Author: Michael Pellegrini

Yesterday morning Rick left for Iowa. He was supposed to have a 3 hour layover in Minnesota but his plane had to make an emergency landing somewhere in the Dakotas. He arrived in Minnesota 3 hours and 8 minutes late, meaning he just barely missed his connecting flight to Iowa. Of course it was the last flight of the day so he had to then stay night in Minneapolis before heading home today. I feel so bad for him having to go through all this but greatly appreciate all the help he gave us around the house, as well as all the time we got to spend together. I think I spent more time with him than Jessica this time, which isn’t normal, but was a lot of fun.

I know I wrote my last post about the 4th of July, but I wrote it in the early evening before the neighborhood fireworks party. All I can say is I’ve never seen anything like it. Lighting off fireworks is illegal in King county, but not in Snohomish county, meaning that our neighborhood, and every other neighborhood in sight, takes great pride in seeing who can put on the best fireworks show. It wasn’t just impressive for a neighborhood, it was impressive for a town. I’m serious. Rick and I kept saying all night “I can’t believe this! I’ve never seen anything like it!”. On my street everyone gathered in the cul-de-sac, which is right at the end of our driveway, and had a good old fashioned block party.

I got a chance to meet and talk to almost all of the neighbors. Everyone was super cool and has graciously welcomed us to our new neighborhood and home. They’re actually a pretty tight-knit group, which was evident by the fact that the people we bought the house from were also there. Getting to meet them was nice; they have two daughters that are almost the exact same ages as Ava and Elise. Their oldest daughter kept going to our lawn and garage because she thought she was home. It was pretty sweet.

Rick was kind enough to bring some Cuban cigars for us to smoke, so we saved them for the party. I haven’t had a cigar in years, and even though I generally have a pretty high tolerance for stuff, this thing kicked my ass. I hadn’t even reached the half-way point when I realized that I had to put it down. I was getting the spins and had to take it easy after that. Luckily there were plenty of neighborhood kids who were more than happy to light off my fireworks for me. Rick was in pretty much the same boat as me so we just kicked back and enjoyed the show.

In addition to helping Jessica with upgrading our closet, laundry areas, and bedrooms, he was kind enough to help me upgrade our TV area. We now have a nice big dark wood shelf mounted about the TV, which was moved down the wall about 8 inches to allow space. In order to hide the brackets we put them through the top of the shelf, which makes the shelf look like it’s floating. Now all of our TV equipment is up high and out of the reach of curious little hands. He had to add a power outlet up high on the wall and do all kinds of crazy wiring to make it work. It took us about 6 hours on Sunday but turned out amazing. It’s easily the nicest home entertainment center I’ve ever had, and we left room to replace the current TV with a bigger one down the road. Jessica was thrilled.

As soon as one visit ends, another begins. Tonight Amy and Tom will be arriving from Colorado. They’re doing some type of camping expedition the next two nights and therefore won’t be staying with us, but will be back in time for Elise’s first birthday party on Saturday. My Mom will also be flying in on Friday for the weekend, so I’m excited to see everyone and show them all the work we’ve done on the house. I’m sure there will be plenty of updates and photos coming soon. Rick – thanks again for everything. We really appreciate it!

First and foremost I want to wish my sister Dana a Happy Birthday! I hope you’re having fun with Brad in Leavenworth and can’t wait to see you next weekend for Elise’s first birthday. We love you so much!

Grandpa Rick arrived from Iowa on Wednesday to spend the holiday weekend with us. He spent the whole day working on our house yesterday and we now have a much upgraded master closet and laundry area to show for it. I’m looking forward to working with him tomorrow on our TV area. The plan is to lower the TV (which I mounted on the wall when we first moved in) and install a shelf above the TV for our cable box and peripherals to sit on. This will get everything out of Ava’s reach and will clean up the mess of cables we currently have.

First, however, we need to continue enjoying the great day we’re having today. I must admit it didn’t start off all that great though. Jessica and I were up with the girls very early in the morning. We all fell back asleep until our rude awakening when every smoke detector in the house went off. Grandpa was frying up some bacon to make breakfast for everyone, and even though he had every window and every door open, it got too smokey. I don’t know if you’ve ever been awakened by a fire alarm but it’s not the most pleasant experience. Anyway, once that was over we were good to go and ready to enjoy the day.

