Author: Michael Pellegrini

Today I joined the Gracie Barra (pronounced ‘BaHa’) school in Bellevue, Wa. It’s a super famous school that was started by Carlos Gracie Jr. in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They have nearly 400 schools worldwide, including 6 within 30 minutes of my house. Although its a Gracie school, it’s from a different part of the family than the school I went to in San Diego and the two are not affiliated. While the school that I previously attended is known for self defense, this school is the most famous tournament jiu–jitsu school in the world so I’m excited about the idea of competing some day. For now, however, I need to focus on getting back in shape and getting up to speed with this curriculum.

Getting back on the mat tonight was great, but it was also very humbling. The Gracie Combatives program that I completed as a white belt in San Diego was all about self defense on the street, and was meant to defeat an ‘unskilled’ opponent. Unskilled just means that they don’t know jiu–jitsu. After competing that program you move onto the Master Cycle, which is much more advanced and teaches you how to deal with skilled opponents. Since we moved right after I received my blue belt, I never really got the chance to grapple with advanced opponents, which puts me at a disadvantage at my new school. I have no doubt that I’ll catch up quickly, but for now I need to be comfortable with the fact that I’m going to get tapped out a lot. It doesn’t really matter though, I’m just happy to be taking classes, meeting people, getting exercise, and learning lots of new techniques.

All else is going well. Looks like we won’t be able to visit with Jim, Brenda, Kristy and Madi this weekend but hopefully we’ll be able to get together with them soon. Still looking forward to the party at Butch and Carol’s on Sunday night. Here’s a picture of Ava sporting her fauxhawk today in the tub.

Yesterday Jessica and I took our niece Anna downtown to see ‘Rise of the Guardians’, followed by lunch at Il Fornio. We’ve been wanting to do this for a while in order to celebrate her belated birthday but haven’t been able to schedule anything sooner due to everyone’s busy schedule. It turned out to be a lot of fun for everyone. Dana and Brad watched Ava while we were gone, then we watched the Seahawks game once we got home. It was an incredible comeback followed by a last second loss from a long field goal. Tough way to end the season but they definitely overachieved this year and I’m glad we got back to Seattle in time to feel the excitement about them all around town.

Next weekend will be a busy one; I’m working a private party Saturday night at El Gaucho, then on Sunday we finally get to visit with Jim, Brenda, Kristy and Madi, which we’ve been wanting to do since getting back to Seattle. After that we’re attending a birthday party for Butch, which is also a coming home party for us that Carol is throwing. It should be a great weekend.

I worked from home today so the three of us could take a visit to the Eastside Birthing Center. This was our first activity related to our new baby and it went really well. We’re referring to the new baby as “Baby E” because we’ve decided that we don’t want to find out what we’re having, but we know its name will begin with an E. If it’s a boy his name will be Enzo, and if it’s a girl her name will be Eleanor, although she will probably go by Ellie or Elle. Although we had initially planned on finding out the sex as soon as possible, we have since decided to leave it as a surprise. We wouldn’t have been able to do it the first time around because everything was all so new, but we’re much more at ease this time through and like the idea of keeping it a surprise. I can’t think of too many greater surprises life will have in store for us and we wanted to keep this pregnancy unique from the first.

In the spirit of keeping this pregnancy unique, we’re leaning away from delivering at a hospital and are more interested in a birthing center. We certainly didn’t have a bad experience at the hospital in San Diego, and we wouldn’t have been interested in doing things any other way at that time, but this being our second time through we’re more interested in being in a comfortable environment with people that we’ve dealt with throughout the pregnancy. When Ava was born we only saw our doctor for about an hour throughout the entire process. The rest of the time was spent with various nurses that we had never met. Everyone we dealt with was great, but it would have been better to have some familiar faces around. There was a lot of pressure by the hospital staff to have a C–section, which thankfully we did not do, and Jessica spent the entire time in bed, which wasn’t very ideal.

We really enjoyed our visit to the Eastside Birthing Center today, and although we haven’t completely made up our minds quite yet, we feel that this may be the best place for us. We met with the owner, who is one of the three midwives that work there, and really liked her. Ava immediately ran up to her and jumped in her arms, which was a good sign. Ultimately this is Jessica’s decision but I gave her my honest opinion, which was that its a nice place with very warm and caring people. If she decides to go there I will be completely on board. We’re going to give it a couple days before making a decision but we’re feeling good about everything for now.

I’ve been planning on designing and building a new family website for a while now, but haven’t been able to make time until recently. Now that we’re all settled into our new jobs and home, and I’ve had a break from school, I decided to finally step up and get it done. My goal was to have this new site completed before starting back up at school, and classes begin tomorrow, so I’m just in time. Jessica and I came up with the color scheme and general layout a couple months ago while we were still living in San Diego, but I’ve only been able to work on it sporadically until these past two weeks. I really love the site, both for its design and its functionality.

