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Back to School, Nevada Style!

On Friday Ava, Elise, and Enzo finished their first week at their new school in Henderson. It was a big deal for us because not only was this a brand new school for them, but it was their first time being back in a traditional classroom setting in 18 months, or in Enzo’s case, ever. He was in pre-school when the pandemic began and did his entire Kindergarten year at home. Now we have Enzo in first grade, Elise in third, and Ava in fourth. We had a chance to visit the school and meet the teachers a few days before school began and everything seemed great.

As can be expected, it wasn’t easy getting back into the school routine, and there were definitely some emotions involved throughout the week, but Jessica and I couldn’t be more proud of how they handled everything. They’re already making friends and their teachers really like them. We haven’t met many of our neighbors yet but we’ve seen several other families from the neighborhood walking to and from school each day, so this will most likely be how we start getting to know some new people.

One of the many things that attracted us to the house we ended up buying was the fact that it was within the best school district in Nevada, and we’re already feeling the benefits of that. The school has been so welcoming and responsive to our needs. While we may not all be the most traditional learners, there’s no doubt we’re in the right place and setting the kids up for success at school.

The other nice thing is how close we are to their school. Jessica walks the kids to school each morning and I often help with pickup in the afternoon, but we don’t always walk home simply because it’s still so hot right now when school gets out. As the crow flies, school is probably only a quarter mile from our house, but based on the way we have to walk it’s closer to a half mile. It’s still not bad at all, but when you’re dealing with triple digit heat and they’re already tired from a full day, walking home in their uniform can be a bit too hard on them, so we just deal with the traffic and bring the van to pick them up.

Overall we’re happy with the start we’ve gotten off to and are excited to see what this year will bring. We celebrated our first week by having a family swim party on Friday evening, then we picked up ice cream and watched the first Harry Potter movie at home. Yesterday we took the kids over to Nana’s house for a sleepover. She ended up taking them to a ranch today where they were able to ride horses, feed animals, and explore everything. It was hot and they were all beet red when they got home, but everyone had fun. Having my mom so close continues to be amazing and I’m not really sure who it benefits the most, but everyone is very happy.

Although Jessica no longer has to worry about being Mom and teacher combined, she is taking on a very serious role with the kids’ schooling again this year. She’s already so dedicated to working with them everyday on homework and other forms of tutoring. Her patience and dedication is awe inspiring and someday the kids will really begin to understand exactly how lucky they are to have a Mom like her who is so deeply involved and invested in their education. She is also weighing her options regarding ways to spend some of her free time during the weekdays, but for the moment there’s still enough for us to focus on here at the house, so there hasn’t been much downtime at all.

We’ve been staying very busy working on projects at the house, and it goes into overdrive whenever the kids go to Nana’s house. Jessica did a great job painting our kitchen nook and our new entertainment center area. That was a big project because we had to have the old built-in entertainment center removed, and we had to have a fireplace removed. This left a big opening in the wall, and even an entire whole through our house where the little gas chimney used to be. I ended up learning how to do the stucco repair to patch up the outside hole, but we had to hire a drywall specialist to come out and fix the wall inside the house. Once that was done we were unblocked on doing all the interior painting, which Jessica took care of this weekend. Both areas look great, and now the only other project we want to do in the family room is replace the carpet.

The other major project that I continue to work on in literally all of my spare time is our staircase railing. It’s all blond oak with a thick coat of clear varnish and wood posts, but what we want it to be is a dark stained railing with iron bars and a glossy white base under the bars. In order to get there you first need to remove the clear varnish from every square inch of the railing and the base. To do that you need to use a drill with different types of wire brushes attached. It’s very slow, tedious work and it’s hard on your body because you’re sitting or standing in all these weird positions trying to get every last bit of varnish scraped off.

One of the difficult things about this project is that scraping the varnish off isn’t enough to get things ready for staining and painting. The wire brushes work well, but they leave noticeable scrape lines in the wood, so you have to go back over everything with different types of sandpaper to smooth it out. You need at least 2 different grits of sandpaper (and in some cases 3) to get it ready, so this means you’re covering every square inch 3 or 4 times with different tools. It’s easily the most hands-on work I’ve ever put into a project and there’s still a lot left to do. I literally work on this every night after work, and most of the day on the weekends, but it’s still likely to be another week or two before we’re even ready to begin staining and replacing the bars. We’re leaning towards hiring a painter to handle painting the base, but again it’s going to be a while before we’re ready for that step. I look forward to sharing photos once it’s done, and I know it’s going to look amazing, but right now it’s prohibiting me from doing much of anything else (including jiu-jitsu) because it’s taking up so much time.

Once this project is done we’re definitely taking a break from home projects. At that point I’m planning on making another video giving a tour of the house because we will have completed everything we initially planned on doing when buying the house, and all of our new furniture will be in here. We’re so happy with everything we bought so I look forward to showing how it all came together, but it could easily be at least another month before we’re ready for that.

One other notable thing going on in my world involves another change at work. Back in March I moved from the Azure.com team, which I’d been on for 6 years, to the Treasury Engineering team. Before making that change, however, I had been interviewing with Microsoft Teams in hopes of landing a role on their Instrumentation team. Unfortunately that role didn’t work out, but the manager liked me and said she would stay in touch if something else came up in the future.

Shortly afterwards the Treasury team reached out to me and I ended up joining them a little while later. I was surprised when the manager from Teams reached out to me last month about a new open role on their Experimentation team. If you’re not familiar with Microsoft Teams, it’s the fastest growing platform at Microsoft. We use it for every meeting we hold, but in addition to being an excellent audio/video platform for meetings, it’s also what we use for person-to-person instant messaging, and team-wide communications. It was already growing fast but once the pandemic hit last year it’s growth skyrocketed.

The role on the Experimentation team was one that they hand-picked me for. Once an opening became available they reached out to me to see if I’d be interested. Part of the reason they did this was based on all my previous experience doing experimentation on azure.com. The main idea behind doing experimentation on websites and applications is that when you’re getting ready to roll out a big change, you wouldn’t just make the change for everyone to start using and hope for the best. You would run an experiment where only a certain percentage of your users are exposed to this new variation and you collect analytics on their usage to see if the variation performs better than the old version did. Once you can prove via the analytics that the new variation is an improvement, you start progressively rolling it out to more and more of your users. We’re all constantly included in these types of experiments on all the major sites we use without knowing it, and tons of data is collected on how we interact with the sites. Anytime you go to a site like Amazon or Facebook and see that a button has moved, or a new feature is available, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re part of an experiment on the site.

Based on all of my experience running these types of experiments on azure.com, the Teams Experimentation team was very interested in bringing me onboard. After I had a chance to talk with them I felt like this would be a better fit for me than my current role working in the treasury. I didn’t like the idea of leaving my new team after only 5 months, but I spent 6 years on the team before that, so I know I’m quite capable of showing loyalty and sticking it out long-term on a single team.

On Thursday I received the official offer to join Teams, and considering that this was my original goal, I decided to accept it. I had a nice talk with my manager in the treasury and he totally understood, so hopefully in the next couple weeks I’ll be making that transition. It’s a huge opportunity that I simply couldn’t pass up, so I can’t wait to get things going. Considering all the other major changes going on in our lives, the timing for this made a lot of sense to me.

I guess that’s about it for now. There’s certainly no shortage of exciting new things going on for us, and honestly I still can’t believe how everything has worked out. When I look back to our original conversations in March about moving to Nevada, it all made sense theoretically, but to actually make it happen and follow through with everything is a completely different story. I’m still amazed at how well everything has worked out, and although I really miss our family and friends in Washington, I have to be honest that I’m in love with how our lives have turned out in Nevada. I never expected to live in a house like this, and although I appreciate all the nice words we’ve received about working hard and doing everything right, it still never felt like the culmination of all that would lead to this. Maybe that’s because this wouldn’t even be a possibility in Washington. We keep having to pinch ourselves, but each day it feels a little more like home.

Each time we complete a project, get something organized, or get a piece of furniture delivered it becomes that much more of a home. Not just any home either but our home, and it’s going to be that way for a long time. We seriously busted our asses moving down here and we’re never doing it again. We could have coughed up about ten grand and hired movers, but we decided to save the money and invest it in the new house rather than give it to a moving company. Jessica has already said she plans on dying here and has instructed me to spread her ashes in our beautiful backyard. All kidding aside, we’re never going to outgrow this house and we love everything about it so much that I expect us to be here for a very long time to come. Our guest room is already fully furnished so I hope it starts getting occupied with visitors very soon! Here’s a few recent pics

Ava enjoying the splash pad at the baseball game

Elise doing some LV Aviators hat modeling

Enzo checking out one of the local BMX tracks

Getting our storage unit emptied was a momentous occasion

They made me a birthday cake. Enzo’s expression kills me.

Last weekend we had our friends over for our first pool party. Thanks Devin for taking the pic!

They each brought an apple for their teacher 🙂

Happy 8th Birthday Elise!

Today our sweet Elise turned 8 years old, and she was lucky enough to have two birthday celebrations this year. On Sunday we went to our friends Tiko and Tina’s house to have a dual birthday party for their daughter Beatrix (aka Bea or BB), who was turning 3, as well as for Elise.

Our whole family, including Nana, plus our friends Devin and Bridgette, as well as a few others, were there for the party. They had a bouncy house in the backyard, and Jessica couldn’t help herself with the treats – she got a doubled layered bundt cake plus a box of vegan doughnuts from Pinkbox that spelled out “Happy Birthday”. It was a nice time hanging out with friends, and even Mom and I took a few turns jumping in the bouncy house with the kids. It was extremely hot that day though, so a couple minutes at a time was about all we could handle.

Today was Elise’s actual birthday and we celebrated by taking her to Omega Mart at Area 15. It’s pretty tough to describe this place but I’ll do my best. You enter through a fake grocery store called Omega Mart, which is full of funny fake products. You have a card that you can swipe at various locations to get clues about stuff, and as you explore you will eventually find yourself going into the back of the store, which turns into this sci-fi neon filled warehouse full of rooms to explore, slides to go down, and musical gizmos to play. “Star Wars on drugs” is about the best way I can describe it.

