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So we had a very fun, busy, and memorable New Year, but before I can get into all that I just want to say thank you again to my cousin Kristy and her daughter Madeline for having Ava, Elise, and Enzo over for a sleepover at their house on New Year’s Eve. I know it’s not easy to watch all three of our kids, especially when you don’t do it on a regular basis, but they did it with a smile and we appreciate it very much. At least they have the rest of the weekend to recuperate.

We had an early in-time at El Gaucho so we dropped the kids off at Kristy’s at noon, ate a quick lunch at Taco Time up the street, then hurried downtown to get started with work at 1:00. We got there in time, and I had a chance to say hello to many of my old friends who still work there. Jessica and I were bartending downstairs in the Pampas Room, which is a room that we both have plenty of history in. I’ve been working long nights in that room going all the way back to when it was a weekend Jazz club in the late 90’s. Jessica has worked plenty of long nights down there as well, but of course the best night we’ve ever had down there was the night of our wedding reception, nearly 6 years ago.

We were doing a double showing of our ‘Burlesque Dinner Theater’, which meant there was a ton of setup and prep work to get done before the first show. I’ve worked this show about 10 times in the past so I knew what to expect. It’s not really my cup of tea, meaning it’s not something that I would pay to attend, but I’m more than happy to work it. To me it’s sort of like an awkward combination of performance and sexuality, but plenty of people seem to really enjoy it. Unlike normal dinner service, which tends to flow more organically, these events have to follow a very strict time schedule. There’s only so much time when the guests first arrive to get them a drink, serve their first course, then get them cleared and set for dinner. In between each course various performers come out to do their act while we work behind the scenes to orchestrate their meal. As usual everything went off without a hitch, but that doesn’t mean you’re not busy. Quite the contrary actually. I was in the main service well at the bar, which means I’m head down slinging cocktails all night long. The night was sponsored by Buffalo Trace bourbon, so we had a special cocktail menu featuring a variety of their products.

We also tried something new this year, which was to give the night a prohibition era speakeasy feel. The staff was dressed in old-timey hats and suspenders, and we served drinks in kettle cups designed to ‘hide’ the alcohol in case the Coppers show up. The host would do this speech at the beginning of each show where he explained to the audience that we were ‘breaking the law’ as part of an underground speakeasy. “If the Coppers show up and ask if there’s any alcohol here we need to tell them…” and then the whole staff would yell out in conjunction “It’s a social gathering!”

We were so busy the whole time that the night just flew by. Certainly the most memorable performance of each show was the yodeling dominatrix. First of all she was the tallest woman I’ve ever seen in my life. I saw her doing sound check before the show, and even in flat shoes she had to be 6’4” or 6’5”. It was crazy. But for the show she comes out in this full leather dominatrix outfit with a whip (of course) wearing the tallest platform stiletto heeled shoes I’ve ever seen. So she’s literally about 7 feet tall walking through the crowd up onto the stage. It felt like the Greek God of Bondage just arrived, and the crazy part (as if we haven’t gotten to that yet) is that she’s here to yodel her way through an AC/DC song! Yeah that’s right; her and her accordion player (who is also quite the character) performed a cover of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”, but when the chorus comes along, instead of singing “I’m on a highway to hell” she would sing “I’m on a highway to yodel”, but she would actually yodel the word ‘yodel’ full on Sound Of Music style. I’ve definitely never seen anything like it, and probably never will again. The crowd loved it, and I even saw some old guy palming her a $100 bill after the show because he enjoyed her performance so much. I’m sure she’s had plenty of old guys slipping her C-notes in the past, but I’m glad I got to see it.

At a certain point near the end of the 2nd show the performers had gathered near the bar as they prepared to go up on stage to take a final bow together. I had been busy making hundreds of drinks the whole time and didn’t even notice them there. Sort of like a whale coming up for air, I finally look up from the well, and what do I see right there across from my bar?? Well, there’s a giant leather-clad dominatrix holding a whip, a mostly naked man wearing bits and pieces of a bird costume, an almost completely naked woman (except for a few strategically placed quarter-sized pasties covered in sparkles), and another woman who eats fire for a living. It was one of those surreal moments where I’ve sort of lost context for my surroundings and all I can think to myself is “What the hell is going on here!!??” The funny part is that the only one who was out of place in this equation was me!! What a funny moment. I mean can you imagine all the jokes that can come from a setup like “A giant yodeling dominatrix and a naked birdman walk into a bar…”

There was another funny moment for me when I was chatting with a couple at the bar who were long time El Gaucho regulars. I recognized them both immediately, but I could tell that they didn’t remember me. To their credit, I was wearing a hat and I have facial hair now, plus I never really knew them very well before, so it makes sense that they didn’t recognize me. Anyway as the night went on the guy started getting a little tipsy, and he was sitting right next to my service well, so he was chatting me up between stage performances. I could tell he was trying to impress me by telling me stories of all the nights he’s had at El Gaucho in private rooms and such. At one point he was talking about this amazing wine dinner he attended about 3 years ago. They were featuring the wines of Delille Cellars in Woodinville, and there was a special menu that paired each course with a particular wine. The head Sommelier from Delille was even there to describe each wine. What he didn’t realize was that I’m the one who served that party! We had just moved back to Seattle from San Diego at that time, and I was filling in because they were in a bind. It was funny because here he is trying to impress me talking about that evening, but I already knew all about it because I was there. I could have spoken up and told him that I was his server that evening, but I didn’t want to burst his bubble. I just went along with it, smirking a bit none the less.

Before I knew it everyone was counting down to midnight. I gave Jessica a big kiss, then got right back to work. The crowd dispersed shortly thereafter and we were able to get things cleaned up in record time. As mentioned in a previous post, this was the first time Jessica and I have bartended together, but as expected it went so well. She took care of the dinner customers at the bar, plus helped me out making drinks in the well. She is just the absolute consummate professional when it comes to dining and service. You can only hope to have someone as good as Jessica working with you, but you certainly won’t find anyone better. With all of her restaurant experience, as well as her interior design experience, combined with all of my restaurant and website experience, it would almost be crazy for us not to open a restaurant together someday. I guess that’s another topic for another time though.

We ended up getting out at 1:20am, meaning we worked 12:20 minutes without ever sitting down or taking a break. Working downstairs means there’s a lot of running upstairs to grab something, so according to Jessica’s Fitbit she did approximately 65 flights of stairs that night, including over 24,000 steps. A busy night indeed! The really good news came when we found out that our little crew downstairs was responsible for 40% of the total restaurant’s sales! That’s unheard of. You have to realize that we’re working with half the crew compared to upstairs. We have half as many tables, and our kitchen down there isn’t even half as big as the one upstairs. Plus they had a really good night upstairs. I heard that they sold $20k more upstairs this year compared to last year, so for us to make up such a significant part of the total restaurant sales was a really big deal. Obviously the reason I’m there is to spend time with my wife and see all my old buddies, but making some nice cash certainly doesn’t hurt.

For me, El Gaucho Seattle is and always will be a very special place. It’s like when you hear people talking about their old college glory days; that’s what EGS is to me. So many of my formative years were spent there. Even before I started working there I was part of the restaurant’s history, vicariously through my Dad. He was the regular at the original El Gaucho down on 7th & Olive, so I grew up hearing stories of the mink-lined booths and the early morning Hunter’s breakfast. My Dad, the bookie, regularly used their office to take calls from his customers, so it was almost a foregone conclusion that I would someday also become a part of that place. I just love that now Jessica is also a part of their history. The Pellegrini name and El Gaucho have been tied together for a long time, and I hope it always stays that way.

By the time we got home and got to bed it was nearly 3:00am and we were both completely exhausted. My feet and back were killing me, and Jessica’s “whole body was sore”. We woke up a little after 9:00, got dressed, and headed down to Kristy’s to pick up the kids. As soon as they opened the door I could tell they had a rough night with Enzo. Kristy, Madi, and Enzo all looked exhausted. She said they all went to bed easily and that it was almost too good to be true, but that Enzo woke up in the middle of the night screaming and they had a hell of a time getting him back to sleep. He’s getting another tooth right now, so I’m sure that had something to do with it.

Kristy said other than that everything was great. The girls had a ton of fun and kept talking about it throughout the day. Everyone, including Mom and Dad, was exhausted so we all had a very lazy day at home to start the new year. We were excited to watch Iowa in the Rose Bowl but that quickly turned into a major disappointment. Jessica gave in when they were down 21-0 at the end of the first quarter. I watched a bit longer but turned it off at 35-0.