One of my favorite new features of this site is the ability for visitors to leave comments on our posts. I say ‘our’ posts because Jessica will now finally be able to write posts along with me, which is really cool. Previously she would have had to learn HTML to write posts but this new site has an admin panel for her to login to and write posts in. Users will have the option to register an account with PellegriniPage.com or login with their existing Facebook, Twitter, or Google account. Even if you don’t have one of those accounts, and you don’t want to register with our site, you’ll still be able to leave comments if you wish.

One of the things that bothered me most about the old version of the site was that the entire site was on one page, which made it very slow to load. We really wanted an archiving system for this new site, so now you have the ability to browse older posts by month. There is also a search bar in the header which makes it easy to find specific posts. The other main thing I didn’t like about the old site was its lack of mobile support. There was only one version of the codebase, which was meant specifically for computer screens. If you visited it on a phone or tablet there was just a shrunk down version of the same site being served and it didn’t look very good. For this new site I have developed 3 versions: one for desktop and laptop computers, one for tablets and high resolution phones, and one for low resolution phones. Although the mobile versions don’t include the animated photo slider in the header, they are much cleaner and easier to read without requiring any zooming or orientation changes. I will point out that not all of the advanced functionality works on the mobile versions but you will certainly be able to read posts, comment on posts, search, and login from any device.

The new site also includes a photo gallery section which is still in progress. We have so many photos and I didn’t want to delay the launching of the site just because I didn’t have all of them optimized and ready for the web quite yet. I haven’t even attempted to tackle all of our baby photos yet but should be doing so fairly soon. The site will most likely be seeing some upgrades in the near future but already I’m extremely happy with it and consider it the best work I’ve ever done. It will certainly make a nice portfolio piece for me, but more importantly it will be much more user friendly and interactive for our visitors. Hope you all enjoy it as much as we do.

Today Jessica and I are enjoying a much needed day off together after an incredibly long day yesterday. I worked a normal day at Amazon, then went to Gaucho to bartend at 4:00. Jessica had been there since 2:00 getting things setup, and we proceeded to have a long, busy night. It was a lot of fun though and I’m glad I did it. I definitely plan on filling in there whenever I can. It’s a nice change of pace from the office environment and I always enjoy seeing my old friends from the restaurant industry. Plus we’re saving to buy a house so any extra work will benefit the cause.

Our darling baby Ava got to spend the night with Auntie Dana, Uncle Brad, and her cousins Kallan and Anna. This was only the second time she has spent the night away from us, so we were very happy to get her back this morning. After Dana and Brad dropped Ava off the three of us went to IHOP for breakfast, then got home in time for our friend Laurel to come over for a visit. Looks like the rest of the day will be spent taking the dogs for a walk and watching football/movies. I’m going back to work tomorrow morning but it will be a short week from here on out.

2012 was a great year for us that was full of unexpected change and pleasant surprises. We’re so happy to be back home in Seattle, near lots of family and friends, and excited about all of the good things to come in 2013. Obviously bringing a new addition to our family will be the best part of this year. We’re so fortunate in every way. Happy 2013 to all of our loved ones, both near and far. It’s going to be a great year.

Although I finished up with my latest classes last weekend, I received my final grades today. I was happy to find out that I got an A in each class, which means I received a B+ or better in every class of the year. It hasn’t been easy balancing school with family and work, and it’s only going to get tougher as I move on, but I’m very happy I made the decision to go back and finish my degree. I’m especially excited about moving into 2013 simply because I’ll be able to tell myself that I’ll be done with school ‘next year’. I’m a year and a half from graduation, which still feels like a ways away, but we’ve got so much to look forward to in the meantime that I’m sure it will go by quickly.

Jessica is doing much better now in her second pregnancy than she was a few weeks ago. I’m sure the move and job change made it especially tough on her but we’re getting more and more settled in everyday and she’s doing well. She is almost done training at El Gaucho so that will be nice to have completed. I finally received the assets I needed to get started on my project at Amazon and have been working on it a ton, including weekends, in order to make a good impression on my manager and co–workers.

I’m going to be guest bartending at El Gaucho on New Years Eve, meaning Ava will be staying the night at Dana and Brad’s place, and Jessica and I will be able to spend New Years together, which will be fun even though we’ll be working. I’m looking forward to seeing lots of old friends, even though it’s going to be an incredibly long day for me. I’m basically going to work from 7:00am until 3:30pm at Amazon, then 4:00pm until 2:00am at Gaucho, but luckily I have the next day to do nothing but chill out at home. All else is going well and we’re happy to be back home in Seattle.

Today we celebrate our first Christmas back in Seattle, as well as Ava turning 13 months old. Jessica and I were just talking last night about how this is our sixth Christmas together but only our second in Seattle. The first one was spent in Colorado, then we went to Iowa for our second, and our fourth and fifth were down in San Diego. We’ve definitely been getting around over the years. I went into the office yesterday and was the only one there, but was able to get a lot of work done so I was happy about that. Then last night the three of us went over to Dana and Brad’s house to hang out and open presents. We got Anna a Kindle and loaded it up with books for her, and for Kallan we told him that Jessica and I will be taking him to see Soundgarden in February. They both seemed very happy.