Most people in there are trying to find all the clues and figure out the purpose behind the whole thing, but for us it was enough of a challenge just to keep all 6 of us (Nana was with us) in the same place at the same time. It was a crazy and memorable experience, but Elise had fun, which is all that mattered. There are lots of other things to do at Area 15 so I’m sure we’ll be back someday.

After that we went to lunch, then back to Nana’s house for cake. This was a special cake because Elise and Jessica made it together the day before. It was a confetti cake with Fruity Pebbles sprinkled on top as a garnish and it turned out great.

Once we were finished with cake we decided to let Nana take a break, so we took the kids to our new house to hang out and go swimming, then have a sleepover. We closed on the house on Monday and got the keys that day, which is incredible considering it was a 15 day close after our offer was accepted. It’s even more crazy to think that we left Washington on June 16, arrived in Las Vegas on June 18, and got the keys to our house on July 12! Talk about a quick turnaround.

Jessica and I have been making trips in our cars between the storage unit and the house all week, and we’re making good progress. There’s boxes everywhere, but we’re getting things unpacked and put away as quickly as possible. Saturday we’re renting a moving truck to get all the bigger things that won’t fit in our cars. At that point all of our stuff will be in the new house, but we’ll still have these construction projects to take care of before everything can be put away.

The biggest project is the new flooring upstairs, and the demo stage is beginning tomorrow. We’re tearing out all the carpet on the stairs and everywhere upstairs, and replacing it with a really nice waterproof laminate floor. We decided to pay it forward by going with a premium floor that we really loved because we’re going to be here forever and we felt like this house deserved it.

On Monday my Uncle Terry is beginning a project to replace each of the wood posts on our staircase railing with iron posts. He’s also going to stain the railing so it’s dark brown, and paint the base of it white, where the rails connect at the bottom. I’ll share pictures in a future post once everything is done.

The other project we’re hoping to get done next week is in our family room. We want to remove the built in entertainment center, as well as the fireplace next to it, and knock out part of a wall insert. This will open things up even more in that room and leave space for the new TV and entertainment center that are on the way. There’s already a fireplace in the living room, so we’re replacing the one in the family room with one of those cool new electric fireplaces, which will be in the base of the new entertainment center. Once again, I’ll post photos once everything is done.

We may take on more projects in the near future but that’s it for now. Other than that we’re just focused on getting settled in the new house and getting the kids ready for school, which begins on August 9th. They got shorted on their Summer a bit this year, but it’s been very special staying with Nana, and they’re going back to her house tomorrow for a few more days. In addition, Grandma and Grandpa Rudd are coming for a visit next week, so they’ll get plenty of time with them, including a night or two at the hotel.

I think my first realization after moving into our house this week is that maintaining an outdoor pool is a lot of work! Even though we currently have a pool guy coming once a week, you still have the daily maintenance of brushing it and skimming it with a net. Eventually I plan on letting the pool guy go and doing all the maintenance myself, but I need to learn more about the chemistry aspect first. I realized yesterday while cleaning the pool that I’m going to spend more time cleaning it than actually swimming in it, but it’s worth it each time we jump in! Seeing the kids swimming out there this afternoon brought the biggest smiles to our faces.

Overall things are slowly starting to sink in that we live in Henderson and this is our new house, but it’s still crazy. I think Enzo put it best when he said “How were we able to trade our old house for this new house? Our old house wasn’t special, but this house is special.” It was difficult to explain, and I still don’t think he gets it, but I’m just so grateful that things have worked out the way they have.

That’s pretty much it for now. I definitely plan on sharing more photos once the projects are complete and things are all put away. I’ll probably even do another video walk through at some point, but I want to wait for our new couch to arrive, which will be at least two more months. One thing I wanted to call out, and I’m upset with myself for forgetting to do so in my last post, was that it was my Mom who found this house for us. She found it while searching online, on the same day it was posted, and we were there checking it out the very next day. While it’s possible that we would have found it, or our real estate agent would have, the reality is that Nana found it, and that makes it even more special! We can’t wait to start having her over for regular sleepovers.

Before I go I just want to say Happy Birthday to Elise one last time. We love you so much and hope you’re happy with this new life we’ve just landed in. Thank you for being such a sweet and caring daughter and sister. We’re all so lucky to have you in our lives.

Elise displaying the cake she baked with Mom

This stuffie named Rainbow was one of her favorite gifts this year

Having fun with Bea and her big sister Helen at their house

Right after getting the keys to our house

We got the house!

Perhaps I should have written my most recent post about moving to Nevada a bit later in the day, because when I wrote that post on Sunday morning, we were waiting to see if our new offer on a house in Henderson had been accepted. Well, as things turned out that afternoon, our offer was accepted and we are beyond excited to be the proud new owners of a beautiful home in Henderson!

Essentially the way things went down was this: we viewed the house with our real estate agents on Friday afternoon, and we liked it, but there were several more houses that we were scheduled to see over the next 24 hours, so we decided to wait to see all of them before placing any offers. We left the house on Sunday Grace Drive (the one we ended up buying) and headed over to another house, but we knew before even walking into this new house that we weren’t interested. It simply didn’t compare.

While making the drive over there, Jessica and I couldn’t stop talking about the house we had just left on Sunday Grace Drive. It was definitely a bit dated inside, but the potential was amazing. It had 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a 4 car garage, 4,000 square feet of interior space, and an amazing back yard. It’s also in a gated community in the best school district in Nevada. These are the types of intangibles that can’t realistically be fixed or changed regardless of what you do to the house.

Our main concern was that the house was at the top of our budget and the idea of buying something at the top of our budget that needed some work was difficult to swallow. However, we kept coming back to all the intangibles I just listed. Overall the house has so much character that we didn’t feel like we could pass up this opportunity.

So we sat outside at this other house with our agents discussing our options. During this discussion we realized that all 3 of the houses we were supposed to see the following morning were on a golf course, and we didn’t really like that idea. I like golf, but we don’t really want to live in a golf community, and our favorite house of the 3 was right next to a tee box, so you’d be hearing people teeing off all day long.

By the time we finished that conversation we had settled on an offer to submit for the Sunday Grace house, then Jessica and I ended up going back to the open house to view it a second time. Our offer was submitted the following day and our agent Rowena found out that there were at least two other offers competing with us. This was concerning, but I had a good feeling about it.

On Sunday afternoon, while texting with Rowena, I asked if we could go back to the house one last time before the open house was done for the weekend. She said yes, and that she would meet us there. Immediately Jessica, Nana, myself, and the kids, all hopped in the van and headed out there. We were literally eating our lunch in the van because we had no time to waste.

By the time we arrived Rowena was already there talking to the sellers, and she indicated to us that things were looking good. It was immediately obvious that our whole family loved the house, and within minutes the kids had picked out their bedrooms. My mom was pretty much floored by it, and I felt like each time we visited the house I liked it even more than before. It didn’t take long, but a little more negotiation ensued and we came to an agreement that secured it for us. The sellers were there, so once we agreed on a deal I went over to personally thank them and tell them how excited we were. I’ve been in regular contact with them since then and they are such great people. I honestly feel like we may have made new friends out of this deal, and they only live 3 miles away.

Finding out the house was ours was an emotional moment, and even though I almost never cry, having us all there in the kitchen celebrating definitely brought that side out of me. It was surreal knowing that this is where we’re going to spend the next long stretch of our lives. It’s such a beautiful place and I just couldn’t believe how things had turned out for us. Now that I’ve had a few days to process it, my main feeling is one of humility and gratitude. It’s not about showing off or soaking up a bunch of compliments, it just feels great for Jessica and I to have reached this level in our lives and be able to provide something like this for our family.

Looking at the calendar, tomorrow is July 1, 2021, meaning it’s the tenth birthday of this blog. We haven’t missed a month of doing blog posts this entire time, and I can’t help but think back to where we were when all of this got started. We were literally living in a back alley beach shack in San Diego, but at that time it was everything we could have wanted. In fact, I posted a video tour of that house on YouTube, which you can see below. Now here we are exactly a decade later and I’m filming a new home tour, just as proud of the moment and excited about our future.

Since having our offer accepted everything has been coming together really quickly. We were originally scheduled to close on July 30, which would have been the best 41st birthday present imaginable for me, but now it’s looking like we will be closing ahead of schedule. We just found out today that an appraisal isn’t even necessary to secure the loan, which is great. Jessica and I are staying busy shopping for new furniture and making plans for each room. We’re also meeting with my Uncle Terry and someone he works with at the house on Monday to discuss a couple projects we want to do before moving in.

As far as location goes, we’re in Henderson about 5 minutes southwest of Green Valley Ranch Resort & Casino in an area called Southfork. Our little community is called Chenango. I’ll be providing more updates as soon as possible, but for now you can get a good idea of everything by checking out the video tour below. Start planning your visits now because we have room for you!

Touring our new home in Henderson, Nevada

Touring our San Diego home 10 years ago

Viva Las Vegas!

Around noon on Friday, June 18, our little caravan rolled into Las Vegas after 3 days of driving. Our journey took us through Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and even part of Arizona before reaching our final destination. It was a slow journey, but we took our time and made the best of it. Ultimately we had very little trouble getting down here, but even as I write this more than a week later, it still doesn’t quite feel real. It’s as if we’re on an extended vacation and will need to go home soon, but as the kids keep saying, “we don’t have a home”. At least not at the moment.

Moving week began by picking up a 26 foot diesel truck at Penske in Everett on Monday, June 14. Jessica and I worked for nearly 8 hours that afternoon and evening to get it packed. It was hard work but we took our time and did our best to load it up the best we could. On Tuesday afternoon I drove the truck back up to the Penske office with my neighbor Erik following me in my car. When I arrived we got the car carrier attached to the truck and loaded my car onto it. At that point we were ready to go. Although our original plan was to use Pods as a moving service, it turned out to be far too expensive based on how much stuff we had, so driving a truck and towing my car, then having Jessica and the kids following me in the van made the most sense.

