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I’m actually surprised that little Enzo hasn’t arrived yet. Although Jessica’s official due date isn’t until Sunday February 1st, we’ve been prepared for him to come early due to his size and positioning. Last night at 7:20 Jessica started having contractions 12 minutes apart and we thought this was it. Pretty soon the contractions sped up to 9 minutes apart, so we decided to wait until 10:30 before we started notifying people. The contractions stayed consistent until about 9:45, but then they started slowing down, and by the time the clock struck 10:30 she was no longer having any contractions.

We were all a little bummed because we’re so ready to meet this little guy, but there’s nothing you can do but be patient. It would have been cool if he was born today because today is my parent’s anniversary, but that also would have meant that Jessica would have had to miss her baby shower, which our next-door neighbor Cara is throwing today at noon. I guess it would have made for a funny story if Enzo was born on the day of the baby shower, but Jessica would have felt bad because Cara has done so much work to set everything up.

Even before we knew her due date, Jessica has been saying throughout this pregnancy that she expects the baby to be born during the Superbowl, therefore it didn’t come as much of a surprise when we found out that the official due date is Superbowl Sunday. To make things even more interesting, the Seahawks are making their second consecutive trip to the Superbowl after making the most incredible comeback against the Green Bay Packers in the final 5 minutes of the NFC Championship Game. I’ve never seen anything like it and couldn’t believe we won.

The funny part about that whole experience was that we were in the car listening to the game on the radio when they won. The girls stayed the night with Kristy and Madi the night before so that we could attend the Amazon ‘Post Holiday Party’, and since Amy was flying into town on Sunday at 3:00, we just decided to hang out at Kristy’s house to watch the game. The game wasn’t going well at all and we all thought our season was over, but in the final 5 minutes of the game things took an incredible turn for the Hawks. As we were getting ready to leave for the airport, the Seahawks scored a touchdown, then recovered an onside kick. I couldn’t believe what was happening, or that we were leaving, but listening to the local radio broadcast in the van was actually pretty fun because unlike the national TV broadcast, these broadcasters are unabashedly pulling for the Hawks. Jessica and I were going crazy on every play while the girls were fast asleep in the back seat.

Right after picking Amy up we won the overtime coin toss, and only a few minutes later we won the game with a touchdown. People on the freeway were honking horns (myself included) and holding Seahawks gear out their windows. It was pretty amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so excited while driving, but it was pretty memorable. To be safe, I recorded the game at home, so as soon as we got back I turned it on right where we left off at Kristy’s and watched the rest, even though I already knew what was going to happen.

I should also mention that we had a great time the day of the Amazon holiday party. We made a full day of it after dropping the girls off with Kristy and Madi. First we went to the Olive Garden for soup, salad, and breadsticks, then we went to the movies and saw ‘American Sniper’ before heading to the party. The highlight of the party was seeing Weezer, whom I’ve been a fan of for 20 years but had never seen live until then. We don’t get time away like this all that often so we made the most of it and had a great time.

Although I’m fully expecting Enzo to be born on Superbowl Sunday, I’m still holding out a little hope that he will arrive before then. Only time will tell, but for Jessica’s sake I hope its sooner than later.

Today our sweet little Elise is officially a year-and-a-half old! Time has definitely flown by, but I can’t help but think about the fact that by the time Enzo arrives, Elise will be approximately 6 weeks younger than Ava was when Elise was born. I’m sure no one is more acutely aware of that than Jessica, but I still think about it too. Speaking of Enzo, as of this week Jessica is considered ‘full-term’ in her pregnancy, so he could arrive at any time and there would be nothing to worry about. The sooner the better as far as we’re concerned. Jessica had another checkup today and everything looks perfect, so we couldn’t be happier.

We’ve got an exciting weekend to look forward to. Saturday night is the annual Amazon ‘Post-Holiday Party’ at the Century Link Events Center. Last year we had a lot of fun so I’m sure this year will be the same. We’ve actually got some good music this year, thanks to the fact that Weezer will be performing. I wasn’t sure if Jessica would want to go considering the baby, but she was all for it, so we’re going. The girls are going to be spending the night with Kristy and Madi at their house, which we are extremely thankful for. Kristy says Madi is really excited about having them over, so it works out perfect.

The party doesn’t start until 8:00pm, but I think we’re going to drop the girls off around 3:00, then enjoy having some time to ourselves. The plan is to get a bite to eat, then go see a movie, then go to the party. If there is one thing we’ve learned since becoming parents its that you need to take advantage and make the most of any free time you get. Assuming Enzo doesn’t arrive that night it should be a lot of fun. I guess either way we’d be in for an exciting night.

Grandma Amy is coming back to town on Sunday afternoon, and we already have to go to the south end to pickup the girls at Kristy’s house, so we’re going to hang out there for a while and watch the Seahawks in the NFC Championship game. One more win and we’re going back to the Superbowl! Can’t wait for that. As the game is ending we will head over to SeaTac Airport to pickup Amy, then we can all head home for the evening. It’s hard to believe that we’re so close to the birth of our son, but certainly very exciting. I can’t wait to take Jessica out for a sushi dinner right after he is born. She’s been craving it lately so I’d say it is well deserved.

