Author: Michael Pellegrini

Not to sound overly dramatic, but there’s been a bit of a void in my life over the past year. I don’t think there’s any question that the thing I miss most about San Diego is my Jiu Jitsu school. When we moved here I joined a school but never got the right feeling there and ended up leaving shortly thereafter. Since then I’ve thought a lot about Jiu Jitsu but wasn’t sure when it would come back into my life.

I mentioned in a post a while back that there’s a new school opening near my office. I’ve been in contact with the owner, so today I went in to meet him in person and have a grappling session. Since I already know I love Jiu Jitsu, the main thing I was hoping for today was to like the teacher. As it turned out, the owner Larry was exactly what I was hoping for. Really cool, humble, wise, and amazing at Jiu Jitsu. He’s been studying for over 15 years, got his black belt 5 years ago, and recently moved here from Denver to open his own school. I could immediately tell that this was the right place for me, and it looks like there are already several guys from Amazon who will be training there so I’ll get meet some new co–workers right away.

We celebrated Elise turning five months old today by having an early Christmas Skype session with Grandpa Rick and Grandma Chris. They sent us a huge box of presents yesterday so the four of sat in front of the web camera and opened gifts. Chris made two beautiful framed letters for the girls (A and E of course), plus they sent all kinds of great clothes, blankets, kitchen stuff, and a really nice shaving set for me. They’re always so generous, but the best part was getting to video chat so they could see the girls getting excited. Ava had a blast opening presents and Elise couldn’t stop giggling the whole time. Definitely a nice way to spend the afternoon.

Jessica is working tonight but is off tomorrow, so Dana, Brad, Kallan, and Anna will be coming over to do a little Christmas get–together. Anna is a teenager now so we’ll be celebrating her birthday as well. Next Sunday we’ll be doing something similar at Butch and Carol’s along with Rob, Mina, and their family, then leaving for Colorado two days later. Six more days of work, including the final week of the quarter at school, before our Winter vacation. I’m getting excited.

I had the longest day Wednesday due to my trip to Reno. I had checked the weather ahead of time and it said the high temperature that day was going to be in the mid 40’s. You can guess how surprised I was when we landed in 14 degree weather with snow everywhere. The roads were clear though, so I went ahead and rented a Challenger for our 45 minute drive to the fulfillment center. I’ve been wanting to drive one of those things for a while now and lets just say it didn’t disappoint. Not exactly the best winter car but everything was fine. To keep the holiday spirit alive we found a holiday radio station and rocked out to Christmas carols the whole way. I was a little embarrassed at how many of those songs I knew the words to, but it was fun.

Not much else going on around here other than getting ready for the trip. I’ve been planning on making dinner for everyone one night while we’re there, so today I decided to make seafood ravioli with pesto. I’ve never made it before but after the success we had on Ava’s birthday my confidence is pretty high so I’m going for it.

Tomorrow is going to be a pretty long day. I’m flying to Reno with a co–worker early in the morning so that we can spend several hours working in a fulfillment center. Our manager wants everyone on the team to experience working in a fulfillment center during our peak season, and he wants us to go to centers that we haven’t previously visited, which for me equates to Reno. I checked the forecast and luckily it looks like we’ll have decent weather. I hear its about a 45 minute drive from the airport so I’m glad we won’t be dealing with any snow. Normally a trip like this would be overnight, but this time we’re cramming everything into one day. At least I won’t be away from the girls for a night.

This is shaping up to be an interesting week at work. Today my team attended customer service training session, which included sitting with customer service agents and listening to actual customer phone calls. Listening in on the customer calls is really interesting, and sometimes hilarious. One guy insisted on ringing his door bell over the phone to prove that it works and that it wasn’t his fault that he missed a delivery. It was the longest doorbell ever.

Jessica has been working a lot lately. This is Gaucho’s busy season as well, so they’ve been needing her quite a bit. It’s all good though because we’re inside of two weeks from our trip to Colorado for Christmas. I haven’t been snowboarding in a long time and can’t wait to get out to Breckenridge. Seeing Ava play in the snow for the first time is going to be awesome, and I know Amy and Tom are excited to have everyone out. I’ll finish the fall quarter the day before we leave and will be enjoying a two week break from school while we’re away. Only two quarters to go after that…

Ava and Elise are both doing great. Elise is growing so fast its crazy. Our babysitter came over tonight for the first time in about 3 weeks and couldn’t believe how much bigger she is. Ava got a chance to play with Easton, our babysitter’s son who is one month older than her. I don’t get to see her play with other kids very often so it was good to see her having so much fun. When they left Ava stood there looking out the window saying “See you next time” over and over. It was pretty sweet.

No new pics for now but I’m sure we’ll have plenty over the next few weeks. Happy Holidays!

One year ago today we arrived in Bellevue after nearly 3 years in San Diego. First and foremost, we couldn’t have done that move without the help of Jessica’s Mom, Amy. Jess was in the early stages of her pregnancy with Elise at that time and we had just hosted a big party to celebrate Ava’s 1st birthday and Thanksgiving. That party turned out to be the last fun thing we did in San Diego, because the following week was nothing but cleaning out our house and loading everything into a moving pod. I remember we had the steepest driveway ever at that house and the pod couldn’t be left on the street so we had no choice but to keep it in the driveway. The downward angle ended up working in our favor when loading things into the pod, but then you had to walk out uphill. Good times.