I was awake before 4:00am on Wednesday morning. I simply could not sleep knowing that this was finally the day where we would say goodbye to our house and hit the road. Jessica woke up shortly thereafter, we threw a few final things in the truck, got the kids up, said a family goodbye to the house, and by 5:30 we were pulling out of the neighborhood. I had been expecting to drive the truck alone, with just Peach and Spencer to keep me company, but after a little research I learned that it was legal to have a car seat in a single cab truck, as long as it was connected the right way. Consequently, I almost always had one of the kids riding with me in the moving truck, and it was awesome. Each of them later said that one of their favorite things about the road trip was riding with me in the truck.

I didn’t have too much trouble driving the truck, but it was really slow and bumpy. The steering was so loose that you’re constantly making adjustments to the wheel just to keep it going straight, and you’re bouncing around so much that my FitBit thought I was walking all day long. My step counts for those days were quite impressive!

On a level road with no incline going flat out in the truck, I could get up to 70mph, but it felt a lot faster than that because it’s like steering a locomotive down the road. It’s a big rig with a lot of momentum behind it. Each of the kids commented that it feels a lot faster in the truck than it does following behind the truck in Mom’s van. However, things would get pitifully slow as soon as the road started to incline. There were times going up mountains where I’d have it floored and we’d be going 28mph. There’s nothing you can do besides stay in the right lane with your hazard lights on, but it was tough for Jessica to stay behind me going so slowly.

We made it all the way to Boise on day one, which is supposed to be about 7.5 hours but it took us closer to 11. After getting checked into our hotel we went out for Mexican food, then back to the room so I could pass out. My neighbor told me I’d be sore from driving the truck and I kinda laughed it off. I figured there was no way that would be true based on all the Jiu-Jitsu I do, but he was right. I woke up Thursday morning in Boise feeling quite sore in my back and shoulders.

Thursday was supposed to be our easiest day of the trip, but it didn’t quite work out that way. The plan was to drive from Boise to Provo, Utah, which is a little college town 30 minutes south of Salt Lake City, most famously known as the home of BYU. Everything got off to a good start, but around midday on the freeway just outside of Tremonton (which is in northern Utah), I blew a tire on the car carrier.

I honestly didn’t even notice it happened, but Jessica started getting pieces of rubber in her windshield while following behind me. She pulled up beside the car carrier and could see one of the tires falling apart, then signaled to me to pull over. Now we find ourselves on the side of a freeway not knowing where we are or what to do. We had to act quickly because staying there wasn’t an option. We pulled up Google Maps on our phone and could see that the next exit was less than 2 miles up the road, so we started driving slowly on the freeway with our hazard lights on until we reached the exit.

Once we were out of harm’s way I pulled out the paperwork from Penske and called their roadside assistance line. I wasn’t worried about getting help, mostly because I had taken out extra insurance on the truck and car carrier, but according to their phone system it was going to be a 30 minute wait to speak to someone. It was in the mid 90’s that day, so waiting outside wasn’t really an option. I hopped into the van with Jessica and the kids and waited for someone to pick up the phone.

While we were sitting there, a couple who appeared to be about our parent’s age pulled over to check on us and see if we needed any help. At first we were saying it was fine and that we were just waiting for roadside assistance to answer our call, but it soon became obvious that they weren’t going to leave us there sitting alone. We could tell they were genuinely nice people, and eventually the wife invited Jessica and the kids to come into their house to relax in the air conditioning while the husband and I waited to get the truck repaired. I could tell from the look on Jessica’s face that she felt safe with them, so we took them up on their offer.

The husband, who turned out to be a retired police chief, stayed with me at the truck, but eventually I started following him slowly down into town because there was a tire repair shop that could take care of my problem. While heading down there, after 45 minutes on hold, I finally got someone from roadside assistance on the line and they confirmed that the shop we were heading to was an approved Penske vendor. Once I got there it literally only took 15 minutes to swap out the tire, and due to the extra insurance I’d taken on the truck, it ended up costing me nothing more than a couple hours of our time.

While this certainly wasn’t part of our plan, in a strange way it ended up becoming a highlight of the trip. It’s nice to know good people like this still exist in the world, and we will never forget their hospitality. Jessica even took a picture of their address so we could send them a thank you card. From now on whenever I think of Utah, it will be this experience and hospitality that first comes to mind. I may even become a Utah Jazz fan because of it…

We ended up arriving in Provo a couple hours later than expected, but still had time to go out to dinner and take the kids swimming at the hotel. We drove into the heart of town looking for a vegan restaurant we’d found online, but it turned out to be closed. Luckily we found Fat Daddy’s Pizza next door and just decided to do that. We were pleasantly surprised to see they had a vegan pizza menu, so it seemed like it was meant to be. The food was great and overall Provo turned out to be a really cool little college town. After taking the kids swimming later that evening everyone slept well.

Friday was by far the hardest day of the week, and once again it started very early. We were on the road at 6:00am because the truck was due back that evening by 6:00pm in North Las Vegas. Jessica followed me all the way to Vegas, and the scenery that day was incredible. Southern Utah and northeastern Arizona are so beautiful it’s hard to describe. The different colors of the rocks, and the canyons you wind through can’t really even be described, you just have to see them for yourself.

Once we got to Vegas, Jessica took the kids straight to Nana’s house while I first went to the Penske dealer to detach the car carrier from the truck and park my car in the parking lot. Once that was done, I headed to the storage facility near my Mom’s house where I would meet up with Jessica, Uncle Terry, and his friend Nick. It was literally the hottest day of the year, and unloading our entire truck into the storage unit was quite possibly the hardest physical labor I’ve ever experienced. Each of us felt like we might faint at various points throughout the day.

We ended up packing our 10’x20’ storage unit to the max, but still had stuff left in the truck, so we had no choice but to put the rest of our stuff in Mom’s garage. By the time we finished filling up her garage it was 116 degrees. Jessica looked like a ghost and my clothes were drenched in sweat. Ultimately I was able to get the truck returned on time, got in my car and closed the door, then let out a holler that would make the Dukes of Hazzard proud. We had done it! That evening I brought a few things over to Devin’s house to store, came back to Mom’s house to get cleaned up, then Jessica and I went out to celebrate.

Saturday morning we wasted no time in getting started with our house hunting process. We met up in Henderson with Rowena and Sassy, our realtors who our friend Linda had connected us with, and started viewing houses. We liked the first one and rated it 7/10, then went to see another one a block away that had just come back on the market. I had seen this one a couple months earlier on Zillow and really liked it, but it went into contract so I removed it from our list.

As it turned out, that sale had fallen through and the house had just become available the previous day. When we arrived the owner was there doing some work around the house, but invited us in for a tour. It was nowhere near show condition, but Jessica and I quickly saw past all that. It had everything we wanted, even though the pool and spa were still under construction. The appliances were all brand new, we loved the 4 car garage, as well as the layout and the schools. Considering how crazy the Las Vegas / Henderson real estate market is, and how reasonable the price was, we decided to place an offer that day. Ultimately it wasn’t meant to be though, and after feeling like we were getting the runaround for a week, the owners decided to pull the house off the market. I assume they’re going to finish all the construction, get it in show condition, and raise the price, but at this point we’ve moved on and don’t really care.

On Friday we went and saw another house in Henderson, and honestly we like this one even more. It’s 4,000 square feet with 6 bedrooms plus an office, 4 car garage, and a gorgeous backyard with a pool and spa. It’s in a gated community sitting in the middle of the best school district in the state of Nevada. The inside of the house is a bit dated, and there are things we would want to do before moving in, but the intangibles are all there. We wasted no time in putting in an offer and hope to get a response later today.

Other than house hunting we’ve just been focusing on getting settled and spending quality time with Nana. After a few days we were able to organize our stuff in the house and garage, and I have already joined a local Jiu-Jitsu school. We frequently go swimming at one of the pools in the neighborhood, although that has had its challenges as well.

On our first full day in town we took the kids swimming and Ava jumped feet first into the shallow end of the pool, slamming her heel into the bottom. It was really bothering her for a couple days, but then the very next day Jessica did a cannonball into the deeper end of the pool (which is still only 4.5 feet), and slammed her tailbone into the bottom. By Monday they were both very sore and I ended up taking Ava to Urgent Care for an x-ray.

Much to our surprise, the x-ray showed what they thought was a fractured heel, so Ava had to get a temporary cast and crutches. We made an appointment with a specialist later that week, so for the next few days she and Jessica were in bad shape. Luckily things turned around after seeing the specialist when he confirmed that there was no fracture in her heel and that she didn’t need to be in a cast. We were worried about her Summer being ruined but luckily that is no longer the case.

Working from my Mom’s house has been fine and I don’t foresee any issues there, so on this most recent Friday night Jessica and I decided to go out for a night on the town to celebrate our first full week in Las Vegas. A brand new casino on the strip called Resort World had just opened the previous day, so we decided to check it out. We walked in and there was this huge line of Rolls Royce’s all lined up inside the casino. I’d never seen anything like it! Then, while walking through the casino, we saw Michael Voltaggio, one of our favorite chefs from Top Chef, just hanging out at a blackjack table. We knew it was him because a couple other people had just recognized him as well and were asking for a photo. We didn’t say anything but it was awesome.

We walked all around that night, checking out Resort World, Fashion Show mall, and the shops at Wynn. We even went to a vegan ice cream parlor at Resort World. Later that evening we were on our way to a restaurant near home when we saw a sign saying “Chef Kenny’s Vegan Dim Sum – Grand Opening”. I called an audible and immediately pulled into their parking lot.

As it turns out, Chef Kenny has more than one vegan restaurant in town, but he was there that evening for the grand opening of his new location, and ended up chatting us up quite a bit. Everything on the menu is 100% vegan so you don’t have to worry about what you’re ordering, but you would never know it from eating the food. He recommended the steak roll, which is one of his signature dishes, and it was amazing. I swear you would never know this isn’t real meat. We also had a couple sushi rolls, and honestly it was one of the best rainbow rolls we’ve ever had, real fish or not. It’s just incredible how you can make plant-based food look and taste like real meat and seafood, or even raw seafood in this case. We also had sweet and sour shrimp that was absolutely amazing. This place, along with Violette’s Vegan (which we’ve already been to 3 times since moving here), have immediately become some of our favorite restaurants in Las Vegas.