The girls have been doing really well lately, although bedtime has turned into a nightmare (pardon the pun). Only a couple months ago bedtime was no big deal, but things have taken a drastic turn for the worse. I don’t know exactly what to attribute it to, but its like they take on a different personality when its time to go to bed. Elise, who is normally so happy and sweet, turns into a little demon around 8:00 every night. She suddenly has all this energy and wants to run around like a crazy child. Ava generally just wants to stay up and watch one more episode of Thomas the Train, but unless she falls asleep in the middle of an episode (which is rare), she always gets upset when we turn it off. More often than not we end up having to lay down with them and stay there until they fall asleep. It’s not uncommon these days for bedtime to last 2 hours! Sometimes it takes all I’ve got just to stay up longer than they do. I’m sure its just a phase that they will outgrow, but with another baby getting ready to enter our house, it doesn’t look like anyone is going to be getting extensive amounts of rest anytime soon. The joys of parenting…

Other than bedtime things are great. Ava loves going to school on Mondays, and art class on Tuesdays. Jessica continues to keep them busy with regular outings to museums, parks, etc. Elise is talking up a storm. I remember thinking that Ava spoke a lot at that age but I honestly think Elise talks even more than Ava did. She is getting really good at communicating what she wants, which helps in terms of not getting as frustrated. The other cool thing is that the two of them play a lot more together now. Up until recently Elise was still too young to be able to play with Ava, but now they are much more able to entertain each other, which is a lot of fun to watch.

Jessica and I have been keeping busy at home this week with painting the guest bedroom. I think we’re doing the last of it tonight, so it will be good to have that done before Amy arrives. Next up we’re going to paint our master bedroom. This will be a bigger task, so it’s good that we got some practice on the guest room first. We’ve got several house-related projects planned for this spring, including new floors and painting downstairs. One realization I’ve come to since becoming a home owner is that there is always something to work on. I don’t mean that in the sense of something that always has to be fixed (although that is sometimes the case) but there is always something that you want to upgrade. I don’t mind it though because every time you do something it makes the house that much more personalized, plus its nice that you don’t have to ask permission from anyone to do what you want.

Not sure if there will be another post before Enzo arrives, but I’m sure there will be plenty once he is here. Here are a few recent photos of the girls. Won’t be a family of four much longer…

Monday morning I took my Mom and Uncle Terry to the airport, which basically signified the end of the holiday season for us. As expected, we had a great time during their visit, particularly on Sunday, which is when Mom, Jessica, the girls, and I were joined for the day with Jim, Brenda, Kristy, Terry, his daughter Kayla, and her daughter Jayla. This was the first time I had seen Kayla since she was about 2 years old, and it was our first time meeting her daughter.

Jayla is only about 8 or 9 months older than Ava, so it didn’t take long for them to hit it off. The rest of us enjoyed what I think of as the 3 F’s of the holiday season: Family, Food, and Football. The family part was great because although my Mom and Terry see each other regularly, neither of them get to see Jim, Brenda, Kristy, or my family very often. Then when you add the fact that we were visiting with Kayla and her daughter for the first time, it made it that much more special. From a food perspective, there was lots of good stuff to snack on all day, plus a nice ham dinner with garlic-asparagus, rolls, stuffing, and salad that evening. As far as the football goes, the Seahawks got the win and locked down the #1 seed in the NFC, giving them home field advantage through out the playoffs. All in all it was a great day that meant a lot to each of us.

Today is New Year’s Eve, which means you can’t help but reflect a bit on the year that is coming to a close. We’ve continued our streak of doing big things this year by buying a house, and that streak will live on into 2015 as we welcome our son Enzo into the world. This is kind of a big day for us simply because tonight will be Jessica’s last night working before Enzo is born. In her last two pregnancies, Jessica worked until a little closer to her due date, but in so many ways, this pregnancy has been different. This one been harder on her physically, and as far as I’m concerned she should have stopped working weeks ago, but based on the time of year that simply wasn’t an option. December is the busiest month of the year at El Gaucho, so she had no choice other than to suck it up and make the best of it. The good news is that January is the slowest month of the year, so there will be no reason for her to have to work again after tonight. It’s important to me that she takes a longer maternity leave this time than she did with either of the girls. I have a feeling this is going to be our biggest adjustment yet, so I want to give her plenty of time to ease into things.

Earlier this month I started going through all of our old website posts and backing them up. Although I have our web hosting account set to automatically backup all of our content, my greatest fear is that if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, Jessica wouldn’t know how to maintain the databases and all the other technical stuff, and one day the site would just disappear. Ultimately I want this site to live on for generations, so I’m a little paranoid in making sure that it stays safe. Therefore I’m going back through every old post and copying them over into their own Google Doc in my Google Drive. If you’re not familiar with Google Docs its just a cloud-based suite of office applications that you can access from anywhere. I’m going out of my way to catalog everything very specifically, so that you could easily navigate to a specific month of a specific year and view just the posts from that time period. You can certainly do this on the website as well, but I want to be as thorough as possible.

The funny thing about looking at all these old posts is how much shorter they used to be than they are now. When I first started writing posts they were only a paragraph or two in length. Just enough to share a quick thought about what was going on in our world. Over time the format has changed, however, and now I feel like I’m cheating if I write anything less than 1,000 words. Maybe we’ve got more going on now and more to talk about. Maybe I just get on a roll and like to wax poetic about my loved ones. Probably a little bit of both. Either way I love how the site has grown over the years, and I can’t wait for the day that our kids sit down and start to take a real appreciation of it. I can’t imagine how cool it would be to sit down and read a detailed history of my parent’s lives throughout the years before I was born, and on through my childhood. Most of us will never have that opportunity, but I’m so glad that our children will.

