Author: Michael Pellegrini

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.

After spending 5 days in Iowa visiting family, Jessica and Enzo returned home today. The girls and I had a great week while they were away, but we were all very excited to be getting them back home with us. Jessica will soon be writing a post about their trip, but on her behalf I’ll just say that they had a great time. It was a bummer that Enzo got the stomach flu while they were away, but the whole point of the trip was to get quality time with family, and she definitely got that. She was able to get a bunch of time with her grandparents, her dad, her brother, and others. The trip really meant a lot to her and I’m so glad we were able to make it work.

Since the girls and I weren’t going to be able to travel with them, my goal for the week was to stay busy and have fun. I made sure we had something going on each weeknight after school, and a really busy day on Saturday. I wanted it to be a special week with fun activities, more than usual eating out, etc., so it worked out perfectly that our 2nd annual Daddy Daughter dance was on the Friday night that they were away.

Since their flight was so early on Tuesday morning, we ended up driving Jessica and Enzo to a hotel near the airport on Monday night. Elise had been battling a stomach flu over the weekend, but made it to school fine on Monday, so I thought she was past it. We got them up to their room, enjoyed the view of the airport for a minute, then said our goodbyes. The plan for the remainder of the week was for me to work from home and basically just get the girls to the bus stop in the morning, then pick them up at the bus stop each afternoon. In between that I’d have 7 straight hours of uninterrupted work time at the house. A day before their trip, we bought a brand new bed at Costco, so Jessica only got to sleep on it once before leaving. Since I couldn’t possibly need so much sleeping real estate, I told the girls they could sleep in the new bed with me while Mommy was away.

Our first morning didn’t exactly start as planned. I was thinking I’d get up early each morning and get an hour of work done before the girls woke up, but it quickly became obvious it wasn’t going to work that way. I was trying to get them ready for school and suddenly Elise is rushing to the bathroom to throw up. I thought she’d gotten past it over the weekend, but no such luck. She threw up a few times and was looking really pale, so I had no choice but to keep her home from school. Then Ava’s running around upstairs trying to get ready for school, and ends up slamming her toe into a little wooden stool in our bathroom. She hit it so hard that I think she fractured it. So here we are on our first morning of Mom being away and I’ve got one kid puking with diarrhea and the other has a broken toe! I’m like, are you kidding me?

So yeah, things got off to a little bit of a rough start. Suddenly may day of quiet uninterrupted work time was gone because I had Elise home from school, and Ava practically had to hop to the bus stop. Her toe ended up bothering her for a few days, but she had no problem with it at hockey practice on Thursday, so I think she’s good now. Luckily for me Elise slept most of the day, and seemed way better that evening, so she didn’t end up missing any more school that week.

Overall we had a really good week, but it still had it’s challenges. Each time we did a video chat with Mom and Enzo it would make them really sad. They had a hard time understanding why they would go on “vacation” without us, so I kept trying to explain that it wasn’t a vacation, it was a trip to visit family, and that they couldn’t be missing a week of school right now. Jessica could tell the calls were making them sad, so we started doing them less frequently as the week went on.

I think the hardest point for me was on Wednesday night. We were doing a call with Mom right before bedtime, and Ava suddenly realized she had to go to the bathroom really badly, but didn’t want to hang up with Mom. So we finish the conversation and Ava runs to the bathroom to pee, but she didn’t turn the light on, didn’t notice that the seat cover was down, sat on the closed seat cover, and relieved herself. Obviously this created a huge mess. Ava was now soaked in her own pee, and there was pee all over the bathroom. I was upset. Ava assured me she would clean it up herself, which was borderline insulting. So yeah, that was tough, and throughout the week as I was mentally outlining this blog post, I was thinking of this experience as “the big cleanup” part of our week, but oh no, there would be more. I’m just glad I waited until today to write this post.

Although this is painfully obvious, I’m going to say it anyway – it’s always really difficult to even attempt to replace Mom (for any family) when she is away. Even if you’re Dad, replacing Mom is impossible. In my particular case, I wasn’t taking time off work or anything like that, so I basically had to do all my normal stuff, plus do my best to do all the things Jessica does for them. I don’t normally dress them, or pack lunches, or do their laundry, so it certainly gives you a lot of extra appreciation for what your spouse does after walking a mile in their shoes. It also gives you so much respect for single parents. In fact, the main reason I couldn’t get up and start work early each morning was because I was completely exhausted each night. Solo parenting is just really hard, so props to everyone that does this all the time.

Although there were multiple highlights throughout the week, like eating out at various restaurants, seeing the new Lego movie at the theater yesterday, and going to dance class together (Ava is now enrolled in Elise’s Wednesday night dance class and they love doing it together), there’s no question that the biggest highlight of the week was attending our 2nd annual Daddy Daughter dance.

Last year the dance we attended was being put on as a fundraiser for a local high school, but they didn’t do it this year. I actually thought we weren’t going to be able to go, but then we found one being put on at Gold Creek church, which is only about a mile from the house. We’ve been there for Trunk Or Treat before, and the event was being put on by Mom’s rather than high schoolers, so I figured it would be good.

