change her diaper as soon as she goes (either number 1 or number 2), so we’re really trying to get her to tell us before she goes so that we can go sit on the potty. Jessica and I both talk to her constantly about it, and she always says she understands, but as the saying goes – “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…” or in this case pee. I know we’ll get there soon enough, but I also know how stubborn she can be, so hopefully she will decide for herself that she doesn’t want to wear diapers any longer.

Beyond that everything is great. Ava has become good friends with a little girl named Avery who lives two doors down from us. They go outside and ride bikes in our cul-de-sac almost everyday. Ava is still on her balance bike (a bike without pedals) but she’s doing so well with it that we’re thinking of getting her a real bike this summer. I love watching her cruise up and down the street on that thing, so hopefully the transition to a pedal bike will be a natural one for her. I also love the idea of getting Elise on the balance bike later this summer, but I’m reluctant that this point because Elise struggles with balance more than Ava ever did. I mean that in the kindest way possible, and her lack of gracefulness has certainly become one of her most endearing qualities, but lets just say it’s not uncommon for Elise to fall down… a lot. She’s constantly fall off chairs, running into doors/walls, tripping over things, etc. The other day she tried crawling into Enzo’s vibrating chair, which was on top of the ottoman, and the next thing I know she has tumbled backwards head over heels right into the sliding glass door. She turned out to be fine but it provided a scare for her, as well as for us. I have to hand it to her though, she’s a tough cookie just like her sister, and no matter how many times she falls she always gets back up and keeps on going.

This is my first holiday weekend since joining Microsoft, so we’re all looking forward to having some nice relaxing downtime together. Today (Saturday) will be our work day, so I’m hoping to get a lot done around the house, then hopefully the rest of the weekend will be pretty laid back. I think we’re going to check out a car show in downtown Everett on Monday morning (our first since leaving California), then that evening we’ll be joining our neighbors for a barbeque. Here are some recent photos taken during our visit with Nana.

Elise in her Easter Bunny glasses

The little Hawkeye

Enzo showing off that smile

Ava checking out her new guitar

Ava taking a selfie with her new glasses on

Having fun at Golden Gardens

Nana holding baby Enzo for the first time

Before I get to the nice weekend we have been enjoying, I want to send my love to my Uncle Jim. When I called my Aunt Brenda this morning to wish her a happy Mother’s Day I got the news that Jim was hospitalized last night due to some type of stomach virus. She didn’t know much about what was wrong, which made it even worse, and was obviously and understandably upset. I was very concerned after our call, but my concerns were mostly alleviated after I spoke to Jim shortly thereafter. He said he was on antibiotics and feeling much better, so that was a relief to hear. Looks like he will be in the hospital one more night, then heading home tomorrow. I just hope he’s continuing to feel better. We love you.

Now onto the fun stuff. It seems like every weekend for the past month or so has been taken out of the movie ‘Groundhog’s Day.’ Each one seems to be filled with common elements consisting of: soccer practice for Ava, time spent with family or friends, and lots of yardwork. This weekend was no different.

We started off Saturday morning by taking Ava to soccer; this week was particularly interesting because the kids played their first scrimmage. Watching it was hilarious. Basically what they did was separate the kids into two teams and gather the teams on opposite ends of the field in front of their respective goals. One team was given the ball, and as soon as the whistle was blown both teams charged towards each other screaming at the top of their lungs. It resembled a Viking battle more than a soccer game, but it was quite entertaining. As expected, every kid on the field is going for the ball, meaning there is no spacing or passing of any kind, but they all seemed to have fun. Our homework for the week is to sit down and watch a real soccer game; obviously I’ll be happy to oblige.

After getting home from soccer I got to work on my new project in the back yard. The goal was to build a path from our patio to the dog kennel. I was hoping to do all the digging on Saturday, then take care of laying/leveling the paver stones and filling in the empty spaces with mulch today. It’s a pretty decent sized area (15’ by 4.5’) so I knew I’d have my hands full considering I wouldn’t have the help of Rick or Joel this weekend, but I was confident that I could get it all done. As I hoped, I got all of the digging done on Saturday afternoon, and once again our yard waste bin is completely filled to the brim with grass and dirt. This was definitely the hardest part of the project.

By the time I finished digging out my path I had barely enough time to shower, change clothes, and head down to Seattle for our friend Laurel’s going-away party. It was a bit surreal for me because the building Laurel is moving out of is the same one I used to live in when Jessica and I first met about eight years ago. Jessica has been there many times to visit Laurel over the past couple years, but I haven’t set foot in that building since moving out, so seeing my kids running around there was a trip.