As we close out another year I can’t believe how much the girls have grown and matured. Ava is a full on little kid now, rather than a toddler, and Elise continues to amaze me with not only her growing vocabulary, but her increased understanding of the world around her. They’re both such amazing kids, and I often tell myself I don’t know how I got so lucky; so it will be interesting to see how adding a third child to the mix affects the dynamic. I think its going to be hard on Elise at first, simply because she’s used to being the baby of the house, but she will adjust. She’s still going to be a total Daddy’s girl, and will continue to get just as much love as before. Ava is getting big enough that she might actually be helpful when it comes to caring for Enzo. Obviously we’re not going to task her with anything major, but fetching a diaper or a bottle is probably within her abilities at this point. I think Ava will be intrigued by the baby, but she’s already got so much energy and imagination that I don’t think it will phase her all that much. She continues to grow into her role of ‘big sister’ and I’m sure the arrival of her baby brother will help expedite that transition for her.

In addition to buying a house this year, this was a big year for me personally due to the fact that I finally graduated from college. I hope my kids learn from my experiences and go to school when they’re young. It’s certainly a lot harder to manage college when you’ve got a family and full-time job to balance at the same time. Part of the reason I never finished when I was younger was that I placed too much emphasis on the connection between my studies and my career. Although in the end I ended up with a degree that is directly related to my career, I don’t think that is a necessity. Therefore I always plan to stress to my kids that they don’t need to know what they want to do for a career by the time they’re entering college. That’s a lot of pressure to place on an 18 year old kid, and its not necessary. I just want them to study something they enjoy or have a passion for, and not worry too much about their career. One thing I’ve found out over the years is that careers can come and go, so they should study something the love without too much regard to its future applicability. Personally I’d love to see at least one of them study something related to the arts: music, theater, fine art, art history, English, etc.

Since finishing school I’ve had a bit more time to do things I love, which basically means I’ve been playing lots of guitar. I love having that type of creative outlet, and luckily for me, the girls have really gravitated to it. Exposing them to music at a young age is important to me, so we’ll see if it sticks. With Enzo arriving soon I can’t imagine there will be much extra free time in our world, but when you love something you can usually find a little time to fit it in.

There’s no question that 2015 will be a great year for us, so I’m eager to get on with it. Welcoming Enzo into our world will mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. I think there will be a certain sense of closure this time around because there is no question that our family is done growing. Although I can’t say having this large of a family was part of our initial plan, I can certainly say that we are thrilled and wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s been tough to see Jessica struggling more than expected throughout this pregnancy, but in the end it will all be worth it. I just can’t wait to see her holding that baby boy for the first time. Luckily for both of us, that moment is only a few weeks away. To all of our friends and loved ones, we wish you the happiest of new years, and look forward to spending lots of quality time with you in 2015!

Today was exactly the type of Christmas you could ever want: quality time with family, plenty of presents, lots of good food, and some very happy children. We didn’t get off to the greatest start, mainly because Ava spent at least 20 minutes throwing a fit this morning because she didn’t want to wear her pajama pants, but she eventually got over it and figured out that there were a ton of presents to open, so things quickly got better. The funny thing about opening presents this morning was that the girls would get so excited about a particular present that they wouldn’t even care about opening anything else, so we would have to take an extended break from opening presents to allow them to play with their new toy. Consequently it took half the day just to get everything opened.

We got to Skype with Grandma and Grandpa in Iowa this morning and they seemed thrilled to get to see the girls opening their presents. Ava is old enough to get it now, so this was a pretty special Christmas for her, but what made it even more special was the fact that we finally got to spend a Christmas with my Mom. We were long overdue for that so I’m very grateful to have her here with us. My cousin Kristy and her friend Edgar picked up my Mom at the airport, then came up to our house to spend the afternoon watching basketball and hanging out. In addition to opening more presents, we had a nice dinner and just enjoyed having a nice relaxing day.

The evening has been pretty laid back, but we’re getting ready to participate in our annual Christmas tradition, which is to watch ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without a little dose of Griswold. Before I go I just want to thank all of our family members for so many thoughtful gifts. The girls had a great day, and that’s the most important thing. This is the last Christmas for us as a family of four, and its hard to believe that we’re only a few weeks away from Enzo’s arrival. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll make up for my brevity in this post with plenty of photos documenting our day. Merry Christmas!

Elise showing off her new necklace in front of the tree

Ava sporting her new hat

Mommy and Elise checking out the new pink pig

Funny face from my sweet girl

Is that Elise, or an explosion of Pepto?

Ava taking a break from opening presents

Elise opening gifts from Nana and Kristy

Ava and Nana opening gifts

Elise and Kristy checking out the new wall stickers

Ava loves her new camera from Uncle Joel and Aunt Melanie

Ava wearing Nana’s glasses – as usual

Last week I spent Monday through Wednesday in the great Canadian city of Toronto. I was there for a work trip, and it was my first time ever visiting Toronto, so I was fairly excited to check it out. Based on our last two trips to Vancouver, I felt that there was a good chance that I would like Toronto, but honestly even I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed it. In my opinion it was like a smaller, safer, friendlier, and cleaner version of New York. It certainly had that East Coast feel, which was immediately noticeable to me based on how nice everyone dressed, meaning I couldn’t help but feel slightly out of place in my usual Seattle attire consisting of Levi’s, North Face shirt, and Van’s sneakers. It didn’t matter though; just like in any big city no one really cares what you look like, and I was just happy to be able to walk around and explore a bit.