Like last year, we started the evening off with dinner at Calabria, which is a nice little Italian restaurant near our neighborhood. The girls love going there and think it’s so fancy. I love going there because they have 4 veal dishes on the menu. I told them if they ate their dinners we could get a piece of chocolate cake for dessert, so they held up their end of the bargain and I held mine. Later in the evening I would ask them what their favorite part of the night was, and although the dance was a mutual favorite, the chocolate cake was an honorable mention by both.

The dance included a raffle for various prizes, so along with our dance tickets I purchased 6 raffle tickets. After surveying the potential prizes, we decided to put all 6 tickets into the American Girl doll bucket, however this ended up being the most desireable prize and unfortunately our number didn’t get called. Elise was pretty upset about it, which I understood and consoled her on, but other than this the night was pure fun. They had an arts & crafts table that the girls had fun at, each decorating their own gold star. There was an area for photos, and of course a big dance floor with lots of balloons, cupcakes, and punch. We danced quite a bit, enjoyed cupcakes (which were totally unnecessary after that chocolate cake), and even ran into a couple friends from school.

Obviously these are the kinds of things you remember forever so I’m glad to be able to start making a tradition of it, and again the timing was perfect with Mom and Enzo being out of town. While the girls loved the dancing and chocolate cake, my main memories of that night will be Elise’s beautiful colorful sparkly dress that she picked out especially for this night (she kept getting compliments from other little girls), and Ava doing all these hilarious dances and chicken impressions. She had me laughing pretty much all evening.

With Mom and Enzo arriving Sunday morning, and the clocks jumping an hour forward due to Daylight Savings Time, we decided to go to bed early on Saturday night. Elise hadn’t shown any signs of the stomach flu since Tuesday morning, so I thought she was 100%, but then at 1:30am I woke up to that sound someone makes when they’re about to throw up. It almost sounds like they’re breathing into a paper bag. I heard this and instinctively jumped out of bed. Poor Elise wasn’t even awake and she just starts puking all over herself in bed. Our brand new bed, that is. More importantly of course, is the fact that people die this way all the time, so I’m really glad I was right there.

I immediately got her out of bed and we started rushing to the bathroom, but we couldn’t even make it out of the bedroom before she doubled over and vomited again all over the carpet. We’ve had situations like this before, but never when I was solo parenting. You kinda go into crisis mode because you know there’s all these things that need to happen immediately. Luckily Ava was right there by my side, ready to help however she could. She went and picked out new clothes for Elise while I got her into the shower, then kept Elise company while I dealt with the bedding and carpet cleaning.

The unfortunate reality with the timing of all this was that due to Daylight Savings Time (which I hate and want abolished), this whole ordeal took up an hour of our night, yet 2 hours had technically passed on the clock. By the time we were laying back down to go to sleep, it was 3:30am. Consequently we had a bit of a hard time getting up and out of the house this morning. This combined with the fact that Mom and Enzo’s flight arrived 20 minutes early, meant they had to wait just a bit for us to scoop them up at SeaTac.

Seeing them and having them home was great, and I was surprised at how good Enzo looked considering how sick he was for most of their trip. I’ll leave it up to Jessica to describe, but she said he threw up more this week at Rick’s house than all three of them combined in their lifetimes. Poor little guy, I could tell in the photos she was sending that he was really pale, but when I got him at the airport he came running up to hug me. I don’t think I’ve ever squeezed him so tight. I’m sure it will take a couple days for everyone to get back to normal, but for now it’s great to have them home, and I’m so glad Jessica got everything out of the trip she was hoping for.

Considering how I left off my last post, with my car crashed in a woman’s driveway in the middle of a snowstorm, I feel like an update on that front is appropriate. Basically the way it turned out is my car sat there for 11 days! It was a combination of the weather, the hill she lived on, and other scheduling aspects, so it ended up taking 11 days to get a tow truck out there to take my car away. As expected, the car was determined to be totaled, and I’ll just say I was surprised (in a good way) with what Progressive ended up giving me for it.

Since I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself in the car market, I decided to start things off by getting in touch with my old friend Randall Nakamura. We worked together for years in the restaurant industry, but our history goes back even further, as both of my parents were friends with Randall’s dad George back in the day. He was a regular at the Riverside, which was a card room both of my parents worked at when I was young.

Randall and I have always been good friends, and like myself, he decided to get out of the restaurant industry after settling down and having a family. His wife Brie is also an old friend of mine, so there’s a lot of history there. Randall ended up getting into the luxury car sales business several years ago and has been at BMW Seattle for the past 4 years. Although I loved the idea of buying a car from him, it definitely took some convincing on Jessica’s part for me to buy something as nice as I ended up with.

I was definitely feeling guilty about the accident and not really feeling like I deserved a nice car after everything that had just happened. I figured I’d just start by talking to Randall, catch up a bit, and go from there. As it turned out they had a sport wagon that I loved, and after a lot of convincing by Jessica, I went for it.