We had a concerning moment earlier this week when I went out to the dog kennel and found an arrow sticking into the side of our fence. It had been shot from behind our house and into our yard. Obviously it was shot with force because it had penetrated our wood fence. Initially I’m looking at it kind of confused going “What is this – Sherwood Forest!? Isn’t there supposed to be a scroll or a wanted poster pinned to the fence by this arrow?” There are a couple boys that live in the house behind us and we normally get balls and frisbees in our yard, which is never a problem, but a dangerous arrow is something completely different. I was initially pretty upset about it, but I’ve since cooled down. I want to speak to their parents about it, but of course they’re out of town right now. I got their Dad’s phone number from another neighbor and left him a voicemail yesterday. Hopefully he calls back soon so we can talk. I’m not going to freak out on him, and I’m not going to call the police, which several people have recommended, but I need to be assured that this won’t be happening again. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that it was a one-time accident; Lord knows I did more than my fair share of stupid things when I was a kid, but whenever safety is concerned you can’t take things too lightly. If it happens again I’ll be forced to take more serious measures, but for now a simple conversation will suffice.

Not much else going on this weekend, but we’re flying out to Iowa early Thursday morning. They just got 8 inches of snow, so it looks like we’ll be getting the full midwest winter experience. It’s going to be a very busy trip, but we’re really looking forward to it. Once we get back there will be some new changes for us: Jessica is going to transfer from El Gaucho Seattle to El Gaucho Bellevue. We were never planning on her going back to Seattle after maternity leave because the Bellevue store is so much closer to my office in Redmond. They convinced her to come back to Seattle for the Holiday Season, but now that that’s over she has decided that making the double commute from our house to my office, then from my office to downtown Seattle just doesn’t make sense. It forces me to leave work at 4:00, which has become an issue, and it’s too stressful for everyone involved. Working at the Bellevue store means I don’t have to leave work quite as early, and Jessica doesn’t have to stress out about getting to Downtown Seattle in time. It’s a little sad because to some degree it feels like the end of an era, but we’re still part of the Gaucho family, so it’s all good!

That’s about all for now. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of stories and pics to share once we return from Iowa. Until then… Happy New Year!

A few days ago we celebrated our first Christmas as a complete family. I remember Ava’s first Christmas when she was just turning one month old; we were still living in our little beach shack in San Diego in a relatively empty house with only one visitor. Things are a bit different for us now. We spent Christmas morning opening presents and Skyping with family, then around noon Kristy, Madi, Edgar, Uncle Jim and Aunt Brenda came over to spend the day with us. There was plenty of good food to eat, basketball and movies to watch, and lots of new toys for the kiddos to enjoy. It was exactly the kind of day you look forward to all season long.

For a couple days leading up to Christmas I would hear a little pitter-patter of footsteps in the morning, accompanied by what started out as whispers between the girls, but would soon turn into excited shouts as they ran downstairs to open their presents, only to find out that it wasn’t yet Christmas morning and they needed to contain themselves for at least another day. There’s no question that Christmas is most special when there are children around to enjoy it, so seeing the girls get so into it this year was really fun.

Today baby Enzo turns 11 months old, and he is as active and vocal as ever. He got some fun toys for his first Christmas, but of course spent most of the morning playing with boxes and torn up wrapping paper. One toy that he especially loves is his new remote control, which will hopefully distract him from his endless obsession over grabbing the actual universal remote that controls everything downstairs. He can frequently be found walking all around the downstairs carrying his remote and shouting out the beginnings of what sound like words (for those that don’t know, he is a very loud child). He says the word “yeah” a lot now, but we’re still waiting for something a little more tangible like “Mommy” or “Daddy”. Thanks to his big sisters he has been advanced on everything up to this point so I’m sure speaking is just around the corner.

Elise had a great day on Christmas and looked as cute as ever. Jessica tied her hair up in a bun and dressed both girls in their new Christmas dresses from Grandma. She received all kinds of new toys and dolls, plus a new pair of tennis shoes, a new pair of boots, some new books, and some new clothes. She had been talking all week about getting to play with Madi so it was great to see them all having so much fun together. She got worn down after a while and took a nap on the couch, but then bounced right back and picked up where she left off, enjoying all the fun new stuff at her disposal.

Ava, who was celebrating her 5th Christmas, had an absolute blast. There were no meltdowns on Christmas morning (which is more than we can say for last year), and she did a good job sharing many of her new toys with Elise and Enzo. She also received lots of new toys and dolls, plus new books, clothes, and shoes. One of the highlights for Ava was a new set of remote controlled cars from Grandma and Grandpa. Elise got one as well but wasn’t quite ready for it, so Jessica and I ended up playing with hers while Ava “raced” our car around the house. These cars have all four wheels on the bottom, plus one wheel on top where the rear window should be. This allows them to do all kinds of cool spins and stunts that normal RC cars can’t do. They were a big hit all day.

Jessica had a very nice Christmas that included some awesome gifts, but also some much needed time off. She has been working a ton throughout the month of December, so getting a week off around Christmas was perfect. Some of the highlights for her this year included a FitBit from me (so now we both wear them constantly), a very special family photo with Santa (more on that below), and for the second Christmas in a row, a Louis Vuitton purse from Grandma. Very nice indeed.

I also had an amazing Christmas this year, although I must admit I’m feeling a bit spoiled. Jessica got me a pair of Uggs slippers that I’ve been wanting, and honestly just that would have been more than enough, but she went above and beyond this year by getting me probably the coolest present I’ve ever received – three laps around a track in either a Ferrari F360 Modena, or a Lamborghini Gallardo, OR BOTH! I was absolutely stunned. Luckily she filmed me opening this present so my reaction can forever be saved. You have to realize that I’m the guy who waited until September of this year to buy the special Forza edition of Xbox One. If you’re not familiar, Forza is the racing game created by Microsoft specifically for Xbox, and it’s the only game I play. It’s so realistic that I’ll sit there late at night racing for hours. I just can’t believe that I’m going to get behind the wheel of these amazing supercars, plus she paid extra to have the whole thing filmed! Obviously I’ll be sharing the video once I have it, but first I need to get everything scheduled. It’s going to be a few months before my big day, but I’m already over the moon about the whole thing.

As mentioned above, another highlight of our holiday season this year was our visit with Santa Claus. Jessica and the kids picked me up from work a couple Fridays ago and we all headed down to Bellevue Square mall to get our picture with Santa, as well as attend “Snowflake Lane”, which is an outdoor winter show they do every night in December. We went straight to Santa as soon as we arrived, only to find out that it would be an hour waiting in line. Even though everyone was dressed for the photo, we knew there was no way we could keep them all occupied in line for an hour, so we decided to skip it. Jessica figured she could take the kids to the mall on a weekday and not have to wait forever in line. So we ended up going to Nordstrom to get Jessica her FitBit, but as we got off the elevator on the top floor, we were greeted by some employees asking if we wanted to get our picture taken with Santa. There was only a 5 minute wait, the prices were the same as in the mall, and we were already dressed for it, so of course we went for it. I must say that our photographer was an absolute pro and did a great job of getting the kids to look and smile. He was juggling stuffed animals and making funny faces. The kids loved him. As it turned out, not only is it our best family Christmas photo, it’s our best family photo ever! Jessica said while waiting in line that all she wanted for Christmas was a family photo with Santa where everyone is looking at the camera and smiling. Glad we were able to check that one off the list!

Although Christmas is now behind us, we’ve still got plenty of fun stuff to look forward to in the very short-term. First we’ve got New Year’s Eve later this week, which the kids will be spending at Madi and Kristy’s house. As mentioned in a previous post, the kids will be having a sleepover with them while Jessica and I will be bartending the burlesque show at the Pampas Room at El Gaucho. It’s going to be a double showing that night, meaning it will be a long and busy night, but it will be so fun bartending together, and of course the kids will have a blast at Kristy’s house. Then a week later we’re heading out to Iowa for Jessica’s grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary. There’s going to be a huge party with a bunch of family members that we haven’t seen in years (some of whom I’ve never even met), plus some of Jessica’s friends will be driving down from Minnesota to visit us. Grandpa and Grandma Rudd have put in so much hard work to convert their basement into a mother-in-law for us to stay in. Based on the pictures I’ve seen it looks beautiful, so we’re really looking forward to getting there. They’ve also secured car seats and a double stroller for us to use while we’re there, which is a HUGE help because that means we don’t have to carry all that stuff through the airport. They’ve really gone out of their way to accommodate us on this trip and we appreciate it so very much. Looks like the weather is going to be on our side as well, so this is shaping up to be a really fun trip.

Thank you to all our loved ones for making this such a special and memorable holiday season. Although it’s not quite over for us yet, it has already been one of the greats. Can’t wait to write about our upcoming trip to Iowa. Happy New Year to all our friends and family! Here’s a few recent pics from our holiday season.

11 months old today

My sweet little Elise

Posing in front of the tree before seeing Santa

Ready for the neighborhood Christmas party!

Wearing my Dad’s old Christmas sweatshirt. Enzo seems to approve.

Ava’s first reaction on Christmas morning

Madi reading to the girls

Sibling love

Santa’s little helper was very tired, and serious, by the end of the day.

