Author: Michael Pellegrini

Yesterday I returned home from Japan after a week of adventure with my friends Devin, Brian, Tiko, and Brad. This was only my second ever overseas trip, the first being my trip to Europe with my Mom in the summer of 2001. The trip was Devin’s idea, and had been in planning for about 15 months. Not only did Devin conceive and plan this trip, but he also funded it. I’m not going to get into the details of why he funded it, but instead focus on the amazing life changing experience that we all shared together, as well as do my best to express my ultimate gratitude for having the opportunity to be part of it.

It’s hard for me to put into words how much I appreciate Devin including me on this trip. No one (other than my parents) has ever done anything even close to this for me, nor should they. Although I didn’t have a terribly hard time accepting his generosity, it was still tough to wrap my head around at times. He certainly didn’t have to include me on this trip, and our friendship wouldn’t have suffered in the slightest, but the fact that he did left me with such a huge sense of humility and gratitude. Based on this, I felt like the best thing I could do was go on this epic journey, document the hell out of it, and do my best to relay all these incredible experiences with my loved ones. It’s important to me that the people I love get the best possible sense of this experience, and walk away with some type of expanded perspective.

So before I go further, I need to take this opportunity to give Devin my ultimate gratitude. Out of the pure kindness of your heart, you’ve changed my life forever, and so much of what we experienced together on this trip will now trickle down to my wife, kids, and extended family. You’ve taught me a lot about generosity, friendship, and travel. We’ll be talking and laughing about these experiences for the rest of our lives, and I just can’t thank you enough for welcoming me in on such an incredible journey. I know you were happy to do it, but please understand that it’s necessary for me to express my gratitude the best way I can.

In addition to expressing my thankfulness to Devin, I also owe a huge thanks to my amazing wife Jessica. From day one when Devin originally invited me on this trip (which was the day of my 38th birthday), Jessica has been nothing but supportive. She simply would not have allowed me to pass this up, and I don’t take that for granted. She knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime, and has been nothing but supportive the entire time. Although I’d like to think I never take our relationship for granted, it’s things like this that remind you how well your life has turned out, and that you most definitely found your soulmate. I’m just so lucky to have family and friends like this, and I hope they all know how much I love, respect, and appreciate all of them.

Obviously I’ve got a lot to write about, so I’m going to change up the format for this post. Rather that write my post and finish it off with a bunch of recent photos, I’m going to separate this post into multiple chapters, and include photos for each chapter. I think it will make more sense this way, otherwise by the time you get to the end of the post, the pictures will be out of context. So, without further ado, let’s dive in! You might want to make yourself a cup of coffee, as we’re about to embark on a fantastic journey. Before I get into chronicling each day of the trip, I want to share some general observations I had about Japan.

General observations

The people

Overall I thought the people were amazing. They were certainly friendly, but in my opinion what overshadowed their friendliness was their sense of respect. There are some places you can travel to, France for example, where the locals are likely to be rude to you, or give you some type of sarcastic answer, simply because you are a tourist. This is not the case in Japan. Locals may not go out of their way to talk to you, mostly because English isn’t that widely spoken there, but whenever you do interact with a local you can rest assured that they will be friendly and treat you with respect.

For me personally, I always try to be polite with everyone, mainly because that’s how my Mom raised me, but in Japan I did my best to turn it up a notch. I found that when trying to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak your language, don’t ever underestimate the power of a smile and a friendly gesture. There are certain things like this that transcend all language, and when people can tell you’re trying and you’re friendly, you’ll have no problems. I ended up leaving Japan with a profound sense of respect for its people and its culture, and was quite appreciative of that same respect I received from the Japanese people.

Another thing I couldn’t help but notice about the Japanese people was the fact that hardly anyone was overweight. It had to be 1% or less, which was interesting. Over the course of the week I was there I felt like I figured out the primary reasons for why this is, and it’s not a carbohydrates thing at all. They eat white rice or noodles with almost every meal, but their meal sizes are significantly smaller than ours, they don’t eat processed foods that are injected with a bunch of sugars, they don’t eat greasy fried foods, and they don’t eat heavy foods that are weighed down with a bunch of cheese. Tiko and I were both commenting at the end of the trip that neither of us had any heartburn the entire time we were there, which was unheard of. I even brought a bottle of acid reducers with me just in case, but never ended up needing them. Overall the food is just lighter, more natural, and the portions are smaller. Plus everyone is walking and riding bikes everywhere, which doesn’t hurt.

Since I’ve been back I’ve had two meals: pizza last night for dinner, and Taco Time with Enzo today for lunch. In both cases the food has completely wrecked my stomach because in just that one week my body got used to eating lighter and more wholesome foods in smaller amounts. Considering that I’m trying to use this experience to better myself, adopting some of these food findings for me seems like a no-brainer because ultimately you just end up feeling better.

The Weather

There were many unexpected surprises on this trip, but I’d have to say nothing surprised me more than the weather. Once we were within about 10 days of the trip, I started looking at the weather forecast and was surprised to see that it was going to be hot (mid to upper 80’s) and humid (60-70% humidity) with chances of thunderstorms throughout the week. I’ve never really thought of Japan as being a terribly hot place, and even after seeing the forecast I was still caught off guard when initially stepping off the plane. I tend to think of places like Thailand or the Philippines as being hot and humid, but not Japan.

Instantly I was reminded of Florida because the humidity sticks to your skin and adds a glisten to your entire body. At home in Washington, and even in a hot dry climate like Las Vegas, I would never break a sweat unless I’m working out or playing hockey. Yet that was simply not the case in Japan. Sometimes the humidity was so thick in the air that it was a bit difficult to breathe, and at its worst, we were sitting in 90 degree heat with 70% humidity, which is debilitating. Never in my life would I have expected to be so ready to come home to Washington’s chilly climate, but that’s exactly how I felt yesterday as we walked out of SeaTac airport. I’m certainly not complaining about the weather, and it hardly stopped us from doing anything, but when it comes to surprises and being a bit caught off guard, this one tops the list.

Bathrooms & toilets

I’d heard before that toilets in Asia were a lot different than in the U.S., but I always equated that to a squatty potty, which is something I never saw in Japan. Instead of some primitive contraption like that, I was surprised to find the most high tech toilets I’ve ever seen. In the U.S., our toilets are quite simple – you do your business and flush. That’s it. Not so in Japan however. While the toilets there do have a normal flush lever like we’re used to, they also have a variety of electronic buttons, but the problem is, those buttons are usually only labeled in Japanese, and I quickly figured out that you should only press them if you know what they do. Let’s just say I was a little caught off guard in my first hotel room after pressing the wrong button and seeing this “magic wand” coming out looking like it wants to impregnate me. It turned out to be a bidet, and over the course of the week I became more comfortable with using it (which was a huge surprise), but the first few times I used a toilet in Japan I definitely walked away feeling confused. Some of the fancier toilets also have buttons to play music (for sound masking) and air dryers to use after the bidet. It’s pretty intense.

Closely related to this were the setup of their bathrooms. Basically the toilet isn’t in the bathroom, it’s in a small room of its own. The bathroom is then separated into two areas: the shower room, and the sink room. When you go into the shower room, there’s a bathtub with no shower curtain, tile flooring throughout, and a drain in the floor. The shower head isn’t built into the wall, but instead can be moved around, and clipped to the wall if you like.

What I didn’t initially understand was that in Japan, you’re not supposed to stand in the tub when taking a shower, which is why there was no shower curtain. Their custom is to stand outside of the tub, on the tiled floor, and shower there. This explains why the clips to hold the shower head were located away from the bathtub. The idea is this, you fill the bathtub with clean water, shower and clean yourself outside of the tub, then soak in the tub after your shower. When you’re done with your bath, you don’t drain the water, you save it for the next member of your family to use.

To the Japanese people, the western concept of cleaning yourself in the bath water is gross, which makes sense when you consider the fact that multiple people will be sharing that water. So that’s why you’re supposed to clean yourself off before getting in there. I didn’t understand any of this at first, and had the hardest time taking a shower in a tub with no shower curtain. I was trying to hold the shower head with one hand, while washing myself with the other, all the while trying to keep all the water within the tub. It was really difficult and I soon found myself crouched down in the tub trying to hold the shower head in the crook of my elbow so I’d have two free hands. I explained this to my buddies later and they all started laughing at me, but even after I understood how you were supposed to shower in these rooms, it was still a bit difficult and took some getting used to.

Efficiency of space

The country of Japan has fewer total square miles than the state of California, yet holds a population of 100 million people, and makes up the third largest economy in the world. That’s pretty impressive! In order to accommodate all these people, they have to be really efficient with space and building. Consequently most people tend to live in city apartments rather than suburban houses. The city buildings are located so close to each other that in many cases you’d be able to reach out your window and shake hands with a person in the next building. Basically, they don’t build out, they build up. These buildings aren’t able to have parking garages like we’re used to in the U.S., so instead they use car elevators to move cars up and down into these stacked storage containers. Like so many things in Japan, their engineering and efficiency can be described in one word: impressive.

Overall, everything in Japan is smaller than we’re used to in the United States. Fire trucks are half the size of ours, streets are narrower, and food portions are much less. At just over 6 feet tall, I was bigger than about 95% of the people I encountered, which took some getting used to.

Public transportation

Simply put, Japan has the best public transportation system I’ve ever seen. They’ve got an elaborate subway system, combined with above ground trains, busses, and tons of taxis. We ended up taking the trains almost everywhere and I couldn’t believe how fast and consistently on time they were. If you happened to miss your train it was no big deal because another one would be there in less than 5 minutes. More often than not these trains get very crowded, so you’ll often find yourself squished in there with lots of people, but you’re usually only on it for 10 or 15 minutes, so it’s no big deal. Although English isn’t very commonly spoke there, we found Google Maps to be a life saver. It would tell us exactly which trains to catch and where, so we never had a hard time getting around.

Driving on the left

This was the first time I’d visited a country where they drive on the left. Although I never drove a car while we were there, I quickly realized that driving on the left affects more than just drivers, it affects pedestrians too. For example, when crossing the street, cars are coming at you from the “wrong” direction, which can really throw you off. Also, since we tend to walk on the same side of the sidewalk as we drive on our roads, I often found myself walking against the flow of foot traffic. Walking to the left side of the sidewalk took some getting used to, but it’s important that you do so because it’s so crowded there. Also, tons of people ride bicycles in Japan, but unlike the U.S., they never ride on the street. They only ride their bikes on sidewalks, so I frequently found myself dodging cyclists coming at me from unexpected directions.

Clean streets with no garbage cans

Japan is the cleanest country I’ve ever seen. Only in the biggest cities (Tokyo and Osaka) did we see any type of litter or graffiti, and even then it was extremely minimal. The fact that it was so clean didn’t surprise me that much, but what did surprise me was the lack of garbage cans. I’m not exaggerating when I say you may walk a full mile without seeing a garbage can, so if you have something to throw away, you may be carrying it for a while. Since it’s so hot and muggy there, the streets are lined with vending machines filled with cold drinks, but once you finish that drink you’ll likely be carrying that empty bottle for a while.

In the U.S. people already litter so much, and I can’t even imagine how bad it would be if there were no garbage cans around, but it’s just not like that in Japan. I think it’s a respect thing, which I love. I think one of the reasons you don’t see many garbage cans in Japan is because they put in so much effort to make sure everything looks beautiful that they don’t want to ruin the asthethetic by lining the streets with trash cans. It all makes sense, but still requires the cooperation of their citizens, which they get in full.