We started off with a long walk around the neighborhood. The girls love going for walks and its fun to get to know our new area. After that we decided to go to a park, so we ended up visiting Forest Park in Everett. We hadn’t been there before but really enjoyed it. There’s an animal farm, splash park, playground, tennis courts, and a huge field that Rick and I played frisbee on for a while. It was a beautiful day and everyone had a really nice time. Elise impressed us by standing on her own in the grass for the longest we’ve seen. I’d say it was a solid 5 seconds. I assume she’ll be walking in no time. Ava was 13 months when she started walking and Elise seems to be on the same course.

After leaving the park we stopped by a farmers market to buy some fresh produce, then came home for lunch. Rick is smoking ribs for dinner tonight and I’m sitting down to watch the World Cup Quarterfinal match between Brazil and Columbia. I’m definitely pulling for Brazil in this one. I can’t explain how much I love the World Cup but it’s definitely my favorite sporting event to watch. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that it only happens once every 4 years, but the frenzy that it causes upon the world is not lost on me. I’ve loved it ever since the 1994 World Cup when I happened to be on the East Coast for a school trip and stayed in the same hotel in New York as the Irish national team. I’ll never forget watching the 1994 Championship match between Italy and Brazil with my Dad. It came down to penalty kicks and Roberto Baggio, Italy’s star player at the time, missed high and cost Italy the championship. I cried.

Last weekend Jessica and I took the girls up north to the Tulalip Reservation so I could get some fireworks and then we could go shopping at the outlet mall. I haven’t bought fireworks in at least 15 years, but we’ve heard from a few of our neighbors that there will be a couple of block parties going on throughout the neighborhood so I thought it would be fun to contribute a bit. I don’t know if this is still the case, but when I was a kid you had to go to the reservation to get the good firecrackers. I’m pretty excited about everything I got so hopefully the girls will have fun watching them. We live on a nice little cul-de-sac and it’s a perfect place to set them off.

We’re getting really close to Elise’s first birthday and I can’t wait to have everyone over to celebrate. The house will be looking good thanks to all the hard work by Grandpa, so I’m excited to show everyone around. My Mom will be coming to visit, as will Amy and Tom, so it will be a nice full house for a few days. I’m really excited that my Uncle Jim and Aunt Brenda are going to make it, and of course having Dana and her family over is always great. Amy is going to stick around for a couple weeks after the party, so hopefully Jessica and I can get out a bit. I also just got invited to a work dinner in celebration of the FC Tours project I worked on a couple months ago. It’s during Amy’s stay with us so I’ll be able to make it. Definitely looking forward to that.

Work has been going really well lately and I’m already enjoying the fact that I can study things that I’m interested in, rather than work on homework every night. It still hasn’t fully sunk in that I’m done with school but I’m definitely enjoying my new-found freedom. I’ve been looking forward to the summer of 2014 for a while now and it has definitely started off very well for us. Guess that’s all for now. Wishing everyone a very safe and Happy 4th of July! Here’s a few photos from earlier today.

Well, that’s it. Tonight I turned in my final project and have completed the entire curriculum for a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Information Technology with a Concentration on Application Programming. It’s a bit of a mouthful, I know. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been looking forward to writing this post, mostly because it signifies the end of a big chapter in our lives. When I started this process of getting back into school, Jessica and I were living in Pacific Beach, working as bartenders, and hoping that maybe once I finished school I’d be able to get a decent job as a web developer. Jessica was pregnant with Ava, and the simple fact that we were going to become parents made me feel like a change in professions and lifestyle was in order.

There was no way we could have expected things to take off the way they did. By the time school started I already had my first real tech job. I was a production developer at Scrollmotion in La Jolla by day and a student by night. I remember coming home from work those first few nights after school started with a sinking feeling in my stomach because I knew that I had several hours of homework awaiting me. Over the last few years I’ve grown so accustomed to that reality that the concept of coming home now and not needing to work on anything feels very foreign.

The fact that I was able to get the job at Scrollmotion before finishing school was a surprise, but there’s no way we could have seen Amazon coming. I’m still shocked at how that all went down, and honestly had I known the path I would have to take and how low the chances of it working out actually were, I wouldn’t have gone for it. We were more than happy in San Diego for the time being and wouldn’t have been interested in taking such a giant leap of faith, especially with Jessica then being pregnant with Elise.