I’m just glad that Pippo made it into this photo

Sometimes you have the absolute best of intentions for doing something, but no matter how hard you try to get it going, it’s just not meant to be. That’s basically the kind of day we had on Saturday. The goal was to spend the day with Dana, Brad, and Anna for Anna’s 15th birthday. Our original plan was to go meet up in Leavenworth, which is a small Bavarian-style village 100 miles from our house in the Cascade Mountains. There were some Christmas festivities going on there, so we thought it would be the perfect place for a family holiday adventure.

The plan ended up changing several times throughout the week, mainly due to the weather we’ve been experiencing over the past week. I’ll take a quick detour and say that last week was the craziest weather I’ve ever seen in Washington state. It was insane. We were averaging over an inch of rain per day, towns were flooding, rivers were overflowing, there was a tornado down south in Battleground, and there was a mudslide on Highway 2 near Leavenworth, which blocked off all traffic for 3 days.

We went back and forth bouncing ideas around. We talked about bowling, roller skating, making gingerbread houses, dinner, etc. The problem is that we’re trying to find an activity that would be suitable for our small children, as well as for a teenager. Not an easy task. Jessica wanted to do something that had a holiday feel, mainly for the kids, so we ended up coming back around to the idea of spending a day in Leavenworth. I was concerned about driving over the pass in our minivan, but Jessica had already spoke to Dana about it and they were in, so I figured it would be fine and went along with it.

I had a funny moment with Ava in the morning as we prepared to head out. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when Ava comes in, finds a tampon, and says “What’s this Daddy?” I can’t even speak clearly because I have a mouth full of toothpaste, not that I knew what to say anyway, so I’m like “Um, I don’t know honey, I think that’s Mommy’s.” She paused and thought about it for a minute, then says “Do you think there’s any candy in there?” I tried to keep a straight face and replied “I don’t think so honey, but we’d have to ask Mommy to be sure. Let’s not worry about it for now because we have to get going.” Then she says “Okay Daddy, don’t worry we’ll deal with this later when we get home.” Truth be told I’ve seen the inside of one of those wrappers just as many times as Ava, which is none, so for all I know there might actually be candy in there. Kudos to Ava for thinking outside the box.

We didn’t eat much breakfast on that morning because we wanted to save ourselves for a nice lunch in Leavenworth. We packed everybody up in the old front wheel drive sleigh, turned on the Christmas CD I had just burned, and headed out towards the mountains. Jessica and I were singing Christmas songs as the kids drifted off to sleep in boredom. It was such a Griswold moment.

The scenery changed pretty drastically once we started getting into the mountains. There was snow everywhere, including frozen waterfalls. It was beautiful. This was actually my favorite part of the day. The kids woke up shortly thereafter and were instantly in love with their snowy surroundings. We saw several cars having trouble, most of which were little rear wheel drive sporty cars, but we just took it nice and slow and enjoyed the ride.

As we neared Leavenworth the cars started piling up, and we soon found ourselves stuck in a mile-long traffic backup. We eventually got tired of it and pulled off onto a residential side street to park the van and walk into town. We were hoping to meet Dana and family for lunch, but they decided to stop in Cle Elum for lunch, so we were on our own for food.

As we walked into town it quickly became obvious that this was one of their busiest days of the year. The first restaurant we went to had a 90 minute wait for a table, so we put our names on the list and went out to look elsewhere. Back we go out into the wet misery. It was so slushy, and the snow was so wet that we were all instantly drenched. I had brought my nice new hat from Austin but decided not to wear it due to all the wet snow coming down. This meant that all I had to cover my head was the hood on my jacket, but it quickly became so drenched that it just hung down over my eyes, preventing me from seeing where I was going.

We went to another restaurant, only to find that they had a 2 hour wait for a table! At this point Jessica and I were getting quite grumpy. We were starving, soaking wet, and had nowhere to go. I went into a little shop to buy a beanie, and it was so crowded that it took me 20 minutes to get in and out. I had spoke to Dana around this time and she was concerned about the amount of time it was going to take to get from Cle Elum to Leavenworth. It should have been 50 minutes but due to all the traffic it was going to be more like 2 hours.

So we continued to walk aimlessly through the streets of Leavenworth, getting more and more frustrated. Our feet were soaked, and Ava kept insisting on making snowballs, but every time she would bend down to make one she would slip and fall, meaning she was soaked head to toe. There were literally thousands of people walking around this small village, so to say that it was over capacity would be an understatement. Jessica wanted to buy an ornament at the Christmas store, but there was a long line just to enter the store, meaning you had to wait out in the cold wet misery just to eventually have the privilege to go in and spend your f’ing money! Our patience was wearing thin, and we were literally shaking from hunger, so we waited in another line to buy a big bag of kettle corn, then went back to one of the restaurants to wait for a table.

Of course we pick the place that has no ramp leading up to it’s doors, so I’ve got to get the stroller (with Elise and Enzo in it) up the stairs and inside. Then we get in there and it’s packed, with nowhere to put our huge stroller. We finally found a place for our stroller under a staircase, then we struck our only instance of luck throughout the entire day: someone else named Jessica had a reservation for a large table and they accidentally gave it to us.

So we strip off all the wet clothing, pour a bunch of kettle corn on the table, and finally sit down. At this point I pulled out my phone and got the text from Dana an hour earlier saying that they were very sorry, but that they aren’t coming. I understood their reasoning, and I had told them about all the traffic coming into town, but I still couldn’t help feeling frustrated. We had just driven 2.5 hours to get here, then fought the elements for another 90 minutes, and the people we’re here to see aren’t coming. So we sat there, ate our lunch, then put our wet clothing back on and headed for the van.

We knew we were going to miss the tree lighting ceremony but we didn’t care at this point. I just wanted to get home. It was getting dark as we walked out of town, and of course we got completely drenched once again. The girls refused to keep their gloves on, so by the time we got to the van they were both crying because their hands were freezing. Luckily Jessica thought ahead and brought fresh pajamas for the kids to wear on the way home. Unfortunately this meant she and I had to stand in a deep puddle (because of course I parked in one) and change each kid out of their wet clothing into some nice warm, dry, pajamas. All three of them were screaming, so the whole situation was chaotic.

Eventually we got everyone loaded up and headed out of Leavenworth, middle fingers standing tall. The sun set as we started climbing the pass, and we soon found ourselves in the middle of what I called “the trifecta of unsafe driving conditions”: it was pitch black, the roads were covered with snow, and it was extremely vertical. A little bit later we saw the sign saying chains were required for non-4wd vehicles. At this point I was really mad at myself. I knew driving through the pass would be an issue, and we didn’t have any chains for the van, but I still elected to go. There was nothing I could do but drive through it, so that’s what I did. I hated the fact that I was exposing the kids to danger, but I didn’t feel there was any other viable option.

Although I’m quite comfortable driving through difficult weather, I have to admit I was white-knuckling it a bit during this drive. It was definitely the worst conditions I’ve ever experienced, so I tried to keep the mood light by playing Christmas songs and keeping the conversation going. Of course there had to be a couple jerks riding my bumper the whole way up the mountain, but I didn’t care. I just took it nice and slow until the entire way.

Three hours later we were home safe and sound, ready to put this crazy day behind us. The funny part was Ava and Elise kept talking about how much fun they’d had. This really put things in perspective. Jessica and I quickly admitted that we were both overly grumpy, mostly due to our hunger and the weather, but ultimately the kids had fun, which made it all worth it. I just wish we would have been smarter about going over the pass. It was pretty hairy at times.

I talked to Dana that night after getting home and everything is totally fine. It was a bummer of a day, but not a big deal. It’s too bad because, again, we all had nothing but the best of intentions, and we wanted to see Anna for her birthday, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Can’t say I’ll ever be in a hurry to go back to Leavenworth though, particularly on a weekend in December.

Not surprisingly we stayed in all day on Sunday. I never even got out of my Christmas pajamas. We just stayed home watching the Seahawks destroy the Ravens, I played guitar for the kids, won a couple little play money poker tournaments on the iPad, and made a nice steak dinner. It was exactly what the doctor ordered after our previous day of chaos.

Although this probably won’t be one of our favorite holiday memories, there’s no question it’s a story we’ll never forget. The kids had fun and that’s the most important thing. I hope I don’t sound sour about the whole thing because I’m really not. If anything it was for the sake of telling a good story. Here’s a few pics from that day.

Last weekend baby Enzo turned 10 months old. He was already walking a little bit by the time he turned 10 months, so I guess it’s fair to say that he started walking at 9 months. I was talking with Dana about him during Ava’s birthday party on Sunday and she said Enzo is the youngest person in our family to start walking! I knew he was the youngest of our three kids, but I didn’t realize that he’s the youngest of anyone in our family, myself included. Certainly his sisters deserve some of that credit, but I don’t want to short change the little guy; he’s a fighter.