So I ended up getting a 2015 BMW 328i sport wagon with Xdrive, which is BMW’s all wheel drive system. It’s black sapphire with Dakota red leather interior, and only had 23,000 miles on it. Apparently someone had it on a lease and didn’t drive it much before returning it. All I can say is I absolutely love the car, and it’s easily my favorite car I’ve ever owned. It is truly a driver’s car, and I look forward to getting into it everyday. I love the look of it (inside and out), the iDrive technology system is excellent, it has a beautiful panoramic glass roof, and the handling is amazing. It’s a turbo 4 cylinder putting out 240hp, so it’s fast, but not crazy fast. It’s the handling the gets you, and the smooth ride, especially at high speeds.

When I first took it out on a test drive Randall said “Wait until you see how smooth this thing is at 100mph.” I’m like “100, are you kidding? I haven’t driven 100 in 10 years.” He said that in his line of work, it’s par for the course. He explained that these cars are engineered to run at triple digit speeds on the Autobahn all day long, and be as smooth as butter doing so. His personal record on a test drive was 153mph in an M5 (the customer was driving), which is the fastest production sedan in the world. Where you do that in the Seattle area is beyond me though…

So I obliged him on an open stretch of freeway, got to 100 for about a two-Mississippi count before letting off, and yeah, it’s incredible how smooth it is at speed. Although I haven’t reach that speed again since then, I do have to be careful because the car wants to do at least 80 every time you get on the freeway, and it’s so deceiving. You simply don’t realize you’re going 80 because everything is so smooth and under control. I’m generally a very slow and safe driver, but this car has definitely revitalized my love and appreciation of cars. Consequently I switched things up while Jessica was away by parking the van outside and keeping the BMW in the garage. I can tell I’m going to baby it even more than I normally do with cars, but to me a car like this deserves that extra bit of care and attention. I’m definitely thankful to have it, thankful to still be here after that crazy accident, and determined to not practice stunt driving again anytime soon.

That’s pretty much it for now. Ava’s hockey season is winding to an end, but we will be joining the travel team for the end-of-year tournament up in Richmond, B.C. at the end or March. It will be a fun way to wrap up our first complete season, and I’m already set on being an assistant coach next season.

I should probably mention that although I was planning on travelling to Japan this Spring with some friends, we ended up having to postpone the trip. It’s still going to happen, but I’m not sure exactly when. It’s all good though, as there are always plenty of good things going on in our world to look forward to. One particularly exciting thing for me is that I get the honor of standing up as a groomsman for my cousin Kristy’s wedding in October. Her fiance Beto surprised me by asking, but I was honored and more than happy to accept. The girls are thrilled that they’ll get to attend their first wedding, although Ava has already proclaimed that she will not be watching when they kiss.

Before I go I just want to thank my sweet girls for making this such a fun and memorable week. They’re growing so fast, and I realize the day is coming where they might not be so excited to spend time with me, so the need to cherish these times isn’t lost on me. They will always be my babies and my sweethearts, but they will only be at this current stage for a short time. I love them both more than I can describe, and couldn’t be more proud to be their Daddy.

On the evening of Superbowl Sunday I was joking around with my buddies at hockey saying that I’d be lucky to survive the week that was about to begin the following morning. At the time I was referring to the fact that I was going to be on-call at work all week, which is always crazy, and that combined with the coming snowstorm meant I was probably in for it. However I had no idea just how crazy things would actually turn out, or that my survival would actually become endangered.

As I got home from hockey that night and turned on the Superbowl (which I had recorded), snow was already coming down pretty hard. I watched the game, which was the most boring Superbowl I can remember, then woke up the following morning unsurprised by the snow that had accumulated. Since my on-call shift was to begin at 9:00am, I felt like I should drive to the office, even though it would have been perfectly acceptable for me to work from home.

I had just checked commute times on Waze and Google Maps – it didn’t look bad at all. So my thought was that as soon as I got out of our neighborhood and onto the main streets, the roads would be fine. I took my normal route over towards Highway 9, but just getting there was really sketchy. I saw a couple accidents on the way, but I figured I would just take it nice and easy. I was in my 2004 Acura TL, which has front wheel drive, and I guess it’s fair to say I had underestimated the conditions because by the time I reached Highway 9 I knew I was in trouble. People were having serious difficulty and were just sliding off the road.

I started out on Highway 9 heading south, and I probably only made it a quarter mile before I had to slow down to nearly a stop. Next thing I know, my car is sliding sideways toward the right shoulder of the road. I tried to drive out of it but it was pointless. Next thing I know, I’m stuck on the shoulder of the highway, and my tires do nothing but spin if I step on the gas. At this point it’s 6:45am and still dark out.

As I’m sitting there, a big black delivery van loses control and starts sliding toward me. I couldn’t move so I just had to sit there and wait to be hit. As it turned out, he literally missed me on the rear by 3 inches, no exaggeration! It was so close you wouldn’t believe it (see photo below). The driver got out and was amazed at how close we came, as was I.

Meanwhile I was still stuck there, and over the next couple hours the same thing happened to me with 4 more cars! They just kept losing control and sliding off the road, right at me, yet none of them ever actually contacted my car. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. My car ended up cornered and blocked by 4 or 5 other cars, many of whom ran into each other, but nothing ever even touched mine.