Again, its crazy that all this was going on while I was in school. Obviously my school and career path was nowhere near normal, but worked out due basically to determination and blind faith. I don’t want to make a big deal about the achievement of finishing school or switching careers, but I do want to use my experience as a lesson to my kids on how not to do things. You’re going to hear me say this plenty of times in the future so we might as well start now: Go to school when you’re young. Don’t wait until you’re in your 30’s like me, with a family and career to balance. Study something you love without regard to money and profession. You’ve got the rest of your life to figure out what you want to do, so study something that makes you happy.

With the girls getting bigger it’s been getting tough to watch them and do homework at the same time, so it’s going to be nice not having to worry about that anymore. I’m mainly excited to get to spend more time relaxing at home with Jessica and the girls, although getting to study stuff that I want to study, and getting to work on cool freelance projects, are also things that I’ve been looking forward to. I probably won’t end up with nearly as much free time as I initially expected, but right now it all looks really good.

I’m so thankful for everything Jessica has done throughout this whole process. There have been so many nights where she took on all the kid duties because I was busy doing homework. She deserves a break more than anyone and I’m glad I can start doing a little more to help out. Right now the changes related to being done with school are hypothetical because tonight is just like any other night after finishing an assignment, but when coming home from work this week, or trying to make plans, it’s going to hit me that I no longer have to deal with this huge time commitment.

There were a few times where I thought about not going through with school. Not because it was too hard, but because it just didn’t feel necessary. This especially became an issue once I secured a full-time spot at Amazon. Although I have no doubt that getting my education had a positive effect on my career, it was tough to justify at times. Ultimately it came down to setting the right example for my kids. If Mommy and Daddy could do it, so can they.

In addition to learning more about my profession and industry, school taught me a lot about myself and how to be responsible. I learned that I am fully capable of teaching myself anything related to coding and web development. I wasn’t much of a lecture guy in school and preferred to study the material on my own and figure it out. I also learned that I thrive under pressure. A lot of good things have happened to us while I’ve been in school and the common denominator amongst it all was staying busy and working hard. I learned that I like learning, and that I picked a profession that requires you to stay current with technologies, meaning that I will probably always be in ‘learning mode’. Finally, I learned that I like to stay busy. The older I get, the more I can’t stand laziness. I seriously don’t do well when I have nothing to work on or obsess over. I’m just glad that I now get to focus the intention of that work or obsession to things of my choosing. My new favorite thing to obsess over is the house, and our yard. I’m already starting to become one of those yard guys and it kinda freaks me out.

In one of my software engineering classes during this last quarter we were instructed to choose a project we had worked on, either in school or elsewhere, and use it as a basis for examining a variety of topics related to software engineering and development. For no reason other than familiarity and accessibility, I chose to use the Family Recipes application I did last year. This meant that throughout the quarter I’ve been revisiting and writing about that application quite a bit. Although I never could have planned it this way, when it came down to the final paragraph of a 35 page report I had created on that application, and the reality that this was my final paragraph to write in a school paper set in, I found myself not really writing about anything technical, but instead about family, food, and recipes. Probably not exactly what my professor had in mind but it felt like the right way to go out.

They say today is the first day of the rest of your life, and corny as it may sound, it has never felt more true to me than right now. Jessica and I have been talking about the future, and me being done with school, for a while now, and it’s weird that we’re finally there. Just in time for Summer too. With Amy coming out for an extended stay in July, Jess and I are going to make a point to get out and do stuff we normally wouldn’t do. Gotta take advantage of this freedom when we can. The fact that we’re in our own home now as well makes it pretty surreal. I’m not trying to sound like Phil Jackson here, but its so easy to set your mind on a particular time or achievement that you forget to enjoy the journey and the moment. Nana and my Mom always said ‘Life is what happens when you’re making plans’ and I never really understood what they meant until I got older. School was a good experience for me, which I will relate to the start of my family and my career, rather than early adulthood and drunken debauchery like most. It represents the greatest time in my life (to date), but I’m now more than ready to see what the next chapter has in store for our family.