Sidewalks

When we first got to Japan and started walking around, I noticed that everywhere you went, the sidewalk contained a yellow patch about one foot wide, with long straight grooves carved into it. These would literally go on forever, and I soon realized it was to aid blind people walking with a stick. Basically if you were walking along with a stick, you could keep the stick on these grooves to be assured you were walking in the right direction. When you came to a stopping or turning point, the grooves were replaced with little round dots, which the person could feel with their stick. You would literally see these everywhere, even in the subways, train stations, and hotels. The funny thing was I never saw a blind person walking with a stick until our very last day of the trip, and strangely enough, the guy wasn’t using the grooved pathways. He must have known his way around already, but overall the country’s commitment to this type of accessibility was so impressive to me that I ended up taking several photos of these walkways. My buddy Tiko kept making fun of me taking pictures of the sidewalk but I didn’t care, I thought it was awesome.

Safety

Japan is one of the safest countries in the world, and you feel it when you’re there. No one is belligerent at all, guns are totally outlawed, as are bullets, and even firing a gun. Even police officers don’t carry guns. Consequently they have fewer than 20 gun-related deaths per year. Not bad for a country of 100 million people. If you commit a crime in Japan, prosecution rates are 99%, and I’m not exaggerating. There are basically zero drugs there, and no homeless people. Simply put, you never have to worry about your safety, regardless of where you are or what time it is.

Rugby World Cup and Climate Summit

We didn’t know this when booking the trip, but Japan is currently hosting the Rugby World Cup, so we saw tons of Rugby fans, plus a handful of players, while we were there. I’ve seen plenty of professional athletes in person over the years, especially when I worked at El Gaucho, but regardless of that, seeing these Rugby players up close was something else. In general, I’m not physically intimidated by anyone, but there were a couple Rugby players I saw who looked more like refrigerators than human beings. Being in close proximity to them was a humbling experience.

For the most part the Rugby fans were fine, but there were a few cases where they were really drunk, loud, and confrontational. I didn’t know Rugby was such a popular sport in Japan, so it added a unique vibe being there during the tournament. This reminded my of my school trip to New York in 1994, when the U.S. was hosting the FIFA World Cup. I’ll never forget riding an elevator with players from the Irish soccer team, and this was a similar experience.

In addition to the Rugby World Cup, Tokyo was hosting a Climate Summit while we were there, and Al Gore was speaking. I’m sure no matter when you go to Tokyo, plenty of exciting things are going on, but this was totally unexpected. Climate science is something that I deeply appreciate and believe in, so it was cool to have that going on while we were there.

Italian restaurants

Other than Japanese food, by far the most common type of restaurant you’ll find in Japan is Italian. This was surprising to me at first, but it just goes to show you the influence Italian food has had throughout the world. Although most of our meals were traditional Japanese food, we definitely hit up a handful of Italian restaurants as well. The main reason was this – according to our fitness trackers, we averaged 9.1 miles of walking per day, and in my case, this resulted in about 3,000 calories burned per day. Since the food in Japan tends to be lighter and dairy-free with smaller portions, what you end up with is a calorie deficit. Since I didn’t really have much weight to lose in the first place, I often found myself craving a big bowl of pasta and bread just in order to give me the necessary fuel to keep walking.

American restaurants and stores

Although English isn’t that widely spoken in Japan, we all agreed that it wasn’t quite as much culture shock as we were expecting, particularly in the cities. Part of this is due to how modern their cities are, but another part was the fact that so many of the businesses we’re familiar with in the U.S. also have a footprint in Japan. Walking down the street in any major Japanese city you’re likely to see places like 7-11, McDonalds, KFC, Wendy’s, Starbucks, Kinkos, and more. While I don’t tend to visit these places (either here or there), they still add to your general sense of familiarity. Overall, you can tell that the Japanese people are fans of American culture, and these are just a few examples of how that gets materialized.

At this point I’ve already written more than I normally would for a blog post, but I’m just getting started. Now that I’ve explained what surprised me, it’s time to get into the day-to-day details of our trip, as well as share my favorite photos. Might be time to refill that cup of coffee.

Saturday, September 28

Our trip begins! I couldn’t sleep that night due to excitement over the trip, so I was up at 5:30am. I felt like I needed to burn off some energy, so I was at the gym the minute they opened at 7:00 for a quick workout. After that I cleaned up at home, took a few photos with the kids, then rounded everyone up in the van and headed south to SeaTac airport. As you can imagine, saying goodbye to Jessica and the kids was really hard. I’ve never been this far away, or been gone this long, so it was tough. I knew they would be fine, but it was still emotional.

After they dropped me off I was able to take a deep breath, clear my mind, and get ready for all the fun that was about to ensue. I lucked out on the flights because we had a direct flight from Seattle to Japan, and vice versa, but everyone else in our group had a layover. Devin, Tiko, and Brad all flew up together from Vegas and met me at the gate in SeaTac. Brian (Devin’s younger brother) has been living in Berlin for about 6 years now, so the plan was to meet up with him once we got to Osaka. This was my first time meeting Brad, who turned out to be a great guy that fit in perfectly well with the group. As far as the other 3 go, I think of them almost like the brothers I never had. For me it kinda goes beyond friendship because we’ve shared so many amazing experiences together, and this just added to it.

The flight to Osaka was long (about 11 hours), so my plan was to sleep most of the way there, but that ended up being impossible. I was too excited about the trip and ended up staying awake reading and watching movies the whole time. Flying in over Japan I was immediately struck by its beauty. The mountains are so lush with green trees, and unlike Washington, where the mountains are at least partially snow capped year around, these mountains were completely green with trees, even at their summit.

Sunday, September 29

As we stepped off the plane, the heat and humidity hit me right in the face. Instantly I could tell that bringing a jacket was unnecessary. At this point, due to the 16 hour time difference, it was already 4:00pm on Sunday, so our body clocks were totally messed up. Devin’s only request of us was that we not check any bags for the trip so that we could easily make our way through all the various airports and train stations. We all had big carry on bags, so I intentionally packed pretty light in order to leave room for all the presents I was hoping to buy.

After making our way through customs, we all hopped in a cab and began the 90 minute drive from the Osaka airport, which sits out on an island, to our hotel, which was in a more residential part of the city. On the way there, one of the first things I noticed was how everyone hung their clothes out to dry on their apartment balconies. Since space is such a premium in Japan, most homes don’t have room for a dryer, so hanging your clothes out to dry is the norm.

Another interesting thing we saw on the way to the hotel was a march on the streets of Osaka with people carrying signs saying “Remember Fukushima”, which was obviously related to the nuclear plant meltdown from several years ago. It was a peaceful march, with plenty of police around just in case, and was really cool to see.

After checking into our hotel, the plan was to get out on a walk and start exploring. Since we were staying in a residential neighborhood of the city, we got to see a much less touristy part of the city, which felt very cool and authentic. We would walk down these little alleyways and see all kinds of restaurants, arcades, and pachinko parlors. In some cases we would walk in and it felt like every head in the place turned towards us. I could practically hear the record needle getting scratched off the vinyl.

After a bit of walking around, we headed to Osaka station to meet Brian and get him checked in at the hotel. Since it was the first night of the trip, Devin wanted to make sure everyone had their own room to sleep in. I ended up sharing a room with Tiko for the remainder of the trip, which was a ton of fun, but it was nice to have my own room on this first night.

After getting Brian checked into the hotel, we all took the train to a more touristy part of Osaka called Dotonbori. It was funny because I couldn’t understand what Devin was saying and thought he said “Downtown Brewery”, which became one of the many funny taglines of our trip. When we arrived, I was immediately taken aback by all the lights and people. It was a Sunday night, yet the train station and subway cars were totally packed with people. The streets of Dotonbori were also completely packed, and the closest thing I could compare it to was Las Vegas.

We walked around for a while, taking pictures and absorbing our newly found culture shock, then eventually found ourselves at a little Japanese restaurant eating a “pancake” made of cabbage, beef trimmings, and soy sauce. It was surprisingly good, and the first of many delicious Japanese meals we would enjoy over the week.

By the time I went to bed that night I’d been up for 26 hours, which is something I haven’t done in probably at least 15 years. I wouldn’t have thought I was even capable of doing that, but the excitement of the trip kept me going. I put on my complementary Japanese pajamas and crashed hard, knowing we were in for a busy travel day to Kyoto coming up.

Monday, September 30

After getting as much sleep as possible, Devin, Brad and I got up Monday morning and took a walk around the neighborhood. A bit later we met up with Tiko and Brian, checked out of the hotel, then went down the street for some breakfast. I was immediately taken aback by the fact that people were smoking in the restaurant. We’re no longer used to this in the states, so it was a bit jarring.

After breakfast we made our way back to Osaka Station and took a 40 minute train to Kyoto. Kyoto was the original capital city of Japan (it is now Tokyo), and instantly I could tell there was a lot more to it than I was expecting. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised by Kyoto, as we were mainly expecting to see the old historic parts of Japan there (which we did), but it was also a major metropolitan city with everything you could imagine.

After checking into our hotel, we all went for a walk in Old Kyoto, which is the historic part of town. We quickly learned that pedestrian walkways are not just for pedestrians. Cars and trucks are also likely to come down these streets, so you have to watch out at all times. We saw a number of young men and women wearing traditional Japanese kimonos as they strolled through the streets. As I learned, most of these people were wearing rented kimonos, rather than their own. Basically you can rent a kimono for the day and wear it wherever you want. It was extremely hot that day, so I’m guessing having all those robes on was a bit uncomfortable, but it was really cool to see.

Without planning on it, we ended up stumbling upon our first temple, which turned out to be one of the oldest temples in all of Japan. The first thing I noticed about Japanese temples is how immaculate and well manicured they are. These are the most peaceful and serene places in the world. The landscaping is incredible, and it’s not uncommon to see a man on a ladder carefully trimming trees to make them look just right. You’re not allowed to walk on most of the grounds because they stripe the gravel perfectly and don’t want it messed up. You also can’t wear your shoes in the temple because the wood is hundreds of years old and they don’t want anything getting damaged.

The heat and humidity was so intense this day that we all took the opportunity to sit down at the temple, relax, and just enjoy the beautiful surroundings. After leaving the temple we continued walking around old Kyoto, did some shopping, and found a nice traditional little Japanese restaurant for lunch.

Later that evening we had one of my favorite experiences of the entire trip – the Samurai museum. Basically we all went to a Samurai museum, which was located in an outdoor shopping center in Kyoto, and took a tour. Our guide taught us about the history of Samurai, Ninja, and the ancient Japanese Feudal system. We saw various authentic sets of Samurai armor, and learned about the principles of the Samurai: Loyalty and Honor above all else, followed by Mercy, Justice, Courage, Respect, and Honesty. It was also during this tour that our guide said something I’ll never forget regarding Japanese culture: “If you’re going to do something, you should strive for perfection. Otherwise it’s not worth doing.”

After the tour was over, we all got to put on Samurai armor and learn how to use a few traditional Japanese weapons. First we learned how to carry a Samurai sword, then we got some practice using two Ninja weapons: throwing stars and blow dart guns. They had a wall with lots of targets painted on it, so we all took turns throwing the stars and shooting the blow guns. I did okay with the throwing stars, but excelled with the blow gun, and ended up finishing with 3 consecutive bullseyes!

Afterwards we walked around a bit more, did some shopping, then ended up at a nice little restaurant, which we initially thought was Japanese, but turned out to actually be a Chinese restaurant. As usual, the food was great, and so was the conversation. That night I bought a pair of matching bracelets for Ava and Elise – when you put them together the engraving on them forms an ampersand. I really wanted to get something special for each of the kids that they could keep forever, and these bracelets were perfect.

Tuesday, October 1

Our second day in Kyoto was all about sightseeing. We took the train to a new part of town and went to a new temple. I can’t remember the name of this one, but once again I was floored by the pure beauty and serenity of the place. After taking our time to walk through every room of the temple and look at all the art, we made our way to the outside area, where there was a koi pond and various statues. It was quite busy with people, so we just took our time and strolled around.