Sunday we had a nice little family birthday party for Ava. Butch and Carol arrived first, then Dana, Brad, Kallan, and Anna showed up a bit later. It was game day for the Seahawks so everyone had their gear on. We ended up hanging out, eating, and pulling the Hawks in for a very exciting victory over the Steelers. Ava got some very nice gifts from her aunties, including a toy drum kit from Auntie Dana, and a ‘Sleepover Kit’ (which I believe is just a sleeping bag but there may be some other stuff in there as well) from Auntie Carol. It was a nice low key way to enjoy time with family and finish out my vacation.

Ava will get the chance to try out her new sleeping bag very soon, as the kids with be staying the night with Kristy and Madi on New Year’s Eve. Kristy reached out to me recently to see if the kids could do a sleepover that night so that Jess and I could go out for the night. Unfortunately getting that night off work isn’t possible because New Year’s Eve is the busiest night of the year at El Gaucho, but we’ll have the next-best thing, which is me working that night with her. They’re always in need of extra hands on nights like that, so I reached out to them and volunteered to work. The best part is that Jessica and I will be bartending together downstairs in the Pampas Room. In all the years we’ve worked together we’ve never been behind the bar together for a shift. It’s normally me bartending and her serving in the dining room, so this should be a lot of fun. Big thanks to Kristy and Madi for making this all happen. Plus we will actually be seeing them before then, along with Jim and Brenda, at our house on Christmas Day, so that should be fun as well.

This week was my first week back at work, and we received a nice surprise from management, which was the day off today. They had a big product launch on Monday and plenty of people had to work during Thanksgiving weekend to get things ready, so one of the higher up managers in our organization emailed everyone on Wednesday and told us to take Friday off. I got the best of both worlds because I didn’t even work on the product launch they’re referring to, in fact I was on vacation while they were finishing it off. It was pretty cool that they did that though; I can’t imagine what one day’s worth of salaries alone must cost for my entire organization.

Last night was my work holiday party but Jessica had to work so we didn’t go. It was held at the Chihuly Gardens under the Space Needle, which I hear is a beautiful venue, so it’s too bad we couldn’t make it. I’m hoping to hear some debaucherous story on Monday but chances are there shall be none of the sort. This is the tech industry after all, not the restaurant industry.

Our house is now officially ready for Christmas. I did an especially pathetic job with the outdoor lights this year, but at least we have something. The inside of the house looks much better, thanks to Jessica and the girls. We went and cut our tree down at a Christmas Tree farm in Snohomish on Saturday. I knew I was going to get the short end of the stick on this one but still played along. When we pulled up the kid handed me a hand saw and said to only cut down a tree with a tag on it. Okay no problem. Ava had been saying the whole time that she wanted a “small Christmas tree”, which was perfect because we didn’t want something full-size that would sit on the ground. Baby Enzo would have been all over that and it would’ve gotten ugly in no time. We needed to put a tree up on a table that was out of his reach, so a small tree was a necessity.

We walk around the tree farm for a bit, and then from a distance, we saw it. Like the Griswolds out tree hunting in the wilderness, it was as if a light had shone down on it. And it had a tag. Or at least I thought it did. I had a little blue twist tie thing on top that not every tree had, so I thought it was fair game.

So I get down on the ground and start cutting. As mentioned, this is a small tree, but it’s still enough to get your heart pumping when you’re trying to cut it down with a hand saw. I’m working on this thing for a while, and I keep thinking I’m almost there, but I’m not. At a certain point I have to stand up and pant. Jessica is offering to get down there and help, but of course I tell her no, I’ve got this. Then I go down to start cutting again but I couldn’t see the saw, so I missed it and ended up cutting my finger on the blade. Next thing I know I’m working different angles on this son of a bitch, and eventually, with enough hand saw repetitions and strategic force, I take it down.

So then I return the hand saw to the lady and she instantly comments on my bleeding finger, which was a little embarrassing. Then I go to have the tree shaken and baled. Some kid grabs it from me, then looks at it and says that it doesn’t have a tag. I said “Isn’t that the tag?” pointing to the blue twist tie at the top of the tree. He’s like “Um, no.”

Next thing I know this older guy is coming over to me and he seems pissed. The first thing he says to me is “You weren’t supposed to cut that tree down! That was a baby!!” I was a little stunned, mostly because people rarely raise their voice at you in the Pacific Northwest. We’re generally much too passive aggressive for that, so his tone took me by surprise. As usual, I was extremely apologetic and polite with him, albeit a bit frantic as well. I said “But it’s got a tag!” pointing out the little blue twist tie. He’s like, “That’s not a tag! This is a tag!” pointing to another tree with a huge manilla tag on it. At this point he’s being an asshole with me, so I start giving it right back to him. I said “Well then NONE of the trees in this area had tags on them, hence the confusion. We were looking for a small tree.”

He then informed me that I would have to pay full price for what that tree would sell for when it was fully grown, and I’m like “Fine! Just get me the hell out of here!” At the end of the day I end up paying top dollar for a miniature tree. The girl ringing me up didn’t know what was going on, so after I pay she says “feel free to stay for cider and hot cocoa” and I’m thinking, “yeah, we should probably just get out of here.” I told Jessica the whole story in the car and the first thing she says is “Guess we’ll be getting our tree at Lowe’s next year.”

Anyway, the house is all decorated now and the kids love it. Last night, while Jessica was at work, I overhear Ava say to Elise near the Christmas tree, “here, hide these before Daddy finds them.” I walk over to see what’s going on and she instantly stuffs something into one of her boxes of toys. I ask her what’s she’s got there, and eventually she admits that she was collecting candy canes from the tree and hiding them for later. I’m thinking “What are you a squirrel? Who do you think those candy canes are for anyway? They’re obviously for you and Elise.” I pretended to be mad for a minute but inside I was dying. The best thing was when I looked over at the tree and saw the foot stool all setup right next to it, which was obviously how she reached the candy canes. Pretty smart for sure, and good on execution, just need to work on the getaway.

After last week’s post about Ava’s birthday and our trip to Austin, I promised myself to keep it relatively short this week, so that’s all for now. Wishing all our friends and family a great holiday season. Hopefully we’ll be seeing you all soon. Here’s a few recent pics.

We’re never all looking at the same time. That would be impossible.

The tree!

Well, there has been a lot going on in our world over the past week, so this is going to be a long one. First and foremost, today is Ava’s 4th birthday! The plan was for Jessica and I to wake the girls up this morning, and see them for the first time in 5 days, but Ava beat us to it. She came running into our room with so much excitement, then Elise joined us just a couple minutes later. After lots of hugs and kisses we made our way downstairs to open presents and make breakfast.

In the early afternoon Jessica and I took Ava to her first movie while Grandma and Grandpa took Elise and Enzo to the Everett Kids Museum. We saw the new Pixar movie ‘The Good Dinosaur’, which opened today, and of course Ava loved it. She was so into the movie that at times she would be jumping up and down with excitement, then later crouching into my arms with fear when a mean dinosaur growled and showed it’s teeth. To be fair it was in 3D so I’m sure this was a pretty intense experience for her.

Later this evening we all went out to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant. The highlight of the meal was Ava wearing the big Sombrero while the restaurant staff sang her ‘Happy Birthday.’ She was so cute with that hat on and you could tell she loved the attention. As always with Ava’s birthdays I end up thinking back to where we were (figuratively as well as physically) when she first entered our lives. It’s crazy to see how far we’ve come as a family in such a short time, but it all started with little miss Ava P. She’s growing up so fast but I couldn’t be more proud of her. Happy birthday my sweet girl.

Now to backtrack a few days, I’ve got so much to talk about regarding our trip to Austin. We got up early on Friday and everyone rode down to the airport with us. As expected, leaving the kids was the hardest part, but once we got through it we were ready to kick back and have some fun. The flight down to Austin was faster than expected, and as soon as we started walking through the airport I knew I was going to love it there. Everywhere you looked there were guitar-inspired pieces of art, the smell of BBQ was heavy in the air, and there was a band playing right above the baggage claim!

We took a cab ride into the city and ended up having the most animated lady behind the wheel. She was this great southern character who really went out of her way to tell us all about Austin, as well as make us feel very welcomed. I loved how frequently she said “y’all”, and by the end of that cab ride I distinctly noticed a twang in Jessica’s voice as we thanked her for the ride. Of course I then had to give her a hard time about in only taking a single cab ride to the city for her to start developing an accent.

We stayed at the Hyatt Place on 3rd and Brazos, which is near the heart of downtown. From our hotel window I could see that there was a Flemings steakhouse across the street, and I immediately remembered the $25 Flemings gift card I’ve had in my wallet for the past 3 years. It was given to me when I was bartending at the Tractor Room in San Diego, but I’d never had the chance to use it and for some reason I still had it with me. Needless to say we started our night off there with a drink and a couple appetizers, and I was finally able to rid this thing from my wallet.

Next we walked up to 6th street, which is the main drag in downtown Austin. It’s where all the bars and restaurants are, and we’ve heard a lot about it, so we were excited to finally see it in person. We walked up 6th for a while, but then decided to turn right on Congress Ave. When we looked down the street straight ahead of us we saw the Capitol Building for the state of Texas. At that moment we both realized that neither of us had ever been to a state capitol building (in any state), so we decided to walk down and check it out.