Well, the long weekend has officially come to an end. The last few days have been a whirlwind and it’s taking everything I’ve got just to stay up and write about it. Thursday we both signed our names more times than you could possibly believe, then Friday we got the keys. Amy, Tom, and my Mom all arrived on Friday and helped us get things in order for a big day on Saturday. I made a couple trips to the new house on Friday night just to get a head start on things, but Saturday was by far the biggest day of the weekend.

I’d be lying if I said it all went smoothly, but with the help of family and friends we got through it unscathed. I think we each had our own difficulties to face; Jessica was coming at it from the stress of having things organized and prepared point of view, Amy and my Mom were coming at it from a ‘Wow those little girls are really fast and hard to keep up with’ point of view, and Tom and I from a ‘Please let that be all of the furniture to move’ point of view. However we were so fortunate to have the help of my sister Dana, her friend Michelle, Michelle’s son Connor, and last but certainly not least, our good friend Laurel. I seriously can’t thank all of you enough for everything you did this weekend. We couldn’t have done it without you and are so appreciative for all the hard work. I definitely owe some favors and will be expecting a call next time some help is needed for any of you.

Sunday and Monday were all about getting things organized. Although we still have a long way to go, I’m so pleased with where things are at. My Mom and Amy were so helpful with getting things organized, and of course Tom was a huge help getting things put together / fixed. I’ve already made 3 trips to Lowe’s in my first weekend as a homeowner and I can see its not going to change. I’m eager to learn how to do stuff around the house and have jumped right in to the best of my ability. In addition to putting up all kinds of storage hooks in the garage, I have pressure washed the North side of the house (where the moss grows), mounted our TV on the wall, and learned how to hook up a washer and dryer. I bought a weed-wacker today and am planning on getting a lawn mower later this week.

I have to give special thanks to my Mom, who in addition to treating us to Chinese food on Saturday night, made filet and lobster on Sunday night, plus got us a Keurig coffee machine, a new toaster, and a really cool hybrid barbeque that has a charcoal grill, a gas grill, and an infrared side pan. I’ve never owned a grill before and can’t wait to try it out. Putting it together was a bit difficult but it was fun working with Tom on it. I still have a ton of work to do in terms of putting clothes away and organizing my office, but considering this is only our third night in the house I couldn’t be happier.

My Mom left today, and Amy and Tom leave tomorrow, however Jessica is working tomorrow night so it won’t be until Wednesday that we have a normal family night at home with just the four of us. To be honest this still all feels a bit surreal. Every once in a while it just sort of hits me that we’re in our own house and can do anything we want to it. I’ve never cared at all about personalizing my home before this but now it’s all I can think of. Hopefully by the time Rick comes out to visit for the 4th of July we’ll have everything looking good. We’re going to have a lot of visitors throughout the summer so I can’t wait to get everything put away.

Plenty of new updates coming soon, but for now here’s a couple images of our farewell to the Bellevue house. Also, another big thank you to Carol and Julie for all their help throughout this process. It really was a pleasure.

I’m currently enjoying a 4 day weekend, which is the longest break I’ve had from work since Christmas. Jess worked Friday night but has the rest of the time off with me. Yesterday was mainly a relaxing day but today has been quite the opposite. In order to give Jessica some time to get stuff done around the house, I took the girls to Bellevue Square mall this morning. We walked around every square inch of that place and ended up having a lot of fun. Ava has never told me she loves me so many times in one day. I guess that’s to be expected when you say yes to all of her requests. Whether she wanted to play in the kids area, search for fireflies, or just get a cookie to snack on, I was simply a Yes Man… Or I mean a Yes Daddy.

Once we returned home I got to work helping Jessica around the house. We’ve gotten so much done and we’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. The move is only 13 days away and we’re definitely getting excited. June is a month I’ve been looking forward to for a while and now it’s only a week away. As I said last night to Jessica, I’m going to start June as a student who rents their home, and will finish June as a graduate who owns their home. It’s definitely going to be a big month.

The girls are both doing well, although Ava has been terrorizing us at night lately. It’s weird because she’s the nicest, sweetest little girl all day, then you put her to bed and she turns into a little demon. Our little Princess Poltergeist brings new meaning to the word irrational, especially between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00am. As mere mortal parents our powers are limited, but luckily we have a couple wild cards up our sleeve, mainly in the form of warm milk bottles and Thomas The Train DVDs. I’m sure this is just a byproduct of her age and will pass soon, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been challenging.