This morning we slept in, then I surprised Jessica with breakfast in bed before opening presents. We’ve made a few video calls to family and now plan on spending the rest of the day watching movies and having a nice meal. I truly couldn’t ask for a better Christmas than to stay home all day with my girls. Here are a few pictures from last night and this morning. Merry Christmas!

Ava has been wall–walking and walking while holding someone’s hand for a while now, but last night she broke through and started walking on her own! Obviously this was very exciting. We’ve known she could do it for some time but she didn’t realize it. All she needed was a little confidence in herself. Everyone keeps telling us that once they get started there is no stopping them so I’m assuming she’ll be walking everyday from here on out. Unfortunately Jessica was at work last night when Ava got on a roll but she has the next four days off, which is convenient considering tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so I’m sure she’ll get more than a fair dose of seeing Ava walk around. I’m usually the one that’s gone when Ava does something for the first time so I was really proud and excited to be there for this. Luckily I had my phone handy and was able to take a couple short videos of her as she got started. It’s stuff like this that makes me so happy to have this website. I love the fact that Ava will be able to look back at any time in her life and be able to see her first steps. Enjoy!

Today our beloved niece Anna turns 12. We spent the evening with her, Kallan, Dana and Brad yesterday having dinner, eating cake, and watching her open presents. She’s such a good kid and seemed to have a great time. Before we got to their house the three of us decided to brave the crowds at Bellevue Square mall so Ava could get her first picture with Santa Clause. Obviously the mall was a madhouse but we had a good time and were luckily able to get one picture of Ava before she started crying. I didn’t blame her one bit for crying in the arms of a strange bearded man in a red suit, but we’re glad we did it.

We finally made time to look through the photos Lisa took on Ava’s first birthday and wanted to post them just in time for the holidays. All else is going well now that we’ve gotten settled in at our new home. I’m learning new things everyday at Amazon and Jessica is getting up to speed at El Gaucho. We’re looking forward to catching up with family as soon as possible for the holidays. Enjoy the new pics.

A week ago tonight we arrived in Seattle after two extremely long days of driving. We left San Diego on the morning of Thursday the 29th and drove 14 hours before arriving in Medford Oregon that night. Going through the Sisques mountains in Southern Oregon that night was a nightmare. The rain was coming down as hard as I’ve ever seen in my life and it was pitch black. We ended up driving 840 miles that day and it was rough, to say the least. The next day was ‘only’ about 9 hours of driving, including some terrible traffic in Tacoma, before finally arriving at Dana and Brad’s house around 7:30pm. Once again, we couldn’t have done it without Amy’s help, and I want to wish her a very happy birthday today. She’s always there for us when we need her and was a total rockstar throughout the entire moving process.

Saturday morning we got the keys to our new house and finally got to check it out. We’re happy with the place considering we moved into it without actually seeing it in person. Our only complaint is that the master bedroom is pretty small but it will be fine for the next year or two until we’re ready to buy a place. Monday morning I started my job at Amazon and I’ve been hard at work all week trying to get up to speed on all of their systems and terminology. I’m going to need to learn a new programming language called ‘Ruby on Rails’ for my job so I’ve been studying hard every night. There is no question that getting up to speed at Amazon is the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do professionally but I know I can do it. It’s going to take so much hard work but I’m more than willing to put in the time and effort. I really like the company, my teammates, and the environment. I just need to focus on finishing out my contract and getting hired as a full–time employee and we’ll be golden.

Today our POD finally arrived and we’re so excited to start unpacking our stuff tomorrow. Dana, Brad, Kallan and Anna are coming over to help us unload after I deal with getting new license plates for the Honda in the morning. I decided to get a head start tonight but ran into a problem with the latch that unlocks the door. I had trouble with it when we were getting the POD loaded up but now it’s completely stuck and will not open. I spent over an hour trying everything I could think of but so far nothing has worked. I wanted to try using some WD–40 and a hammer, which I own, but of course they are both inside the POD so we’re either going to have to borrow them or purchase new ones. No guarantees this will work but I’ve got to figure something out. It’s like torture to have all our stuff sitting in the driveway but not be able to get in.

Jessica started training right away at El Gaucho this week and will be working private holiday parties starting next week. This is their busiest month of the year so it was a good time for her to get started. Lots of my old friends are still working there so it’s cool that they are going to get to know her now as well. We’re definitely happy to be back home in Seattle and can’t wait to get fully adjusted, which basically just means getting our stuff unloaded and the house organized. We’ve been living out of bags and sleeping on an air bed for too long and are dying to get back to normal. I received the pictures from Ava’s birthday photo shoot with Lisa but haven’t been able to go through them yet due to studies for work and school. I’m sure we’ll have some great new pics up soon. It’s good to be back!