The grounds of the capital are beautiful, and not surprisingly, there are lots of historical artifacts strewn all over the place. Lots of cannons in particular. This would end up being our first of 3 visits to the capital during our time in Austin, but it was the only time we went there at night, which definitely added some charm to the experience.

Some of the things we noticed right away about Austin is that architecturally, the downtown area looks extremely similar to downtown San Diego, which was a surprise, except that it was much cleaner. In fact it’s the cleanest city either of us has ever been to anywhere in the world, and that’s not an exaggeration. The best way I can describe is to say it looks like downtown San Diego mixed with a bit of Chicago, but with Vancouver’s cleanliness and friendliness. It really is a unique place.

Another thing that surprised us was how empty it felt the whole time we were there. At first we thought maybe the University of Texas wasn’t in session, but that actually wasn’t the case. It’s just not a very crowded city, even though it is the fastest growing city in America. I think the main reason for that is that most of the people moving to Austin end up in an outlying area, rather than downtown Austin. Either way it never really felt crowded at all during our trip, which was totally fine with us.

Anyway, back to Friday night. After visiting the capital we decided to grab some dinner, then retire early. We were tired from traveling and the idea of staying out late just wasn’t that appealing. We ended up sleeping nearly 12 hours that first night, which was a glorious way to get things started.

Saturday morning it was beautiful outside (although quite windy as we would later find out) so we decided to get out and start walking. It’s a good thing I wore my Fitbit throughout the trip because I set a record for my daily step count more than once. Between Saturday and Monday we walked about 30 miles.

We walked down to Zilker park, which was on the other side of the Colorado river. One thing I had to do while in Austin was visit the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue, so it was great to start the day by doing that. After paying our respects to Stevie we walked back to the city to shop at a cool little store called Austin Rocks. I ended up buying a sweet grey t-shirt with an Armadillo playing guitar that says ‘Keep Austin Weird’.

When I was checking out at Austin Rocks I asked the girl working there if she had any recommendations for areas that we should go shopping in. She said her favorite part of town for shopping was an area called South Congress, and that we could walk there in about 25 minutes. We were already familiar with North Congress from the night before at the capitol, so we decided to check it out. This ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. The whole neighborhood is filled with a combination of fancy designer shops, thrift shops, vintage shops, motorcycle shops, hat shops, boot shops, food trucks, and restaurants.

We ended up spending the entire afternoon walking around South Congress. Jessica ended up buying the exact same vintage grey Mickey Mouse sweatshirt that my Mom got for me on my first trip to Disneyland when I was 5, and which Ava currently wears. It’s literally the same sweatshirt; same brand, same material, same everything.

One of our favorite stores on South Congress was Allen’s Boots. We’d seed a special about it on the Travel Channel and were excited to check it out in person. This store has more pairs of cowboy boots for sale than any other store in the world. There’s literally thousands upon thousands of boots for sale, and we had so much fun trying them on! For a minute I actually thought about buying a pair but I knew I’d never wear them in Seattle, so I couldn’t justify it. I also had no idea how expensive cowboy boots can get! I saw several pair just in my size that were over $1,000. Although we didn’t end up buying anything there it was still one of the best places to visit.

We visited the craziest costume store I’ve ever seen, with the most incredible assortment of costumes, masks, and props to choose from we. We also checked out some of the most random gift stores I’ve ever seen. Jessica fell in love with a kiosk filled with hilarious cards that you can send to people. Think naughty Hallmark, but with a consistent theme on each one: a picture and a word. The combination of each picture and word could be something harmless like the word ‘Drama’ and a picture of a queen, but as you can imagine the really funny ones probably shouldn’t be repeated. You can use your imagination.

After having a great prosciutto and sunny-side up egg pizza at this really cool little Italian cafe, we ended up stopping by the Goorin Brothers hat shop on our way back towards the city. They actually have a store at the Market in Seattle but I’d never heard of them before this trip. I had mentioned to Jessica that I might be looking to buy a hat on the trip, so that’s why we stopped in, and of course a few minutes later we had both found hats that we loved. We decided to treat ourselves and get these two very nice hats, and then proceeded to wear them constantly throughout the remainder of the trip.

After the hats experience we went back to the hotel for some swimming, followed by a bottle of Dom Perignon that Rick and Chris gave us years ago. Then later that night we headed out on the town hoping for that quintessential Austin experience. We walked around looking for a place to eat and ended up finding Truluck’s, which is a very nice small restaurant chain that we were familiar with from San Diego. We’d eaten at the Truluck’s in La Jolla twice (once with Rick and once with Amy and Tom) and we knew we really liked it there, so on a whim we ended up having dinner there. Everything was great, but most importantly, Jessica got to enjoy her all-time favorite dessert, which is called the Chocolate Bag (see photo below).

After dinner we walked down to 6th street to look for some live music. We ended up in a blues bar for a while, then later we went down to Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar for the rest of the night. The guys on piano there were incredible and the crowd was really into it. I couldn’t believe the range of music they were playing, and Jessica was loving all the old Billy Joel crap they kept busting out. Turns out Johnny Manziel, the quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, was on 6th street in Austin that night, and got busted with alcohol. Probably not the place to be if you don’t want to be seen.

Sunday morning we hopped in a cab and went to the mall. I ended up getting a sweet pair of boots and some nice new jeans, while Jess got two pairs of jeans and a beautiful brown leather jacket. We ended up using Uber for the first time in order to leave the mall, but the ride was intentionally short. We basically just had him take us to the nearest entrance to Zilker Park, which was just on the other side of the freeway. We ended up walking the entire length of Zilker Park, which included a frisbee golf course, lots of trails, and a bunch of kids fishing on the banks on the Colorado river. That one made me feel like I was walking through a Norman Rockwell painting. The sun was setting, families were out feeding the ducks, the turtles were out sunbathing (literally), and the whole thing was nothing short of picturesque.

From a food perspective, Sunday night was the highlight of the trip. First let me say this; I’ve been looking forward to some authentic Texas BBQ on this trip because, as someone who grew up on the west coast in families that didn’t exactly specialize in BBQ, I’ve never had the real deal. Sure I’ve had the occasional pulled pork sandwich, but not much else. I knew BBQ is a very regional thing, and I knew that I wanted to do it right, plus I know you’re going to get what you pay for, so I didn’t want to go out into the sticks to eat a some place that serves 2,000 people a day (and believe me they do). I wanted us to experience the best, and that is exactly what we got at Lamberts.

All I can say is that now I get it. I truly get it when it comes to BBQ. Every bite of every course we had that night was excellent, but most of all, the brisket I had for my main course was a thing of beauty. Basically Lamberts took the whole concept of Texas BBQ and combined it with modern fine dining, and the result was exceptional. It’s the kind of restaurant that would do well in any big city, but it’s just so quintessentially Austin. Jessica and I often talk about the great meals we’ve had over the years and this one is definitely on the list for me. As I’ve said before, if I’m going to San Diego I’ve got to have fish tacos at South Beach Bar and Grill. Well, from now on if I’m going to Austin, I’ve got to have BBQ at Lamberts.

After dinner we walked across the city to a little area our exuberant cab driver from the airport told us about called Rainy street. It’s just this one little street that used to be residential, but all the houses had been converted into bars and restaurants. They all sort of basques in the glow of the new Hotel Van Zandt, which loomed nearby. We hung out at a place called the Blackheart and enjoyed a local funk band that had the whole place bumpin. Rather than go home after leaving the Blackheart we decided to check out a nearby hookah bar. We usually only go to hookah bars when visiting friends in Vegas, but it ended up being a nice way to finish a very busy day.

By the time Monday came around we were all shopped out so we decided to go check out the University of Texas. To get there you have to walk north up Congress Ave, through the capitol grounds. Immediately I saw the Texas football stadium, so we headed over there to check it out. We were hoping to take a tour but there wasn’t one available, so we just walked around and checked out as much as we could. After that we walked all through campus, which was still in session, and did our best to blend in.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped by Buffalo Billiards, where I got to shoot some pool, then Jessica laid a beatdown on me on the shuffleboard table. That night we had one of the most unique dinners I can remember, at a place called Swift’s Attic. It’s a tapas style place where you order lots of small plates to share, and each plate is really unique and interesting. I tried to avoid seafood while we were down there, simply because I live in the northwest and have access to the best seafood, but I must admit that the ‘Calamari Fries’ (which were basically just fried calamari strips) at Swift’s Attic were the best calamari strips I’ve ever had. No question. Then the dessert we had, called ‘Popcorn & a Movie’ was the most unique dessert I’ve ever had. It was butter popcorn gelato, house made candy bar, caramel corn, and root beer gel. Freaking amazing.