Overall we’re very happy to have made the move, but leaving our family and friends behind was really difficult. There were a lot of emotional goodbye’s, but we really are committed to coming back to visit as a family every Summer. There are simply too many people we love in Washington not to do so. We figure if we can come up once a year, and we can convince people to come down for a visit once a year, we’re getting two really good, multi-day visits in. These will be very memorable visits too because we’ll make sure to do special things while in town.

We can tell the kids are enjoying themselves, even though things are so different. They love all the time they’re getting with Nana, and Enzo has already said (while chilling by the pool) “I hope we’re not moving again because I love it here. It’s so relaxing.” Elise has also said “Most people probably wouldn’t know it, but I never really liked the weather in Washington.”

Certainly there are times when the heat can be intense and start making everyone grumpy, but we have no doubts that we did the right thing for our family. I know we have a lot more excitement coming in the near future, hopefully in the form of a new house. We knew it was going to be easy as a seller and difficult as a buyer, but that’s fine. Hopefully this new house we’re bidding on will work out, but we know there are multiple offers already, so we’ll see. If this one doesn’t work out another one will.

For now I’m just thankful that we made it here safely, we’ve settled into Nana’s house nicely, and we’re wasting no time in looking for our home. I’m also relieved that none of our pool injuries are serious, and hopefully we’ve learned some lessons about jumping in. I also have a newfound love for Utah and look forward to taking a road trip back there, most likely sometime this fall. I’m looking forward to taking a four day weekend for the 4th of July and promise to update everyone as soon as one of our house offers gets accepted. Until then, here’s some recent pics!

No one was more excited about the end of the school year than teacher Mom

Visiting the beach in Shoreline one last time, for now.

Paying our respects to Grandpa Elmer before the move

We normally do this family photo in front of the house every year on the 4th of July. This year we did the final one a little early.

Jessica got to do some serious hiking with friends before the move

And she rocked it loading and unloading the moving truck

Luckily Ava was only in a cast for 3 days

The most magical of weeks

On Saturday night, after about 18 hours of travel, our family returned home to Washington State after spending a week in Orlando, Florida at the Walt Disney World resort. It’s a trip that Jessica and I have been planning for two years, which was originally supposed to take place in April 2020 for our tenth anniversary, but ended up being rescheduled three times due to the pandemic. As expected, it was an amazing week that I’m very excited to talk about, but first I need to give the utmost credit to Jessica for making this happen. She spent so many hours planning things out, getting up at 5:00am to call Disney customer service to make reservations, and making sure every last detail was covered. Above all that, she had to do everything multiple times due to all the rescheduling that went on. She really went above and beyond to make this special trip happen for our family, and we’ll never forget it.

Our trip started on Saturday, May 8. I dropped off Peach and Spencer with my sister Dana and nephew Kallan to spend the week at their house in Bellevue, then late that night we headed to the airport. We had an overnight flight which didn’t leave until 11:00pm and arrived in Miami at 7:30am. The kids were able to sleep a little bit on the flight but no luck for Jessica and me. Overall the flight was fine, but poor Enzo started getting sick to his stomach and ended up throwing up in the bathroom on the plane. It got worse for him once we touched down in Miami, and he started throwing up all over himself in his seat while we were waiting to get off the plane. Luckily there were several moms nearby who started handing us wet wipes and baggies to get things cleaned up.

We had an hour layover in Miami and our primary focus was to get Enzo changed into new clothes and nurse him back to health. Luckily we were able to do that, and our flight from Miami to Orlando was uneventful, but it was a crazy way to start the trip.

Any Disney trip is going to involve waiting in lines, and for us the lines began at the airport. The line to get onto the bus to our hotel was pretty insane, but they moved it along pretty well and we were on our way in no time. We learned on the bus that Disney World is 44 square miles, which is the same size as San Francisco! It was a hot muggy day when we arrived and I think Enzo put it best when he said “the air feels different here”.

After arriving at the Art of Animation hotel and getting settled into our room, which was themed after the movie Cars, we went down to the pool for a swim. We were all tired and hungry, but the pool was calling and the kids would have nothing else. We spent an hour in the water, but I think everyone started hitting their breaking point, so we ended up going back to the room and taking a 3 hour nap.

We spent the rest of that evening exploring different properties via the Skyliner, then had dinner at our hotel. It wasn’t our usual way of celebrating Mother’s Day, but it was special and memorable nonetheless. We were also immediately impressed by how gracious and friendly the staff, I mean “Cast Members”, was to our whole family. They would take time out of their day to talk to us extensively and tell us how much they appreciated us coming. There’s something so special about the experience you get from Disney properties and we felt that from day one.

Monday was when the trip kicked into high gear, as that was our first day visiting one of the parks. We spent the day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which is one of their newer parks, and it ended up being one of the best days of the trip. Several of our favorite attractions were there, including Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad, the Tower of Terror, and Star Wars Rise of the Resistance. The Star Wars attraction was a special one that not everyone can get into. They only release so many passes per day and you have to be on the app at exactly 7:00am to make your reservation. The spots all fill up within 15 seconds and you have to use an atomic clock to request it at exactly 7:00am. The clock on your phone is liable to be off by a few seconds, which can be the difference in not getting a pass, but we did everything right and ended up getting passes for that afternoon. I’m so glad we did too because Rise of the Resistance was Jessica’s favorite attraction of the week, and mine as well. It was such a cool combination of traditional ride, human interaction with actors, and a huge set to walk through.

We had a really fun lunch at Hollywood Studios that was themed after an old drive in theater. Each table was designed like a car from the 1950’s and the movie screen was showing all kinds of old sci-fi movie clips. The food was great and the kids had never seen anything like it before. They couldn’t believe people used to get in their cars to go watch movies, which was funny, but when you grow up in the on-demand tablet era it makes sense.

That night we were all exhausted and everyone slept really well. It was a very hot and humid day, and we walked 8 miles throughout the day, so we crashed pretty hard. Hollywood Studios ended up being Jessica and Elise’s favorite park of the trip, so it was a great way to kick things off. Luckily we were able to sleep in the next morning because Epcot Center, our next park, didn’t open until 11:00am.

We arrived at Epcot Center a few minutes before opening and ended up spending about 10 hours there. It was an all-day thing, and for Enzo and I, it was our favorite day of the trip. It’s more old school compared to Hollywood Studios, but it had some awesome rides, and I really loved visiting all the countries. The ‘Soarin’ over the World’ attraction was our first one of the day, and it was definitely my favorite thing we did that day, but Mission Space and the Chevrolet Test Track were family favorites as well.

We had our only character meal of the week at the Garden Grill at Epcot Center and it was really fun. Mickey, two of the chipmunks, and Goofy all made multiple appearances at our table, which everyone got a big kick out of. The dining room sits on a slowly rotating surface, so you’re constantly moving around in a big circle. By the time we finished our meal we were exactly back to the point where we had begun.

By the time we left Epcot Center that night it was nearly closing time and we had walked 10 miles. We visited every country, the kids got stickers from each one, and did basically everything the park had to offer. It’s a bit more of an educational experience compared to the other parks, but it still had some really fun rides and attractions. Overall it was a hit for everyone, but Enzo and I loved it the most.

Wednesday was our rest day, so we slept in and spent the rest of the morning at the pool. Later that afternoon we took a bus to Disney Springs, aka Downtown Disney, for shopping and dinner. We ended up getting caught in a crazy rainstorm unlike anything you’d ever see in Seattle. It came down incredibly hard for about 30 minutes, then cleared up and the sun came out. We walked around shopping for a while, then had dinner at an Irish restaurant called Raglan Road. It was fun because there were dancers doing all kinds of traditional Irish dancing, plus they had traditional live music being played. It was a fun experience and the kids got a huge kick out of watching the dancers.

Thursday we spent the day at Magic Kingdom and started the day off with Space Mountain, which has always been one of my favorites. We ended up doing all the famous attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, the teacups, the Swiss Family treehouse, and Big Thunder Mountain. It was a nostalgic day for Jessica and me because it reminded us of our childhood, and the kids had a great time as well, but oddly enough it wasn’t anyone’s favorite park. Compared to the other parks, Magic Kingdom is more old school, but still has all the Disney charm. We were there for 8 or 9 hours and once again everyone was exhausted by the end of the day.

Friday was our final day of the trip and we spent it at Animal Kingdom. We weren’t really sure what to expect but were pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be Ava’s favorite day of the trip, but we all loved it. There were a variety of fun rides and attractions, but definitely ‘Flight of Passage’, which is an immersive experience based on the movie Avatar, was my favorite. Regardless of whether you’re a fan of the movie or not, if you’re at that park it’s something you have to do. The other thing that we really loved doing was the Safari, which was by far the closest thing to a real Safari any of us had ever experienced. They have so much open land for the animals to live on that you could fit all of Magic Kingdom just within the Safari area. We saw hippos, rhinos, giraffes, ostrich, elephants, and many others. Unfortunately the lions were sleeping but it was still an awesome experience.

By the end of the day everyone was exhausted once again. The days are really long and you’re on your feet all day, but we were very proud of the kids. There were times when everyone had a bit of a breakdown, but overall they did great and it was a trip we’ll never forget. The only thing I would change would be Disney’s mask rule, which was as strict as I’ve seen anywhere. You literally had to have a mask on at all times unless you were stationary eating or drinking.

I had an experience where I was drinking a cup of coffee while in line for a ride, which was fine because I wasn’t moving, but as soon as I started walking forward without my mask on I got called out by some kid working in the park about having to be masked up if you’re moving. We also had experiences where we would walk into a store in a Disney park wearing our masks and would be reminded by people not to remove them. It just felt a bit overboard at times, and we’re saying this as residents of Washington State, which is pretty strict already when it comes to Covid protocol.