Elise, on the other hand, has taken to playing the part of the eternally happy baby. Although she may be the most difficult baby in the world to dress, she is otherwise an absolute joy. I remember Ava going through this phase and therefore don’t expect it to last forever, but it’s nice for now. We’re thinking about having the girls share a room at the new house, which will allow us to have a full time dedicated play room and a separate dedicated guest room. Certainly this will require some adjustments, but we’re willing to give it a try.

Looks like the rest of the weekend will be spent packing and relaxing. New pics coming soon.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and I’m starting to realize that this is becoming one of my favorite holidays. In addition to paying homage to Jessica, my Mom, all the amazing Mom’s in our lives, its giving me the excuse to make some nice meals for Jessica and the girls. And not just brunch either. As far as I’m concerned this is a whole-weekend affair. That being said, tonight for our Mother’s Day Eve dinner we’ll be having prosciutto-wrapped filet mignon, baked potato with homemade cheese sauce, sauteed mushrooms, salad, and to wash it down we’ll be enjoying a bottle of Catena Malbec that we’ve been holding onto for a bit. Then tomorrow morning for brunch we’ll have a crab cake benedict along with a bottle of Prosecco I have chilling. Then tomorrow night will be linguine with clams. I hope we don’t sound like alcoholics here, but there’s a method to my madness. Each bottle we consume is one less thing to pack and move 😉

Speaking of moving, everything is coming along nicely. Yesterday I met Jessica and the girls at the new house at 2:00pm for our inspection. Jess kept an eye on the girls while I followed along with the inspector. I had a lot of questions for him, mainly because I’ve never done anything like this before and know practically nothing about construction or houses, but luckily for me he turned out to be the nicest guy and was happy to answer all of my questions. Our agent told us he’s the best in the business and after having spent nearly three hours checking out the entire house with him I couldn’t disagree. Luckily, although there were a few small things we found that need some attention, there was nothing major at all. The house is in very good shape and there is no reason to think that we can’t deal with these few small issues before closing.

Even though we’re still about 4 weeks away from closing, I can already feel myself growing an interest in learning how to work on the house. Having rented for all these years I never had much of an interest in getting my hands dirty, but now that I’m going to own a place the idea of being able to fix or upgrade something on my own without having to hire somebody is much more attractive. Plus with school ending shortly I’m going to have a lot more time to take on projects around the house. Speaking of school, I just reached the half-way point of Spring quarter, meaning I’m on a short break before classes resume next weekend. This is my last break of any kind at school; when classes resume I’ll only be 5 weeks away from completion. I don’t want to start getting excited yet because there’s still a lot of work to do, but its so close I can almost taste it.

The girls are both doing great. Elise has been crawling for a while, and is now getting to the point where she is pulling herself up to her feet. She’s still pretty wobbly but once she’s up she does well assuming she has something to hold onto. She’s also starting to talk a bit. Not in terms of actual words but you can tell that she’s trying to mimic sounds and words she’s hearing. It’s pretty exciting to be seeing all this for the second time, and you can’t help but compare it to everything we experienced with Ava not too long ago.

Speaking of Ava, she is quite the little handful. She’s got more energy than you can possibly imagine, and knows exactly what she does and does not want to do. She continues to show incredible signs of determination, even for something as trivial as collecting certain colored markers. She’s also really tough. I know I’ve said it before but her toughness continues to amaze me. Elise seems to have that gene as well because the two of them have taken a few spills this week that we were concerned about, including Ava pulling Elise’s high chair tray down, hitting the ground, then Elise falling out of the chair and right onto her. As you can imagine the decibel rating goes up considerably for a few minutes, but both girls bounce back quicker than anyone could ever expect.

Before I go I want to give a quick shout out with all my love to my Mom. I’m sorry I won’t see you on Mother’s Day but can’t wait for your visit next month. I also want to send our love to Amy, Dana, Brenda, Kristy, and all the aunts, cousins, and friends who are moms. We love you all and wish you a great day tomorrow. You deserve it. As for Jessica, thanks for being the best mom our girls could ask for. We love you so much!