By the time Tuesday came around we were more than ready to go home. The trip had been amazing, probably even better than we could have expected, but the fact was we both missed our babies and couldn’t wait to get home to them. Our flight out wasn’t until 6:30 that evening, so we decided to get some crepes for breakfast at the little French cafe near the hotel, then walk over to the Bullock Museum (between the capitol and UT) to see the 4th and final Hunger Games movie at the IMAX. I realized while waiting in line that I had seen each installment of this series in a different state: part one at my Mom’s house in Vegas, part two in Colorado near Amy and Tom’s house, part three in Washington, and now part four in Texas. I don’t travel much, but apparently when I do, I see a Hunger Games movie.

After the movie we caught an Uber to the airport. It was funny because to them the airport was crazy that day (after all it was only 2 days before Thanksgiving), but to us it was just a normal trip to the airport. Again, throughout the trip one thing that never ceased to amaze us was how clean, quiet, and uncrowded it was everywhere we went. After getting through security we had our final Texas meal at the Salt Lick, or at least the airport version of the Salt Lick, which is another super famous Texas BBQ spot. As expected the food was good, and it was a nice way to say goodbye to the lonestar state. We knew we’d have fun on this trip, but I think it’s safe to say that it really exceeded our expectations.

Getting back to Seattle was a bit of a rude awakening though. We picked one of the busiest travel days of the year to come home, so SeaTac airport was total chaos. It took forever for Tom to be able to get through the traffic to pick us up, but eventually we found him. The travel part of a vacation is never very fun, but it’s more than worth it in order to get home to the kiddos.

While we were gone Grandma and Grandpa kept the kids busy with all kinds of adventures. After dropping us off at the airport on Friday they went downtown to Pike Place Market. The girls were wearing their new Christmas dresses from Grandma and apparently they got all kinds of attention. Each subsequent day included a trip to some type of kids museum or play area. They kept us posted on how much fun they were having, and of course we appreciate them letting us do this so much. Hopefully they had lots of fun with the kids while we enjoyed an all-time great weekend.

We warned Grandma and Grandpa that Enzo would likely start walking while we were gone and of course he did! First it was 3 steps at a time (which we saw on video), then today at the museum they said he did 10! Of course he would be the youngest to start walking too. Thanks buddy. Couldn’t have given us just a little more time on that. Just wait til your sisters get a hold of you.

Tomorrow, which is Thanksgiving, is going to be the smallest one we’ve had in years. It’s just Amy, Tom, and us. With all the travel and busy days everyone has been having it’s going to be nice to have a relaxing full day at home. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays and doing something low key this year is a nice change of pace. It will also be our last full day with Grandma and Grandpa, as they will be heading out on Friday afternoon.

I’ve still got several more days of this epic vacation. I’ll be going back to work on Monday, meaning I’ll have had 10 days off. I know that doesn’t sound like very much, but I never take long amounts of vacation so it is for me. Sunday we’re having a very small family birthday party for Miss Ava. I think it’s just going to be Dana and family, plus Butch and Carol. Should be a nice way to end a very nice holiday break.

As we were sitting there enjoying a very artistic meal at Swift’s Attic I said to Jessica that had we decided never to have kids that this would have been our lives. Lots of travel and eating out at the finest restaurants. Probably a fancier car and a shorter commute, but she could see where I was going. Having a life like that would probably get boring pretty quickly, and although you’d be rich in experiences (with maybe the most distinguished palette) we wouldn’t really have anything, because we wouldn’t have Ava, Elise and Enzo.

Here’s some of our favorite photos from the past week.

The Texas state capitol, on our first night in town.

Visiting Stevie

Boot shopping at Allen’s Boots

Hats!

Jessica’s favorite dessert – the Chocolate Bag at Truluck’s

Walking through Zilker Park

6th Street

Riding the ferris wheel with Grandma and Grandpa

The dudes

The dudettes

#AvesAndWeese

Beautiful Elise

He loves climbing in the pantry now

Good morning birthday girl

Getting some chill time with the kiddos

Ready for our first movie

3D glasses on!

Saying goodbye to ‘The Good Dinosaur’

At the restaurant

Singing to Ava

Make a wish

Tomorrow will be my last day at work for 10 days, meaning it will be the longest break I’ve had in approximately forever. Even when each of my 3 kids was born I didn’t have this much time off work, and we’ve been planning this trip for about 8 months, so it’s safe to say that excitement levels are steadily rising. The 5 days and 4 nights that we’ll be gone will be the longest stretch that we’ve ever been away from the kids, and honestly that part kinda bums me out, but I know they will be having tons of fun with Grandma and Grandpa, so it’s all good.

Speaking of the grandparents, they arrived yesterday afternoon after driving through the night all the way from Colorado. They were originally supposed to fly their plane up here, but the weather has been so bad that driving was basically their only option. I can’t believe how quickly they got here, and certainly we appreciate the fact that they’re here to allow Jessica and I to go on vacation. They’re going to be taking the kids to see Santa Claus while we’re gone, and Grandma even had two cute Christmas dresses for the girls to wear in the photo, so I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Yesterday we had a crazy storm here in the Seattle area that was causing all kinds of power outages and ridiculous traffic. I was supposed to have a dentist appointment at 5:30, so I left my office at 4:25 thinking I had more than enough time to make it. I chose to take the back roads rather than the freeway, which is my normal route home anyway, but what I didn’t know was that most of the stop lights on my way home weren’t working because of the power outage, meaning traffic was a nightmare. By the time 5:30 came around I wasn’t even halfway to the office, so I called them to tell them that I wouldn’t make it. I ended up calling several times but there was never an answer, or even an answering machine for me to leave a message on. I (correctly) assumed that they also had lost power, so I just did my best to get home.

As I entered our neighborhood I was instantly saddened to see that every house was pitch black. It was obvious that the neighborhood was without power. By this point I had been in the car for an hour and 45 minutes, I had to pee about as bad as a person can have to pee, and I realized that I only had one small flashlight and no candles readily available at home. As I drove through the neighborhood it appeared that all hope for electricity was lost, but then I turned onto my street and saw the most beautiful sight – every house was fully lit up. As it turns out, our street (and only our street) is part of Unincorporated Snohomish County, while the rest of the streets in the neighborhood are part of Everett. Because of this, our street is on a different power grid, and apparently the power on our street never goes out!

Amy and Tom were already there when I got home, so it was nice to catch up with them before Jessica and the kids got home from the gym. Obviously the kids were super excited to see Grandma and Grandpa when they got home, so the rest of the evening was spent hanging out, eating dinner, and catching up. Jessica recently joined a local gym that provides child care while you’re working out. So far the kids seem to really enjoy going there to play with other kids, and Jessica is really enjoying it, so I’m glad it’s working out.

Tonight Jessica and Amy are taking Ava and Elise to see Disney’s ‘Frozen on Ice’ at the Comcast Arena in Everett. Last year they took Ava to see ‘Disney on Ice’ for her birthday while Elise stayed home with Grandpa and me. I guess Ava had the time of her life, so this year all the girls will be going to the show while the boys stay home. When I said goodbye to Ava this morning she was already talking about tonight’s show, so I’m sure their excitement is virtually bubbling over by now.

Regarding our trip to Austin, we don’t have any plans set in stone. We’re just going to play it by ear and see what happens. I definitely want to check out Zilker Park and get my picture taken at the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue. I’m also really looking forward to eating some traditional Texas BBQ and seeing some good live music, but beyond that I have no idea what to expect. We’re staying at the downtown Hyatt, and we’re not even renting a car. Maybe I’ll finally get to experience Uber while we’re there.

It occurred to me while talking to my Mom on the way home from work yesterday that someday the kids may read some of the stories I share on the family blog and be less than thrilled with me for sharing some of the things I share. For example I’ve written about the trials and tribulations Ava experienced during potty training that she may not want everyone to know, and I’m sure there will be plenty more comparable stories about each of the kids in the future, but I hope that they understand that it only comes from a place of love; not just from me who’s writing it, but also from those who care enough to read it. Hopefully they will see it as a very small price to pay for having a documented history of the lives they lead before they were old enough to remember.

Speaking of the kids, all 3 of them are doing excellent. Ava is fully potty trained and hasn’t had an accident in a long time. She seems to have grown up a lot over the last couple months but she’s still as sweet as ever. Elise is going through the terrible two’s but she’s still such a sweetheart. She’s definitely the cuddliest of the three, and still frequently crawls into bed with us in the wee hours of the morning. She gets easily frustrated with Ava, particularly because Ava knows better than anyone how to push her buttons, but she’s also usually pretty easy to calm down, so it’s a fair trade.

Enzo is on the verge of walking, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he took his first steps while we’re out of town. I thought he was going to do it the other night, but even though he definitely has the balance, he doesn’t quite have the confidence to take a step without holding onto something. Regardless, he will certainly be our earliest walker, and as I’ve said all along, I think he just wants to keep up with his sisters. He’s getting so big now it’s crazy. Even Amy said last night that she couldn’t believe how much he has grown since she last saw him 2 months ago. It probably won’t be long before he outweighs Elise.