The work portion of the trip went really well. It was a nice opportunity to meet a bunch of people that I regularly correspond with via email, and we made some nice progress in planning for projects to get started on in January. I also gave the same CSS presentation that I gave in Seattle a couple months ago to the team of developers out there. We bribed them to come by providing free lunch, meaning that not surprisingly, I was presenting to a full room. Generally speaking, free food goes a long way with developers, so they were all too happy to attend.

Monday night, which was our first night in town, we got checked into the Hyatt Regency Hotel on King Street West, which is right in the heart of the financial district. It was easily the nicest hotel I’ve stayed in on a work trip. We were all pretty hungry so we set out on foot after dropping off our bags and ended up finding a place called Wurst, which was an interesting combination of a modern, dark, hip restaurant, with old school German sausages and beers to choose from. You go up to a counter and order from their selection of 20 different types of sausage, then grab a seat at one of the long picnic tables in the main dining area. I went with a spicy Italian pork sausage on a toasted roll with sweet red peppers, fries, and a green peppercorn parmesan dipping sauce. Everyone agreed the sauce I chose was best, but more importantly we all enjoyed hanging out, telling stories, drinking beer, and having a good time. Work trips like these are a nice way to get to know your co-workers on a more personal level.

The next night after work I went out for a beer with a friend from the Toronto office. I was supposed to meet up with my co-workers later on for dinner but lost track of time and didn’t have the ability to send them a text message because I intentionally kept my phone on airplane mode the whole time we were there just to be sure I didn’t incur any international data charges. Consequently I ended up going out on my own that night and had fun walking around Queen Street and Chinatown. I ended up having a nice sushi dinner, which is something that Jessica and I can’t enjoy at home these days due to her pregnancy. After dinner I found a local sports bar and watched the ends of the Raptors and Maple Leafs games.

Wednesday was a really long day because we put in 6 hours at the office, then went to the airport early to catch our flight home. We heard nothing but horror stories about Toronto traffic the whole time we were there, so just to be safe we left 3.5 hours before our flight. As it turned out there was no traffic and we arrived at the airport in about 30 minutes, but that’s fine with me. We were then able to take our time getting through customs and security, as well as enjoy a pretty decent dinner at the Molson’s Grill near our gate. We were fortunate enough to have a direct flight home, but it’s a long flight (5.5 hours) and it was probably the bumpiest flight I’ve ever been on. In addition to all the turbulence, they had to abort the landing in Seattle on the first try due to heavy winds. It was actually a bit scary because we were coming into land like normal, then all of the sudden the pilot hit the gas and pulled up, which thrust everyone back into their seats. A couple people were freaking out, but the pilot quickly got on the microphone and explained what happened. The second landing attempt was fine, and I was more than happy to be home.

I had a town car waiting for me, but rather than have them take me home I had them take me to El Gaucho. Jessica was working and I wanted to see her, plus I felt like a boss telling the driver to take me to El Gaucho as soon as I got off the flight. Strangely enough this was the first time I’ve ever sat at the Gaucho bar when Jessica was bartending, so that was pretty cool, plus it’s always nice to see all my old friends and co-workers. Although I enjoyed the trip, I was very eager to get home to my girls. Now that this trip is behind me I don’t have to worry about traveling anymore before Enzo is born. There’s no way I’m leaving Jessica at this point.

Amy went home the following morning, which I’m sure she was ready for. She always keeps very busy with the girls when she’s here, so I’m sure she was ready for a rest. The rest of our weekend was very relaxing. Both girls have been a bit under the weather all week, so we didn’t do much. The highlight of my weekend was playing music with my nephew Kallan. He’s been practicing on the drums for several years now, so on Saturday afternoon I brought my guitar and amp over to his house and we had a great time jamming. Surprisingly we actually sounded pretty good. During the 2.5 hours that we played we came up with a few tunes, but more importantly it was just a ton of fun hanging out with him. He’s such a good kid, and we’ve always been close so there’s no one I’d rather play with.

Today was a bit interesting at work due to there being a bomb threat at one of the Amazon buildings. As it turns out it was the building directly across from the one I sit in, and because I sit by a window, I actually have a direct view of that building all day. I never did find out exactly what happened but there were plenty of police outside. When I was leaving work I saw some K-9 units as well. I think it was all a false alarm but it’s certainly not something to take lightly; I’m just glad no one was hurt.

Our house is fully decked out for the holidays and Ava is in quite the Christmas spirit. She really gets it now, and can’t stop talking about Santa Claus. Jessica took them to see Santa while I was gone, and even though they seemed excited ahead of time, they were less than thrilled to actually sit with him. The only way to get the photo was for Jessica to sit in with them, and even then they were pretty freaked out. I’m just glad the photo turned out as well as it did.

We’re looking forward to a visit from my Mom and Uncle Terry for Christmas this year, as well as having family over for a nice holiday dinner the Sunday after Christmas. Plenty of Christmas photos coming soon, but for now I’ll leave you with our annual visit to see Santa. Happy Holidays!

Jessica, Ava, and Elise with Santa, 2014

Today is Grandma Amy’s birthday and we’re fortunate enough to be able to celebrate with her in person. She was kind enough to stick around with us an extra week due to my work trip to Toronto tomorrow morning. As with all of her visits, we tend to get a lot done around the house, and this trip has been no exception. I can’t believe how much better the bedrooms are looking, as well as the whole house overall.