After a couple suspenseful days we just got the good news today that our offer has been accepted and we’re buying our first house! Obviously this was very exciting news; I had a bit of a difficult time containing myself at work and had to run outside and call Jessica immediately. It was a bit of a back and forth situation regarding offers, counter offers, counters to counters, etc., but ultimately we reached an agreement that everyone was happy with. We’ll be closing on Friday June 6 and moving that weekend. I’m not exactly looking forward to moving again, but this is the last time we’ll have to worry about that for quite a while. Although this probably won’t be our ‘forever house’, its certainly a place that we’ll be happy to call home for the next 5-7 years.

As mentioned in a previous post, this is the first time either Jessica or myself has ever bought a home, so we’re both thrilled. Something about this house just felt right from the beginning and I can’t wait to start giving it some personal touches to really make it our own. There are a few projects like landscaping the back yard, replacing the floors with hard wood, and upgrading the kitchen/bathroom counters to granite, that we plan on doing, but nothing needs to happen right away. The house is move-in ready, assuming all goes well with the inspection, which will be this Friday at 2:00pm.

There’s still a lot of work to do in terms of finalizing the mortgage, packing, planning the move, etc., but just knowing that we’re moving into a house that we own makes it all more than worth it. This means that June will be a very busy month for us. Not only are we moving, but I’ll be finishing up school, so we’re going to be as busy as ever, but its all good. Luckily my Mom will be returning from her annual Alaska cruise on Friday, June 6th, and will be available to help watch the girls that weekend. I can’t help but laugh at the fact that this will be Ava’s third move, and she’s only 2 1/2 years old!

We’re already planning on having people over for Elise’s first birthday in July, so maybe that will end up being a little house-warming event as well. We’ll see. Plenty of updates coming soon.

A week ago today we started looking at houses, and today we’re placing our first offer! We’ve looked at hundreds of homes online, as well about ten in person. Of those ten there were a small few that we seriously considered but based on all the factors we feel like we’ve found a really good fit. I’ll hold off on descriptions until I see how things turn out, but the offer has officially been submitted and we’re asking for a response within the next 24 hours. I will say that its up in the same neighborhood we’ve been looking in, which I’ve come to find out consists of parts of four different cities: Bothell, Mill Creek, Everett, and Snohomish. In our case with this house, we’d be in Snohomish, but its all part of the same school district, which is one of the best in the state.

This is definitely an exciting time for us, but we’re trying to take it in stride. Obviously we’ll be very excited if we get this house, but at the same time if it doesn’t work out we won’t be devastated. There’s so much out there that I have no doubt we’re going to find something soon. This is our first time buying a home so its been so nice to have Carol and Julie helping us through the process. Not having to worry about your mortgage broker or your real estate agent is a huge relief.

Going to cut this one short for now and wait and see what happens. Updates coming soon.

Today the four of us celebrated Jessica’s birthday. Since it fell on a Monday it seemed like a perfect excuse to use a personal day at work and make a long weekend out of it. We lucked out and had beautiful weather, so we all hopped in the car and headed to the ferry terminal in downtown Seattle. Soon enough we were on our way to Bainbridge Island for a day of fun exploring a kids museum, walking along the water looking at boats, and having lunch. On our way to the island Ava was thrilled to be out on the deck of the ferry taking in all the scenery. It was super windy and a bit chilly but she didn’t care, in fact getting her to leave the ferry and go down to the car was a chore of its own. I had to bribe her by saying that we were going to look at more boats in the water and maybe we’d find some ducks.

Ava is currently in what I’m calling a ducks and fireflies stage. She won’t stop talking about either of those creatures and is obsessed with seeing them. The funny thing is that she hasn’t even seen a real firefly, but she saw some glowing lights in a tree at the mall and now she’s obsessed with them. Luckily quenching her duck fix is pretty attainable around here so we’ve been going to the park frequently to look for them. Saturday afternoon we attended a birthday party at Seward Park, which is right on Lake Washington, and there were plenty of ducks for Ava to obsess over. Of course getting her away from them usually requires a bribe of some kind. I’ve found that chocolate chip cookies work well…

After we left Bainbridge Island we drove up north to Mill Creek to check out a house for sale that we found online. We’ve been getting pretty serious about buying something lately and actually contacted Aunt Carol today to start the loan qualification process. Yesterday we drove around for a few hours looking at places, but today was better because we like the Bothell / Mill Creek area so much better than what we had previously seen. There are a few houses up there that we’re interested in so hopefully something will work out. Either way its fun (and maybe a little stressful) to be looking for something to buy. We know we plan on being here for the long-term and even if we can’t get our ‘forever home’ right now, we can definitely get something nice. It certainly beats paying someone else’s mortgage for them.