Jessica and I will be returning from Texas on Tuesday evening, then on Wednesday Ava will turn 4! We’re going to take her to lunch, then to see a 3D cartoon movie about dinosaurs while Elise and Enzo do something with Amy and Tom. We like the idea of doing something like this for each kid on their birthday, so that they get to have a fun experience with just Mommy and Daddy. Thursday of course will be Thanksgiving, but we’re going to keep it really low key this year. Amy and Tom will be leaving on Saturday so they can get home in time for their trip to London, then on Sunday we’ll be holding a small family birthday party for Ava.

Guess that’s about all for now. I’m sure there will be plenty to write about next week once we get back from our trip.

On Monday my Mom returned home to Vegas after spending her birthday weekend with us. She came to town on Thursday evening and the kids were thrilled to see her. Everyone came to my office on Friday afternoon to do some trick-or-treating, and we ended up taking a shuttle to the main part of campus where they were throwing a huge family Halloween party. We checked out the party for a bit but it was so crowded and crazy that we ended up going out for Mexican food shortly thereafter.

Saturday we celebrated Nana’s birthday by having a nice brunch at home, then in true family tradition, we went shopping at Costco. Nana had fun taking the girls to look at all the holiday decorations and pretty dresses while Mom and Dad loaded up on groceries. The rest of the day (and the weekend for that matter) was spent snacking and chilling around the house. We had a nice halibut dinner for Nana’s birthday, then everybody got into their costumes for some neighborhood trick-or-treating. This was the first year that the kids really ‘get’ Halloween, so it was great to have Nana there taking them door-to-door.

Sunday was a rainy day, so in true football season fashion I busted out the crockpot and started cooking. We just stayed home and relaxed all day. Everyone was a little under the weather with allergies and such, so it was nice to just chill and get some quality time together. I wish my Mom could have stayed longer but it was great having her here and I’m glad she got so much quality time with the kids. Hopefully it won’t be long before we see her again.

At this point I think the potty training phase with Ava is over. We still praise her for using the toilet, but I can only think of one accident she’s had in the past week, so I think that bridge has finally been crossed. I’m so proud of her. She’s such a good girl and she has really grown up a lot lately. I made a point to acknowledge how smart Elise is in a recent post but it would be silly for me not to say the same thing about Ava. She’s so sharp, and her memory retention is so good; it frequently amazes me. At any given moment she’s liable to mention something you told her once 6 months ago. The way she retains stuff is just incredible. You combine that with her constant energy, personality, and enthusiasm, and you’re left with a tour de force known only as Ava P.

Elise is doing great, even though she’s a two year old. She often gets frustrated (particularly with Ava) but her ability to communicate so well for her age make it easier to calm her down. She’s been in this phase lately where she wraps herself around one of my legs and doesn’t let go, meaning I have to walk around the house dragging 30 extra pounds with a leg that can’t bend because she’s completely wrapped around it. The funny thing with Elise is that she has this jekyll and hyde thing every night where she transforms from the sweet loving little girl we all know into this crazed goblin of a child that can’t be tamed. It takes ‘second wind’ to a whole new level, and it happens every night about 90 minutes before bedtime. When Jessica is at work I often only have one option for getting her to settle down, which is to let her sleep in our bed. Of course Ava sees that and then insists on also crawling into our bed, meaning it’s not uncommon for Jessica to come home from work and not be able to sleep in her own bed because of me and the girls. I definitely need to work on this…

Enzo just turned 9 months old last week and he couldn’t be doing any better. We’ve been noticing that not only is he big for his age, but he has a huge head! Getting shirts over his head is surprisingly difficult. Jessica took him in for his 9 month checkup on Friday and they confirmed after measuring him that his head is in the 97th percentile. That’s crazy!

You know what else is crazy? How mobile he has become. It’s like, of course our last child would become mobile the soonest. He’s going to be walking so soon, but it doesn’t matter because he already crawls super fast (including up the stairs), and as long as he can hold on to something with one hand, he’s comfortable walking on his own. I don’t think we were ready for him to become mobile quite this quickly, but there’s nothing you can do besides go with it.

Jessica and I are getting excited for our long weekend in Austin, which is only a couple weeks away. Amy and Tom will be coming into town a couple days before we depart on the 20th, then after we get back we can celebrate Ava’s birthday and do Thanksgiving dinner. I’m honestly not even sure what we’re doing for Ava’s birthday, so Jessica and I should probably get that figured out pretty quick. She’s going to be 4 though, and she’ll be starting a new preschool pretty shortly after.

I don’t think we have much else going on this holiday season, but we’ll be going to Iowa in early January for Jessica’s Grandparents’ 60th Wedding Anniversary. There’s a big party going on and everyone is going to be there, so it should be fun. It’s probably not the best time of year to travel to the midwest but we’ll be fine. We’ve been having troubles with our flights lately, as they have been rescheduled by Expedia multiple times. We now have a 5:05am flight out of Seattle with a 4 hour layover in Denver, then another 4 hour layover in Denver on the way back home! I was so mad when I got the email that I wrote a raging tweet about Expedia, to which they very quickly replied. We’re going to see if we can speak to someone and get it fixed, but if not we’re screwed. As it stands we’re in for epic days of rough travel.

We recently got some photos taken by our photographer friend Carlye. We wanted to get Nana some prints for her birthday, and of course Jessica can never resist a photo shoot of the kids. Here are some good shots from that day, as well as a couple others from the weekend.

Out doing some trick-or-treating

Spider girl

My loves

Based on the success we had with our original ‘Health Month’ back in June, Jessica and I have decided to do something very similar for the majority of October. We’ve heard several friends talking about their experience with the ‘Advocare 24 Day Challenge’ so we decided to give it a try. It’s basically the same paleo-inspired diet that we had back in June, but it’s supplemented with lots of vitamins, probiotics, fiber, meal shakes, and my favorite, an energy drink called ‘Spark.’

Spark is a zero calorie, caffeine-free energy drink based on vitamin B-12 and taurine. I was a bit skeptical about it when we first started, but the fact is that I haven’t had a single cup of coffee (or caffeine from any other source) since starting the program 12 days ago, and I haven’t missed it. My goal once the program finishes is to go to Costco and find a bunch of similar products to continue taking in the future. I’m all for giving up coffee on a daily basis as well, so hopefully that will be one of the positive outcomes we have from this.

Five weeks from today Jessica and I will be leaving for our vacation in Austin. We haven’t had a getaway like this in a while so we’re getting excited. We’ll be flying down there the Friday before Thanksgiving, hanging out through the weekend, and coming home on Tuesday the 24th, which is the day before Ava’s 4th birthday. Amy and Tom will be staying here with the kids while we’re gone, then we can celebrate Ava and Thanksgiving when we get back. We’re hoping to enjoy plenty of live music and delicious food while we’re down there, including some authentic Texas BBQ.

Halloween is just around the corner and we’re hoping for a visit from my Mom to celebrate her birthday. Last year we went down to Vegas for her birthday so it would be awesome to be with her again this year. Last year we missed all of our neighborhood Halloween festivities, so we’re looking forward to checking it out this year. Regarding costumes, we’ve already got everything set. Ava, who had 2 costumes last year, wants to wear the same mermaid outfit she wore last year in Vegas. Elise and Enzo will be dressed as Mike and Sully from the Monsters Inc movies. Apparently Elise saw the Sully costume while they were out shopping and she freaked out and had to have it. Once we had that Jessica couldn’t resist ordering Enzo a Mike Wazowski costume. Should be pretty hilarious.

As a sports fan, October might be my favorite month of the year. Football is in full swing, you’ve got post-season baseball, all the major European Soccer leagues are active, and basketball and hockey are just getting started. It’s kindof a nice way to transition out of summer and into the 6 months of gloom looming on the horizon. I’m a little bummed today because my Dodgers underachieved again, getting knocked out in game 5 of the NL division series against the Mets last night. I’m happy for all the Cubs fans in my life though, most notably my wife of course. I’m definitely pulling for the Cubs from this point on and hope they can break the curse of the Billy Goat!

Jessica continues to work regularly, so I’m getting lots of quality time with the kiddos. Some of that quality time gets intermixed with ‘accidents’ but overall we’ve all been having fun. Enzo can stand up on his own, and the other night he crawled up our entire staircase unassisted. I was right there behind him in case he fell, but he didn’t need me. Not that time at least. He loves playing with the girls and doesn’t really seem to mind Elise picking on him.

Speaking of Elise, she has really transformed over the past few months. We saw Dana and family last weekend and the first thing she commented on was how much older and bigger Elise was. Her vocabulary continues to amaze everyone, including her doctor. I think it’s safe to say that having a big sister so close in age has contributed towards Elise being so advanced for her age. Sometimes you have to stop and remind yourself that she is barely even two years old. If we lived in Boston I think you’d say Elise is ‘wicked smart.’