I kept busy this morning doing some touch-up painting in various rooms around the house, as well as getting the curtains in Enzo’s room secured. If you’ve ever been to our house you know that practically every wall is a different color, which is something that Jessica hates, but so far we’ve just dealt with it. When we moved in there were tons of different cans of paint in the garage, but they’re not all labeled so figuring out which wall they each go with has been a bit of a challenge. Since the guest bedroom needed some touching up, and I was in full-on ‘painting mode’ this morning, I decided to add that to my list of duties. I thought I had the right shade of green picked out from the garage, but as it turned out I didn’t. After touching up various spots and letting it dry I came to the unfortunate realization that I now need to re-paint the entire room. Lovely. Luckily the guest bedroom was the only room where I accidentally applied the wrong paint. The rest of the rooms look really nice, so I guess I can’t complain too much.

Since I kept busy with house projects this morning I was more than fine with relaxing this afternoon and watching football. Amy, Jessica, and Ava spent the day out and about shopping, making/painting pottery, and going out to lunch, while Elise and I relaxed and watched the Seahawks beat the Eagles. The girls will be home soon, but only momentarily so they can drop Ava off with me, then they’re heading back out to meet Laurel at the movie theater and see ‘Gone Girl.’ I’m just glad to be having one of those Sundays where I never leave the house, especially when you consider how long each of the next three days will be for me.

I’ve got a car picking me up at 6:00am tomorrow morning, which may be a little early considering my flight isn’t until 9:00, but you just never know with Seattle traffic and I’m one of those people who is overly phobic of missing a flight. I’d rather arrive early at the airport and read my book than have to rush and deal with a bunch of stress. We’ve got a layover in Chicago, so when you combine that with the time change, you end up spending one entire day just traveling. Tuesday and Wednesday will both be really long days, then we fly home on a direct flight out of Toronto on Wednesday evening at 7:00. Due to the time change, we’ll be landing in Seattle a little after 10:00pm local time, but it’s going to feel more like 1:00am to me, which I assure you is well past my bedtime these days. It’s all good though; I’ve never been to Toronto before and am looking forward to exploring the downtown area a bit, as well as getting to work in person with so many of the people that I’ve built up a long-distance working relationship with over the last couple years.

Our house is all decked out for the holidays now. Earlier this week we picked up a Christmas tree, then yesterday I put up Christmas lights on our house. What seems like a simple task of putting up a few lights always turns into much more of a production. First I ran out of staples for my staple gun, so I go to Lowe’s and buy more. I get home and get back to work, only to realize that the 1/4″ staples I bought are too short to hold the wires to the house, meaning I have to go back to Lowe’s a second time to buy longer staples. In the end I’m happy with how it turned out; I used every light we had, and I didn’t have to risk my life up on the roof. I don’t have much Clark Griswold in me, but luckily we don’t live in one of those neighborhoods where everyone gets really competitive with their decorations. I’m not really into all that, but regardless I think our house looks nice and festive.

Jessica and the girls did a great job decorating the Christmas tree, and she had a great idea (well technically it was Pinterest’s idea but so what) to make a felt Christmas tree, complete with its own set of felt ornaments, and put it on the wall for the girls to play with. The idea is that this would discourage them from messing with the real Christmas tree, and so far its working out pretty well. I’m happy to say that Ava has only broke one of our ornaments this week.

I’m especially looking forward to this Christmas because my Mom will be coming into town to stay with us. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this will be the first time Jessica and I have ever spent a Christmas with my Mom. I feel bad about that, but more importantly I’m just glad we’re going to be together this year. She will be flying in on Christmas day, and my cousin Kristy will be picking her up at SeaTac, then coming up here for a nice afternoon and dinner. My Uncle Terry is also flying into town with her, but will be spending most of his trip with his daughter and granddaughter. I’m planning a nice big family dinner the Sunday after Christmas so hopefully we can get a bunch of people to come over.

Happy Holidays to everyone and looking forward to seeing many of our loved ones soon!

As expected, we all had a great Thanksgiving holiday this year. We hosted dinner and were joined by Amy, Tom, Rick, Chris, Dana, Brad, Butch, Carol, and Kallan. The house was full, the food was delicious, the wine was flowing, the girls were very well behaved, and the Seahawks beat the 49ers. What more could you ask for? We had been looking forward to this day for a while and we couldn’t have asked for it to go any better. To all of you who attended, thank you for making it such a great day, and to all of you whom we weren’t able to spend the day with, we send our love and hope that you enjoyed the day as much as we did.

The rest of the weekend has been pretty busy for us. Normally when we get a visit from either of the Grandpa’s, Jessica makes a list of home-related projects for them to work on. In this case we were lucky enough to have both Grandpa’s in town at the same time, so there was plenty of work going on around the house. Since we recently moved Ava and Elise into a new bedroom, there was plenty to get done in there, including mounting the TV on the wall, hanging chandeliers, moving their closet over from the old room, and decorating. In addition, we reorganized the laundry room and moved chandelier in the kitchen so that it was out of the way and people wouldn’t continue to hit their head when standing up from the table. Mom and the Grandma’s also did some really nice crafty work around the house in preparation for Christmas.

The girls are both doing really well, and of course they’ve been keeping everyone busy at all times. Elise’s vocabulary is literally growing by the day, and I can’t believe just how much she’s talking now. Ava has been enjoying playing with her new birthday presents, and is continuing to do well with potty training, but we’re still having problems with sharing. The general rule of thumb goes like this: there are more toys in the house than Ava could possibly play with at one time, but if she sees Elise playing with something, she becomes immediately obsessed with whatever Elise has and ends up throwing a fit if she can’t have it. We’ve been working on sharing, as well as the concept of trading toys, and it’s going okay, but there is definitely some room for improvement. I love the idea of them learning the barter system at such a young age, and for the most part they have been successful with it, but its to be expected that sometimes you end up with a temper tantrum or some type of outburst.