Right next to this outdoor area was the Bamboo Forest, which was incredible. The bamboo trees are so tall and skinny, you’ve never seen anything like it! We ended up walking all the way up to the top of the hill, then enjoyed some incredible mountain and river views. We kinda got lost heading back, so it took awhile to make our way back down, but we eventually got on a bus and headed out to the Golden Temple.

In terms of architecture, the Golden Temple was probably my favorite thing I saw on the trip. Not only was the temple gorgeous as it gleamed in the sunlight, but the surrounding areas were also breathtaking. Some of my favorite photos from the trip were taken here, and the fan I got for Enzo has a picture of the Golden Temple on it, so it’s a nice reminder of this very special place. I also got Jessica a keychain with the Golden Temple on it.

After leaving the Golden Temple, we took another bus across town to Nijo-Jo Castle, and arrived just before closing. We were actually the last group they allowed in that day, and I made friends with one of the guards outside. It turned out that the castle was under construction and covered with scaffolding, which was a bummer, but this was also the home of the Shogun temple, which was amazing. The Shogun is the head of all Samurai, and he lived here in the temple. In order to protect him, the temple features squeaky floors. Basically guards would sit in various places throughout the temple and remain silent. If there was an intruder (like a Ninja), the floors would squeak when they walked, and the guards would hear it. Immediately upon entering we heard the squeaky floors, then took it as a challenge to see if we could walk without making a sound. I eventually got the hang of it, but realized I had to walk so slowly that it would take a half hour just to go down the hallway. Not very practical if you’re an intruder.

That night we ended up going to two different restaurants for dinner. Basically I really wanted sushi, but the rest of the guys wanted to check out a meat restaurant, so I just came along with them and researched sushi places while they ate. After they finished, they followed me to this awesome little sushi place hidden in an alley. This ended up being my favorite meal of the trip. It was a tiny little place with about 6 seats at the counter, and one private room. We sat in the private room and I ordered Omakase, which is a chef’s sampler of sushi. Rather than pick my own pieces, I let our server, who was also the chef, pick everything. You know it’s good when the things that you typically don’t like (eel, sea urchin, salmon eggs in my case) turn out to be amazing. Unlike American sushi, which tends to have too much rice and lots of filler, this sushi left nothing to hide behind, and it was amazing. I ended up leaving a 5 star review and wrote 3 full paragraphs about my experience there. The rest of the guys tried a few things as well and everyone loved it!

Wednesday, October 2

This was another travel day for us, but we wanted to see a little more of Kyoto before heading out of town. We walked to breakfast that morning, and were heading down a covered pedestrian walkway when all of the sudden I hear a horn from behind me. I look back and there’s a big truck coming at me literally going about 40mph! I almost had to dive out of the way or I would have been killed. It was insane. Overall, people drive wherever they want there, and it certainly feels like pedestrians don’t have the right of way.

After that scare, and our meal, we checked out of the hotel, and I got to visit my first guitar store of the trip. I only had a little bit of time, but ended up playing a few guitars just to get an idea of what I was looking for. Soon we were back on foot, heading to the tallest and most iconic Pagoda in all of Japan. You’ll recognize it when you see the photo below.

In the same grounds as the Pagoda was a beautiful Buddhist temple. I feel kinda bad because I took what ended up being one of my favorite photos of the whole trip, then ended up seeing the “No Photos” sign directly after. I certainly didn’t mean any disrespect, and am thankful for the photo I got, but felt bad about it. I ended up buying 3 little pouches for the kids while we were there. Each pouch contains paper with Kanji characters, each with different meanings. The girl’s pouches were meant for health and prosperity, while Enzo’s pouch was meant for success as a student.

After this we made our way back to the train station, and ended up having our biggest mishap of the trip. Basically the plan was to take the bullet train from Kyoto to Hakone, which is a little mountain town outside of Tokyo. We were staying at an Art and Music Spa and Resort in Hakone, and the thought was that we would get a nice relaxing night there before heading into the madness of Tokyo.

We ended up having some trouble purchasing the right train tickets and soon found ourselves in a big hurry running through the station. We got there on time, hopped on the train, and headed to our seats. As we got there, I noticed a man sitting in my seat, so I politely asked him if he was in the wrong spot and showed him my ticket. Luckily he spoke a little English, and proceeded to tell me we were on the wrong train. I relayed this information to Devin, and we all scrambled to get off the train. However, it was too late. The doors had already closed and locked, so we were all stuck on this train with no idea where it was going. This is when the panic started to set in.

We started running from car to car looking for an attendant, but it took forever to find one. Eventually we found someone and got the good news that the train we had gotten on was going to make a stop at the same station that the other train (the one we belonged on) would also be stopping at. We had no seats on this first train, so we had to just stand there (going 200mph) and wait to get to that station. Once we arrived there, we just waited for about 15 minutes until the correct train arrived. At that point we were able to get on and sit in the original seats we had purchased. In the end it worked out fine, but it was pretty crazy in the moment.

After the whole train debacle, we took a bus up the mountain to Hakone and got checked into our hotel. One of the main features of the hotel was the Onsen, which is a natural hot springs bath. The water is geothermally heated and is said to have healing properties. Onsen baths are a big part of Japanese culture, so I did some reading about it, and based on what I read, I decided not to get in.

Basically there are a lot of rules in regards to Onsen. If you have tattoos, you’re not allowed in a public Onsen because tattoos are generally associated with the Yakuza (Japanese mob). I was the only one in our group with tattoos, and I didn’t want to disrespect their culture. Another rule regarding public Onsen is that you must go naked. I’m not really a big fan of walking around naked in public, so this was a factor. Finally, they don’t like people with long hair getting into the Onsen because it dirties the water.

As it turned out, in addition to the public Onsen, they also had private Onsen, and if I wanted to I could have gone into my own private Onsen, which is what the rest of the guys ended up doing, but I decided to pass. I did walk into one of the private Onsen rooms just to feel the water, and it felt like most hot tubs I’ve been in, but didn’t seem like something I’d be missing out on. I really didn’t want to disrespect their culture, so I took a pass. The rest of the guys loved it, which I was glad to hear, but I’m not upset that I missed out.

Later that evening we all dressed up in traditional Japanese robes provided by the hotel, and sat down for one of the most interesting meals of my life. It was a 7 course traditional Japanese dinner, and all I can say is that my palette has never experienced so many new flavors and textures. I’ll be honest, there were some things in that meal that I couldn’t really eat, but I did my best to try at least a little bit of everything. Once again though, we all had a great conversation, and it ended up being a very memorable meal, as well as a super relaxing evening.

Thursday, October 3

The next morning we all met up for another very traditional Japanese meal, which again was colorful and full of new flavors. It ended up being such a fun and different experience hanging out in Hakone, which was the perfect precursor to our weekend in Tokyo! After breakfast we took the bus back down the mountain, got back on the bullet train, and made our way to one of the coolest cities I’ve ever seen.

Based on population, Tokyo is the sixth largest city in the world. For comparison’s sake, New York City is the 28th largest city in the world. The best way I can describe Tokyo is to take New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Las Vegas, mix them all up in a blender, then double the whole thing. I’ve never seen so many buildings or people in my life! It just goes on and on as far as the eye can see.

We made our way to the hotel, dropped off our bags, and sought out some food. After a couple of very artistic meals, we were ready for something a bit more hearty, so we ended up at this awesome place called Fuji Ramen. The two guys working there were awesome, and the food was amazing. We ended up having Ramen two more times on the trip, but this was easily my favorite.

After lunch we walked over to an outdoor mall to do some shopping. I ended up finding a few things for Jessica, as well as this beautiful miniature Samurai helmet for Enzo. It’s handmade and so cool. I wanted something special that he could keep forever from Japan, and this ended up being the perfect gift.

Later that evening we hopped back on the train and visited the Akihabara district (pronounced Aki-Barra) which is the famous electronics district of Tokyo. The entire neighborhood is filled with electronics vendors, video game arcades, vintage video game stores, and girls on the street trying to hand you flyers for various shows. There’s about as many bright lights as you’d see on the Las Vegas strip, but there’s so much more to it than that. It can be sensory overload for sure, but if you’re in Tokyo it’s one of those must-see places.

After bouncing around for a couple hours we were all getting hungry and ended up at a steakhouse. This was a bit more of a ‘traditional’ meal from our perspective, but man was it good. I don’t red meat very often but the filet mignon I had that night was excellent. Once again the conversation and camaraderie amongst the group was every bit as good as the food, and we all left happy and feeling good.

Friday, October 4

Without a doubt, this was my favorite day of the trip, and also the craziest. It started off with a trip to “Guitar Street”, which is what I’ve been looking forward to since the trip was originally planned. I’d been planning for years to buy a guitar for my 40th birthday, but that plan changed once I knew I was going to Japan.

For those who aren’t familiar, there’s an entire street in Tokyo known as “Guitar Street” and it contains more guitar shops than I’ve ever seen in my life. We stopped by all of them to look around, and I found plenty of cool guitars, but there was no way I was making a purchase until I went to the ESP store.

ESP Guitars are a Japanese brand of extremely well made guitars and basses. My first ESP was actually an LTD (their more affordable brand of guitars made in Korea), and I absolutely loved that guitar, but ended up giving it to my nephew Kallan for his 21st birthday. A year or so later I ended up purchasing a used green ESP Horizon, which I also love and will never get rid of. Based on how much I loved both of these guitars, I knew I had to go to the ESP store in Tokyo. This shop is famous in the guitar world, so I figured there was a very good chance that this is where I’d make my purchase.

After looking at all the other stores, Brad, Tiko and Brian split up to head back to Akihabara, while Devin and I headed back to the ESP store. We went upstairs where they keep all the good stuff, and I started chatting with the coolest sales guy named Hoshi. I basically told him that I was definitely there to buy something, but I didn’t know what. I wanted to try out about a dozen different guitars, so he was kind enough to pull all of them down and get them in tune for me.

Hoshi would hand me a guitar to play, then start working on tuning the next one while I jammed out. Devin was there to take photos and videos of me playing each one, and when I was done I would hand it off to Devin and get started on the next one. After playing all 12 guitars, I felt like I knew which one I wanted, but just to be safe I narrowed it down to 3, and played all 3 again. By the time this was done there was no question in my mind, I was going with the M-II 7 string.

As you may or may not know, a normal guitar has 6 strings, and all of the guitars I owned up until this point were 6 string guitars. About 15 years ago I bought a cheap 7 string on Ebay, but I ended up trading it in for something else a year or two later, and literally haven’t played one since. I knew I was interested in the 7 string before this trip, mainly because it was very different from everything else I already had, but when I first played it at the music store in Kyoto, it didn’t quite feel right. I struggled with it and left that store not sure if a 7 string was right for me.

Once I played this particular guitar again in Tokyo, however, there was no question it was the one. What had felt unnatural and clunky to me just two days before suddenly felt amazing this time around, and again, it’s very different from everything else in my collection. I can’t wait to start recording new stuff with this guitar!

As usual, the guys working at ESP were all so cool. When I told them I was from Seattle, the first thing Hoshi said was “Seattle Mariners – Ichiro!!!” which was awesome. They ended up giving me some gifts to bring home with the guitar, which was so nice of them. The reality is I could have simply purchased the guitar online, but then I wouldn’t have the amazing story of purchasing it at the ESP store in Tokyo, nor would I have the human connection I made with Hoshi and the other guys at the store. This was easily the best guitar buying experience I’ve ever had, and I’m so thankful to have had Devin there with me the entire time!

After purchasing the guitar, Devin and I got back on the subway and took it to our hotel, then headed back to Akihabara to meet up with the rest of the guys. We hung out for a bit, checked out the Gundam Cafe, then headed to a new area of Tokyo called Shinjuku. Devin had purchased tickets to Robot Theater, and honestly this turned out to be the best show I’ve ever seen in my life! From the second we got off the elevator and walked into the pre-show it was sensory overload.