I spoke to a state patrol officer at the scene who told me they had called tow trucks, which would be here eventually, but in the meantime I had to wait with my car. I had been considering abandoning my car and walking home, but she said my car would be impounded if I did that. So there I sat for 2 hours, calling and texting people to share the details of my situation, as well as making friends with the other folks who were in the same situation as myself. Jessica ended up finding a post on one of her local Facebook groups urging people to avoid Highway 9, and you can actually see my car in the picture they posted!

Eventually the tow truck arrived and I had no choice but to pay him the $200 fee to tow me a whole 15 feet back into the middle of the road. I didn’t know who else to call or what else to do, so I felt like this was my only option. Honestly I was just thankful that my car hadn’t endured so much as a scrape, and that I was able to just go home. So it was a 3 hour ordeal where I went 5 miles roundtrip, and it cost me $200, but I was home safe and sound with nothing else to worry about.

I worked from home the rest of the day, then did the same on Tuesday. Wednesday I decided to drive into work, but stayed on major roads and freeways the entire time. It ended up taking 90 minutes to get there that morning, and another 2 hours to get home that night. Based on that experience, I decided to work from home again on Thursday.

By the time Friday morning came around I was at the tail end of what had turned out to be a very rough week on call. I won’t go into details, other than to say there were a lot of unexpected problems with the website that week, and it was one of the most difficult weeks I’ve ever had. The roads were in good shape that morning, but we knew another big storm was on the way. Meanwhile, I had to hold a meeting that day about some of the stuff that had come up during the week, and I felt it would be better if I was there in person.

I had no trouble driving to work Friday morning, but on the freeway they had warning saying a major storm was on the way, and that evening commutes would be bad. I held my meeting at 9:00am and everything was fine. I could have come home then, but I had another meeting from 1:00-2:00pm, and snow wasn’t supposed to get bad until 4:00 or 5:00pm, so I decided to stay at work, then come home at 2:00.

As it turned out, the storm came early, and at 1:00 I looked out the window to find the heaviest blizzard I’ve ever seen in person. It was coming down so hard I couldn’t believe it. I spoke with a few co-workers and we decided to cancel the meeting so we could all head home immediately. So I grabbed my stuff, went down to my car in the parking garage, then ended up spending 30 minutes just trying to get out of my work. Turned out everyone was doing the same thing as me, and the backup we all created was ridiculous.

I knew traffic was going to be horrible, so here’s where I made a really bad decision – I pulled up the Waze app on my phone looking for a shortcut. I wanted to get home to my family as quickly as possible, and didn’t consider how dangerous it would be driving on anything other than a major road or freeway. My thought was this – roads were perfectly fine this morning and it’s only been snowing for less than an hour. So I waited and waited to finally get off Microsoft campus, then ended up turning into a neighborhood I was unfamiliar with because that’s the way the app was taking me.

I drove slowly through the neighborhood, following a new white Honda Accord, which was 30 or 40 feet ahead of me. The Waze app told me to take the following left turn, which was the same way the car ahead of me was going. As I approached the turn I could tell I was coming up on a hill, but it wasn’t too steep at the top, so I just kept going slowly along. As I started to descend I could tell the hill was about to get much steeper, but the Accord ahead of me was doing fine inching their way down, so I attempted to do the same.

I don’t really know what happened other than my brakes locked up and suddenly I was sliding down the hill like a kid on a toboggan. It was a really heart sinking feeling because you have absolutely no control over the situation, and you know it’s going to end badly. The only question is how bad.

My first thought was “I hope I don’t slide into the car ahead of me” but instantly I could tell my trajectory wasn’t going toward them, it was going towards someone’s driveway off to the left. Unlike most accidents which take place in a split second, I got to enjoy a nice slow motion slide that went on for about 200 feet. The car was gaining speed the whole time, and I remember thinking at one point about pulling the emergency brake, since having my foot on the brake pedal was doing nothing besides causing my ABS to pump, but I opted not to do that because I was afraid it would put me in a spin, which would have been even more terrifying.

I could see that I was heading for some bushes and trees along the edge of the driveway, so my only hope was that I didn’t go head-first into a big tree. As it turned out, I ended up staying to the right of a big tree, only missing it by about 2 feet. I went through a rhododendron bush, then here’s where it got really scary – behind that bush was a rock wall with a 6 foot drop into the next house’s driveway. There was a truck and a small SUV parked in that driveway, but luckily they were parked all the way up at the top. Had they been parked closer to the garage, I may not be here today.

So I went through the bush, off the rock wall, and landed Dukes of Hazzard style in the next driveway! Obviously I was in shock and scared to death, so I immediately jumped out of the car. I didn’t even realize I had hit the parked truck, but as it turned out the damages (for them) were minimal – just a broken tail light and dented bumper. Meanwhile my car was toast. There was cosmetic damage all around, and I can only imagine how the undercarriage of the car had been affected.