Yesterday we woke up with two inches of fresh snow on the ground. If you’ve ever lived in our neck of the woods then you know that snow is a rare treat for us, so it really added to the whole holiday theme for the weekend. I didn’t expect it to last past the afternoon, but it’s been unseasonably cold around here lately, and the skies were clear, so as I write this on Sunday night we’ve still got a decent amount outside. None of it stuck to the roads though, so driving wasn’t an issue. As far as that goes I’m more concerned about ice than anything else, but I doubt we’ll have any issues.

Last night Amy and Tom stayed home with the girls so that Jessica and I could go out to see a movie. As the parents of small children, it’s not all that common for us to get out on our own to do something like that, so we were pretty excited. We ended up seeing Mockingjay, which is the third part of the Hunger Games series. Although I was unexpectedly impressed by the first two movies, in my opinion the one we saw last night was a dud. Jessica liked it, mostly because she read all the books and was much more familiar with the storyline than myself, but in my opinion it was boring, hard to follow, and lacking excitement. A far cry from the first two installments of the series. It doesn’t matter though; just getting out to do something on our own is a nice treat and we always have fun no matter what.

Tomorrow is ‘Cyber Monday’ and its our busiest day of the year at Amazon. That shouldn’t really mean anything for my team since we don’t own any software, but it’s important to have all hands on deck just in case we need to provide any type of assistance to an engineering team that owns a critical application. You work all year at Amazon in preparation for Q4, and in particular for this day, so hopefully it will go off without a hitch. I’ll be in town all week this week, then flying out the following Monday morning for a work trip to Toronto. I’ve never been there before but am looking forward to visiting the Amazon office out there. I regularly work via phone and email with several teams in that office, so it will be nice to finally meet them all in person. Although it will likely be extremely cold, I’m still looking forward to seeing the city. No more traveling for me after that though (unless its just a day-trip) as I need to be nearby for Jessica while we await Enzo’s arrival. Only two months to go…

Thanks again to everyone who joined us for Thanksgiving and making it such a great day. Below are a few recent photos of the girls. The ones of Elise were taken on Thanksgiving, and the rest were taken by my good friend Leon at Ava’s birthday party the previous weekend. He’s giving me a CD with quite a few more photos from that day, so I’m sure we’ll have some more good ones to share very soon. Happy Holidays everyone!

Elise on Thanksgiving

Photos from Ava’s 3rd birthday

Although her party was on Saturday, today is Ava’s actual birthday, which is why I’ve waited until today to write a post. I know Jessica already wrote about all the fun we had on Saturday, but I’ll just add that it was a great day which was well attended by a variety of family members and friends. We were visited by: Laurel, Amy & Tom, Kristy & Madi, Dana & Brad, Butch & Carol, Jim, Cara, & Marcus from next door, Jodi, Leon and their son Miles, and Solana, Josh, & their son Ronin. We definitely had a full house! Ava had a blast playing with the kids and opening her presents. All in all we couldn’t have asked for a better day, and we greatly appreciate not only the gifts, but simply the presence of so many loved ones in one place at one time.

The party ended at 3:00 that afternoon, and the girls were exhausted, so we spent the rest of the evening relaxing at home watching TV shows and movies while Ava and Elise took extended naps. The following day Jessica and Amy took Ava to see Disney on Ice at the Comcast Arena in Everett. Jessica said Ava had such a great time, and that she couldn’t help but get emotional from seeing the sheer sense of joy and excitement exhibited by Ava from the minute they arrived. Looks like this won’t be our last visit to an event like this.

Tonight Rick and Chris are arriving from Iowa for their Thanksgiving visit. They will be meeting the four of us, plus Amy and Tom, for Ava’s birthday dinner. I’m not sure what the plan is for Wednesday, mainly because I’ll be working, but I know Thursday (which is Thanksgiving) will be another busy day with a full house, lots of delicious food, and plenty of football to watch. I wish I could take Friday off work but this is our busiest time of year at Amazon so we need all hands on deck throughout the holiday season. No worries though, I’m just looking forward to Thursday. Even before Ava was born I always loved Thanksgiving, but now that it has become synonymous with Ava’s birthday, I love it that much more.

Ava has been doing so well lately. She’s doing great at potty training, and she loves to play with Elise. She’s turning into a great big sister, just in time before she takes another sibling under her wing. Although we went so far as to submit her notice at preschool because it wasn’t going well for her, things seem to have taken a 180 degree turn and she’s now doing excellent in school, so we’ve decided to keep her in. I went to pick her up from school yesterday and found her playing outside with her friends. Rather than go get her right away, I decided to stand and watch for a few minutes. Seeing her run around with other kids laughing and playing makes me so happy. I’m really glad things are going better and she’s going to stay there.

It’s hard to believe it’s already been three years since Ava entered our lives, but when you consider all that has happened to us during that time it all makes much more sense. Three years ago we were living in a little beach house in Pacific Beach, San Diego. I was trying to get out of my career as a bartender, and into my new career as a web developer. I worked days as a contractor at ScrollMotion as a Production Developer, and nights at the Tractor Room as a bartender, plus I was just getting started in school. Jessica was a server and bartender at Azul in La Jolla. We had been married only about a year and a half, we had very little money, but we were in the midst of an adventure that we knew we’d never forget, and most importantly, we had each other.

