Family, Friends, Soccer, and a new guitar

It was another busy weekend for our family, and for me personally it was one to remember because I made the final addition (at least for the next 5 years) to my guitar collection. More on that in a bit, but first, lets talk about all the fun stuff we did with family and friends, as well as Ava’s second week of soccer.

Friday night our good friends Leon, Jodi, and their son Miles came over to our house for dinner. Leon and I have been buddies for about 15 years (going back to my early days at El Gaucho), and although we have both lived in various places during that time (Him in Costa Rica, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Minneapolis. Me in Las Vegas and San Diego), we have always remained close. Fortunately we both ended up back in Seattle at about the same time, and his son Miles was born only 3 weeks before Elise, so getting our kids together to play seems like a no-brainer.

Since I had to work all day on Friday and I knew there wouldn’t be time to get home and make a fancy dinner, I decided to keep it simple by making spaghetti and meatballs. I made the sauce the night before and let it simmer all day until dinner on Friday. It was probably the most reduced (and darkest) tomato sauce I’ve ever made. I thought it was pretty delicious, although I burned the meatballs a bit in the skillet. We also had salad, and Leon was nice enough to make a homemade apple pie, as well as pear sorbet for the kids to enjoy. Most importantly, we all had a great time hanging out. Jessica and I don’t have that many ‘couple friends’ so getting some quality time with them was really nice. Plus the kids had a blast playing together. The funniest part of the night was when Ava opened the front door during dinner, and without anyone noticing, all the kids wandered outside. Luckily Jessica noticed the door open pretty quickly and we rushed outside to find all three kids playing in the driveway. It was pretty cute.

Saturday morning I took Ava to her second soccer class. She was excited to go from the minute she woke up that morning, and by the time we arrived at the field she could hardly contain herself. Unlike our first week when the weather was beautiful, this week we had to deal with lots of clouds and rain, but she didn’t care one bit. We worked on dribbling again, and like last week we got to score a couple goals. I took several short video clips and merged them into a funny little montage of her in class, which can be found on YouTube by clicking here. I’m just glad she is enjoying herself and getting exposure to new things. Hopefully this will continue to be fun for her, but if not there are plenty of other things we can try out as well. Seeing her so happy out there is what its all about, so I’m already looking forward to her next class. The rest of the day Saturday was pretty relaxing for us. We didn’t do much besides hang around the house and watch movies. We knew Sunday was going to be a busy day, so we were all content to have a relaxing Saturday at home, particularly with the weather the way it was.

Sunday morning the five of us headed out at 10:00am and went down to Kristy and Madi’s house in Des Moines. Although the weather wasn’t ideal on Saturday, it was actually considerably worse on Sunday. It was pouring pretty hard, so we had no choice but to stay inside throughout our visit. Earlier in the week Kristy and I had kicked around the idea of taking the kids to a park, but that just wasn’t an option based on the weather. It didn’t matter though; we all had a great time catching up and watching the kids play. Jim and Brenda arrived shortly after we did, and they were very excited to finally meet little Enzo. Brenda obviously has the grandmother’s touch because he slept so soundly with her for quite a while. As always, Madi was great playing with the girls, and Jessica and I were happy with how well they listened and behaved. Ava is also eating a lot more now, which makes me happy. The poor thing was sick for a couple weeks straight, and she lost three pounds. That may not sound like much, but it’s 10% of her body weight, and it was noticeable. She really seems to have her appetite back, and we’re constantly encouraging her to try new things.

Elise seems to have made a full recovery from the cold that was ailing her last week, but poor little Enzo is still dealing with a lot of chest congestion. He gets so much phlegm in his chest and throat, but doesn’t know how to deal with it, so more often than not he swallows it, which ends up upsetting his stomach and causes him to throw up. Unfortunately Kristy found that out that hard way. He was coughing so hard the other day that Jessica had to hold him upside down and hit him on the back several times just to get everything out. Hopefully this won’t go on much longer, but there isn’t much we can do for him. He’s certainly not big enough to be taking any medicine, so we’re trying some naturopathic approaches recommended by my sister Dana.