After the pre-show we all headed down several flights of stairs and found our seats in the theaters. I noticed right as the show was starting that the area straight across from us had 10 empty seats in the corner, which didn’t make sense because they said the show was sold out. Pretty soon the show got going and we were all totally into it. During the first intermission I noticed that those seats that used to be empty were now filled, but I didn’t pay any more attention to it until Devin said to me “Is that Angelina Jolie over there?”. I’m like “Yeah right dude” but I looked closer and started to change my tune. I then started looking at the kids around her and instantly recognized them. To be sure, I then pulled out my phone and googled a picture of her and her kids. At that point there was no question it was them, but to be even more sure, I searched to see if she was known to be in Tokyo at this time, and sure enough, she was there promoting her new movie Maleficent, as well as visiting her son Maddox, who is now a freshman in college at a school in South Korea.

Since I was already filming the show, I ended up zooming in on them a few times, which I felt like she noticed because she made eye contact with me for half a second. I ended up feeling bad about it because I didn’t want to disrupt her and her family, but it was such a surprise I couldn’t help it. It was so loud and colorful in there that I couldn’t tell if the video I was taking was turning out, so I probably zoomed in one or two times too many, but again I didn’t mean any harm, it was just a big surprise. Devin ended up getting a really clear photo of them, which you can see below. After the show ended they were escorted out before anyone else could leave, which all felt very Hollywood, although I don’t think many people in the crowd even knew she was there. We just happened to be in the perfect spot to see her.

After Robot Theater we ended up going out for Ramen at this place called Ichiran. It’s a famous chain of Ramen restaurants in Japan, and it was unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. Basically you wait in line outside, then come in and place your order on a machine and get a ticket. Then you fill out a sheet specifying how firm the noodles should be, how much garlic, how spicy, etc. Eventually you’re taken to a single seat that feels like a mini cubicle. Inside that cubicle is your own water spout, and a little door at the end of your table that pulls up to open. A cook comes over and opens the door, takes your form and ticket, and leaves. A few minutes later they return with your order, place the food in front of you, and close the door. It’s a very futuristic Blade Runner type of experience, but they do it that way because they don’t need to hire any servers. It wasn’t as good as Fuji Ramen, and it was missing the human connection, but it still hit the spot.

After dinner we wandered around Shinjuku some more and ended up finding a rock/metal bar called Rockaholic. We went in and immediately loved the place. They took requests for songs, and the people hanging out loved us because we were a bunch of American metal fans. We listened to songs and sang with them for a bit, before deciding to call it a night.

On our way back to the hotel, Tiko, Devin and Brad were tired and ready for bed, but Brian and I decided to seize the moment. We figured we may never be in Tokyo together again, and we only see each other every couple years at best (since he lives in Berlin) so we decided to catch a taxi to a famous part of town called Shibuya (known as the Times Square of Tokyo), which is where all the nightclubs are. It was a long cab ride over there, but it was the first time we’d gotten to see Tokyo from the perspective of a car (normally we were always on the subway).

We got to Shibuya and it felt like we were in a different world. All the young people were out, and most of them were drunk. They may not do drugs in Japan, but man do they drink. It was about 1:30am, so we went to a 7-11 and slammed a Redbull, then started walking through Shibuya on our way to a hip-hop nightclub called Harlem. On our way there we saw multiple people passed out drunk literally in the middle of the street. I would have moved them if they were alone, but in each case the person was being attended to by a friend, so I minded my own business and kept walking.

After a short wait in line we got into Harlem and immediately fell in love with the place. It had a great energy to it and they were playing all kinds of classic American hip-hop. We basically just kept to ourselves, dancing to the music and talking about how crazy this place was. We totally lost track of time and next thing I know Brian says “Dude, the club is about to close in 8 minutes!”. I then pull out my phone and my jaw dropped when I saw it was 3:52am. I haven’t been out like that in many many years, so we hung out for one last song and hit the road.

As we walked back through Shibuya it was more of the same – lots of drunk people passed out in the streets, and lots of late night restaurants trying to take their money. It was so late that the subway, which had closed at midnight, was now open again. So instead of taking another expensive cab home, we went to the subway and waited 15 minutes for our train. It’s a long train back to our neighborhood, and I totally fell asleep. Luckily Brian was still awake from that Redbull and managed to wake me up at our stop. By the time we got back to our hotel it was 5:30am, the sun was rising, and I got an awesome photo of the Tokyo SkyTree in the distance. It’s been at least 10 years since I’ve pulled an all-nighter like that, but again, who knows if I’ll ever be back, and I never get to see Brian, so I was happy we did it.

Saturday, October 5

I was hoping to sleep in that day, but our room got so bright in the mornings that I was wide awake at 9:30am. Although I knew it was going to be rough going on only 4 hours of sleep, I decided to power through. We didn’t really have plans for Saturday, which was our last full day of the trip, so Devin asked if we wanted to go up to the Tokyo SkyTree. We all said yes and hopped on the subway. It may look like the Space Needle, but the Space needle is 600 feet tall, and the SkyTree is 1,500 feet tall at the top observation deck! We ended up going to both observation decks, and I’ll admit getting near the window started giving me serious vertigo. I don’t do very well with heights, but I did my best to hang in there and enjoy the views. It was hard to believe, but even from that height we would look out at Tokyo and you literally couldn’t see the end of it in any direction other than the water. It was insane. Definitely the biggest city I’ve ever seen.

If you go to Shibuya, one of the main things you need to see is the main crosswalk. Every 3 minutes the light changes, and literally about 2,000 people cross the street at once, in all directions. Then the same thing happens with just as many people another 3 minutes later. It reminded me of watching the tide come in and out, but instead of water, this tide was made of humans. Check out my video below to get a better idea.After coming down from the SkyTree we hung out and had a bite to eat. It was getting later in the afternoon and the guys were hoping to head back to Akihabara, but I just couldn’t do it. The lack of sleep had caught up with me, so for the first time on the trip, I separated from the group and decided to head back to the hotel for a nap.

I mapped it out and saw it would either be a 30 minute train ride, or a 40 minute walk. I decided on the walk, threw my headphones on, and hit the streets. On my way back I went through various neighborhoods that we hadn’t seen yet, and got a lot of good photos. I even saw these real life Mario Kart tours where people dress up as game characters and drive go karts through the streets of Tokyo. When I saw them I went running as fast as possible to catch up to them and get their photo, knowing the kids would love it.

By the time I got back to the hotel I was exhausted and proceeded to take a 2 hour nap. After that we all got together for our last night in Japan, which we decided to spend in Shibuya (that Time Square type of area Brian and I had visited the night before). Since it was Saturday night, and Japan was playing a rugby match, the whole place was poppin’. There was a huge line of Harley Davidsons parked on the street and all kinds of bikers hanging out. Then there were all these classic American cars, like lowrider Impala’s that were being shown off. Plus there were some sick Ferrari’s and Porsche’s making a bunch of noise. The whole scene was surreal, and not what most people would expect for Japan.

If you go to Shibuya, one of the main things you need to see is the main crosswalk. Every 3 minutes the light changes, and literally about 2,000 people cross the street at once, in all directions. Then the same thing happens with just as many people another 3 minutes later. It reminded me of watching the tide come in and out, but instead of water, this tide was made of humans. Check out my video below to get a better idea.

After walking around a bit we decided to find a place for dinner, and ended up having a great meal at a place called Bambina. We had some roasted garlic edamame, which was the best any of us had ever had, followed by an unbelievable deconstructed cheeseburger made with steak, hamburger, two types of ham, tomato, onions, and a delicious cheese sauce. It was like no burger any of us had ever had, but we all loved it.

After dinner we decided to check out Tower Records in Shibuya. None of us had been to a music store in years, so it was fun to walk around and check out various Japanese metal bands. After leaving Tower Records we went back to the big crosswalk one more time just to check it out, then hopped back on the train to head home. We ended up being surrounded by a bunch of drunk rugby fans who were pretty annoying, but also hilarious at the same time.

Overall it was a nice chill night, and a good way to finish things off.

Sunday, October 6

This was our travel day, and it was going to be a long one for all of us. Brian had to leave first, so we all got up early to see him off. Afterwards the rest of us went out for breakfast, then went to a cutlery shop so Devin could get a nice kitchen knife. It was raining hard that day, but luckily our hotel provided everyone with umbrellas. We decided it would be appropriate for our final meal in Japan to be Ramen, so we went out for lunch one last time, then hopped in a cab and headed to Narita airport in Tokyo.

Our bags were all so full none of us were sure we could even get them zipped up, but we all managed. My other main concern was getting my guitar on the plane. I really didn’t want to gate check it, and luckily it all worked out. Due to jetstreams, the flight back was about 90 minutes faster than the flight to Japan was, so that was nice. Unlike the first flight, I had no problem taking a nap on this flight. The weird thing was that we took off Sunday afternoon at 4:30pm in Tokyo, and landed that same Sunday morning at 8:45am in Seattle!

Obviously I was dying to see Jessica and the kids, and as soon as I did I dropped all my stuff, fell to my knees, and hugged my kids as hard as I could. I was exhausted and jetlagged, but it didn’t matter. Being home was what mattered, and I’m glad to now be here.

As I close out this epic long post, again I just want to give my ultimate thanks to Devin for including me on this unbelievable journey. It was a life changing experience that I will never forget, and I simply can’t thank him enough.

Tomorrow things get back to normal for me, but as usual, there’s still plenty of good stuff to look forward to in the near future. Most notably, I get the pleasure of standing up as a groomsman in Kristy and Beto’s wedding this Saturday. Beyond that, my Mom is coming up to visit for her birthday on Halloween, then we’ve got visits from Amy and Tom, then Rick and Chris for Thanksgiving to look forward to.

Thanks for sticking with me on this post. I hope it gave you some good insight into this epic trip. I know I’ll never forget it.

On Wednesday of this week Ava and Elise started the new school year at Silver Firs Elementary, and next week Enzo begins his final year of preschool. To say they’re growing fast would be an understatement. It was a fun and busy summer filled with road trips, visits from grandparents, and as much water time as possible. The weather was rarely on our side this year, but that never really even slowed us down. Now that the kids are all back in school it would be fitting for us to have an extended late summer, but I’m not holding my breath.

Three weeks from today I’m leaving for Japan. It’s hard to believe it’s finally here, but I’m ready. It’s weird because my flight leaves Seattle on Saturday the 28th at noon, goes for 12 hours straight to Osaka, but then you add on the 16 hour time difference, and it means we land on Sunday at 4:00pm. The we leave Japan exactly a week later on Sunday at 4:00pm, fly 12 hours back to Seattle, and land that same Sunday morning at 9:00am, so I’ll get to live that day twice – once in Tokyo and once in Seattle. Obviously the time all evens out, and the jet lag is worth it, but it’s probably going to do a number on my sleep schedule. The trip should be an awesome mix of traditional Japanese culture in places like Kyoto and Hakone, followed by a very modern city experience in Tokyo. Can’t wait to write about it in my next post!

Last week we spent our Labor Day weekend on a little getaway to Lake Chelan for Kristy and Beto’s wedding party. We rented a beautiful big house right on the water and spent the weekend getting out and about during the days, then hanging with everyone at the house playing games and cooking. It was great getting to know everyone and we look forward to seeing them all again at the wedding, which is only 6 days after I return from Japan.