I’d be lying if I said we were 100% ready to become parents. We were a bit nervous, but we knew that as long as we stuck together everything would work itself out. It wasn’t long before we were moving out of our beach house and into a more residential neighborhood, then only a few days after Ava’s first birthday we were on the move again; this time back home to Seattle so I could begin my career with Amazon. Looking back at it, that was an incredibly risky move because I didn’t have a full-time position awaiting me, but simply a contracting job. I was confident, however, that if I could get my foot in the door the rest would work itself out, and that is exactly what happened.

Today we find ourselves in a whole new situation; we’re the proud parents of two amazing little girls (and an amazing little boy soon to arrive), we’re proud home owners, I’m done with school (thank goodness), and we’re living what most would call the ‘American Dream.’ I honestly don’t think any of these good things would have happened to us if it wasn’t for us having children, and that all started with Ava. After all, it was getting the news that I was going to be a Daddy that gave me the motivation to make a career change. Had we never had children, chances are I’d still be working nights and weekends making cocktails. We’d still be happy of course, but nowhere nearly as much so as we find ourselves today.

Ava thank you for everything you have done for your Mother and I. You made me a Daddy, and you’ve already made us so proud. Your siblings are lucky to have you as a big sister, as well as a role model, and your Mom and I are so lucky to have you as our little girl. Your energy, enthusiasm, and persistence are infectious, and your natural sense of humor brings smiles and laughter to everyone you encounter. Happy 3rd birthday my sweet girl, and here’s to so many more. I love you with all my heart.

This weekend was a big weekend for little miss Ava. Saturday we celebrated her 3rd birthday with a party at the house and Sunday she attended her first show with Grandma and myself.

Saturday’s Thomas the Train party was a ton of fun for us all. We sent most of the night Friday getting things ready. Michael cooked chili while Tom and I decorated the whole first floor of the house with streamers, balloons, Thomas pictures and I even made two little box trains for the kids to play with. All the while, Grandma kept the girls busy upstairs so that they wouldn’t get in the way or sabotage our progress. It was a total group effort and things turned out great. Ava woke up the next morning completely surprised and was anxious all day to get the party started. She could hardly contain her excitement all morning and ran around the house asking when she could go to her party and when could she open up presents.

Saturday morning we still had quite a bit to finish up in order to be fully ready for all of our guests. Grandma and I baked brownie bites, Tom picked up the cake, Michael cleaned up the girls and helped keep them occupied and we all kept busy up until our first guests, Madi and Kristi arrived just before noon. Most everyone else followed closely behind and by 12:30 we had a house full of family and friends.

It’s fair to say that this was the first year that Ava truly understood what was going on and that all the “fuss” was in her honor. She hammed it up all day long entertaining the guests with her usual antics and was a total hoot while opening presents. She wanted to play or wear each gift immediately after opening it. One gift we even went so far as to hide it after she unwrapped it. Every present was followed by some kind joyful exclamation. Lots of wows, and cutie! She had the whole room laughing a few times. After presents we got the cake out and sang Happy Birthday and shortly thereafter the party started to fizzle out. Besides eating way too much sugar and causing kind of a rough night, the party was a huge success. Things wrapped up around 4:00 and after a bit of clean up by Michael and Grandma we spent the rest of the night relaxing in our PJs. Thank you to everyone that came over to celebrate with us. We are so lucky to have so many wonderful friends and family. I love hosting birthday parties and am excited at the thought of throwing 3 parties every year now.

The next day we had another special event planned. Grandma and I took Ava out to lunch and then to see Disney on Ice. Grandma even bought Ava a special Minni Mouse dress complete with red sparkly shoes for the occasion. She looked completely adorable and you could tell she was very happy in her pretty dress. I have never been to an ice skating show before and was excited myself, but no one was looking forward to it as much as Ava. I purposefully didn’t tell her much about the show before the day of because I knew that she would get overly excited about going and would hound me with questions and continuous nagging to get going. True to form, all morning long she continued to let us know that she was ready to go see Mickey and Minni and continued to ask when were we leaving. The show wasn’t until 1:00 so she was a little wound up about things by the time we left. I was worried that lunch might be a bit of a struggle because of her extreme excitement but she did amazingly well and got lots of extra attention because of her cute outfit and attitude.

The show itself did not disappoint. We arrived early so that there would be plenty of time for bathroom breaks and walking around. I was expecting that there would be lots of swag for purchase but I was a little overwhelmed with everything. Disney certainly knows how to market to kids. I fully expected Ava to want everything in site but to my surprise she just wanted to walk around and take it all in. She didn’t ask for a single thing. It may have helped that I encouraged her to bring her own Mickey and Minni dolls to the show but it’s possible that she too was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to ask for. We were fortunate enough to have great seats, right on the aisle and just behind a section break, which meant that we weren’t sitting right on top of the people in front of us and had a bar for Ava to stand up against. He barely sat down the entire time. All throughout the show she waved to each character while jumping up and down or clapping and made sure to point out all of her favorites. Watching her get so excited actually made me choke up a bit. I was such a precious site. I am definitely planning on making it a yearly tradition and next year look forward to taking both of the girls.

It was a fun filled weekend and the festivities are not over yet. On Tuesday we plan to go out to dinner as a family with both sets of Grandparents that are in town for Thanksgiving. We’re going to head to Boston’s for one more birthday celebration and then start getting things ready for the next holiday; Thanksgiving. It’s sure to be a great week.