One of the best parts of that building is the beautiful rooftop deck, which features 360 degree views of downtown Seattle and the Puget Sound. We ended up spending a few hours up there eating, drinking, and catching up with friends. It was the hottest day of the year so far; it even reached 80 degrees at one point. We all had a great time, but saying goodbye was understandably difficult. I was actually really impressed with how well Jessica and Laurel kept their composure. I know Laurel regularly reads this blog, so hopefully she will always be in the loop with what is going on with us. I hope they have a safe and (relatively) uneventful cross country drive on their way to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Since today is Mother’s Day, there is one thing you know for certain will be going on in our house: we’ll be eating well. Based on all of our years in the restaurant business, Jessica and I both have an aversion towards eating out on really busy days like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. Consequently we always make a point to have a nice meal at home and avoid the crowds. Over the past few years I’ve made a tradition out of making some form of Eggs Benedict for Jessica on Mother’s Day; partly because we both love it, and partly because there are practically endless possibilities on what ingredients you can use. This year’s dish featured candied smoked Alaskan Sockeye salmon, fried prosciutto, sourdough English muffins, homemade hollandaise, and crispy hash browns.

After brunch we got out our phones and started calling all the Mom’s in our lives to give them our love and wish them a wonderful day. We spoke to Aunt Brenda, Amy, my Mom (who is currently on a work trip in Alaska), Sherry (Jessica’s Grandma), and Dana. We also left voicemails for my cousin Kristy and my Aunt Norma. It was nice catching up with everyone, and I’m so glad we were able to make plans to get together with Dana and family next Sunday. The only tough part was that I was very concerned about Uncle Jim (I hadn’t spoke to him yet at that point). After all the calls I was noticeably upset, so I interrupted Elise from watching Mickey Mouse to give her a big hug and kiss. She looked me in the eye, and with the sweetest little voice she said “I love you Daddy.” She knew.

At this point it was time to get back to work in the backyard, so I made my first of two trips to Lowe’s to get supplies for the project. I ended up spending the majority of the day working on the path but I’m so happy with how it turned out. Jessica was instrumental in helping me organize the stones into a logical pathway, so the rest of the work revolved around stabilizing each stone with paver sand, then filling in the entire area with pine bark mulch and sweeping the stones clean. I purchased way too much mulch at Lowe’s but as it turned out I had exactly the right amount to fill in the south side of our house along the fence, so it all worked out perfect.

The rest of our evening will be spent watching shows and having a nice dinner. The menu tonight consists of pan-seared wild Alaskan Cod finished with garlic butter, sauteed vegetables, and roasted new potatoes. Since it’s Mother’s Day we may even have to save a little room for dessert. To all the Mom’s in our lives – we love you and hope you all had the wonderful day you deserve. I’m especially excited because my Mom will be arriving for a visit on Friday. I can’t wait for her to meet Enzo and get lots of quality time in with all the kids. Hopefully Jessica and I will be able to sneak away for a nice sushi dinner as well. Maybe next weekend we’ll have to do another special (post) Mother’s Day brunch. Here’s a bunch of recent photos.

Our finished path

No caption necessary

Laurel and Enzo

The little Tiger Lilly checking herself out

Classic Ava

Our little bugs

Elise throwing a fit

Love that smile

Enjoying the view downtown

Mommy and her girls

Well, I’m exhausted. Let’s start with that. There hasn’t been much downtime this weekend, but I’m so proud of everything Joel and I got done in our backyard. More on that in a bit. First I’ll start by saying that Joel and Melanie got to town on Thursday; Jessica picked them up at the airport and got them to my car, which they’ve been using while they are in town. We all went out to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant that night and were able to celebrate Jessica and Joel’s birthdays, which were both very recent.

Although we didn’t end up seeing them on Friday, we’ve spent practically the entire weekend together and gotten a lot done while having a good bit of fun in the process. We started off Saturday morning by taking Ava to soccer class. This was an important class for her because it was the first time that she was on her own and didn’t have me right there participating with her. I was a bit nervous watching from the sidelines, and as her parent my natural reaction anytime she did something wrong was to go out there and help her, but I resisted the urge and watched from afar with Elise and Joel. Melanie, Jessica and Enzo stayed even farther back for similar reasons.

