Happy 7th Birthday Ava! – Pellegrini Page

Hey there, how are you? I feel like it’s been a while. I’m sorry about that – I came into November expecting to write two posts, but as it’s becoming increasingly more common in our world, life gets in the way. I don’t mean that as an excuse though, things have been great and there’s a lot for us to catch up on. So grab yourself a cup of coffee and let’s jump on in. First and foremost, the week that was Thanksgiving and Miss Ava’s 7th birthday.

Throughout the year, Ava has built up a little tradition of calling Nana on the way to or from hockey (and frequently both). She loves talking with her, and speaks to her more like a girlfriend than a grandmother. For quite a while now, Ava has been asking Nana to come visit us for her birthday. So, as a surprise, Nana flew up from Vegas on Tuesday to spend Thanksgiving and Ava’s birthday with us. The kids were shocked, to say the least, when she arrived unannounced. Obviously Jessica and I knew she was coming, but we wanted it to be a surprise for the kids. Ava keeps saying “It was just a normal day, and then Nana showed up.”

On Wednesday morning, I decided to give Ava a little dose of reality based on a statement she’s been making lately, which is that she wants to play hockey in the Olympics one day. To give a little more context, earlier this year Ava met Lyndsey Fry, who was a silver medalist on the 2014 USA team in Sochi. They lost a heartbreaker to Canada, which was avenged this year when the US women beat Canada in a shootout to take the gold. Lyndsey told an inspiring story about her journey becoming an Olympian, then took time to meet all the girls for photos. Ava was, and continues to be, very inspired by this.

Moving into her first season on a team, she played her first game ever at goalie (due to the rotation landing on her for week 1), but then in the next game (which was her first game as a normal player), she was voted by the coaches MVP for the game! I feel like I need to say that again: her first game ever as a normal player and she wins MVP. The coaches couldn’t believe she was already passing the puck and playing tough defense.

Now back to Wednesday morning. I had taken that day off work because my Mom was here, so I figured it would be the perfect day to take Ava out for an early morning stick and puck session (which is just open ice time for hockey players). Without telling her the night before, I got all our stuff packed in the car, then that morning I was up at 5:25. The first thing I do every morning before I even get out of bed is update my podcast feed. I listen to a variety of shows on all kinds of different topics. Some are daily episodes, some are weekly, and some are just whenever. Well, due to the holiday this week, ESPN On Ice (their hockey podcast) came out a day early, and their guest was Lyndsey Fry! Immediately I realized the irony and significance of her showing up in my feed on this exact morning. It was definitely one of those “is life really random?” moments.

So I pulled Ava out of bed and she was confused at first. She said “Dad, this doesn’t make sense. My friends won’t be there playing hockey in the middle of the night”. “That’s exactly right Ava, they won’t be there, but you and I will be” I replied. “Okay” she said, “but I’m going to sleep all the way there and all the way home”. As it turned out, she didn’t sleep going to or from our practice. She was excited about it the whole way there, and by the time I was getting her dressed at the rink she was saying “Dad hurry up! The sun’s almost up!”

I ran her through various drills for about 40 minutes. It was great because, although it’s hard to believe, this was literally the first time Ava and I ever played hockey on ice together. It’s normally me on the sidelines watching, or her occasionally watching me. If we’re skating together, it’s always at an open skate session, but that’s all going to change now. She did awesome, and I told her I’d give her a grade after each practice. She got an A+ for her first “dawn patrol” session, then we enjoyed listening to Lyndsey’s interview on the podcast during the drive home.

The rest of the family was there waiting for us when we got back, and Ava was excited to tell everyone how much fun she’d had. She again announced to us that she wants to play hockey in the Olympics and wants to keep doing early morning practices with Daddy. Jessica was surprised but excited, and said we would do our best to give her every opportunity, but if she stops having fun, she has to tell us. In the meantime, we’re willing to sacrifice as necessary to give her every opportunity to chase her dream.

The girls had a half day at school that day, so Nana joined us at the bus stop in the morning, then later on she and Enzo went to school to have lunch with them. The rest of our day was spent making dishes for Thanksgiving. I did the same mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and crispy prosciutto that I made last year, and my Mom made our family’s stuffing, which has always been my favorite part of Thanksgiving. She also made creamed peas, which is another family Thanksgiving tradition of ours.

Later that evening we all headed out to a cinema in Woodinville to see “Ralph Breaks the Internet”. It’s a movie we’ve been looking forward to for a while, and we knew it would be coming out right around Ava’s birthday, so it was fun. As expected, the kids loved it, but all of us adults enjoyed it too.