Jim and Brenda are getting ready to head to Las Vegas on Wednesday for a visit with my Mom, Bob, Sandy, and Terry. This is technically their second trip to Vegas, but the first one was all about Aunt Lisa when she was hospitalized, so this will be their first ‘real’ trip to Vegas. I’m excited for them, and I know my Mom is really looking forward to it. As usual she’s been killing herself trying to get the house ready for visitors. Obviously this is completely unnecessary, but she can’t help it; I just hope everyone has a nice time. They’re going to see Elton John on Wednesday night, and Jersey Boys on Friday night, so it should be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to hearing all about it once they return.

The plan after leaving Kristy’s house was to stop by a music store in Seattle called Dusty Strings so that I could order a custom guitar. I had it all picked out in my head; I was going to order a relic’d Bill Nash Stratocaster. When I say relic’d I’m referring to a popular trend in new guitars where you’re getting a new guitar that looks and feels like a vintage guitar. They’re a bit beat up and worn in, but they feel and play amazing. Bill Nash is a local guy down in Olympia who is recognized nationwide as one of the premier relic guitar manufacturers. I had my mind set (or so I thought) but while I was waiting for help, I started playing a different relic’d stratocaster that was hanging on the wall. It was made by a company called King Bee guitars, and although I wasn’t familiar with them, I instantly fell in love with the guitar.

I spoke with a sales guy about the idea of ordering a Nash, but what I thought was going to be a 2-3 month wait was actually going to be more like 6-8 months. I would have been willing to wait, mainly because I had to promise Jessica that I wouldn’t buy another guitar until my 40th birthday (which is about 5.5 years away), but the King Bee was just so nice that I couldn’t justify waiting so long for the Nash when I had the perfect guitar already in my hands. I realize that most people reading this probably think I’m crazy and can’t understand why I would need another guitar. I can’t really explain it other than to say that I just really love playing them, looking at them, and obsessing over them. Each one feels different, plays different, sounds different, and looks different. From a musical perspective, the kind of music that I’m devoted to playing is Texas blues, and my main inspiration is Stevie Ray Vaughan. One of the primary characteristics of that sound is that they play stratocasters with single-coil pickups. I was able to justify it (to myself at least) because I don’t have a guitar with single-coil pickups. All of my other guitars have humbucking pickups, so I can’t get that Texas blues tone that I’m looking for. When I looked up King Bee guitars at the store yesterday, I loved the fact that the guitar, and the single-coil Amalfitano pickups in the guitar, are all hand-made in East Texas. When I plugged it in I couldn’t help but grin because it had the exact tone that I was looking for. Plus, from a looks perspective, its a classic design: Olympic white with a maple fretboard. This style of stratocaster became famous when Jimi Hendrix played one at Woodstock.

Although I was thrilled to be going home with a new guitar, I knew there wouldn’t be much time to play it last night. We needed to give the kids a bath, run to the grocery store to pick up dinner, plus I wanted to work out and shower. I had just enough time to get the guitar mounted on the wall, then spend the rest of the night relaxing with the family and watching a movie. At 5:30 this morning I eagerly jumped out of bed and went downstairs to play my new guitar for 45 minutes before getting ready for work. I took the Microsoft connector bus to work for the first time this morning, which gave me plenty of time to continue reading my latest book, which is a biography on Stevie Ray Vaughan. I opened up to the page where I had last left off, and immediately read about a time when SRV was at some big music event and saw Prince sitting at a table surrounded by bodyguards. Stevie snuck up behind him and whispered in his ear “You may be the Prince, but I’m the King Bee.” I had to smile based on the realization that I had definitely purchased the right guitar.

Here’s a few recent photos of our family. Hopefully you enjoy the video collage of Ava’s second week at soccer. My favorite part is when they’re all huddling together and the coach is talking about teamwork. When it comes time to do a team cheer, Ava may not know what she is supposed to say, but she’s still the loudest one. Then, when they’re supposed to go give the other ‘team’ a high-five, she just runs off on her own in the other direction. She’s hilarious.

Aunt Brenda and Baby Enzo