It wouldn’t be a trip to Lake Chelan without some time in the water, so Jessica and I spent the whole day Sunday in or around the water. The house we were staying in had its own dock, so we just hung out there all day with different people from the group. One of the couples brought along their standup paddle boards, and we both decided to give it a try (neither of us had done it before). I struggled a bit at first because I was trying to stand on it like a surfboard, but a side stance like that doesn’t really work on these boards. I finally figured out (after falling in the lake several times and even losing my sunglasses in the process) that you have to have a square stance with your weight equally distributed on the outer edges of the board. Once I got this down I started figuring out the paddling and was soon doing laps out past the buoys and back over and over. Jessica did really well and figured out how to stand pretty quickly, but wasn’t quite as adventurous with the paddling as myself. Overall we both really enjoyed stand up paddleboarding and hope to do it again.

Every time I go to Chelan (or anywhere in that general area) I’m reminded by how much I love it there, and how great it would be to retire out there someday. The combination of the sunny weather, and all the beautiful mountains, rivers and lakes surrounding you is unlike anywhere else I’ve ever seen. Plus I love all the agriculture (you’ve never seen so many fruit trees in your life). The wineries and breweries don’t interest us, but all the amazing produce does. It’s a really special area that we will continue visiting regularly for years to come, and hopefully if we play our cards right, it will be a place we can someday call home.

None of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for Grandpa Rick making a trip out from Iowa to take care of the kiddos. We both know how much work it is to watch all three of them by yourself, and all I can really say is that we were really impressed! He kept the kids super busy the whole time, yet still found time to fix a few things around our house, and was just finishing detailing Jessica’s van when we arrived home. He took the kids to a hotel for one night just so they could all go swimming as much as they wanted. Then another day he took them to the Evergreen State Fair, which is funny because we had just been there as a family the previous weekend, but the kids didn’t care. They were more than happy to do it all again with Grandpa. He also spoiled them a bit with lots of toys, shoes, and treats, which of course they loved. Then on our way to the airport he took all of us out for Mexican at one of our favorite spots. Since then the kids have been missing him, and we really appreciate everything he did to make this happen. Looking forward to having Grandpa Rick and Grandma Chris back out for Thanksgiving and Ava’s 8th birthday this year!

On Friday Ava’s new hockey season with the Washington Wild 8U team begins! This is now her third year of hockey and it’s really starting to show. She’s quite the athlete out there, and this year is going to be even more special and exciting for us because I am now officially a coach on her team! Next Saturday I need to attend an all-day coaching course with USA Hockey down in Tacoma, and once that’s over I will have my level one coaching certification with USA Hockey. Hopefully if all goes as planned I’ll keep increasing my coaching level each year so that I’m qualified to continue being an assistant on Ava’s teams. Ava is really excited to have me as a coach on the team, and I’m excited to be out there working with everyone. I’m always there watching practice anyway, and I love getting out on the ice, so it seems like a natural fit.

There’s also a couple more weeks left in the outdoor BMX racing season, so hopefully the kids can get out a bit more. We’re also definitely planning on checking out the indoor tracks in Burlington and SeaTac once the season ends. Enzo is really into it, and just like hockey totally suits Ava, I think the same can be said for Enzo with bike racing. It’s just a natural fit for him, so I’m glad we’ve found it at such a young age. The biggest issue we’ve had so far is the fact that Enzo only has one speed, which is race speed, but that’s only appropriate at the race track. He needs to learn how to tone it down when riding with kids in the neighborhood. He’s been punished once for being unsafe and I’m hoping that’s all it’s going to take. He seems to understand now, but I’m not going to lie – I love his competitive nature.

Jessica has been doing really well – her broken toe seems to have completely healed, and she’s been working extra lately. Obviously she won’t be working while I’m in Japan, so she’s looking forward to that time off and already has plans for various craft projects. She’s hoping to get involved in the girls’ classes early this year, but we’re at a new school now, so she kinda needs to find her way in again. Overall the classes are always very appreciative of any volunteer help they get from parents, and she really loves teaching art to little kids, so hopefully she can get started pretty soon.

Elise is doing well and very excited to be in first grade. She’s been showing a lot of interest in legos lately so she’s excited to join the lego club at school. We’re not sure what other activities she’ll be participating in this year but we want to leave it up to her. We’re not going to force anything on her, but we will continue exposing her to things until something really sticks. So far she seems to like everything she’s done, but there hasn’t been an activity she loves the way there has been for Ava and Enzo. I convinced her to give Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a try and she said she would, so we’ll all be checking that out at the Gracie school after Enzo turns 5. It’s no problem if it doesn’t stick, but we both feel like martial arts would be good for each of the kids (for various reasons), and I firmly believe Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the best one to learn, especially for kids.

The great thing about Elise is that she’s always down to come along for any activity, and always seems to have fun and make friends even if she’s not participating in the activity. It’s like that when Ava has hockey practice, and it’s like that when we’re at the bike track. As long as she has something to color or draw on, a snack to eat, and some other kids to run around with, she’s good to go. And she’s still our sweetest.

Oh, and one more thing. I was feeling like our family recipes website could use a little touch up because I hadn’t done anything to it in at least 5 years. There’s a popular development library called React that I’ve been using a lot at work lately, so I decided to use it for the new version of the recipes site as well. So I went ahead and built the site, got it all finished up, then uploaded it to our server here, and found out that the type of hosting plan I have for this website doesn’t work natively with the app I had just created. It would have been a big headache to convert the whole website over to a new hosting plan, so instead I just decided to host the recipes site elsewhere. It’s on a free plan with Heroku, so it may take a minute for the site to initially load, but it’s a nice update compared to the old one. This one was made more with mobile devices in mind, since that’s what you’re most likely to be using when looking up a recipe in the kitchen. If anyone wants to submit new recipes, feel free to send them my way!

http://pellegrini-recipes.herokuapp.com

Guess that’s about it for now. Next time I write will be sometime after the Japan trip. As usual we have all kinds of things to look forward to, including Kristy and Beto’s wedding, a visit from Nana for Halloween (her birthday as well), a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Martin, and a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Rudd for Thanksgiving. It’s going to be a very busy Fall, so we’re kinda looking forward to our first Christmas at home in several years. Enjoy the latest pics.

Before I get into all of our latest updates, I feel like I need to apologize to Ava for forgetting to mention her tonsillectomy in my last post. She had her tonsils removed in late June, just a few days after finishing the school year, and I took the day off in order to be able to take her to and from the appointment. 

It was funny because not only was it the same surgery center where I had both my elbow surgeries last year, but she even had the same prep room as me. I was with her the entire time (except for the actual surgery) and I couldn’t believe how well she dealt with everything. I honestly think I forgot to mention it because she was such a champ throughout the whole experience and recovery that it was easy to forget anything even happened. I ended up seeing her removed tonsils and couldn’t believe how big they were, so I’m glad we got this done sooner than later. Her recovery went perfectly, and as expected, she was chomping at the bit to get back to her usual high level of activity. Overall Jessica and I were both very impressed with how well she dealt with the whole thing and it seems to be having a positive effect in terms of her sleeping and breathing.

Since my last post was on Elise’s actual birthday, it means that we hadn’t had her party yet. We ended up throwing a party at the house the following Saturday and it was a lot of fun. We rented a big bouncy castle and had it setup in our driveway. We made a bunch of food, and luckily it was one of the most beautiful days we’ve had this summer. Overall the weather this summer has been a big disappointment, but that day was a nice exception.

We had a big turnout to the party, and now that both girls are in school, we’re starting to get more kids at our parties. In many cases they’re actually our neighbors from just a few streets over, but we didn’t know them until our daughters became friends in school. In the end, Elise had an awesome day, and we appreciate everyone who was able to come out and celebrate her. She is now very much excited to begin first grade, as well as get back to figure skating lessons in the fall.

The only bummer to come from Elise’s birthday party was the fact that Jessica dropped a paver stone on her right foot and broke her big toe. She had to see a specialist, which turned out to be the same doctor I saw when I broke my big toe in a skateboarding accident 3 years ago. Luckily no surgery was required, and a boot wasn’t really necessary either, so she’s been wearing clogs (per doctor’s orders) and toughing it out. She has still been working, so hopefully it’s fully healed soon.

I think one of the main things that we will remember this summer for is it being our discovery of BMX racing. Enzo has been obsessed with racing for a while now (shocking I know) and after I showed him a video of a BMX race on YouTube he was instantly asking if he could do that. I knew there was a local track at McCollum Park, so I did a bit of research, sent a few emails, and invited a few neighbor kids out to join us. 

We went out for a free practice session, and as expected, Enzo was immediately hooked. The girls were both very eager to try as well, so we let them get out there in subsequent track visits. This was all about a month ago at this point, but basically what has transpired is this: Enzo is now obsessed with bike racing, Ava really likes riding out on the track and is happy to compete in a race, but doesn’t get hung up on winning. She’s just loving being out there. Elise gave it a shot but fell several times and decided it’s not her thing, which is totally fine with Jessica and me.

After going to several practice sessions, we took Enzo to his first race, which turned out to be a state race up in Mt. Vernon. He did awesome, but just missed qualifying for the final by less than one bike length (see video below). Then the very next day he did another race at our local track, and this time Ava raced as well! Then just this past Saturday, after several more practice sessions, they both ran in another race at our local track. We got some cool videos that have been posted to my YouTube channel, but you can check them out below.

I have to admit that I’ve really been enjoying around BMX racing and look forward to getting out on the track with them next year. There’s plenty of parents out there having a good time, and I know the kids would like having me ride with them, so we’ll see. Overall I enjoy being actively involved in these kinds of activities with them, so this should be fun once the time comes.

Speaking of involvement with activities, I am nearly complete with my training to become a Level 1 coach with USA Hockey. At this point I’ve done my background check and about 8 hours of online training. The only remaining step for me is to attend a 4 hour in-person class, then I’ll be good to go as an assistant coach on the Washington Wild 8U team! I’m pretty excited about it, but Miss Ava is over the moon. I think there’s only about 6 more weeks of the offseason, so things will be getting going before we know it.

Before I move on, I just want to say that it’s been really cool watching Enzo find something he loves. If you watch the videos you can see the joy in his eyes, and if you spend time with him you can really tell how much he loves it. I hope he sticks with it because there’s no doubt he has natural talent. Plus the race announcers love saying his name!

In Ava’s case, she will be the first one to tell you that hockey is her first love, but that this is still a ton of fun. As I’m learning in the hockey coaching courses, it’s a bad idea to force a child to specialize in one sport starting at a young age, so I see BMX racing as an awesome form of offseason cross training for her. Plus you’re out there in the fresh air, meeting other kids, and getting a ton of activity. It’s great for her.

One thing I’m already learning is that bike-related hobbies and racing-related hobbies have one thing in common: they’re expensive. That’s okay though, as Jessica and I are already in agreement that one area we’re willing to live slightly more extravagantly in is in regards to supporting the kids in their various activities. We want them to find things they love and invest themselves in these things. I think the challenge for me will be staying on the sidelines…

A couple weeks ago Ava and Elise finished summer school. It went really well and they both feel good about starting the school year at their new school. After that we celebrated with summer haircuts for both of them, which turned out really cute. Since summer is so short for them, we wanted to make the most of the days we do have. Therefore I recently took a Friday off work and we did a day trip to Slidewaters, the water park in Lake Chelan. I’ve been going there since I was a kid, but had never made a day trip of it until now. Honestly it wasn’t bad at all, but our Odyssey is pretty ideal for family road trips, so that doesn’t hurt. 

As expected for this summer, the weather was not on our side. We got dumped on going through the pass, and by the time we arrived in Chelan it was cloudy and drizzly. We decided to just make the best of it, and expect to be a bit cold all day. What we didn’t think about though, was the fact that you have to keep walking uphill to go on slides, so you do that once or twice and suddenly you’re not cold anymore.