Thanksgiving day was great, but also memorable for something stupid. If last year (when I undercooked the turkey) was ‘Turkeygate’, then this year would have to be ‘Stuffinggate’. Basically we all drove an hour down to Kristy’s house, we start unloading the van, and I instantly realize we left the stuffing at home! I was so pissed because we had all worked hard the previous day making these dishes, and as I mentioned above, our family stuffing is my favorite. I was ready to get in the van and drive home to get it, but Jessica could see how distraught I was, so she insisted on going instead. So she ended up driving all the way home, then back, just so we could have stuffing with our Thanksgiving meal. The ultimate irony struck later when we were dishing out leftovers to send home with everyone – somehow we ended up with no stuffing, so we only had it during the actual Thanksgiving meal.

Other than the stuffing incident, Thanksgiving was great. It was nice to get so much quality time with Kristy, Madi, Jim, and Brenda. Enzo in particular was having so much fun playing with Uncle Jim, so I’m glad they got all that time together. It’s also been great for my Mom to get time with them, but I guess that’s what the holidays are all about. I’m just thankful of my Mom for making the trip up and getting so much quality time with everybody, especially the kids.

Black Friday started with another dawn patrol practice session for Ava and I. We were there at 6:40, but my buddy Reed and his son were already out there. We warmed up on our own for a bit, then played a little 2 on 2 game with them, and as always, Ava had a lot of fun. She even reiterated to that she likes “dawn patrol” and wants to keep doing it.

The rest of the day was spent at home doing different crafts and projects with Nana. We figured it would be crazy out, so this was a good day to stay in and make stuff with Nana. With the kids occupied, Jessica and I were able to run errands, get ready for the party, and get our Christmas lights put up. Then that evening we all relaxed and watched one of my favorite holiday movies: Home Alone.

On Saturday Nana and I took the kids to downtown Snohomish for a few hours to checkout the Christmas shops, listen to the carolers, and have lunch. It’s such a nostalgic little town so we all had fun walking around and taking in all the holiday sights and sounds. Meanwhile Jessica was hard at work getting the house ready for Ava’s party. That evening we chilled out and watched a couple more holiday classics: A Christmas Story, and Elf.

Sunday, which was Ava’s actual birthday, was also the day of the party. It was a “Dragons Love Tacos” theme, based on our favorite family book. Mom did and awesome job decorating the house with all kinds of dragons and tacos, while Dad focused on making a taco feast with all the trimmings. It was a very full house, with not just family and close family friends, but also some friends of Ava’s from school and hockey.

We were able to send all the kids upstairs to play, leaving the downstairs for the adults to eat and mingle. Before cake and presents, I sat down with Ava to read “Dragons Love Tacos” for our guests, with a little help from the kiddos, of course. Overall it was a great day and we appreciate everyone who came out. In terms of family we had Nana, Jim, Brenda, Kristy, Madi, Dana & Brad, and Butch & Carol. Then our good friends the Palmers and O’Hair’s were there, plus our neighbors the Browns, and the Congdon’s, whom we’ve become friends with at hockey. Our old family friend Paul Harper even stopped by to say hello, which was great.

Overall it was just a really good day, and I know how appreciative Ava is for everything. She has grown up a lot lately and it was great seeing her have her special day. It’s also been great having my Mom here all week, and I hope she knows how much it means to all of us. The kids love their time with her, and she is always helpful to Jessica and I around the house. Overall it’s been exactly how the holidays should be (movies, projects, food, presents), and again I just appreciate Nana coming up to spend them with us. This will be one to remember for sure.

Okay we’ve already gone through an entire post’s worth of stuff, but we’ve only covered the week of Thanksgiving. So yeah, there’s still a lot of other stuff to go over. How about we call this intermission? Then on the flip side we can get caught up on everything else.

Welcome back – let’s start with Miss Elise, who is loving her first year of school and has recently enrolled in a new dance class. We just had our first parent teacher conference regarding her, and her Kindergarten teacher (who is also our friend) Mrs Johnson couldn’t stop talking about how good she is doing in class, how well she interacts with her peers, and how much of a sweetheart she is. It wasn’t surprising, but still great to hear.

Her new dance class is going well and she is having a lot of fun. We wanted to get her into a new class, but unlike last time where it was solely ballet, this time we went for something a little more well rounded. We wanted her to have the opportunity to learn different types of dance, so we found a class that does jazz, tap, and ballet, plus a little acting as well. It seems like the perfect fit for her right now.