The most ironic part of the whole mask thing was that right after we got on the bus to head back to the airport, Jessica pulled up a news article on her phone saying that as of that day, Disney was no longer requiring guests to wear masks while outdoors. The new rule was literally being instituted as we were leaving, and it was like the old mask rule was rolling out of town on the bus with us. You couldn’t script this stuff! The masks were especially rough outside too because of how hot and humid it was, but there’s nothing we could do but comply. We knew what we were getting ourselves into and weren’t going to let it ruin our trip.

Saturday ended up being an incredibly long travel day for us. We were up at 6:30am and on the bus at 7:45, but our flight wasn’t until 11:20. You had no choice on when to board the bus, so it was an earlier than necessary start, but it was beyond our control. We flew from Orlando to Los Angeles, which is a 5 hour flight, and I had the pleasure of sitting with Enzo and taking him to the bathroom every 20 minutes. He kept thinking he was going to throw up, even though he never did. He’s never had motion sickness before but perhaps this is something for us to be aware of when flying with him.

We got to Los Angeles and then had a 5 hour layover until our flight home. This was especially annoying because we didn’t book our flights this way, but the airline shuffled our flights around and that’s how it all ended up. It was a bit eerie at LAX airport; even on a Saturday afternoon it felt like a ghost town and practically everything was closed. The flight from L.A. to Seattle that night was nice and easy but everyone was exhausted. By the time we landed around 9:00pm, we had all been up since 3:30am Pacific time, so all we wanted to do was get to our van and go straight to Auntie Dana’s house. We were very excited to see Peach and Spencer, then we crashed hard. Unfortunately we were all still on East Coast time, so the kids and I were up at 5:30am on Sunday.

We couldn’t go home Saturday night because our house went on the market on Thursday and they were going to be showing it all weekend. We had an agreement with our realtor that we wouldn’t come home until 6:00pm on Sunday, so we spent the whole day hanging out with Dana, Kallan, and Anna at their house. It was a beautiful day so we spent a couple hours at a park that morning, then hung out for the rest of the afternoon at the house while the kids played soccer in the yard with Anna.

That evening was when a new type of excitement set in, as we were finally able to go home and talk with our realtor to evaluate offers on our house. It took basically all night to settle on an offer, but his strategy of listing low to get a lot of eyes on the property and encourage a bidding war worked out like a charm. In the end there were two families trying to outbid each other and I’ll just say that we could have never imagined things working out the way they did. We feel beyond fortunate with the way things worked out and owe all the credit to our realtor Bunsong Pumma.

The only downside to our home selling experience is that we were hoping to be able to stay in our house until the end of June, but instead we’re going to need to be out by June 16. This means that the next four weeks are going to be pretty crazy for us but we’ll be fine. We’re just trying to get everything wrapped up, scheduled, and figured out. We still have family and friends we want to see but we’ll make it all work.

Having the trip behind us was a major checkpoint on this whole journey and now that we’ve accepted an offer on our house I feel like these next few weeks are going to fly by. We’ll be on the road heading to Las Vegas before we know it, and it’s crazy that we’ll be there before Father’s Day. My mom is already going well out of our way to help us in any way she can and she can’t wait for us to arrive.

We took a ton of photos on our trip, and I’m so glad we got the Disney photo package, so here are a bunch of our favorites.

Elise exploring the Art of Animation hotel grounds

Checking out the Star Wars exhibit at Hollywood Studios

Enzo showing what ‘Disney Tired’ means after day one

Getting started at Epcot Center. Each of those characters behind us is made entirely of flowers.

Someday Jessica and I will go to Italy together. For now Epcot Italy will do.

Visiting Mickey at our character meal. Elise couldn’t be bothered to remove the bread from her mouth.

We weren’t allowed to remove our masks at the photo studio. Oh well…

We found Enzo’s Hideaway at Disney Springs

The kids enjoyed this rollercoaster so much we did it twice

The next life chapter

Chances are if you’re a regular reader of this blog, then the news I’m about to share is something you’re already aware of, but regardless Jessica and I are excited to publicly share with the world that we have recently finalized the decision to relocate our family to Las Vegas this Summer! In all honesty, this isn’t something that we’ve been considering for a long time, but after my recent trip down there to visit my Mom, I came home and asked Jessica if our lives have changed enough in the past year that a move like this would now make sense. After discussing it in detail, we both agreed that it did.

The reality is that, although we certainly have thrown around the idea of moving in the past, we really felt like it was no longer an option, and I distinctly remember Jessica and I talking a few years ago when she said “that ship has sailed”. We were happy with the decision to stay put in the Pacific Northwest and that was that, but then the pandemic hit and so many things in our lives began to change.

For starters, I’ve been working remotely for over a year now, and the tech industry (along with many others) has changed permanently. People that worked remote used to be the outliers and the exception to the rule, but that’s no longer the case. At this point many companies use remote work as a selling point when trying to recruit you, and I was relieved after talking with my new manager when he said he had no problem with me working remote indefinitely. It sounds like after our campus is back to being fully open I will be making regular trips every month or two up to Redmond so I can see everyone and get some face time, but that’s still a ways off.

The other big pandemic-related work change for us is the fact that Jessica is no longer working at El Gaucho. Technically she could go back now that they have reopened, but she has more than enough on her plate with homeschooling the kids, and frankly, we don’t feel like Seattle is safe enough for her to be going there alone at night time. The decline of Seattle since we moved back from San Diego in late 2012 has been drastic and disheartening. It’s gone from a city we loved and will always have nostalgic memories of, to a disgusting and unsafe dump that we want nothing to do with. I know that sounds harsh, and I don’t even feel good saying it, but it’s true. Anyone who hasn’t been to Seattle in a long time would be shocked at what has become of it.

One good thing about being on the outskirts of Seattle, however, is that our house has appreciated considerably since purchasing it in 2014. As I’ve always said, the only way to take advantage of that equity is to move far away though, because the next step up in houses here is ridiculously overpriced. That said, we can take that equity down to Las Vegas and get the type of home we never even dreamed of living in. The homes we’re looking at down there are big, beautiful, and for now we have our sights set on having our own swimming pool.

There’s a big family aspect to this move, most of which is good, but some is bittersweet. Obviously my Mom is over the moon about us moving close to her, and as her only child, it feels so good to be able to give this to her. I want to be there for her as she gets older, and I don’t think there’s anything in the world I could do to make her happier, but it goes further than that. Amy and Tom frequently like to drive their RV to us, and that drive just got cut in half based on this move. Additionally, Rick and Chris frequently fly out from Cedar Rapids, but when traveling to Seattle they have to take a connecting flight because there are no non-stop options. That all changes with us in Las Vegas. Not only is it easier for them to come to us, but it also becomes viable for us to put the kids on a non-stop flight to Cedar Rapids, with them waiting at the gate on the other side. The idea of our kids getting more time with their grandparents is really appealing to us because Jessica and I both grew up spending a lot of time at our grandparents houses, and we have always wanted that for our own children but so far it hasn’t been an option.

Another benefit for Jessica and I specifically is that we are going to start getting so much more time to ourselves. Since becoming parents, we’ve never had a grandparent nearby to drop off the kids with and go out to dinner, so we usually only do that kind of thing when one is in town. That’s all about to change, and obviously Las Vegas has so much to offer in terms of dining and entertainment.

Another thing we’re excited about is going on more road trips. Las Vegas is a central location with a lot of cool destinations within a few hours. You can be in Southern California in 5 or 6 hours, the Grand Canyon is only a few hours away, Utah has places like Zion and Moab, and New Mexico is a place we would love to check out. Jessica’s van is the perfect road trip vehicle, so we’re looking forward to taking more advantage of it.

Finally, not only do we get a lot closer to family from this move, but we have some amazing friends in Las Vegas who are really excited about this change. Devin, Tiko, and Tina are friends that we love and can’t wait to spend time regularly with. Tiko and Tina have two young daughters, so being able to get the kids together is going to be good for everyone.

As mentioned, it definitely is bittersweet though because we have family and friends in the Seattle area that we hate to leave. People like my nephew Kallan, Uncle Jim and Aunt Brenda, Kristy, Beto, and Madi are all going to be missed deeply, but we’ve tried to make it clear that we are buying a bigger home with a guest room, and they all always have a place to stay in Las Vegas whenever they want it.

Although it’s been difficult to share the news with plenty of people, so far everyone we’ve told has totally gotten it. We just want more for our family and based on the way things have changed in the past year, we have a lot more options now. It’s been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster so far, but overall the kids are really excited. We’ve promised Ava and Elise can have their own bedrooms, and Enzo was sold as soon as he found out they do BMX bike racing all year long in Vegas.

As far as the timeline goes, we met with our real estate agent on Friday and decided that it makes most sense to list and show the house while we’re on our Disney World trip in May. That way we will all be out of the house, including the cats, so the agent can stage the home and hold open houses, then when we return we can evaluate offers. Based on how hot the real estate market is here, we expect the house to sell quickly, and most likely for more than our asking price.

If all goes according to plan, we will be moving out sometime between June 15 and July 1. We’ll be using a moving POD to send most of our stuff down there, but we’re also going to rent a small Uhaul trailer to tow behind the van. One of us will drive the van with the kids, and the other will drive my car with the cats. Rather than get down there as quickly as possible, we’ve decided to break the trip up into 3 days. We’ll go to Boise, ID on day 1, which is about 8 hours, then from Boise to Salt Lake City on day two, which is about 5 hours. On day 3 we will then drive from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas, which is about 6 hours.

One of the things we’re going to try to figure out as soon as possible is whether we can do a “double move”, meaning we sell our house and purchase the new house before we get there, or if we need to stay somewhere when we get to Las Vegas while we house hunt. This part is yet to be determined but we’ll see how it goes. As it is, things have been moving very quickly since we finalized our decision, and I have no doubts that it will all come together nicely.

Certainly there will be many more updates on this in the coming months, but for now all I can say is that we’re so excited for this new chapter in our lives. This is a life changing event for everyone in our family, and we don’t take that lightly, but we’re trying to do what we think is best for our family given our current situation. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s certainly going to be memorable, and we’re happy to be able to share this experience with our friends and family.