We met up with our friends Leon and his son Miles at the waterpark, and the kids were all thrilled to slide together. Eventually the weather got better as the day wore on, and our last 90 minutes at the park was gorgeous. Afterwards we went to a local diner for dinner and, to no one’s surprise, everyone cleaned their plates after a full day of slides and swimming. Driving back was really no big deal, and now that we know we can do this, I think we’ll start doing day trips to Chelan every summer. Jessica and I will actually be back there for Labor Day weekend as part of Kristy and Beto’s bachelor/bachelorette weekend. Hopefully the weather will be on our side this time, but I’m not holding my breath.

This past weekend my Mom came up from Vegas to visit us. Now that Paine Field in Everett is open for commercial flights it’s super easy for her to come up. It only took 20 minutes from our front door to get her, so that was awesome.

We wanted to stay busy with lots of fun stuff while she was here, so we started Friday off by going to the Taste of Edmonds. There were lots of food trucks, live music on multiple stages, and plenty of bouncy castles for the kids to enjoy. Some of the food we enjoyed included Alaskan Weathervane scallops over rice pilaf with red curry sauce, lobster corn dogs, and a mini doughnut variety sampler.

Later that evening we attended another play at the Everett Kids Stage. A couple months ago we saw their production of ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’, and honestly we were all really impressed. Based on that we thought it would be fun to see their new ‘School of Rock’ production with Nana.

Based on how good the last show was, our expectations were high, but I can still say with confidence that they surpassed expectations, and that this show was even better. They had a live band under the stage being led by a conductor, yet kids on stage were still playing songs and solos. The performances were great and everyone really enjoyed the show. We definitely plan on going back there for more shows in the future.

On Saturday morning we headed to the local BMX track for another race. Nana was excited to see Ava and Enzo race, and it turned out pretty exciting, especially since Enzo had an epic crash with another kid right at the finish line of the final race. Check out the video below to see what I mean.

Later that day we all went down to Kristy’s house for a post-birthday BBQ. I wanted to make sure my Mom got to see some family while she was in town, so this was a nice way to hang out and have a chill Saturday afternoon. The kids always love seeing Madi, Enzo loves playing with Uncle Jim, and we always have a nice time hanging out, so it was great.

Sunday was a quiet day at home. The kids enjoyed making chocolate chip cookies with Nana, then later that afternoon I got out to play some hockey while Nana and the kids stayed home to watch movies.

Monday was her last day with us, and unfortunately I had to go to work, so Jess and the kids took her to the Arboretum for a little nature walk. Then they all enjoyed some Ivar’s for lunch before making their way back to the airport.

I just want to say thank you to Nana for coming to spend time with us. The kids were just talking about how much they miss her. We really enjoyed the weekend and look forward to the next one!

Jessica has recently been working some really cool private events. A couple weeks ago she worked this private wedding at a mansion on the waterfront for an older couple renewing their vows. She said she had never seen anything like it: 300 yards of waterfront property, a rose garden, exotic car collection, a private nature walk, tennis courts, etc. They hired some guy currently on the radio called Bazzi to perform 3 songs at the reception. The whole thing was totally over the top, but it was cool that she got to be a part of it.

Then this past Sunday she worked a private event at the Seahawks training facility. It was being held during their pre-season game at Minnesota as a fundraising event. Steve Largent was there, they did an auction for charity, and she said the facility was pretty awesome to see.

I’ve been staying busy working on a few projects, and just recently released another song recording. This one is a cover of the Super Mario Brothers theme song, but with a heavy metal feel, so I’m calling it ‘Mario Militia‘. It was an interesting challenge covering an existing song rather than writing something from scratch, and I’m happy with how it turned out.

Coming up next for us is a visit from Grandpa Rick, who will be watching the kids while Jessica and I go to Lake Chelan for the wedding party weekend. He has all kinds of fun stuff planned to do with them, like going to see our favorite mascot Webbly at an AquaSox game. I’m sure they’re going to have a great time, and we’re all looking forward to seeing him.

It’s only a couple more weeks until school gets back in session and everyone is back on the grind. As always, lots of good stuff going on, and lots to look forward to. Enjoy the videos and photos.

Today Miss Elise turned 6! She’s actually been gone for several days with her siblings and Grandma and Grandpa Martin for the Martin family reunion in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. They’ve been keeping busy going to the lake, getting lots of amusement park time at Silverwood, and of course eating lots of delicious treats from Grandma.  

They left Wednesday afternoon in G&G’s bus, meaning we allowed the girls to miss Summer School on Thursday (there’s no school on Fridays), but we didn’t want them to miss more than one day of school this Summer because there’s only 16 total, so that meant Elise and Ava were in for another big adventure on Elise’s birthday, which was flying home alone from Spokane to Seattle!

Grandma took the girls to the airport in Spokane this afternoon and stayed there at the gate until the plane was in the air. Meanwhile Jessica and I were already through SeaTac security and waiting at their arrival gate. It took forever before they finally came off the plane (because they were seated in the back row) but we were so happy to see them. They were bubbling with excitement and couldn’t wait to tell us all about their trip.

We decided to do a special birthday dinner for Elise by taking them to 13 Coins at the airport. I have so many fond memories of various meals at that restaurant, so it seemed fitting that we would go there as a family. Dinner was good but everyone was tired, and by the time we got home they were exhausted, so bedtime was imminent. 

Since we obviously couldn’t do a birthday party for Elise today, we decided to do it on Saturday of next weekend instead. The plan is for Enzo to stay with G&G Martin until the end of the family reunion, then ride back with them in the bus on Thursday, meaning everyone is home in time for Elise’s party. We’ll be doing a party at home this year, with a big bouncy house out in our driveway for the kids (and maybe a few adults) to enjoy. I’m going to make pulled pork for sandwiches, and there will be plenty of other food for everyone to enjoy. It won’t be as big of an event as last year, when we took a big group of people to an AquaSox game for her birthday, but it should be a lot of fun.

It was pretty strange having such a quiet house this week; this was actually the first time Jessica and I have ever been home alone without any of the kids. Normally if we’re away from the kids, it’s us who is gone, but as they get older these kinds of things will probably start happening more frequently. 

One way Jessica was able to take advantage of the free time this week was by taking the train down to Portland for a day trip on Friday. Her friend Jodi was there with her husband for some type of getaway trip, and the timing worked out, so Jessica decided to get down there and spend the day together. I dropped her off at the King St Station in Seattle at 6:30 that morning, then picked her up around 9:00 that night. As expected she had a great day just walking around the city and catching up with an old friend. The timing was coincidental, and it’s so cool that they were able to make it work out.

I can say that with just the two of us at home for most of this week, our house and cars have never been cleaner, but honestly we missed the chaos. Going out to dinner every other night, seeing movies, and living generally care free has been nice, but we’re nowhere near ready for that to be our regular lives. It’s more of a sneak peak for what’s to come in the next 15-20 years. I haven’t felt so responsibility-free in a long time, so it was nice to just enjoy it while it lasted. I know this week has been good for everyone, and we’re very appreciative of the kids getting so much quality time with their grandparents, but we couldn’t wait to get them back home. Or at least two out of three 😉

As briefly mentioned above, the girls started Summer School last week at their new elementary school. We’ve been re-zoned by the school district, so doing a few weeks at our new school before things get going again in the Fall seemed like a good idea. As it turned out, they love their new school and instantly started seeing other kids they knew from their last school. Ava was particularly worried about missing her old friends, but as expected, it’s taking no time for both of them to start making new friends. Obviously we weren’t the only family who felt like Summer School would be beneficial in this transition, so I’m glad it’s working out for the best.

Last Monday we all went out to support Enzo in his first attempt at BMX bike racing. It was only a practice session so there was no official race, but you couldn’t tell Enzo that. He was out there to win from the opening run. There’s a track less than 10 minutes from the house and I’d been seeing people out there for the last couple years, so I emailed them asking how to get started. We ended up bringing our neighbor Nathan, who is 10 and is someone Enzo really looks up to, to ride along with him. Luckily he enjoyed it as well, which was awesome. They both did about 15 runs and loved it. I couldn’t believe little Enzo out there on his Ninja Turtles bike going as hard as possible, yet still being aware enough to call out “Hi Mom!” or “Hi girls!” when he rode by them. He never fell or crashed into anyone once and had a legitimately great time.

The girls were happy to cheer him on, but soon they started getting a little jealous because they wanted to ride as well. We explained to them that this day was all about Enzo. He has already spent so much time at hockey and dance, waiting around for the girls to finish their activities, so he really deserved this. However, they kept asking about it for the next couple days, and Ava went so far as to say she would like to be done with dance because it’s “not my thing” and wants to ride BMX in the Summers. Elise wasn’t quite so adamant as Ava, but she wants to give it a try, so I’m fine with it. The BMX season runs exactly during the hockey off season, and we need to keep Ava active pretty much year round, so this should work nicely. Sometime in the next week we’ll take them all back out to give it another go and see where we land. I have a feeling sometime in the near future we’ll be investing in a hitch and heavy duty bike rack for our van…

The remainder of our Summer is looking pretty low key, then things pick back up for us in the Fall. We’re going to do a day trip to Lake Chelan on Friday Aug 2nd so we can take the kids to Slidewaters. Driving to Lake Chelan and back in one day isn’t easy, but we have the most awesome van for road trips, so it makes sense to take advantage of it when you can. My Mom will be coming out for a long weekend visit the 2nd week of August, so we’re looking forward to that, then Jessica and I will be joining Kristy and Beto’s wedding party for a Labor Day weekend getaway, which is also in Lake Chelan.

My trip to Japan with the boys is now less than 3 months away. Obviously I’m excited. I had been thinking about getting a Japanese tattoo while there, but have since changed my mind and will be buying a guitar while I’m there instead. Most people probably don’t realize this, but guitars are currently way more popular in Japan than they are in the United States. Guitars were huge in the U.S. in the 70’s and 80’s, but not nearly so much anymore, however in Japan their popularity is still going strong. Currently Japan has more guitar stores per capita than any country in the world. Some of the finest guitars in the world are made there, and I’ve always had a particular affinity for Japanese made instruments. The quality bar and attention to detail is ridiculously high, yet the prices are far less than their American counterparts. 

Back in the 70’s the newly rising Japanese guitar companies like Ibanez and Yamaha spent a ton of time researching the classic Gibson and Fender guitars from the 50’s and 60’s. In truly Japanese fashion, they would study these instruments heavily to understand what made them so special, then went about applying those learnings to their own instruments. In many cases they tried to replicate a classic instrument under a new name (like a Les Paul or a Stratocaster), while in other cases they went wild with new designs without sacrificing build quality. 

What this means now is that you have a ton of extremely well built Japanese guitars from the 70’s and 80’s that can be purchased at an incredible value. Simply put, they’re nowhere near the cost of a classic Gibson or Fender, yet in most cases play and sound just as good. So my plan is to visit a bunch of guitar stores in Japan, buy lots of t-shirts, play lots of old guitars, and just wait for ‘the one’ to find me. I know it will, but I have to be sure because I’m only buying one guitar while I’m there, so I can’t get trigger happy and just buy the first one I like. I want something built in Japan, preferably from the 70’s or 80’s, to bring home and keep forever, then someday hand off to someone I love. We’ll see how it turns out…

That’s basically it for now. We’re very happy to have our girls back home, and can’t wait to see Enzo later this week. I’m so glad they had a great time on their trip, and look forward to officially celebrating Elise’s birthday next weekend. Overall I’m just so proud of Elise – she’s the sweetest and most loving little girl there is. She’s smart, outgoing, talented, and beautiful. The world is her oyster, I just hope she slows this ‘growing up’ thing down a little bit. Happy birthday sweetheart!

As we come to the close of another exciting school year, I can’t help but reflect on the fact that it’s now been exactly 5 years since we bought our house. I remember looking forward to June, 2014 for a long time; not because I knew we’d be buying a house then, but because I knew I’d be graduating from college then. I remember it feeling so far away (just as it does now) and not knowing how I was going to make it (I was working full-time at Amazon for my final year and a half of school). I remember the feeling when we got the keys to our house, sitting there on our (now replaced) front porch knowing school was done and our family (which would soon be 5 people) had a house. It was a good feeling then and it continues to be one now, it’s just hard to believe that 5 years has passed in the meantime.