I hadn’t even been out there a minute before a woman came running outside frantically checking to see if I was okay. We were both freaking out, but managed to calm each other down, and she invited me inside. Her name is Jean, and all I can say is that this woman is a saint. She is a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines, and she told me that she saw the entire thing happen, and that instantly all her flight attendant training for emergencies kicked in. Allow me to tell the story from her perspective.

“I’m sitting there in my bathrobe on the couch in my living room, talking on the phone with a friend, and watching it snow. Suddenly I see a car start coming down the hill a little too quickly. I see it speeding up and realize it has lost control. I’m explaining this to my friend on the phone, then I see it come through the bushes, over my rock wall, and come crashing into my driveway. I scream to my friend that there’s been a serious accident and I gotta go! I ran to my room to put some clothes on, and all I can think is – Captain we have an emergency! Everyone put your oxygen masks on now!”

Next thing I know, I find myself inside Jean’s house trying to understand what just happened. I’m calling Jessica, and texting people, but I was in shock and not really sure what to do. I was pretty sure I wasn’t hurt, which was amazing, so Jean insisted that I have a seat and a cup of tea. It was all very surreal. One minute I’m driving home, then I’m in the scariest accident of my life, and now I’m in this nice woman’s living room sipping a cup of tea, watching it snow, and looking at my car crashed in her driveway.

I called my insurance company to file a claim, then got routed to roadside assistance to schedule a tow truck to come pull my car out of there. Long story short, I waited around for 2 hours at Jean’s house, before finally getting the inevitable news that no truck was coming, and that if it was okay with Jean, I needed to leave my car there and focus on getting home safely. Luckily she was fine with that, because as I write this on Monday morning, my car still hasn’t moved from her driveway, and probably won’t for a couple more days! We’ve gotten a lot more snow and Progressive is still unable to get a truck out there to pick it up.

Since I didn’t know what I was going to do, Jessica kinda took over for me. She told one of our neighbors at the bus stop about my accident, and they immediately offered to come get me in their nice new 4×4 truck. After a couple phone calls I was able to coordinate things with my neighbor Erik and he came to Jean’s house in Redmond to get me.

In order to stay safe, he kept his truck parked at the top of the hill (the same one I slid down), and we just collected all my things from the car, thanked Jean immensely for everything, and walked up that big ass hill to his truck. He got us home safe and sound, and I gave lots of big hugs to everyone who came near me. I hadn’t been very emotional about it so far, but seeing my kids after a brush with death definitely brought tears to my eyes. Obviously I know what it’s like to lose a father as a kid, although I was much older than my kids currently are, but even before my own wellbeing, I don’t want to put them through what I went through. Getting home to Jessica and the kids was the greatest relief in the world.

I don’t want to be too dramatic about it because the reality was I didn’t even get hurt. I woke up the following morning feeling 100% normal, however it could have been much different. Had I gone head first into a big tree I may not have survived it, or would have been seriously injured. Had I gone over the rock wall and crashed head first into that parked truck, it would have been really bad. I could have rolled the car, or caused an explosion. As it turned out I landed on all four wheels, meaning my car’s suspension and tires absorbed the entire impact. As I’ve said before, I don’t really believe in luck, but I don’t know what to attribute this to. There was a very narrow window/lane for me to safely go through all this, and I happened to be exactly within it. If that’s not pure luck, I don’t know what is, but I’m open to suggestions.

I’ve been joking that getting constantly roughed up while playing hockey is the reason why I wasn’t hurt from the accident, but I don’t know. All I can say is that I feel so fortunate on a number of different levels – I’m thankful that I wasn’t hurt or killed (for my family’s sake as well as my own), I’m thankful that I had such a kind and helpful person awaiting me on the other end of the crash, and I’m thankful that I didn’t cause more damage. If buying a new car is the only inconvenience I get out of this whole ordeal, then I’d say that’s a very small price to pay.

Regarding my car, I’m almost positive it’s going to be considered a total loss. It’s a 2004, but only has 78,000 miles. I’ve taken great care of it, but as with most older used cars, it’s worth more to me than it’s worth on paper. It’s too bad too because I just paid it off 11 months ago. Repairing the cosmetic damage alone would probably cost more than the value of the car, and who knows how bad the undercarriage is? Honestly I don’t want it back anyway, because there are known issues with airbags from that generation of TL’s, and my airbag didn’t go off in the crash!

Buying another new car definitely wasn’t the plan for us considering we just bought a top-of-the-line Honda Odyssey in October, but again, I’m so lucky that this is all I have to deal with. I’ve been researching cars all weekend and although we are unlikely to get snow like this again soon, I’m still almost dead set on buying something with All Wheel Drive. I figure even in the rain AWD will be better, so at this point I’m looking seriously at Audi’s and Subaru’s.

The reality is that Ava will be old enough to drive in less than 9 years, and we already knew we weren’t going to buy each kid their own car. We’re going to provide one car for them to share, so I’m starting to think about buying a car now that I can drive for the next 8 or 9 years, then pass along to the kids. Obviously there’s no guarantee it will work out that way, but that’s what I’m thinking at the moment. With that in mind, I want something safe, reliable, and fuel friendly, so we’ll see how it all turns out.