As it turned out she did great and had a lot of fun. She did a good job listening to her coaches and stayed engaged practically the entire time. There was only one time where she got frustrated and just sat down in the middle of the field to scowl for a minute, but she ended up getting back up on her own and participated throughout the remainder of class. Once again I was impressed with how well she did, particularly with how she handles the ball. She runs as fast as she can and hardly ever loses control of her dribbling. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I hope she sticks with soccer because she definitely has a lot of natural talent for it, but ultimately I just want her to have fun and enjoy herself.

After soccer we all headed back to the house and Joel and I got started on assessing the work to be done. If you’ve been reading these posts then you know that I’ve spent the last several weekends in a row working on creating a dog kennel on the north side of our house for Bella. Last weekend I finished off digging out all the grass, and with Rick’s help we were able to line the entire fence with paver stones to keep her from being able to dig her way out.

Since the digging and stone work was done, the only remaining work was to lay down landscaping cloth, stake the cloth down, then fill it all in. The question was, what am I going to fill it in with? I’ve considered gravel, mulch (both natural and rubber), and synthetic turf. There was about 300 square feet to fill in so I had to be considerate of costs, as well as what would be better for the dog. I ended up settling on large garden bark nuggets. I liked the large nuggets because it was less likely to get stuck in Bella’s hair, it smelled good, and it was reasonably priced. It ended up taking 35 large bags to fill the area, but I’m really happy with the final result (see photo below).

With the dog kennel complete we were ready to get started on the next backyard project, which was to extend our back patio. It didn’t make sense to do anything else in the yard until the kennel was done because as long as Bella had access to the backyard there would be no way to keep it clean and usable. After talking it over with Joel and heading to Lowe’s to look at their selection of paver stones, we had a plan. The idea was to purchase a bunch of these 20”x20”x2” concrete paver stones and use them to line the patio, meaning we would extend our back patio by 20” on each side. In order to do this we would need to dig out the grass all around the patio then meticulously place each stone and check it for stability as well as verify that it is level. As usual, it ended up being a lot more work than I ever expected, mainly because you have to be so precise with how much dirt and sand you place under to stones, but I couldn’t be happier with the final result.

We weren’t able to finish this project on Saturday because we had dinner plans, so we did as much as we could, then called it a day at 5:00 to give everyone time to clean up and get ready for dinner. We ended up meeting Joel and Melanie at a restaurant called Cantinetta in Bellevue. My good friend Michael Don Rico manages there on Saturday (he works at their sister restaurants the rest of the week) so we figured it would be fun to go see him, as well as try something new.

As expected it was an excellent dinner (and all around evening), with the exception of the crazy lady at the bar who decided to listen in on our conversation. She completely misconstrued something I said and ended up getting really mad at me. I don’t know what she thought I said, but it upset her and she became most unpleasant. I was tempted to talk back at her but decided to take the high road and suggested to our group that we leave the bar and have a seat at our dinner table. Luckily that was the last we saw of the crazy lady, but it made for interesting conversation amongst ourselves throughout the evening.

After dinner Michael joined the four of us for a drink at a new restaurant next door called 99 Park. Quentin Stewart, their executive chef, is an old friend of ours who used to work with Jessica at Branzino. We haven’t seen him in several years, but there he was right when we walked in. The look on his face when he saw Jessica was priceless. He immediately set us up for desert at the bar and we all spent the next couple hours catching up. It was a great way to end such a fabulous evening. I always love hanging out with Joel and Melanie and wish we got the opportunity to do that sort of thing more often.

We got back to work on the backyard Sunday morning at 11:00 and picked up right where we left off. Joel and I finished off the paver stones, with the exception of the two outermost corner pieces, which would need to be cut down to size in order to fit correctly. Luckily my next door neighbor Troy had a stone chisel that I was able to borrow, and it worked like a charm. I still need to get some paver sand to fill in the cracks between the stones, but it’s not urgent. Again, I couldn’t be happier with the finished product, and appreciate the help from Joel so much. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken me to do this project on my own, plus I wouldn’t have really known what I was doing, so having his guidance was invaluable.

After finishing up on the backyard we did a few more projects around the house. I did some cleaning and reorganizing in the garage while Joel helped Jessica measure our floor space so we’d know how much flooring to purchase for our big project in July. We were also paid a visit by Laurel. Unfortunately this will probably be the last time Laurel comes to this house because she’s only about a week away from moving cross-country to Raleigh, North Carolina. We’ll be attending her going away party next Saturday at Athena, the apartment building in Queen Anne that I was living in when Jessica and I first met.