Although all this moving stuff has been dominating our lives recently, we’ve still had some other fun and exciting stuff going on. Today is Easter Sunday, so we started off our day with a neighborhood egg hunt, then Kristy, Beto, and Madi came over to spend the day with us. Sharing the news about our move with them was tough but they totally understood, and it sounds like they’re looking forward to coming down for visits. We spent most of the day hanging out, playing games and cooking. I made a couple dishes from the vegan cookbook they got us for Christmas, then we put together candy chicken coops, which are basically the Easter version of Gingerbread Houses.

Yesterday was our 11th wedding anniversary, but we felt like we had too much going on in terms of packing and yard work to do any celebrating. We figure we’ll celebrate in Disney World, as well as once we get down to Vegas. That said, it was still fun to stop and reflect about all the adventures we’ve had in these first 11 years, and what is yet to come.

April Fool’s Day was probably more memorable this year than any year previously. Jessica and I taped plastic wrap in front of the kids’ bedroom doors, but Elise was the only one who fell for it and walked face first into it. Enzo saw it and ducked under, while Ava doesn’t remember seeing it yet somehow mysteriously got through it unscathed.

For breakfast that morning each kid was served a frozen bowl of cereal, and after lunch they were promised brownies, but what they really received were instances of the letter E cut out of brown construction paper and served on a plate. Later that afternoon they even got me by hiding all of our Jiu-Jitsu stuff. I was trying to get us ready for class and couldn’t find anything, so they all got a kick out of watching me freak out for a few minutes.

So, I guess that’s basically it for now. I know this was a long one, but it was important to me that I thoroughly explain our thoughts behind the decision to move. Not only for everyone who will be seeing this now, but for our kids, who will be reading this someday in the future. While they do understand it to a certain degree right now, I think this will shed more light on the situation when they’re older. I expect next month’s post to be a long one as well because we’ll have the whole Disney World trip to talk about, plus most likely our house will have sold!

Here’s a few recent photos from our world.

Our final neighborhood Easter Egg hunt. We’re going to miss Avery and Nathan so much.

Making chicken coops with Kristy, Beto, and Madi

Enzo seems to approve of our new cat carrier

Another Disney Countdown

For those who are familiar with this blog, or just our family, you will know that we’ve been trying to take a trip to Disney World in Orlando for about a year now. Our original plan was to go in April 2020, for our 10 year wedding anniversary. We had been keeping it a secret for 6 months, then broke the news to the kids last February. The world, however, had other ideas, so we ended up rescheduling the trip multiple times. At one point last Summer we were even considering doing a cross country road trip in order to make this vacation happen, but every time we started getting close to making it happen, the pandemic would interfere and we would find ourselves rescheduling for some arbitrary date in the future. Every time we would reschedule the trip it would seem like surely things would be fine by then, right?

When we last rescheduled the trip we chose the week of May 9, 2021 as our date. We hadn’t thought much about it until a couple weeks ago, but we’re getting close enough now that we had to make a decision on what to do. Our general thought was that Disney World has been open since last Summer, and although crowds are down (which is nice), they seem to have stabilized their operation. We’re more than willing to play by the rules, and early May is a great time of year to visit Florida, so we’re going for it. With pretty much everything already in place, all we had to do was purchase new airfare, and luckily for us, airfare is much cheaper now than it was the first time we booked the trip.

At the time of this writing we have 76 days to go until the trip. Obviously you never know what may happen, and as I’ve said many times, nothing will surprise me, but our plan is to stick with this schedule and have (most likely) the most memorable Mother’s Day ever. We’ll see what happens between now and then, but obviously we’re all very excited, especially the kids. I expect to have more updates on this in future posts as we get closer to the trip.

One of the other exciting things going on around here lately was the blast of snow we got last weekend. Between Friday night and Sunday morning we got over a foot of snow, and the best part about it was that we got our fun for a few days, then in a matter of just a few days, it was all gone. The weather warmed up a bit and the rains came in to wash it all away.

It was 2 years ago exactly that I totaled my car in Snowmageddon 2019, so I was much more cautious this time around. I did drive a little during the snow this year, but only on major roads that are plowed regularly. Part of the reason I chose the car I ended up getting was that it has all wheel drive, and you can really feel the difference when driving it in the snow. I may only need it every couple of years, but when you do need it, it’s so nice to have.

In looking back at the crash I had 2 years ago, it was a perfect trifecta of bad conditions: it was a steep hill, in a neighborhood (meaning it doesn’t get plowed), and there was a previous layer of snow already on the ground from earlier that week which had frozen and turned into ice. I definitely learned a lesson from that one and will never make that mistake again.

This year’s snow was all about playing outside with friends, having snowball fights, and sledding on tiny neighborhood hills. We did a nice family walk while it was coming down heavy on Saturday and enjoyed all the scenery. It was perfect, and again, it was all gone in a few days. The fact that we had Monday off for President’s day made it even better. A nice wintery 3 day weekend was ideal for everyone.

A couple weeks ago Ava had her first actual hockey game of the season. Only one parent or family member per player was allowed to come, so only I could go, but I really enjoyed watching her play. Unlike previous seasons, where I’m either on the ice or watching every practice, this year has been completely different. I’m not allowed to come in and watch practice, so I hadn’t seen all the progress she’s been making.

Based on this I didn’t really know what to expect, considering it’s a new team, a new age bracket, and it’s coed now, but I was pleasantly surprised to see she was the starting defender for her team. They only send out 4 skaters and a goalie at this age, meaning there’s only one defender per line, and Ava was chosen for the first line! She had a really good game and I was so happy to get to watch her. She plays tough defense, makes good passes, and shares the puck, which always gets the attention of the coaches.

Elise and Enzo have been back in their Saturday morning hockey classes, but Elise recently admitted to us that she’s not really into it. Honestly Jessica and I were relieved because hockey is such a commitment, and multiplying that by 3 was already starting to stress us out. Elise really loves Jiu-Jitsu and wants that to be her #1 athletic activity, which we’re thrilled about. Enzo is still enjoying hockey but we’re not sure what the future holds for him. I’m not worried about it but I’m really hoping BMX racing resumes this Spring and that he gets really into that. It’s clear that hockey will always be #1 for Ava, which is great, but I kinda like the idea of each kid having their own athletic specialty. We’ll see how it turns out over time.

Home school continues to go well, and the results are speaking for themselves. The personalized instruction Jessica gives to the girls is so much better than they were getting in public school, and I’m not knocking public school at all, it’s just that they have to teach an entire class and can’t afford to tailor everything to our children’s learning styles the way Jessica can. We’re still not sure what the plan is for next year but I’d be shocked if Ava didn’t choose to continue home school. We’ll see what Elise and Enzo want to do when the time comes.

The other exciting recent events for us were based on getting to spend some time with family. We were able to do a group birthday celebration for Enzo, Uncle Jim, and Beto at Kristy and Beto’s house a few weeks ago. It was the first time we saw everyone in several months so it was great. Most of the time was spent in the kitchen putting together some excellent vegan dishes. Madi is really into cooking vegan food these days so it was great seeing her working so confidently in the kitchen.

Last night my sister Dana and her son Kallan came over to spend the evening with us. Dana is up here visiting from California and I’m so glad we got to see her. The kids see her every Tuesday morning for a tutoring session on Zoom, so they were super excited to see her in person. Kristy, Beto, and Madi had gotten us a great vegan cookbook for Christmas, so we made a mushroom stroganoff recipe from that book for Dana and Kallan. It was delicious, but more importantly it was great just getting to hang out. Kalland and I played guitar, and Dana gave Jessica and the girls a lesson on how to crochet. She even made the kids a bunch of cool stuff that they’ve been wearing all day.

Speaking of the whole vegan thing, it’s now been 6 months since we made the switch and at this point I don’t think either Jessica or I could imagine going back. I could see us eating something with real cheese every once in a while at some point, and certainly when we’re traveling it may not be possible to adhere to a strict vegan diet, but that’s about it. Eating meat is totally out of the picture and we haven’t had any cheat meals or anything like that. For me, the only time I’ve cheated at all was a total accident – I had a bowl of ice cream about 4 months ago which I thought was dairy free, but turned out to be real. I was actually bummed about it because if I was going to cheat on purpose it would be something with cheese (like pizza), not ice cream, but whatever. It was still good and luckily didn’t make me sick.

To build on the vegan thing, about a month ago Jessica and I implemented the concept of daily intermittent fasting. We use an app called Fastic to track when we eat, and ultimately we fast for 16 to 18 hours everyday. It’s been really easy because neither of us ate breakfast anyway, so we were essentially already doing it, we just weren’t keeping track.

Now we’re keeping track and loving it. I feel so good at the end of each fast everyday, and there are many health benefits associated with intermittent fasting, but the main thing that attracted me to it was how beneficial it is for your body in terms of healing. As a 40 year old guy doing Jiu-Jitsu 3 days a week, I’ve always got a strained this or a pulled that. It’s to be expected, but I was looking for a way to accelerate my body’s healing process to get over these little injuries faster. Jessica has her own version of this with all the HIT (High Intensity Training) workouts she’s always doing.

We learned that fasting everyday is a great way to help your body heal quickly because it reduces inflammation, and all the energy your body would normally reserve for the digestion process can now be redirected to the healing process. Basically we just eat a nice full dinner each night, then we don’t eat again for 16-18 hours, meaning lunch the next day. If you’re going to snack, you do that between lunch and dinner, rather than before lunch or after dinner. If you’re going to eat dessert, that’s cool, you just have to do it right after dinner rather than waiting a while.

You can drink as much water, black coffee, and tea as you want during each fast, but you want to focus mainly on water. It’s been surprisingly easy to adjust to, and at the end of each daily fast the Fastic app asks you how you’re feeling. For me personally I’m always feeling either good or happy, so I see no reason to stop. Doing HIT or Jiu-Jitsu in the morning has been fine as well, meaning we’re not lacking energy, so we’re all good. It is causing me to lose more weight, and I recently had to get rid of most of my jeans, but I have to assume that it will table off pretty soon.