While driving around Mill Creek today we were really impressed with the neighborhoods. There’s a golf course in the complex, a swimming pool, and a couple really nice big parks all within walking distance. The other great thing about that area is the schools. Both of the elementary schools near the houses we’re looking at are graded 10 out of 10. For comparison sake, most of the elementary schools we found in Seattle scored between 1 – 5 out of 10. This simply wasn’t an option so finding an area with good schools for the girls was a top priority. Also, from an investment perspective, houses in good school districts are much more desirable and carry a higher resale value so its a no-brainer.

Hopefully it won’t be long before we have an update on the house situation. The idea of moving again soon doesn’t exactly tickle my fancy but becoming a home owner for the first time will (hopefully) be a great experience. Everything else is going well, just staying busy as ever. I’ve only got about 8 weeks left in school so ideally we can schedule a move right after I finish, but we’ll see. If we have to pull the trigger early and move before I graduate I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Elise has been crawling for a while now, and it seems like she’ll be standing on her own very soon. She loves to stand up but needs help to stay up. We were just looking at pictures of her from a few months ago and commenting on how much she has already changed. Ava is starting to look a little different now simply because her hair is long enough to tie up in the back. Her hair is so fine that it doesn’t stay in the hair tie for very long, and before you know it she’s got a bit of a lion’s mane going on, but its super cute. Here’s some recent photos, most of which were taken today on our adventure to the island.

Monday afternoon we returned from our long weekend in Vancouver to the smiling faces and outstretched arms of our beautiful little girls. While we were enjoying ourselves up north (more on that in a second), the girls were exploring the Seattle Aquarium, Pacific Science Center, and much more with Grandma and Grandpa. Huge thanks to Amy and Tom for coming out and taking such good care of them, and us in a way.

Since Thursday was our actual anniversary, and I was technically on vacation by the time Thursday evening came around, we decided to go out for a very special sushi dinner. This may sound a little odd, but go and watch a movie called “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” and you’ll understand very quickly. It’s a documentary about a Japanese man named Jiro who is widely regarded as the best sushi chef in Japan. He’s in his 80’s but still works full-time, and has been doing so since the age of 10. The whole message behind the movie is that the secret to life and happiness is the dedication of your life to a craft, and striving for perfection in that craft knowing that you will never truly achieve it.

Jiro has had a number of apprentices over the years, and the training they endure is incredible. They spend 7 years learning to make the rice alone! 7 years! One of Jiro’s apprentices is a man named Shiro, who owns (in my opinion) the best sushi restaurant in Seattle. It’s on 2nd Ave in Belltown and its a place that I’ve been familiar with for many years. Before Thursday I had only eaten there once before, but once I found out that Shiro was Jiro’s apprentice, I had to go back. Since Jessica didn’t get to eat sushi for most of last year due to her pregnancy with Elise, she was more than happy to have a proper sushi meal.

We made reservations for the sushi bar, and as expected the place was packed so we weren’t even seated until an hour past our reservation. Luckily however, we ended up with the two best seats in the house. Not only were we seated at the sushi bar, we were placed in the two end seats, meaning that we would be served by Shiro himself and would have the only unobstructed views of him in the entire restaurant. The rest of the seats at the bar are separated from the chefs by a glass case of fresh fish, but not ours. We could clearly watch him making everything. When you get a chance to watch an expert perform their craft you need to take advantage of it and appreciate it for what it’s worth. Of course more than anything we were happy to be enjoying a night out together, but we couldn’t get over how cool and special it felt to watch him work.

Regardless of all the sentiment and tradition, the meal was quite simply the best sushi meal either of us have ever had. Our typical approach in situations like these is to put down our menus and let the chef choose our meal. This was no exception. Shiro hand-selected and prepared everything we had that night, and believe me, there wasn’t an unpleasant bite to be found. Although everything we had was amazing, we mutually decided that the king crab, torro (Ahi tuna belly), and local salmon were best. Shiro adds the appropriate amount of wasabi and sauce to each piece so no work is required on your part, just pure sushi enjoyment. This was one of those dinners that we’ll never forget but I’m sure we’ll try to replicate it sooner than later.