The rest of this evening should be pretty relaxing. I’m looking forward to making a nice halibut dinner with mushroom risotto and vegetables for everyone, and Joel and I are looking forward to watching the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight. Amazingly both of us were able to completely avoid social media, news, radio, etc. and neither of us knows how the fight turns out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a letdown but I’m still looking forward to checking it out.

It’s worth noting that all of our yardwork this weekend was aided by the most beautiful weather imaginable. I haven’t seen a cloud yet, and apparently tomorrow, which is their final full day in town, is supposed to be just as nice. Last week was incredibly busy for me at work, so hopefully this week we will be back to normal. Here are a few photos of our weekend accomplishments.

The minivan all loaded up with bark for the dog kennel

The finished product – Bella’s new outdoor home

As you can see it didn’t take long before Ava was coloring the paver stones with chalk

I just wanted to write a quick post wishing my amazing wife Jessica a very happy birthday! Not only is today Jessica’s birthday, but Enzo also turns three months old today, so that makes it even more special. Unfortunately I had to work today, but I’m looking forward to spending a nice evening at home with her and the kids. Although we weren’t able to spend the day together, I’m glad Jessica and the kids were able to meet with our friend Jodi (whose birthday was yesterday) and her son Miles for a nice lunch this afternoon.

Baby Enzo is doing great; getting past the three month mark with a newborn is a big deal because this is typically when they really start to show a lot of life and personality. It’s not uncommon to refer to a newborn’s first three months as the ‘fourth trimester’ because all they really do during that time is eat and sleep, but now we’re starting to get away from all that. Enzo is sleeping for longer stretches at night now, and spending more and more time awake during the day. He’s a very mellow baby and hasn’t had any issues other than the fact that he practically refuses to drink from a bottle, which makes it all but impossible for me to feed him. Hopefully we’ll get over that soon, but otherwise everything with him is perfect.

Ava and Elise are also doing excellent. They had a blast with Grandpa on his recent visit, and I’m sure they will love seeing Uncle Joel and Aunt Melanie in the next few days. Then after that they will get to visit with Nana, so there’s still a lot to look forward to in the next couple weeks. It sounds like Rick and Chris might be coming back out for the 4th of July, and then we have Amy and Tom coming right after that to help us with painting and new flooring. Can’t wait to get that done.

Last night I met my Godfather Pete and my good friend Michael Don Rico (who was my best man at my wedding) for dinner at Il Terrazzo Carmine for dinner. It’s my favorite Italian restaurant in Seattle and has been a night I’ve been looking forward to for weeks. As usual we had an excellent time filled with delicious food, great stories, and lots of laughs. My old friend Victoria, whom I worked with at El Gaucho for many years, was our server; she made sure to take extra special care of us, which includes putting up with Pete when he gets into rare form.

We enjoyed calamari and an antipasti platter for starters, then I had a cream of cauliflower soup while Michael and Pete split a tomato burrata salad. Although it wasn’t on the menu, I requested veal saltimboca for dinner (which is my favorite dish) and they made it for me. While enjoying my saltimboca I had to tell the story of the time my Mom and I had dinner in Rome near the Trevi Fountain. As usual, I had a pasta entree followed by a veal entree, which happened to be saltimboca that night. In this particular case the veal was the best I’d ever had, so when the waiter came back to ask to see if we’d like dessert I had no choice but to order the veal again. Yes, I literally ate three entrees at dinner that night, plus appetizers and dessert. Oh to be 21 again.

For dessert Pete and I shared a key lime tart (probably my favorite dessert) while Michael had their famous cannoli with espresso. Victoria was even kind enough to serve us a round of her homemade limoncello to wash everything down. It was a fantastic meal that was only outshined by the quality of the company we kept. I definitely need to make a point of setting these types of dinners up more frequently, as they always mean so much to each of us.

When I got home at 11:00 everyone but Ava was sound asleep. When she saw me she said “Daddy you’re back!” as if I’d been gone for weeks. I hung out with her for a little bit and made her promise me that she would say “Happy Birthday Mommy!” in the morning. I’m looking forward to finding out if she came through.

Today has been especially crazy at work due to a big developer conference we’re promoting tomorrow in San Francisco. Consequently it looks like I’ll be working on and off throughout the evening, but it’s okay; I’m just glad to have been able to leave the office at a normal time so I can spend Jessica’s birthday evening with her and the kids. Here are a few recent photos to enjoy.

Our little rockstar

Elise in her turtleneck

Enzo at 3 months