At this point, although we have rental coverage, I haven’t even been able to pickup a rental car due to the snowy conditions, and my car still hasn’t moved from the original crash location. I can see how based on the events from this week one would think I’m a terrible driver, but the fact is that before this week, I’ve never lost control of a car in any situation, and I’ve been driving for 22 years. I’ve never caused an accident before this, so this is all very new to me. Although I’m not worried about how I may be perceived as a driver, I am being sure to use this as a learning lesson, and I’m determined to not let anything like this ever happen again.

As usual, I’m hard on myself about it and keep thinking about how I could have prevented this. Since there’s nothing I can do to change what has already happened, I hope others can learn from my mistakes. I’m boiling it down to the following:

• Never look for a shortcut when conditions are dangerous. Always take the slow and safe route.
• Never take a route that looks even slightly dangerous just because an app is telling you to go that way, or because the car in front of you is going that way. Use your own judgement and never let anything cloud that judgement when it comes to safety.
• If you know there’s a good chance of dangerous conditions coming soon, don’t even leave the house in the first place.

I ended up taking today (Monday) off work to continue dealing with insurance and tow trucks. I was hoping the car would be out of Jean’s driveway by now, but it’s just not working out that way. So instead I’m enjoying more time with my family and thanking my lucky stars.

The rest of Snowmageddon has been fine for us. The kids haven’t had much school, so they’ve been enjoying playing outside with friends from the neighborhood. We like going for family walks and having snowball fights as well, but Jessica and I are getting a little stir crazy. We can’t go to the gym and are getting anxious to get back to our normal routine.

That’s basically it for now. Jessica is preparing for a busy week at work due to Valentine’s Day, so hopefully the weather is accomodating. The kids are each doing great, and again, I’m just so thankful that things turned out the way they did. Here are some photos from my week of adventure, including a video I took from the scene of the crash.

Before I go I also just want to say thank you to everyone who has reached out to me over the past few days. There’s nothing like a brush with death to realize how loved and cared for you are, so thank you all.

Although we held his party yesterday at Chuck E. Cheese (for the second consecutive year), it was today that our big boy officially turned 4! We had a big weekend that also included a dance recital for Elise and a hockey game for Ava, so it’s been nice having Grandma Amy here to celebrate everything with us. Unfortunately Enzo has been a little under the weather these last couple days, but nothing was going to deter him from living his best life at the party and having fun with all his friends.

We weren’t really sure what we wanted to do for Enzo’s birthday this year, so we decided to ask him what his preference was. We almost felt guilty when he said he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese again, simply because it’s what we did last year, and it’s so easy for us, but we respected his wishes and made the decision that we would do something a little bigger the following year when he turns 5.

Elise and Ava were very excited to be going to a party, and used this an an opportunity to wear their favorite fancy dresses. They’re always looking for an excuse to dress up, so we told them to wear whatever they want. Elise wore a beautiful new dress from Grandma, and Ava wore her Easter dress, but punked it up a bit with a pair of black boots.

Part of the tradition in doing a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese is letting the guest of honor go into the ticket blaster, which is this big clear plastic tube filled with tickets. When they turn it on, a fan gets going and the tickets start blowing around everywhere. The goal is to grab as many tickets while you can, then use them later to cash in for prizes. Last year Enzo got the opportunity to go in there, and we expected him to love it, but as it turned out he was really freaked out. I remember getting a hilarious photo of him with his face pressed up against the glass screaming at the top of his lungs.

So this year when it came time to do the ticket blaster, they gave him the option of letting someone come in with him. When I asked him if he wanted to bring anybody, I was expecting him to choose one of his friends, but instead he said he wanted me to come in. Jessica was all for it, but required me to untie my hair so it would fly all around and look ridiculous while I was in there.

I stayed on my knees so we’d be on the same level, and did my best to get as many tickets as possible, but I didn’t figure out until nearly the end that I needed to lean forward in order to get the wind affect everyone wanted. Either way he loved it and it was very memorable. Overall it was a great day and we really appreciate everyone that was able to make it, as well as all the birthday presents of course. Again, next year we’ll be doing something bigger, but I’m glad he was able to have the day he wanted, and we always appreciate getting to spend time with everyone.

As far as today goes, it was a normal workday for me, but there was no school for the girls due to it being a “teacher work day”, so Grandma, Jessica, and the kiddos went to see Mary Poppins Returns at the movie theater. It’s kinda become a tradition for us to go out to a Mexican restaurant for Enzo’s birthday (I’ll never forget him wearing the sombrero on his first birthday), so after I got home from work we were able to all go out to our favorite spot.

Overall I hope Enzo had a very happy birthday and knows how much we all love him. He’s an incredible little boy that we are so super proud of.

As mentioned above, Saturday was a big day for both of our girls. That morning we attended Elise’s dance recital at a nearby middle school. While I wasn’t necessarily expecting to have an emotional reaction to it, seeing her run out on stage with so much natural joy and excitement instantly brought tears to my eyes. She just had the biggest smile and looked so happy – it was amazing, and it’s funny how your kids have the ability to tug at your emotional heartstrings in a way that nothing else ever could.