Ava is also doing really well. Her constant energy and enthusiasm for life is contagious, and her undying love for our family, which she talks about regularly, is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. One thing I can always count on when coming home from work is an energetic, heart-felt greeting from Ava, generally followed by one of the same affection from Elise. We’re hoping to get her into pre-school in the next couple months, so that should be a fun new phase for her.

Guess that’s all for now. Here are some recent pics.

Loving their new boots

Fun at the farm

Now that’s a teddy bear!

Watching the Dodgers game with my boy

Fashionable as usual

Always happy

Classic Weese

Looking innocent in baby brother’s Pack ‘n Play

Standing up on his own now

I’ve been having that “I’m overdue for a post” feeling for the last couple days; good thing I took the bus to work today or I don’t know when I would have even started it. I’ve recently been about as busy as ever with work, so much so that for the first time in my career I actually stayed the night at my office on Monday night. The reason for all this was a free online virtual conference being put on Tuesday by Microsoft, called AzureCon. The event was being held on Azure.Microsoft.com, which is the website my team owns, so we were responsible for creating the page(s) and making sure that our users had an optimal experience.

For the week leading up to the event, our two most tenured engineers were both out on vacation. Then the night before the event our most senior engineer came down with a wicked case of food poisoning, meaning there were only three of us available to see it through to completion. In the end the event was a success, although there were a few adjustments I would make if I could do it over again, but we all came together well as a team and got it done.

Jessica has worked the last two nights in a row, which is her new regular weekly schedule (Wednesday & Thursday nights), so it feels like forever since we’ve all been together for a normal evening. Everything will be back to normal tonight though, and I’m sure that will make the kids happy. We’ll be resuming our old Friday tradition of Jessica and the kids picking me up from work. The girls love coming to my office because they always get chocolate milk, and the drive home is nice because it gives Jessica and I time to catch up without many distractions.

I attended the Microsoft Car Show this afternoon on my lunch break. There were a handful of cars parked outside, including a beautiful Lamborghini, then a whole bunch of others parked underground in a parking garage. Since there was no theme to this show, the variety of cars to look at was impressive. Lots of Ferrari’s, Porsche’s, a cool orange Chevy C10 pickup, and old Porsche 944 (my first car), some amazing camping vans, lots of motorcycles, and my favorite of all, a bright red 1967 Chevy Chevelle, which is probably my favorite muscle car of all time. Nice way to spend your lunch break on a Friday!

Enzo turned 8 months old earlier this week. I don’t remember the girls going through this noticeable of a growth spurt. Even though I see him everyday it’s still obvious to me how fast he’s growing and how big he’s getting. Not only is he getting big but he’s also gotten quite mobile. He’s full-on crawling now, plus he loves scooting around in his walker. Because of this it’s probably safe to say no one loves the wood floors more than Enzo. He’s also standing up on his own, so walking is presumably just around the corner.

Jessica and I recently decided that Elise, or ‘Weese’ as I like to call her, is the missing character from the cast of Peanuts, which I read this morning first debuted 65 years ago today. Between all her messy/dirty faces, the fact that she’s always carrying Pippo around, and that move she does where it looks like she’s sucking on an imaginary pacifier, she’d be absolutely perfect. I can just see her picking out a Christmas tree with Charlie Brown, or singing songs around the piano with Lucy, Woodstock, and Pigpen. She’s been a bit of a drama queen lately, but I think not having Mommy and Daddy home at the same time all week probably has something to do with that.

Ava has recently made a ton of progress with using the bathroom, and I’m this close to declaring her officially potty trained, but we still seem to have one “accident” a day. I’m saying this in jest because it’s not really an accident, she just doesn’t want to stop doing what she’s doing to go to the bathroom. Consequently Jessica and I have to tell her regularly to go use the bathroom, but she’s usually pretty good about it.

Not sure what’s going on this weekend but we’re hoping to get out and do something fun. Honestly what we should be doing is cleaning out the garage, which is still filled with materials from the flooring project, but that may have to wait another week. The weather is supposed to be nice here, and the trees are all changing color, so we should probably take advantage of it and get outside.

Speaking of the flooring project, we really love how it turned out. It feels like a different house and looks so much nicer. Thanks again to Amy and Tom for all their help with that.

Looks like we’re in for a pretty quiet October, followed by a busy November. We have plans next Saturday with Dana and family, and we’re expecting a visit from my Mom for her birthday on Halloween. Next month Jessica and I will be taking our trip to Austin, then celebrating Ava’s 4th birthday and Thanksgiving the following week.

That’s about it for now. Here’s a few recent pics, as well as a video of the kids playing out front.

Today Tom and Amy rolled out of town after two very busy weeks filled with camping and home renovations. As I write this I’m looking around the main floor of our house, and I honestly can’t believe how nice everything looks. Even though we carefully chose the dark bamboo floors, the tall white trim, and the paint colors for the walls, you still can’t be 100% sure how it’s all going to look together until you see the finished product. Luckily for us, the finished product was even better than I had ever imagined. I can’t thank Tom and Amy enough for the help they gave us. As usual, we couldn’t have done it without them and we appreciate everything so much.

It’s also crazy to see our house all put back together. For the last two weeks it’s been a huge mess of materials, tools, and toys, but yesterday Jessica, Amy, and Tom worked all day to get everything cleaned up and put back together. Again, seeing the finished product was so exciting, and since then we’ve both been finding ourselves randomly looking around in awe and appreciating all the hard work that went into it.

Not only did we end up with a beautiful finished product, but we both learned a lot from Tom throughout the project. I’ve never taken on something like this before, so it was really interesting to see how it’s all done. As it turns out, we purchased way too much flooring, so we’ve decided to hang onto it and do new floors in our master bedroom as well. We’re confident that we can get it done together after everything we’ve learned over the past week, but just in case we mess anything up, Amy and Tom will be back up here in two months for Thanksgiving. For now we just need to focus on finishing up the last bit of painting before we jump into anything new.

In addition to all the hard work, we were able to sneak away last weekend for the Foo Fighters concert at the Gorge. We dropped the girls off with Kristy and Madi, then rolled out to Eastern Washington in the bus. I ended up driving the final hour on our way there and found that I rather enjoyed being in control of such a massive vehicle. I like driving/riding pretty much anything, so it was no surprise, although this one definitely took some getting used to. There’s a lot of play in the steering, so you’re constantly making fine adjustments to the wheel just to keep it going straight. Plus you’ve got a switch-activated engine break to use when going down hills, which helps keep your normal brakes as fresh as possible. I ended up driving us all the way home the following day, and soon I found myself passing 18 wheelers in the left lane going uphill into the mountains. It was pretty badass.

As for the show, it was amazing. The Foo Fighters completely rocked, even though their front-man Dave Grohl had a broken leg, it was still really fun. Plus the scenery there is unbelievable. You’re sitting there on the lawn with the sun setting behind you, and you’ve got the stage and Columbia River gorge in front of you. It’s just amazing. We had Enzo with us, so it was his first concert, and let’s just say that he was quite a hit. If you’re ever wondering how to get a lot of attention at a concert, just strap a cute kid to your chest and give him a fedora to wear. People were constantly coming up to me to chat and check out baby Enzo. One lady even said “I don’t care what you think, I’m kissing him” and then proceeded to follow through with her promise.

Although most people thought it was awesome that we had him with us, at least one person seemed to think it was a bad idea. While we were on the bus from the camping grounds to the concert venue, a lady standing several rows behind me said something like “Did you see that guy with the baby? What’s he doing bringing a baby to something like this!?” Unfortunately for her, Jessica happened to be standing next to her, and she was told to watch it because “that’s my baby you’re talking about.” It was pretty badass.

With all the house work and camping trips behind us, it feels a bit weird to be having a normal night at home. The girls are both less than 100% right now, so Jess kept everyone home today to rest and relax. We’ve still got a lot to do around the house, including a bunch of yard work this weekend, but today everyone was all about downtime for the kids.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day for me because several of my teammates and I will be participating in something called “Day of Caring.” Basically we had approval from Microsoft to spend a workday doing some type of volunteer work for the community. Our team chose to build a covered area for homeless people to wait under when it’s raining and they’re trying to get into a shelter. I’m bringing a bunch of tools, and hopefully I’ll be coming in hot after all this work we’ve been doing at home. My main concern is that you’re going to have a bunch of software engineers trying to construct a physical structure and we’re not going to know what the hell is going on, but hopefully everything will turn out fine. Keep an eye out for an update on this sometime soon.

With all the hard work complete, it’s time for some down time around here. Looks like we’ll be getting a visit from my Mom for Halloween (which is her birthday), but other than that we don’t have a whole lot going on until our trip to Austin in late November. I’m actually saying this somewhat in jest because I know better than anyone that we never manage not being busy with something for long. The idea’s still novel though. Better just toss some recent pics out there and say, “see you soon.”

The powder room

The front room

Ava & Peanut hanging out

Hanging out in the bus

The Gorge

Getting settled into our spot

The little E’s