Anyway, as usual for our family, all is well – aaand we’re all as busy as ever. Busy is good, we like busy – in fact I think we thrive on it. The kids aren’t going to know what it’s like to have nothing going on or nothing to do. Today’s example of our busy lifestyle was something we’ve been looking forward to for a while – the girls’ dance recital. Ava and Elise have been in the same dance class together for several months now, and today was their big performance! Their first performance was a jazz piece to a remix of one of the songs from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, then their second was a tap dance to Yellow Submarine by The Beatles.

They both looked amazing in their bright yellow dresses, with their hair and makeup all done up as well. The performance was great, and they both managed to sneak us a little wave or blow us a kiss from stage. It was amazing, as well as a teeny bit emotional. Unfortunately they only got about 10 minutes of stage time out of a 2 hour performance, but kudos to Enzo who was very well behaved the entire time. Instead of giving them flowers after their big day, we decided to do something a little more fun, so we all went out for fancy frozen yogurt, which included all the toppings a kid could ask for.

Each of the kids is doing well in terms of winding up the school year. We’ve been seeing good progress from each of them in areas that they’ve been struggling with, so that’s been great. Ava’s reading has come a long way, as has Elise’s, and Enzo is doing much better writing letters and numbers. The growth we’ve seen from each of them throughout the school year has been incredible, but there’s no doubt the one who has grown the most physically is Elise. She shot up like a beanstalk this year and suddenly finds herself with only about half her wardrobe still fitting. Even though we see her daily, we still can’t believe how fast she’s growing. An epic growth spurt for sure.

We recently attended a birthday party for one of Ava’s hockey teammates, and the party was being held at the rink where they practice. I was out skating with Ava and Elise (who is still enjoying figure skating lessons) and then, to my surprise, out comes Enzo in hockey skates with no balance bars. He skated right up to me from across the ice without falling once. I was practically floored, so then I led him over to the hockey area where they had some sticks and pucks out. He ended up grabbing a stick and playing around with pucks the entire time. He was passing pucks to me and having a blast. We actually had a hard time getting him off the ice. It was funny because I had been thinking that hockey wasn’t going to be his thing, which was totally fine, but seeing how much fun he was having out there made it obvious that this was something we should let him do more often. Ever since then he keeps telling me “Daddy I’m going to be a hockey skater!”

Speaking of hockey, Ava is enjoying playing off-season 3 on 3 every Thursday night, and I’m playing different weekly drop-in games. We’ve also been keeping up the early Thursday morning “dawn patrol” practice sessions where I get her up at 5:30 and we go to the rink for an hour before school/work. We don’t do it every single Thursday, but we’re there quite a bit, and I’m not sure who loves it more. It’s definitely my favorite way to start a workday, and since I work from home every Thursday it all works out quite nicely.

Jessica has been staying super busy lately at the girls’ school lately; she teaches art in both of their classes, and as of recently she also started doing Junior Achievement lessons with the kids. This is on top of working two nights a week at El Gaucho, and those are usually late nights.

The school recently held their annual art walk and unfortunately Jessica couldn’t go because she was working, but I took the kids and I honestly couldn’t believe how many different art projects on display were ones that were led by Jessica. I also couldn’t believe the quality of art she was able to coax out of these super young kids. I’ve also never seen a parent volunteer and get involved like she does. It’s really impressive, and I know she loves doing it, plus obviously the girls love having her around. It still takes a lot of commitment though and she definitely deserves a lot of credit.

Things are good in my world. I recently started managing a couple vendor/contractor engineers on my team, which is a great way to get your feet wet with management without actually changing roles or committing to anything. I’m excited about the opportunity to help people grow their careers, yet also thankful to not be stepping away from a coding role for myself at this time. Yesterday I gave a technical presentation to our team that was well received, and I’m getting ready to give another one soon.

Recently I’ve been feeling like I need to mix things up musically because I haven’t been getting together with friends to jam. When all you do is practice the guitar alone, it starts losing the fun aspect of playing, so I finally bit the bullet and started getting into something that I’ve historically always avoided – recording. I’ve never really gotten into recording because I know that it’s not an easy thing to get into. It takes a lot of practice and learning, plus it can be expensive, which is fine, but I’m already spread pretty thin so I’ve always focused musically on playing rather than on recording myself play.

I can honestly say that seeing Jessica paint rocks ended up being a catalyst for me getting into recording, and it’s all based around the concept of having a finished product. When you paint or draw something, eventually it’s going to be complete, and then you can do with that finished piece whatever you wish. Same thing goes for recording a song, but when all you do is practice an instrument every day, unless you record it, you never really have anything to show for all your time spent practicing.

The other catalyst for me was thinking about a song in much the same way that I think about one of these blog posts. It’s a snapshot in time, and a relic of yourself that can live on into eternity. Part of the reason I never recorded songs earlier was that I was afraid of poor production quality, or maybe my skills in some technical area of playing weren’t good enough yet. I’d find myself saying “First I need to take this online lesson, or learn this specific technique.” That’s all fine, but it never resolves. There’s always a reason to delay.

So finally a couple weeks ago, over Memorial Day weekend, I gave myself a challenge to write and record an instrumental song at home. I figured I’d need that extra day, and we didn’t have plans for the holiday weekend, so I just went for it. As it turned out I got so into it that I had it done before going to bed Sunday night, so the extra day wasn’t even necessary. The song was going to be called “Birds in Flight” because that’s what the main riff caused me to think of when playing, but I wrote the song in the key of A major, so I decided to incorporate that into the title, which became “Birds in Flight – A major journey”.

A few days later I was onto the next one, this time going for more of a 70’s blues rock vibe. I decided to call it “Must Exit” as a tribute to a racing horse my grandparents were partial owners of when I was a kid. I always thought the name was cool, and it fit the vibe I was going for. After a few days it was done, so as of right now, both songs have been uploaded to my SoundCloud account. It’s funny because when I listen to them I get excited in the sense that I’m proud to have created them, but I also cringe a little at the spots where I feel like I kinda messed up. However the response I’m getting from friends has been really positive and encouraging, so I’m going to keep it up. In fact this morning I started recording another new one called “Which way is up”. Hopefully it won’t be long before this one is finished because I have a lot of ideas to work on. The way I see it, I’ve been taking lessons and practicing at home for years, so it’s fun to finally just start letting all this stuff out.

Here are some photos from today, both before and after the recital, plus some of my favorite pics from a recent photo shoot Jess and the kids attended. Happy Summer!

As usual in our family, Mother’s Day is a busy day. Rather than fight the brunch crowd, we always opt to stay home and start our day with a nice homemade meal. Today’s menu featured dungeness crab and crispy prosciutto eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce, roasted new potatoes, sliced avocado, coffee, and a strawberry smoothie.

In addition to a nice family brunch together, the kids got to give Mom her Mother’s Day presents. They each did various projects at school, some of which were funny, and some that were super sweet. Mom was definitely feeling the love this morning and has some new keepsakes to hold onto forever.

After our bellies were full we all sat down to call Grandma Amy and wish her a happy Mother’s Day, then we did a video call with Nana and got to see all the new stuff she’s done around the house. Elise loves cats and her favorite color is orange, so the fact that Nana has two orange cats makes her so happy. She’s dying to play with them in person.

Once we’d spoken to our mom’s, we set out to finish our weekend project, which was building a garden! This is what Jessica wanted to do for Mother’s Day weekend, and I certainly wasn’t going to protest. She ended up putting in the hardest work anyway, which was to clear the area of the heavy growth of weeds and debris. She spent the entire day Friday clearing out the area we had designated for the garden and did an amazing job.

Today was relatively easy, as all we had to was purchase the planters boxes and pots, get the potting soil, and pick out the various fruits and vegetables we wanted to grow. Here’s what we ended up with:

• Puget Crimson strawberries
• Rainier strawberries
• White pineapple strawberries
• Oakleaf lettuce
• Walla Walla sweet onions
• Italian sweet peppers
• Broccoli
• Snow Peas
• Heirloom tomatoes

Now that everything is in place it’s really just a matter of keeping them hydrated and making sure they don’t get too much direct sunlight. We’re definitely looking forward to our first “harvest” and hopefully the kids will pick up a little gardening spirit along the way.

Not only was today busy for us, but so was yesterday, as we essentially turned Mother’s Day into a full weekend event. Yesterday morning Jessica and Elise had one of their figure skating classes, and we all ended up going. I hadn’t been to one of their classes yet and was super excited to see them – especially Elise, who has been talking about skating more and more lately. Every time she would finish a drill she would look at me in the bleachers and wait for a smile or thumbs up. It was fun being there and I’m impressed with how much they have both progressed in such a short time.

Last night we had a babysitter come over so Jessica and I could get out for a little date night. We were both embarrassed when we realized this was the first time this year that we’d gotten a babysitter and gone out to dinner. It’s certainly not intentional, as we love getting away for nice meals and quality alone time. Time just constantly flies for us because we’re all so busy with activities, work, etc. Anway, we went out to a nice little Italian restaurant in Edmonds called Girardi’s. We sat outside, took our time, and enjoyed a delicious meal. We can’t help but be food and service critics amongst ourselves when we go out, and we mutually agreed that the food was 5/5 stars. The beef carpaccio, caesar salad, buffalo sausage penne, and veal marsala were all excellent. The service wasn’t as good as the food, however, but the food was good enough that we would definitely go back. Afterwards we enjoyed walking around downtown Edmonds for a bit before heading home to call it a night.

In addition to celebrating Mom this weekend, we recently had her birthday to celebrate, which we did in style by having a nice family dinner at El Gaucho in Seattle. Obviously Jessica and I both have a lot of history in that place, so it’s always a pleasure going in there and catching up with old friends. To see our own little ones walking through that dining room, visiting the wine cellar (or the ‘secret room’ as they called it), and saying hello to all the friendly staff members, was such a trip for me. That place has meant so much to me over the years, and I think of my time there the way most people reminisce about their college glory days. So to see my own children running around that same space was almost surreal.

Dinner was amazing as usual. We started with tuna tartar, then I had mushroom truffle soup while Jessica had a burrata caprese salad, and the kids munched on fresh fruit. For entrees Jessica and I shared the tableside chateaubriand, which was outstanding, but the most memorable part of the entree course had to be Ava and her king crab leg. She had been saying for a while that she wanted crab when we had dinner at Mommy’s restaurant, so we were happy to oblige. She ended up eating the entire leg, loving every bite. We got a total kick out of it, but were like “Don’t get used to eating $50 entrees kid. This is a special occasion.”

Dessert was just as special as I knew it would be. We sang Happy Birthday to Mom, she got her favorite creme brulee, and the rest of us got the greatest dessert there is to be had anywhere on Earth (as far as I’m concerned) – El Gaucho’s tableside bananas foster. It’s simply to die for. The Olympic Mountain vanilla is the best vanilla ice cream I’ve ever had in my life (too bad you can’t buy it in stores). Meanwhile the caramel sauce made with brown sugar, butter, lemon, creme de banana, and silver rum is used to flambee the sliced bananas. When it all comes together on the plate it’s pure perfection, so it should come as no surprise that I had to physically restrain the kids from licking their plates clean.

It’s nights like this that you remember forever, and we owe a huge thanks to the whole El Gaucho staff for taking such amazing care of us. We certainly don’t do this sort of thing often, which makes it that much more nice when you’re able to get out and celebrate like this with the ones you love.