Friday morning we drove up to Vancouver. We had good weather and only a 30 minute wait at the border. After crossing we went straight to Kitsalano for lunch, which I’ve previously described as the West Seattle of Vancouver, but upon further inspection feels much more like Pacific Beach than West Seattle. We had a great lunch at a bistro called Burgoo, which included the best meatball sandwich of my life. After lunch we walked around to explore the area, then headed downtown to check-in at our hotel. We stayed at the Metropolitan Hotel, which is the same place we stayed in last time. To be honest, our experience with the hotel on this trip wasn’t as good as it was last year, but that was a very minor detail in an otherwise outstanding trip.

Friday night we enjoyed another all-time great meal, this time of the Italian variety. We went to Cioppino and had the best seafood we’ve ever had at an Italian restaurant. It was funny because this was a very different dinner from Thursday night, but they were both dominated by amazing seafood. Shortly after we sat down we were greeted by the Maitre’ D, who informed us that my Mother had purchased us a nice bottle of wine and told them to take good care of us for our anniversary. She is unbelievable! What a considerate and thoughtful thing to do. Well, the wine was outstanding, as was the food and service, plus the surroundings were priceless. There was a table behind us that looked like a Good Fella’s casting call. These guys were dressed to a T, drinking very expensive wine, and drawing a ton of attention from the restaurant staff. They definitely personified the environment, and between the dinner we had there combined with dinner at Shiro’s and lunch at Burgoo, I was already proclaiming this as one of the great ‘food weekends’ of my life.

Saturday was spent walking around downtown Vancouver and shopping. We got some stuff for ourselves, as well as for the girls, then went back to the hotel for some swimming, champagne, and got ready for the hockey game. Seeing an NHL hockey game in Canada was a bucket list item for me so it was really cool to get to do that. Sunday we walked around some more, had a nice brunch, then went to the movies to see “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, which I thought was good. Although we tried to stay out late, we ended up back in our room before midnight every night. That said, we made the most of each day and were pretty beat by the time we left on Monday.

Obviously we were thrilled to come home to our girls but I’m glad we got this time away. Getting back home meant the spring quarter at school had officially begun, so I immediately had some homework to take care of. My first day back at work was Tuesday, and it was a long one. By the time I went to bed at 4:00am I had been working for over 18 hours and could barely see straight. I mentioned recently that I’ve been working on a special project but couldn’t go into any details. Well, that special project is now live (as of this evening) and will be promoted tomorrow morning on Amazon’s homepage, as well as Jeff Bezos’ shareholder letter.

In order to help mitigate some of the negative press we have received regarding our fulfillment centers, Amazon has decided to offer fulfillment center tours to the general public. By allowing people into these once very secret facilities, we should be able to dispel some of the myths regarding work conditions. Having spent a fair amount of time in these places, I already knew that the reports were false, but now anyone will have the ability to see what happens behind the scenes once you purchase a product. The site is located at: amazon.com/fctours and it is expected to receive a very high traffic volume.

This was my first opportunity to do something that is publicly visible at Amazon so I took it very seriously. The exposure it brought me was incredible; every day I’ve been finding myself in meetings with directors, senior managers, and other leaders throughout the company. It is these very same people who will control my fate when the decision comes to see if I should move along to the next level, so making a good impression was vital. Fortunately everything has turned out really well and I’ve been getting some much-appreciated praise and recognition for the hard work and dedication. Having worked on this project makes me feel like I have finally truly ‘arrived’ at Amazon, and I’m excited to be able to take things like this on again in the future.

We’ve been very spoiled by having Amy and Tom out to stay with us, so these next couple days will be a bit of an adjustment. Jessica said Ava was very upset to see them go today, but before she knows it they’ll be back for Elise’s first birthday in July. Jessica will be busy at work due to Seattle Restaurant Week so I can’t wait for Sunday when the four of us can relax and have a nice family day together. Sorry for not posting any new pictures of the girls lately. I promise to post some next time I write.