One thing I’ll never forget about that move was the first day of driving. Jess and I have done some crazy trips before, most notably riding my motorcycle from Seattle to Reno in one day (16 hours), but this one was right up there. Jessica and Amy drove the Durango, which contained Ava, both dogs, plus everything else that could possibly fit inside, and they towed a small trailer rented from U–Haul, (tip: never rent from U–Haul) because we couldn’t fit everything into the pod. I was following them in our Accord, which was completely packed with stuff. There was literally no space anywhere in that car besides the driver’s seat. We pulled out from our house in La Mesa at 7:30am and didn’t stop until we reached Eugene OR, which is 1,000 miles north, at approximately 1:00am. Going through the pass at the Siskiyou Mountains that night was the worst storm I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s darker than night out there, you’re on a winding mountain highway, and the rain is coming down so hard that you can’t hear the stereo and your wiper blades can’t keep up even though they’re on their highest setting. In hindsight we shouldn’t have done it but we were determined to get to Eugene that night and we did.

Everyone was so relieved when we arrived at Dana and Brad’s house the following night. That was a special type of exhaustion. Amy had to be up at the crack of dawn the following morning for a flight back to Florida, but luckily Brad was also flying out early that morning and Dana was already planning on driving to the airport. That morning our little caravan pulled up to our new house and we were met by our friend Kim, who is a real estate agent and helped us get the house. We had only seen pictures at this point and had our fingers crossed as we walked in for the first time. We had already signed a year lease and I was starting work as a contractor at Amazon in a couple days so there was no going back.

We’ve already made some good memories at this house, including just last weekend with Ava’s birthday party, but hopefully it won’t be too much longer until we make one final move, into a house we own. As much as we hate the thought of moving again, we love the idea of buying something that we can stay in long–term. Once we get through the new year we’re going to sit down with Aunt Carol and get down to business. I think its safe to say that we’re staying in this area and I love the idea of the girls growing up near family.

After all the excitement we had last weekend celebrating Ava’s second birthday, the plan for today was to have a nice relaxing day at home with just the four of us. Last night we received the photos Leon took at Ava’s birthday party and we’re thrilled with how they turned out. Not only did he get tons of great shots of Ava, but he also got a lot of photos of the other little kids that were there. If you’d like to download the Hancock, Kipper, Klinger, LaFleur, or Lester family photos, go to: pellegrinipage.com/downloads

We went on a mini–hike this morning on a trail near our house. It’s been pretty ideal weather here considering the time of year, so we wanted to get out and enjoy it before gorging ourselves for the remainder of the day. We didn’t do a turkey this year but did make a ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and veggies, followed by pumpkin pie with extra whip cream. We’re in a bit of a food coma now but its been a great day. I’ll be working tomorrow, and its a bit of an ‘all hands on deck’ sort of day considering all of the holiday shopping, but it’s also Friday, which is inherently good.

Nana got Elise some Thanksgiving pajamas and Jess was able to get a great picture of her in them. The rest of the photos were taken by Leon at Ava’s party.

Elise’s first Thanksgiving

Two years ago today Jessica and I became parents, and our lives were forever changed for the better. In one sense it’s hard to believe that it’s already been two years, but when I look back and think of all that has happened in that time. As the story goes, Ava was born on “Black Friday” in 2011. Leading up to her birth I was working about 80 hours per week between my two jobs. I was working days at Scrollmotion and bartending at night at the Tractor Room. Thanksgiving was going to be my first day off in over a month, and since Jessica was so close to delivery we decided to have a very low key meal at our home in Pacific Beach.

Shortly after Thanksgiving dinner Jessica went into labor. We knew not to go to the hospital right away, so we watched a UFC event, then went on a walk around the neighborhood with Bruno and Bella. We arrived at the hospital in the wee hours of the morning and began the roller coaster ride that was Ava’s birth. The hospital was pushing Jessica to have a C-section but we didn’t want that and held out as long as possible. As they were preparing the room for surgery, the doctor decided to give Jessica one chance to have a natural birth. After only a few minutes of pushing our sweet baby girl was born. I had never cried tears of joy before that moment, and I’ll never forget how special it was. Since then we’ve come a long way, including another baby, two moves, a job change, and me getting back into school to finish my degree. To say we’ve been keeping busy would be a major under statement, but that’s the way we like it.

This past Saturday we celebrated Ava’s birthday at our house in Bellevue with about 30 friends and family members. It was the biggest party we’ve ever thrown, and it was a huge success! Jessica did an amazing job decorating for the party, and I rekindled Gigi and Aunt Norma’s ravioli recipe, which was a hit. Although putting on a party of this magnitude was a ton of work, seeing Ava’s face when everyone sang Happy Birthday to her made it all well worth it. It was a look of pure joy and happiness, followed by a barrage of cake making its way all over Ava, her tray, and the surrounding walls and floor. My explanation can’t do it justice so keep an eye out for the photos to come.