Overall life is good and I’m so proud of all the healthy changes we’ve made in the past year. I know it’s been a challenging 12 months for many people, but I will always look at this period as a time of positive change for us. It’s funny because I haven’t even put 3,000 miles on my car in the last year, but we’re still finding ways to stay engaged, do things that make us happy, and constantly find new forms of self improvement.

That’s about it for now. Here’s some recent family pics.

Working on some home science experiments

Enzo’s snow tube wouldn’t hold air. Love the expression.

Elise looking adorbs with her new haircut

Peach and Spencer have gotten so big! They recently got spayed and are recovering nicely.

Happy 9th Birthday Ava!

Celebrating Ava’s 9th birthday with Nana

Today Ava is officially halfway to becoming an adult. That’s a bit hard to believe, but as all parents know, time flies when watching your kids grow. Birthdays are so exciting when you’re a kid and she has been looking forward to this for quite a while. Unfortunately due to the new Covid lockdown we’re unable to have a traditional birthday party for her, but she got a very special present in the form of a visit from her Nana.

Last night I picked up my Mom at Paine Field, brought her home, and she proceeded to spend the next few hours showing the kids all the things she brought them. They were ecstatic to be getting all kinds of trinkets from Nana, but most of all just to be spending time with her. She will be with us until Sunday, and although we can’t go many places, we have plenty of fun crafty projects to do at home. While I’m always thankful for a visit from family, I’m even more thankful than usual to my Mom for making this trip, mostly because it means so much to Ava for her birthday. There’s been plenty of letdowns for the kids this year, so a visit like this from their Nana means so much to all of us.

The kids spent the night in Nana’s room last night, and they were up late, so we let everyone sleep in, then came downstairs to a table full of presents for Ava to open. Before I go further I just want to say thank you to all of our family and friends who remembered Ava’s birthday and sent a gift. It meant a lot to her and we appreciate it so much!

After opening presents Ava got to do something she’s been wanting to do for a while, which is smash a pie in Mom and Dad’s faces. We let Elise film it and put it up on the Pellegrini Kids YouTube channel (be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already). Since we’re so limited on things we can do this year, Jessica and I were trying to think of funny memorable things and smashing a pie in our faces was at the top of Ava’s list. I’m sure none of us will forget it.

Obviously a shower was in order after that, then my Mom and I took Ava to the sporting goods store so she could pick out a Pro Scooter. I did the same thing with Elise on her birthday, except she got a longboard. Ava already has a longboard from her 8th birthday, so this time she really wanted a Pro Scooter like some other kids in the neighborhood. I like having this tradition of taking the kids out shopping for something special on their birthday, and having my Mom with us made it even more memorable.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing at home and letting the kids play with all the new toys. It’s going to be a quiet week at home, but we’re used to that these days and having Nana here to hang out with us is a nice treat, especially considering we haven’t seen her in over a year.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and it will be the first one in my life where I don’t eat any turkey. I’m fine with that, as the turkey has never been my favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner anyway. I’m more of a stuffing guy and we’ll be having that. Jessica and I ordered the Thanksgiving box from Purple Carrot, which will feature the following:

Hasselback butternut squash with cider glaze and a rosemary pistachio dukkah (“An entree so good that no one will miss the turkey”)
Rustic ciabatta stuffing with root vegetables and herb “sausage”
Roasted brussels sprouts with oyster mushrooms and garlic kimchi butter
Cranberry sauce
Traditional vegetable gravy
Pear cranberry crisp with walnut crumble

I think it sounds really good, and we’ve never been disappointed with the food we’ve gotten from Purple Carrot, so no concerns at all. Here’s Purple Carrot’s photo of the meal:

Before all the cooking gets started Jessica will be going to her workout class and I’ll be going to an open mat at my Jiu Jitsu school. Technically exercise activities like this aren’t supposed to be going on right now due to the lockdown, but in both of our cases the groups are so small that we’re just flying under the radar. We both realize there is some risk anytime you leave the house these days, but we’re always with the same small groups of people, exercise is proven to strengthen your immune system, and a little bit of exposure to other people is good for building antibodies. That’s how I’m justifying it anyway.

I forgot to mention this in my post last month but Jessica has really found her thing with this exercise group she’s been going to. It’s run by a friend of hers that she used to work with and it’s pretty intense. In all the years Jessica and I have been together I’ve never seen her so committed to a physical activity like this. She does 3-4 classes a week, including at least one early morning class each week, and has gotten into great shape. In both of our cases we really thrive on the activity and always feel great at the end. I’m just glad that with all the limitations in our world right now we have something to get out and do. The same goes for the kids too, as hockey has been suspended for at least a month, but we still have Jiu Jitsu and they love it.

As I mentioned last month, we had really hit our stride with homeschooling, and that continues to be the case. Certainly there are times that can be difficult for everyone, but overall it’s going so well. Jessica does a great job teaching, and we have been fortunate enough to receive regular weekly lessons from Auntie Dana and Uncle Brad. They have taken such an active role in teaching the kids everything from human anatomy and physiology, geography, or anything else the kids request. We really appreciate all the help they have provided and the kids love seeing them.

This past weekend Enzo lost his first tooth, which was the last of the firsts in terms of losing teeth in our family. He was such a champ about it too – he never got freaked out at all, making it the easiest tooth I’ve pulled yet. That night the tooth fairy delivered him a $5 bill and a red guitar pick. He told me the next morning that the money was cool, but that the guitar pick was more special, then he said “Maybe you should have the guitar pick Dad”. It was super cute and thoughtful of him. I told him to keep it as inspiration to start playing when he’s older.

Since school photos weren’t a thing this year, we ended up taking things into our own hands by hiring a photographer to do our own. We recently got them back, which you can see below.

Overall I’m very proud of how well the kids have adapted to our new circumstances this year. It’s hard to believe 2020 is nearly complete, and although it’s been a tough year for a lot of people, I continue to feel like our family has very little to complain about. The most notable thing for us is that Jessica no longer has a job to go to, but she’s busier than ever as the kids school teacher. Life has slowed down a lot, but we’re still able to do things we love, and we get so much more time together as a family. The cats have been an awesome addition to our household, and switching up the way we eat has opened up a whole new world of food to us, which has definitely added an element of excitement.

I know a lot of people will look back negatively on this year, but I refuse to do so. The holiday season is now upon us, and I’m just around the corner from a 3 week staycation to finish off the year. I did the same thing last year and felt like it would be a nice tradition to keep. You can only carry over 120 hours of vacation into a new calendar year and I have well over 200, so it was a no-brainer. I’ve never been very good at using my time off (it’s been 2 years since I’ve taken a sick day), but this year especially I haven’t felt like I’ve needed it. Not commuting to and from the office every day definitely reduces stress for me, and allows me to sleep a bit later, so I haven’t felt like I’ve needed it. That said, 3 weeks at home with my family, cats, and guitars will be very nice!

Before wrapping it up I just want to again wish Ava a very happy 9th birthday. Mom and I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s such a loving and caring kid with a very bright future. I just wish she would slow down with all this growing. I can’t believe how tall she is now, and how mature she is becoming. Halfway to adulthood is crazy, but I expect the second half to go even faster. We love you Ava!

Presents and doughnuts on her birthday morning

I love how Ava wears #13 in hockey because she’s the first of three

Elise wearing her new shirt from this morning

Getting our pumpkin carving on for Halloween

Enzo’s first tooth pulling experience was a success

Elise “The Tooth” Pellegrini’s 2nd grade photo

Hitting Our Stride

Getting settled into our fall and holiday activities

Compared to last month’s update, where we had just gotten the cats, just restarted the school year, and just gotten going on our vegan diet, this month feels like things have really settled in. The cats have already doubled in size (if not more) and have explored pretty much every little nook and cranny of our entire house. They’ve got all kinds of great hiding places and are quite funny to watch when playing together. I honestly don’t know who in this house loves them the most, but it was definitely a great decision to get them, and they seem very happy as well.

I can’t remember if I mentioned this last month or not, but Elise has officially withdrawn from school and is now a full-time home-schooler, just like Ava. The difference was that Ava already had her mind made up before the year even started, while Elise wasn’t so sure at first. She ended up starting the year in a class, but after a few days of being on Zoom calls all day and not getting to participate with Mom and Ava, she quickly decided to change course.

At this point Enzo is the only one still enrolled in school, and it’s actually going quite well for him. Sometimes it’s difficult for Jessica to balance all 3 of them at once, but luckily I’m home all day with them and have started regularly working with Enzo on some of his Kindergarten projects. It’s nice to be able to contribute a little bit in that way, and we enjoy the time together.

Overall school is going well for all three of the kids, and even though our district is starting to bring some kids back into the classroom, we’re not even considering that for Enzo. He will remain virtual for this entire year without question. I honestly don’t understand why suddenly now they think it’s time to start bringing kids back, as daily Covid cases are getting back to the 70,000 range in the U.S. and a second (or is it third?) wave is upon us, but we’re not going there. We’re just fine as we are and consider ourselves lucky to be in the position we’re in.

As far as extra curricular activities go, in addition to our Jiu-Jitsu school, the kids are now all in hockey of some sort. Ava is on the 10U team with Seattle Junior Hockey Association, while Elise and Enzo are doing the Learn To Play Hockey class with Everett Youth Hockey. Between both of these activities and school, we’re pretty busy these days, but we prefer it that way. We had plenty of down time earlier this year so it’s nice to have some resemblance of normalcy back in our lives.

Certainly we realize that exposure to anyone outside our house carries some level of risk, but we feel much better about these contained one hour sessions compared to sending them to a classroom all day long. Plus getting to interact with kids from beyond our house and neighborhood is good for them. It can be tricky trying to find that balance but we’re doing our best.

In addition to having a couple activities outside the house, the kids have recently gotten their wish of having their own Pellegrini Kids YouTube channel! They had been asking about it for a while and we recently finally got it setup for them. We only have 14 subscribers at the moment, but we’re regularly adding videos and the kids love making them. Anything from homeschool to homemade slime is liable to end up on one of their videos, so we encourage you to subscribe!