This is our last weekend before all the festivities begin. Amy and Tom will be arriving on Wednesday, then a week from today we’ll be hosting Ava’s 3rd birthday party! Definitely looking forward to that. It’s going to have a ‘Thomas The Train’ theme, so that should be interesting. Obviously if Ava’s birthday is nearby, that means that Thanksgiving is also just around the corner, and we’re certainly going to have a full house that day as well. Lots to look forward to in the very short-term.

Since we’ve got so much to get ready for, we’ve designated today as a housework day. We’re going to move the girls out of the small bedroom and into the large guest room, then make the current girl’s bedroom into the new guest room. This allows us to have everything for the girls in one room, rather than have their stuff split up amongst multiple rooms. Our good friend Laurel is coming over to assist Jessica with organizing, and of course I’m just here to move furniture and other heavy items. Later this evening our friends Jim and Cara from next door will be coming over for dinner. I wanted to do something nice for them as a way of saying thank you for watching Bella while we were away in Vegas. On the menu will be Caesar salad, followed by a jumbo prawn pasta with garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, and whatever else I find in our refrigerator. I believe Laurel is sticking around for dinner, and Cara is bringing desert, so it should be a lot of fun.

Last weekend we had a really nice visit with Jim, Brenda, Kristy, and Madi. It was great getting to see them, as well as check out Kristy’s new home in Des Moines. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve been spending more time with them than anyone, and I’m thankful for that because we always have a great time. The girls love playing with Madi, which is awesome because she is such a good influence and role model for them. I’ve been close with Jim, Brenda, and Kristy my whole life so spending time with them couldn’t be more natural for me, and they all really love Jessica, so its perfect. They’re all going to be here next weekend for Ava’s party as well.

It seems like the weather really turned while we were out of town. Before we left it was typical cloudy rainy weather that you expect up here, but since we’ve been back it’s been extremely cold. Each morning when I’m leaving for work its been in the low 20’s, which is unseasonable for us in the Pacific Northwest. I don’t mind it though because it seems to have had a positive effect on my morning commute. Before Vegas, my average commute time each morning was 90 minutes, and that’s only the average. It wasn’t too uncommon to have a commute that took up to (or more than) 2 hours! Its maddening, especially when the only apparent cause for it is the rain. It drives me nuts because we live in Seattle and we’re used to it raining here, but the effect the rain has on traffic is incredible. I’ve recently taken to listening to classical music in the car, particularly when I’m stuck in bad traffic. It’s hard to get too worked up when you’re swaying to the sounds of Mozart and Beethoven. I probably look like a nut to people driving near me, as I find it difficult to keep from ‘conducting’ the music, but I don’t care. It keeps me sane in an otherwise maddening environment.

I don’t know if it has anything to do with daylight savings time, which means we actually get a little sunlight on my morning commute, or just the fact that its been dry, but this week my average commute was only 60 minutes, and that was a nice change of pace. Tuesday was Veteran’s Day, which meant there was no traffic, and the rest of the week was markedly better than what I’ve experienced since the end of Summer. We’ll see if it keeps up though…

I should probably mention that although no news is good news in terms of Jessica’s pregnancy, everything is going well. She hasn’t gotten sick in about a month, so even though the morning sickness lasted considerably longer than normal, she appears to have crossed that bridge entirely. Thank goodness, because seeing her go through that was the worst! She’s still on schedule for a Feb 1st due date, which of course is Superbowl Sunday. Just like Ava’s birthday will always be right around Thanksgiving (and Elise falls on the French Holiday Bastille Day), it appears that Enzo’s birthday will always fall right around the Superbowl. For a sports fan like myself, it seems fitting.

The girls are both doing well, although nighttime has been a challenge lately. Case in point, last night between Jessica and I, we were probably up a dozen times with one or both of them. As soon as one falls asleep, the other wakes up crying. This isn’t typical with Ava these days, but it still happens from time to time. Elise, on the other hand, has been developing a bad habit of not wanting to sleep anywhere besides in bed with Mom and Dad. She’s absolutely done with her crib, so we’ve switched things up by putting her mattress on the floor. At least this way she isn’t caged in, and its been a slight improvement, but not enough. She hasn’t slept through the entire night in a month, even though she was doing so well for a couple months leading up to this. Yesterday we ordered her an actual bed, so hopefully that will make a difference. We can’t afford to keep bringing her into bed with us, particularly because it won’t be long before we have a newborn in the house, and presumably he will require considerable nighttime attention. As with everything related to young kids, its just a phase and I’m sure we’ll be out of this one and onto the next one soon enough, but it has certainly provided a unique set of challenges as of late.

I think it’s fair to say that the ‘honeymoon’ stage of our idea about moving to Germany down the road is over, and we now realize that the likelihood of that actually happening is very low. We initially got excited about the idea, but over time we started to realize how difficult something like that would actually be, and have ‘come to our senses’ about the reality of the whole thing. That said, I don’t regret mentioning it because if nothing else, it helped solidify our commitment to providing our kids with as many experiences as possible. I have no doubt that we’ll do a good amount of traveling once the kids start getting bigger, and I’m thankful that Jessica and I are on the same page regarding not being tied down to a particular location. Obviously we just recently bought a house, and we’re certainly not going anywhere anytime soon, but we love to dream about relocating and experiencing new things.

Here’s a couple recent photos of the girls. Ava has been quite in love with her wardrobe lately, and its not uncommon to see her walking around the house carrying a dozen hangers, each with their own outfit. Guess who ends up picking those up and putting them back in her closet. It also appears that the ‘girly’ phase may be beginning, hence the tutus.

Ava picked out this shirt all on her own because it’s “just like Daddy’s.” That’s my girl.

And so it begins…