Both of our girls were great all day and I think Ava had a blast opening presents and going down the slide we got her. She literally went down that thing at least 100 times throughout the day. Elise was so well behaved and content to be passed around by family members and close friends. My good friend Leon took tons of photos, which I’ll be getting later this week, and will be posting ASAP. I’m going to save the photos that we already have for Jessica’s post tonight, but I couldn’t resist recapping the wonderful day we all had.

Ava, you and your sister are the best thing that has ever happened to your Mom and I. You’ve brought a sense of joy and purpose to our lives that we never even knew existed. I thank my lucky stars everyday for having such an amazing family. Although you probably won’t remember your second birthday, please know that it was a very special day that was attended by so many people we love. Thank you for making me such a proud Papa; I love you with all my heart.

We got to spend last weekend and the first half of this week with Grandpa Rick. Everyone had a really nice time hanging out. We ate some good meals, watched some movies and football games, and most importantly, Rick got a lot of quality time in with the girls. As usual his visit flew by and before you knew it he was on his way back home. I’m just glad they were able to do some fun stuff like go to the zoo and get studio photos taken while he was here.

We were paid a visit by Kristy, Mark, Trinity, and Madi on Sunday while Rick was here. Jess and I both really enjoyed meeting Mark and Trinity. As soon as Rick found out Mark was a hunter they struck up conversation and hit it off. Madi wanted nothing more than to hold Elise the entire time, and she did such a great job. She’s a natural with babies and will surely make an excellent mom someday. Ava absolutely loved playing with the girls, and the rest of us hung out and enjoyed watching the Seahawks walk all over the Falcons.

We’re getting really excited for Ava’s birthday party next weekend. There are quite a few guests coming, many of whom haven’t seen each other in a long time. I started cooking today so that I wouldn’t be frantic at the last minute. Today I’m making beef and turkey chili, a marinara sauce for the ravioli, and the filling for the ravioli, which consists of veal, pork, turkey, chantrelle mushrooms, sweet onion, garlic, and spinach. Tomorrow I’m making the pasta from scratch and filling the ravioli. I’ve never made pasta before so I’m a little nervous but I’m sure I’ll be fine as long as I follow my Aunt Norma’s recipe. Since there will most likely be some vegetarian guests at the party, I’m intentionally making the pasta sauce without meat. We will have cheese ravioli available for anyone who doesn’t eat meat. There will also be lots of snacks and sides available, plus a rainbow birthday cake baked by Mom. It’s going to be a great day.

Elise turned 4 months old this week. Even though I see her everyday its easy to tell that she is growing fast. She’s so alert now and she’s developing quite the sense of humor. She enjoys being played with and is pretty easy to get laughing. Her vision is much better; she can make eye contact with you from across the room now. I don’t know what we did to get so lucky but we have two amazing little girls to be thankful for every single day. I’m actually writing this post with 1 hand because Jess is gone at work and Elise doesn’t feel like not being held. Happy to oblige.

We recently received the photos Leon took on their last visit, so combine those with the photos from Rick’s visit, and you’ve got a lot to share. Enjoy.

Elise 4 months

Ava in her car

Ava loves cupcakes

No boots are safe around Ava

Good times with Grandpa

Tonight Rick is arriving for a visit until Wednesday. We’re excited to have him out, and we have no agenda other than to hang out and relax. I’m glad he’s going to get some quality time with the girls, and I have a week off school starting today, so the timing is perfect.

School has been going well lately and I’m starting to learn some pretty cool stuff. It’s been requiring more time than ever, so I’ve been having a babysitter come over once a week just to get some un-interrupted study time. We’ve all been so busy lately and then suddenly you realize its November and Ava’s birthday is only two weeks away. Last year at this time we were getting ready to host Thanksgiving and then move back to Seattle a week later. Can’t believe how quickly this year has passed, but I’m glad because it means I’ve only got 8 more months of school.

Jessica just got approval to take Christmas Eve off so we’re buying plane tickets to go to Colorado that morning. We’re going to hang out at Amy and Tom’s place until the 30th; probably do some snowboarding and enjoy a white Christmas in the mountains. There’s a chance that I’ll be able to take an unofficial vacation the week between Christmas and New Years, which is what they did last year, but worst case scenario I’ve got just enough vacation saved up. Either way we can’t wait to get out there. Joel and Melanie are coming so I’m looking forward our annual night on the town.

I’m sure we’ll have some new pics and updates after Rick’s visit. We’re getting together with Butch and Carol on Tuesday so that should be fun. We’ve also got some pictures of Elise from Leon coming soon. I’m excited that he’ll be taking pictures at Ava’s birthday party. Speaking of the birthday party, I’m going to start cooking next weekend. This will be my first attempt at homemade ravioli; I’ve got to do my Aunt Norma and Gigi proud.

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

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

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

Elise in her Bumbo

Elise at 3 months

Ava watching the flying pumpkins at Remlinger Farms

With Adam Carolla

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.PellegriniPage.com/recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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