Before I go I figured I’d give a brief update on what each of us have been up to, starting with Miss Elise. As previously mentioned she has been loving her figure skating class, so that’s been a big hit. She is also loving her Wednesday night dance class with Ava, and the two of them are excited to be preparing for a recital in June. As she wraps up her Kindergarten year, Jessica and I are both impressed with Elise’s scholastics, and really just want to focus on making sure she’s full of self confidence and doing things she enjoys. The sky’s the limit for her and it’s been amazing to see how much she’s grown this school year.

After a few weeks off after the end of the season, Ava is back in spring hockey with the Washington Wild. A bunch of the older girls she’s been playing with have now moved onto the 10U group, so this spring league is Ava’s first chance to start understanding what it means to be one of the big girls on the 8U team. I’ve been explaining to her that she’s going to get to learn about being a leader, and setting a good example for the younger girls.

We recently scheduled a tonsillectomy for Ava, as she has already been regularly suffering from swollen and infected tonsils. Jessica and I both dealt with tonsillitis constantly throughout our childhoods, and we didn’t want to put our own kids through that. So after being seen by an Ear Nose & Throat specialist, we decided to pull the trigger and get it on the calendar. She’ll be going in at the end of June right after school gets out.

Mr Enzo has recently started making big strides in terms of writing and holding a pen/pencil. Up until this week, doing anything related to writing or drawing was something he wanted nothing to do with, but this week he really turned a corner and is now doing great at tracing letters and numbers. I think it’s now safe to say that we are a fully right handed family, as Enzo was the only remaining uncertainty, until now that is.

Jessica, in addition to soaking up all the love from her birthday and Mother’s day, has been keeping busy teaching art classes at the girls’ school, and getting busy with various rock painting projects, as the ‘season’ seems to have arrived. She has also been consistently working 2 nights a week, so she’s as busy as usual.

The biggest thing going on for me right now is the fact that next weekend I will reach one full year of daily Italian lessons on DuoLingo. I can’t say this was planned, but the reality is that last year I made a conscious decision to drastically reduce my time spent on social media, and this was essentially a natural outcome of that. It opened up time for me each day to do something that felt fun and productive, and while I’m not sure I’ll ever become truly fluent, it doesn’t really matter, as I’ve come to love the journey it’s taking me on.

That’s all for now. Before I go I just want to send our love to all the awesome Mom’s in our lives; the grandma’s, sisters, cousins, aunts, and friends that we’re lucky to have close to us. Hopefully you each had the day you deserved! Here’s some recent family pics.

So I have to admit I was seriously thinking about taking the month of April off from the ol’ family blog. Jessica’s post earlier this month describing her and Enzo’s recent trip to Iowa took care of keeping our monthly streak alive (93 now, I believe), but the reality is there’s been too much good stuff going on recently that needs to be captured. So my loss of a Saturday evening becomes the blog’s gain.

First and foremost, I think we need to talk about our recent family trip to Canada for Ava’s first hockey tournament (an international one at that). A couple weeks ago, late in the afternoon on a Thursday, we all headed north in the van, destination Richmond, B.C., which is a suburb about 20 minutes south of Vancouver. We had no traffic heading up, beautiful weather (which lasted all weekend), and very little wait at the border.

This was the travel team’s final tournament of the year, and although Ava wasn’t a member of the travel team this year, they allowed us to join them and get a taste of tournament life before calling it a season. We’ve already been considering signing her up for the travel team next year, so we wanted to get a taste of it this year. We’ve heard nothing but good things from all the different parents we’ve spoken to. Whether it be the bonding the kids form from spending time together off the ice, or the light bulb coming on in terms of on-ice understanding, we were confident a lot of good would come out of this trip. And most certainly it did.

The somewhat embarrassing reality for our family was that this was our first time staying together, just the 5 of us, in a hotel. It was actually Elise that called it on the way up. She asked where we were staying and when we said the name of the hotel, she said “You mean we’re not staying with family!?” So yeah, this was our first time going on any type of vacation or trip where we stayed at a hotel on our own and didn’t visit any family members. Kinda sad, but not a big deal, we just knew we wanted to make the most of it and have a really fun weekend.

Before I go further I want to give a big shout out and thank you to Jessica’s Dad Rick, who used his Holiday Inn status and points to get us a room. We tried on our own to get a room for 5 and were unsuccessful because it was already sold out. The ice arena is literally next door, and there’s no other hotel around, but Rick called and was able to get a room just for Jessica and I. When we arrived, we asked for a fold out bed to be delivered, which is what the girls shared, meanwhile Jessica, Enzo, and I slept in the main bed. It was studio apartment living for a few days, but everyone enjoyed the change of pace. So thank you Rick, we had a great time and greatly appreciate the room.

While most of the families kinda laid low and didn’t stray too far from the hotel, we decided to make the most of the trip and do a bunch of exploring during our off time. On our first night we made our way down to the water and had dinner in an area called Steveston, which was a touristy area with lots of restaurants, shopping, and beautiful views. We enjoyed the area so much that we ended up going back the next day to hang out some more.

The other main getaway for us was when we spent most of the day Saturday in Vancouver. Ava’s game was in the morning and we had the rest of the day free, so we started off at a beautiful little beach park and hung out there for a while, then ended up chillin in Stanley Park for a bit. After that we took the kids down to Granville Island for some sight seeing and ice cream. Later that evening we got back in time to join the whole team for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory, which was a blast. The kids were all really well behaved and it was fun getting to know some different parents.

As far as the hockey side of things goes, there’s no question this was a turning point for Ava. Just as so many other parents have said about their girls, I felt like I saw something click with her. I’m not sure if it was the tournament format, or the new competition, but something was different with her and she really elevated her game. I’d say it was the best she’s played all year. I was talking to her before the first game, trying to hype her up a bit, and she told me she was about to step it up and play her best hockey because we were in Canada. She definitely followed through with that, so my challenge next season (when I’m one of the coaches on her team) will be to bring that out of her for each game.

I think based on the experience we had on this first trip that it’s fair to say Ava will be a member of the tournament team next season. We may not be able to make it to every trip (they do 4 or 5 travel tournaments per season) but we’ll do our best. Overall I’m just glad this trip was such a success. Jessica and I are always more than happy to visit Vancouver, as it’s easily one of our favorite cities on the planet, and with Ava getting more involved with the travel team in the future, it looks like we’ll get plenty of chances to get up there.

Another recent family milestone worth sharing was our 9th wedding anniversary, which came on April 3rd. We didn’t do anything too big to celebrate, but we’d been telling the kids for a while that we wanted to take them to a nice pizza restaurant, so we all ended up going down to Via Tribunali in Georgetown for some amazing traditional Italian style pizza. I needed to pick up my license plates from the dealership in Seattle anyway, so Jessica and the kids picked me up from work that day and we all headed downtown together.

There were too many delicious sounding options to choose from, so we treated ourselves by ordering way too much for one sitting, already looking forward to the leftovers we’d be enjoying the following day. The kids love going to restaurants and had no problem declaring this their favorite pizza ever!

We’ll be stepping it up in terms of restaurants later this month when we celebrate Jessica’s birthday via a family dinner at El Gaucho. The girls love getting dressed up and going to ‘fancy places’, so Mom’s birthday dinner will certainly be a big occasion.

It’s crazy that we’re now inside of ten years of marriage. As always, on one hand it feels like time has flown by, but on the other hand, when I stop and think about not only the literal lives we’ve created, but also the figurative ones, it seems like we’ve been hard at work with our heads down for a long time. I feel like we’re in our best place ever these days, and that we’ve earned it. Although 9 years isn’t considered a major anniversary, 10 most certainly is, and although I don’t want to give anything away just yet, for now I’ll just say Jessica and I have been talking about it and may have come up with a pretty awesome way to celebrate. More on this to come over the next year.

Another exciting development for me is related to the Japan trip my buddies and I have been talking about. We were originally hoping to go in May, but Devin ended up needing to postpone the trip. I wasn’t worried about us eventually going, I just had no idea when that would be, but somewhat unexpectedly Devin recently resumed the conversation, picked out a time that we all agreed to, and purchased tickets! I’m lucking out (on multiple levels) in the sense that I get a direct flight both ways on the trip. On Saturday, September 28th I’m meeting a few of my friends at SeaTac airport and we’re flying directly to Osaka, Japan. We’re going to travel around Japan via Bullet Train, eventually ending up in Tokyo, where we’ll spend the final 3 nights of the trip. Devin’s brother Brian, who lives in Berlin, will be meeting us in Osaka, but the rest of us are traveling there together. We’ll be home on October 6, which is 6 days before Kristy and Beto’s wedding. That should be enough for me to fully recover from the jetlag and be back to normal for the wedding. I wouldn’t cut it any closer than that, but this was the week Devin wanted to go and I didn’t feel like it was a problem. There’s still a lot of planning to do, but the fact that tickets are purchased means it’s on, and I’m obviously super excited!

We’ve also been planning a wedding party Labor Day weekend getaway in Lake Chelan. There’s a big group of 13 people, so we rented a house on Airbnb for the weekend. Jessica and I love Lake Chelan, and surprisingly Kristy has never been there, so it should be a blast. So as it’s shaping up, late summer and early fall are looking really good…

Today was a good day for Jessica and I, as we dedicated ourselves to cleaning out and reorganizing our garage, with an ultimate goal of being able to park both of our cars in the garage full-time. I’ve been feeling guilty about leaving my beautiful BMW parked outside in our driveway, so to facilitate all of this, over the past week I ended up building more heavy-duty shelving in our garage. I did basically the same thing I’d done years ago by building elevated shelving into the frame of the garage, but this time I did it on the opposite wall, so the shelves sit directly above the garage door tracks. It added a bunch of storage space for us, so after several hours this morning of cleaning out every corner of the garage, going through all our stuff, and getting things organized, we were easily able to open up a parking spot for my car. Even with both of our cars in there it doesn’t feel cluttered or messy, so we’re really happy with how it turned out. It’s important to me that we take excellent care of both of our new cars, and keeping them both parked inside is a big part of that.

Overall we’ve all just been keeping really busy lately. The end of Ava’s hockey season did open up some free time for us, but that will soon be occupied with various other activities. We expect to do a lot of swimming again this summer, so it probably won’t be long before the kids are back in lessons. Jessica has been doing so much volunteer work at the girls’ school, and she’s been working a bit extra lately, so the upcoming summer will be nice for everyone.

The kids are all doing well in school, but we recently made the decision to have the girls go to summer school this year. It’s certainly not meant to be some type of punishment or anything negative like that, we just felt like it would benefit both of them, for separate reasons. In Ava’s case, she’s consistently at the top of her class in geometry (an advanced subject), yet is struggling (and in some cases regressing) in other areas that aren’t supposed to be as hard. We’re doing some more specialized work with her at home in these areas, but felt that the extra attention she’d get in the summer would go a long way.

In Elise’s case, it’s more about getting comfortable and building self-confidence. There are scenarios where Elise knows the answer to something but doesn’t want to speak up. It’s just a classic case of being shy in the classroom, but we want to break that for her now, otherwise our worry is that she just kinda blends into the classroom, coasts along, and never gets any type of specialized attention.

The other big thing for them is that the girls are going to a new elementary school next year, as our district has been re-zoned. Since summer school is being held in our new school, we thought it made a lot of sense to get the girls in there early and start getting comfortable. By the time school resumes in the fall they’ll be totally comfortable in their environment. There’s going to be no class on Fridays, and they get out early Mon-Thurs, so it’s really no big deal. It’s only 16 total days of school (and they’re going to miss one of them for their road trip with Grandma and Grandpa Martin), they’ll take the bus just like they do now, and it should be good. Hopefully they both get something positive out of it.

That’s pretty much it for now. Tomorrow morning we’re going down to Kristy and Beto’s for Madi’s birthday brunch. Should be a good time. Looking forward to celebrating Jessica’s birthday in a couple weeks, then getting into gear for a summer of fun, adventure, and learning.