It’s been about 8 weeks since making changes to our diet and overall it’s going great. The way we’ve settled into it is Jessica and I are fully vegan, while the kids are vegetarian. They still eat cheese and yogurt, but that’s about it in terms of animal products. I sometimes find myself missing cheese, but there are so many good plant-based alternatives to cheese and meat that it hasn’t been a problem.

Definitely my favorite part about this change has been all the new foods and dishes we’ve been discovering. Whether it’s something we ordered on Purple Carrot, a recipe we found, or just something we threw together with the different types of ingredients we’ve been purchasing, food has never been more fun or exciting. I assume people would expect the opposite in regards to a vegan diet, but in our experience nothing could be further from the truth.

Halloween is just around the corner, and obviously that always makes us think of a visit with Nana because it’s her birthday, but things are going to be different this year. Snohomish County declared no trick-or-treating this year, so we’re just going to do a little party for the kids here in the neighborhood. We got our pumpkins yesterday and are looking forward to carving them next weekend.

Regarding the holidays, we’re very excited to have Nana coming out to spend Thanksgiving with us. She will be arriving on Tuesday night, which is the day before Ava’s 9th birthday, and staying until the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We’re working on planning some fun stuff to do while she’s here, so that should be great. Then for Christmas we have Amy and Tom coming out for a visit, so that too should be a lot of fun. I’m sure it will all be here before we know it.

I guess that’s about it for now. I’m not as long winded as usual today, but everything is good. Even though it’s been a strange year, Fall is still my favorite season. I love cooking on the weekend while watching sports, getting the fireplace going, and relaxing at home. We’re glad to have hockey back, as that has become ‘normal’ for our family, and being home together everyday is something we’re thankful for. I could do this work-from-home thing forever if they let me…

Welcome home Peach and Spencer

Welcoming home our new sister Siberian kittens, plus lots of other cool stuff

Since coming home from Silverwood, the past few weeks have been pretty exciting for our family. We welcomed Peach and Spencer (a pair of sister Siberian kittens) into our home, the kids started back up in school, we switched to a (mostly) vegan diet, Elise lost two teeth, and Ava started up with a new hockey season!

Let’s start with the kittens. For a while now Jessica and I have been thinking about getting a family pet, but we were struggling to make a decision on what to get. We knew we didn’t want a dog, and Jessica simply could not get down with what Ava and I wanted, which was a lizard. Theoretically a cat sounded ideal, but Jessica has always suffered from cat allergies, so it didn’t seem viable.

Eventually we started doing research on hypoallergenic cats and ended up finding a couple breeds that seemed like a good fit. We wanted something ‘normal’ looking, rather than one of those creepy hairless cats, and we felt like the Siberian breed was the most beautiful one, plus we read that they were great with kids. As it turned out, there was a Siberian breeder in Shoreline, so we reserved a pair of sisters born on the 4th of July.

We weren’t expecting them to come home until around now, but we ended up getting them two weeks early, which was a nice surprise. They’re absolutely adorable and have adjusted quite quickly to our family and home. Within hours of coming home they were starting to explore, and now that they’ve been here for two weeks, it’s not uncommon for them to be chasing each other all around the house, finding little hiding spots we didn’t even know existed, and overall just bringing a lot of fun and laughter to our home. Obviously we spend a lot of time at home these days, so the kittens have been a welcome addition for all of us. Check out the pictures below.

Regarding the new school year, the two main things to mention are that Ava and Elise have both officially withdrawn from public school and are now full-time home-schoolers, and Enzo (who is still in public school and attending virtually) as of today is officially in Kindergarten! Ava made up her mind about homeschool months ago, before the last year had concluded, but Elise wasn’t sure up until a few days ago. She was placed in a class and spent her first few days of 2nd grade on the laptop all day, which she hated, and that was enough for her to make her decision.

As I’ve told the kids several times now, they are so lucky to have Mom as their teacher. Her dedication to this new job has been incredible to watch, and as far as I’m concerned, the level of personalized instruction the kids are receiving from her couldn’t be beat in any school, public or otherwise. I think she may have missed her calling, as teaching comes very naturally to her, but either way the kids are so lucky that things have ended up this way.

In addition to Jessica’s efforts as teacher, we are starting to get some help from Auntie Dana and Uncle Brad with teaching as well. We had a nice visit with them on Labor Day and they immediately offered to help out. By that evening Dana had already created a spreadsheet of lesson ideas, with a variety of potential subjects for each of them to cover. All I can say is we appreciate this so much and will gladly accept any help that is offered. If anyone wants to get involved, even for a single lesson on something you’re familiar with, please let us know and we will get it scheduled. The beauty of home school is that you aren’t confined to traditional lessons, and incorporating real life into our teaching is very important to us. It’s definitely going to be a different kind of school year for us, but Jessica and I are both very happy with how things have turned out.

Now, the diet changes. About 6 months ago I decided to stop drinking milk because it was starting to upset my stomach. Essentially this became the beginning of a series of dietary changes that Jessica and I started making throughout the year. I want to stress that the changes we have been making weren’t made overnight, but instead were a very gradual process.

In the late Spring we started talking about cutting meat out of our diet, but the idea of going Vegan was still way too radical at that point. During the Summer we watched a show on Netflix called “Down to Earth” with Zach Effron and Darin Olien, and that really got the wheels turning for us in terms of changing our eating habits, then right before going to Silverwood I started reading Darin’s book “Superlife”. By the time we returned from Silverwood I was totally ready to go in terms of converting to Vegan, but the nail in the coffin for both of us was watching a documentary on Netflix called “What the Health”.

I know there’s plenty of debate on whether going Vegan is good or bad, and certainly all it takes is a quick Internet search to find articles in support of either stance, but I don’t want to focus on everything I’ve learned from the aforementioned sources. Ultimately that would all sound way too preachy of me and I just don’t want to go there. I have zero interest in pushing anyone else to change their lifestyle, but if you’re interested, check those resources out to see for yourself.

What I will do, however, is share my own experiences from the past few weeks. While my main motivator was health, the most noticeable change for me so far is the fact that I’ve lost 10 pounds. Losing weight wasn’t a motivator for me, but I’m not exactly mad about it. I’m also no longer bothered by a pain in my right heel that had been bothering me every morning for months. Not having to take Lipitor every night to keep my cholesterol in check is nice, and the increase in energy I’ve gotten allows me to grapple 5-6 rounds in a row at Jiu Jitsu (after a one hour class), at 5 minutes each, without needing a break. Jessica has certainly experienced lots of her own benefits as well, including weight loss, softer skin, and increased energy.

One misconception I had about switching to a vegan diet was that all I’d be eating is salads and lots of raw fruits and vegetables, but what I’ve learned is that there has never been a better time to make this change due to the abundance of vegan-friendly products available at the grocery store. Suddenly food is so much more vibrant, colorful, and exciting. Shopping is more exciting too. Unfortunately eating healthier comes at an increased cost, but for us it’s worth it. We’re regularly finding all kinds of meat and dairy alternatives that are 100% plant based. Obviously you’re not always going to like everything, but overall we like a lot more of these new things than we dislike. We’ve been making burgers, tacos, scrambled eggs, and so many other things that are totally vegan, and in some cases I like the vegan version more than the original.

In addition to making our own dishes at home, we just switched our delivery meal provider. We were doing Home Chef for several months and loved it, but their vegetarian options were minimal. We then switched to Hello Fresh, which had a good amount of vegetarian options, but not so much in the way of vegan. Most recently we have switched again to Purple Carrot, which is supposed to be number 1 for vegans. We haven’t received our first meal from Purple Carrot yet but it’s coming soon and we’re really excited to check it out.

The kids have taken this change in stride as well. I was most worried about Ava because she was always the biggest meat eater, but she seems to have embraced it more than anyone. When we offer her chicken nuggets she always asks “well are they vegan chicken nuggets?”. At this point we’re trying to explain to them that they can assume it’s vegan unless we say otherwise, but sometimes things are so similar to the original that it’s hard to tell.

Overall I will say that switching to a vegan diet has been an extremely positive change for our family, and if it’s something you’re even slightly considering, I would just recommend trying it for two weeks. Anyone can do pretty much anything for two weeks. See for yourself how different you will look and feel during that short period of time. If it’s not for you, that’s cool, but good on you for trying it. There’s certainly no going back for us. There – that’s the only pitch I’m giving 😉

Now moving onto Miss Elise, who is sporting quite the picket fence smile these days. She has had a couple loose teeth for a while now, so as soon as we got home from our trip we got to work on the bottom one. Then just a few days ago one of her top front teeth was the next to come out. Both times I had the ‘pleasure’ of pulling it for her, and all I can say is that I commend her for her bravery. Both experiences were a bit traumatic for her but she was fine and we got it done. She was definitely excited to receive a couple visits from the Tooth Fairy.

Yesterday Ava got back out on the ice with other kids for the first time in over 6 months. We had only been on the ice once since the season ended, so this was by far the biggest break she had ever taken from hockey. In addition to that, it was her first day playing in the 10U age bracket, her first day with her new team in Seattle Junior Hockey Association, and her first time going out to play without me either on the ice with her, or watching from the sidelines.

Obviously I wanted to be there watching her but it wasn’t an option due to Covid-19. I don’t understand why though, as wearing a mask and keeping my distance from others wouldn’t be a problem at all, but I don’t want to rock the boat with our new organization, so I just waited outside with the other parents.

Based on all the factors I just described, it was a tough day for her. When she came outside she saw me and started crying, but we had a good talk about everything and I told her how proud I was, knowing how difficult these changes were for her. After a few minutes she felt better, and she is now ready to go back this Saturday and Sunday. Going from 8U to 10U is a big step up and she’s going to learn a lot about the game this year, so it should be exciting. I just hope I get to see some of it…

That’s about it for now. The arrival of school and hockey season means our lives are starting to get busy again, but that’s a good thing. Overall things are good and I’m proud of how we continue to make the best of things, regardless of everything going on in the world right now. Enjoy the latest photos.