She made a point to sneak a little wave to us each time she exited the stage, and after the performance she was beaming. Jessica and I instantly felt bad that we didn’t have a bouquet of flowers to give her, but everyone (especially Ava) was showering her with compliments, and she just soaked that up. It was great to see her so genuinely happy, and as we’ve come to say, “living her best life”.

After Elise’s recital we had time to come home for only about 45 minutes, get a bite to eat, and then had to head back out for Ava’s hockey game. Over the past week Ava and I have been practicing shooting in the garage because she’s all about “elevating the puck” now. We’re currently using street hockey balls, which are easier to scoop under compared to a flat puck, and she’s really starting to get the hang of it. In much the same way that Elise showed so much natural joy from her performance, Ava gets that way when she sees herself improving at whatever she’s working on – and that stretches beyond athletics. Reading and math are also good examples of this, where Ava builds her own momentum and excitement when she starts improving at something.

We had a simple goal for this game, which was to just always be paying attention, always watching the puck whether we’re in the game, or sitting on the bench. She ended up doing awesome at this, and I can tell she’s starting to understand the game more. At this age their focus is on building athletic skill for the girls, rather than teach them the game of hockey, but it’s still good for her to always be engaged in what’s going on, and I’m so impressed with how she’s improving in that aspect.

She had a good game, but afterwards she admitted to mom and me about some trash talking she was doing on the ice. She knew it was wrong, which is why she told us, so we had to have a heart-to-heart conversation with her about how we treat people, and about letting our game do the talking. She was worried about us being mad, but we promised her we won’t be mad if it ends here. If it happens again, there will be consequences, but we were willing to make it into a learning lesson for now. At this point, the way I see it is that this is another thing you can add to the long list of life lessons and skills she’s already learning through hockey. Regardless of how far she goes with it, being part of a team at this age is teaching her so many things about life, teamwork, and discipline.

One more thing about Ava – we just found out from her teacher that, like Elise a couple months back when she was recognized for being respectful, Ava is going to be featured in a school assembly due to her scholastic improvements this year with reading and math. She has really turned a corner in these areas over the past couple months and her teacher wanted to make sure she received recognition. Obviously we were thrilled to hear this and are very proud of her!

Not much else has changed since my last post a couple weeks ago, so I’m keeping this one brief. Overall we’re doing great, and we couldn’t be more proud of each of the kids. They’re staying busy with all kinds of good stuff, and each one is growing up fast. Buon quarto compleanno Enzo! Ti voglio bene.

After an awesome holiday vacation in Colorado, it didn’t take long for all of us to get back into our normal routines, and in several cases, start taking on even more. While I plan on writing again very soon due to some exciting upcoming events, there’s already enough to dig into. Here’s how 2019 is taking off for us…

Since January is his birth month, we’ll start off with Enzo. Next week he will be turning 4, and I’ll be writing a post after his birthday celebration, but he’s been busy this month. As we’ve mentioned before, we felt like 2 days of pre-school per week, at 2 hours per day, wasn’t quite enough for him. Jessica did some research and ended up finding a new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) focused pre-school that had just opened in our area. After checking it out, Enzo really liked it, so he now goes there on Wednesdays. During his first class they did an experiment showing kids how to make water boil at room temperature. Then the next week they built a robot and programmed it to do certain things. We can tell he enjoys it, and we think he’ll get a lot from the curriculum, so it’s been a nice addition.

We were having a hard time deciding what to do for Enzo’s 4th birthday, so we ended up asking him what he would like to do. Turns out he really wanted to do the same thing we did last year, which was go to Chuck E. Cheese. We decided to go along with his request because we know all the kids will have fun, and it’s easy for us. Grandma Martin will be coming out to stay with us and attend the party, so it should be a good week. We’ve already decided that next year we will do something bigger for his 5th, but I think this year will still be a lot of fun.

One other thing with Enzo – we all went ice skating as a family yesterday and he did amazing. He’s skating on his own now without balance bars, and I can tell he’s having a lot of fun. Check out the video below.

Next up will be Miss Elise. In addition to doing great at school and dance, she is now taking figure skating classes with Mom on Saturday mornings. They’re not in the same class, but they’re on the ice at the same time, just separated into different groups. She deserves a ton of credit because she has already been moved up from level 1 to level 2, she doesn’t need balance bars, and she can make her way around the rink on her own. I love seeing her out there skating on her own and having fun.

Elise is also continuing to attend weekly dance classes, and we’re excited to attend her upcoming recital on Saturday! Grandma will be able to attend with us, which is great, and I’m looking forward to write about her performance in my next post. Overall I’m just really proud of Elise – she has matured a lot over the past few months and is flourishing, both in school and in her activities. Dance and figure skating definitely compliment each other, and it’s nice to see her keeping busy with things she enjoys.

Miss Ava continues to stay busy with school and hockey. On the school side, her growth this year has been really impressive. She is reading better than ever, and really enjoys math. From a hockey perspective, I can tell the extra practice we’ve been doing has been paying off. She recently had her best couple of games, and there was a moment in an extra game against a team from Portland where she got out on a fast break, received a pass from a teammate (which is rare at this level), controlled it at full speed (which is really difficult), and scored her first goal of the season. I screamed out cheering for her, then realized I was totally ‘that guy’ taking a kids game super seriously. I didn’t care though – she had the biggest smile on her face, and all I could think of is all the hard work she keeps putting in. It was definitely a memorable moment.

The following week she was out there playing, and I had to explain to her that she wasn’t paying attention and wasn’t engaged in the game. She was just kinda out there skating on her own. She didn’t really like hearing it, but took the feedback and went out there with a vengeance. When she is mentally engaged in the game, she does amazing, but at this age losing focus is going to happen. One of her coaches just recently said to me “In terms of raw athletic talent, Ava is one of the best girls we have. The trick is keeping her paying attention.” I thought he was dead on – when I watch and try to make an impartial evaluation of everyone, I look at Ava and say she’s got raw athletic talent, size, and toughness, which are all intangibles that can’t be coached. Right now she struggles with paying attention, puck handling, and shooting, but that’s totally fine because those are all things that can be coached. Sometimes I have to remember she’s barely even 7, but overall she’s doing amazing and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

One more thing with Ava: she ended up losing another tooth this week! After Mom helped her get it nice and loose, Ava finished it off by pulling it herself. As you can expect, she was really excited about it, and the tooth fairy made sure to leave her some goodies later that night.

Jessica has been keeping very busy this month, most notably by switching from El Gaucho Bellevue back to El Gaucho Seattle. The Seattle store will always be home for both of us, so when she reached out to them asking if they’d consider having her back, they were like “Yes, you’re always welcome to come home”. Tonight will be her second shift back at Seattle, and I’m happy for her because I can tell she is happy about the change.

In addition to this change at work, she has recently taken up ice skating lessons, and is learning to play the piano! She and Elise are going to the rink together for skating lessons on Saturday mornings while Ava, Enzo, and I go to the gym. Since Ava didn’t have a game yesterday, we all met up with them at the rink for open skating. Overall it’s great to see Jessica trying out new things, as well as continuing with other creative activities like rock painting. Obviously music and skating are both close to my heart, so it’s awesome to see her enjoying them as well. At this point all 5 of us enjoy getting out on the ice, so it feels like it’s only a matter of time before I bite the bullet and get us our own fancy skate sharpening machine…

Earlier this month Jessica purchased plane tickets for her and Enzo to go back to Iowa for a family visit in early March. They’re going to stay at Grandpa Rick’s house and are looking forward to seeing everyone. It’s too bad we’ll be split up for a week, but it’s not really feasible for the girls and I to go, so I’m looking forward to taking advantage of that time by doing some special stuff with them. I’m definitely going to take them to dinner and a movie one night, and I’m sure we’ll get out for some ice skating as well.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of taking the kids to Monster Jam for the second consecutive year. I have to admit that I totally enjoy it as well, and I don’t care what that says about me. Unlike a normal sporting event where you’re supposed to take the sport somewhat seriously, this is purely just mindless entertainment, but I love it. It’s like “Whoa, did you see how much air it got!?” or “Look how long he’s balancing on 2 wheels!” It’s super loud, and they do all kinds of different events, but the freestyle event at the end is the best. Grave Digger ended up doing a backflip, which was the highlight of the show. Although Enzo is definitely the biggest fan of monster trucks in our house, there’s no question that we all have fun at these events, so I look forward to taking them again when the time comes.

Lately I’ve been feeling like I need to add a little more hockey to my schedule, because only playing on Sundays with the beginners group hasn’t been feeling like enough of a challenge. I’ve been with this group for 2 years, and at this point I’m one of the most advanced players. While I enjoy that status within the group, I realize that the only way to get better is to play with people who are better than you. Most people from our group use it to learn the fundamentals, then go join a team in a league, and that was my initial plan as well, but the variable nature of game times in leagues doesn’t really work for me. I simply can’t go and play a game at 11:00pm in Kent on a weeknight, so I’ve been looking for a new drop-in game to play where I can advance my skills, and have a consistent game time to rely on.

Last night I played in the drop-in game at the Highland rink for the first time, and it was definitely the most advanced game I’ve played in. The reality was that I was the 2nd weakest player on the ice, and it was intimidating, but I stuck in there for the entire 90 minutes, and managed to score 2 goals in the game. These guys are all much more advanced than me when it comes to shooting, stick handling, and overall gameplay, but I’m able to stick with them because I have good cardio conditioning and I’m a pretty strong skater. Regardless of the sport you’re playing, it’s always going to be intimidating to step up a level (or 2 in this case), but that’s how you elevate your own game. I’m already planning on going back next weekend.

That’s pretty much it for now. It’s good to be back in the flow of things, and exciting to see us taking on new challenges. Enzo’s birthday and Elise’s recital are the two most notable upcoming events for us, so I look forward to writing about them. While it’s hard to believe we’ve reached the final year of the decade, I expect it to be a very good one, and for us to finish strong.