I keep telling Elise that she is a natural performer at heart, and that she might as well get used to being on stage because it’s in her future. While she may come off a little shy at first, trust me when I say that sweet shyness melts away quickly, resulting in a naturally outgoing and talented little entertainer. She actually wants to start ice skating with us more often, so I’m considering putting her in a skating class like the one Ava started out with. I figured ice skating as a talent would compliment her skills with dance. Ultimately I just want her to have fun and stay busy, bit it’s awesome to see her beginning to flourish.

Mr Enzo recently had a big milestone worth sharing: last Sunday he voluntarily threw his remaining bottles in the garbage. It was actually very similar to the ceremonious trashing of his binky a while back. It’s something we’ve been talking with him recently about, and together we had agreed that he would be done with bottles before turning 4, but we were still caught a little off guard that Sunday morning when he informed us that he was officially done with bottles. It’s really just another sign of the maturity he has recently been showing. Our little boy is growing up, and this was another example of that.

Here’s another update for Enzo that has Daddy smiling ear-to-ear: he has been showing a lot of interest in hockey lately, and according to Jessica, someone recently asked him if he plays hockey and his response was “Not yet”. So, a couple weekends ago we took the kids out to a “Try hockey for free” event in Everett, and he had a blast. We actually tried this event last year and he got most of the gear on, but then got a little freaked out and decided not to go on the ice. It was actually looking like the same thing was going to happen this year, but Mom was able to talk him into it. Thank goodness for that too, because he had a lot of fun once he got out there. He can’t really skate on his own yet, so there were little hockey player kids volunteering at the event who helped him a lot. By the end of the event he was able to shuffle his way back to the bench from the center of the ice without assistance. He now says he is ready to get his own hockey gear and learn to skate, so I’m ready to teach him. I’m sure Ava will help a lot as well.

Regarding the “Try hockey for free” event, Elise deserves a ton of credit for getting out there and participating. Since Ava and Enzo were going, she decided to give it a shot. She put on full hockey gear, and got out on the ice without bars for the first time ever. Later she told me she likes ice skating more than hockey, and I think that’s great. I would love it if she started taking lessons, and I look forward to working with her and Enzo on learning to skate.

Jessica has been as busy as ever lately. It’s the busy season at El Gaucho, so she’s been taking advantage of that and working extra shifts whenever possible. She has also been doing a bunch of volunteering at the kids schools. She is officially now the Art Docent for Ava’s class, and she loves it! She has a natural talent for working with kids, and she loves art, so it’s a perfect fit. She has also been staying busy at home painting. Over the past few weeks she has been touching up walls, hallways, and doing trim work.

Jessica has also now become a full blown “Hockey Mom”. I was recently watching her get Ava dressed for practice, and I couldn’t believe it. She knew exactly which order to put the gear on, she knew how to tape the socks, tie the skates, etc. It might sound simple, but trust me, there’s a lot of gear associated with playing hockey, and you have to put it on in the correct order. Considering the fact that she didn’t grow up around it, and doesn’t play it, I think she deserve a lot of credit for picking it all up so quickly.

Overall I feel like this year has been really good to us, and at least in her case, it shows. Last year we were both dealing with surgeries and physical therapy, so this year has been a bit of a transformational time for us. We love going to the gym now and push each other along well. She just chopped her hair, which looks great, and she now enjoys giving me a hard time for having longer hair than she does.

Things have been going great for me too, just busy as usual. In one of my recent posts I mentioned a new work project I was placed on – well, that project recently went live, which was very exciting for everyone involved. It’s called the Azure Bot, and it’s basically a Q&A bot you can interact with on our website in order to learn more about Azure products and services. You just click the blue tab saying “Have a question?” and a larger window will appear, allowing you to type in questions or statements. You can say something like “How much does App Service cost?” or “Tell me about Virtual Machines” and it will analyze your statement (known as an utterance) using LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligence Service), then invoke the appropriate “dialog” to fetch the data needed for your request. It was really interesting for me because this was my first experience programming anything related to AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning). I’ve been working closely with my manager, as well as a few developers down in Argentina, for several weeks on this, so seeing it go live was a big deal for us. It’s far from perfect, and we will continue to improve it, but I think we’re off to a good start.

Speaking of work, I remember in my last post mentioning the charity hockey/ice skating event I participated in as part of our Giving Campaign. For those who aren’t familiar, Microsoft is really big on doing charitable work and making donations. It’s something that goes on all year, but it gets really heavy in October, which is our Giving month. The event I attended was one of literally hundreds that went on throughout the month. After all the donations were counted we found out that our little 2 hour event ended up raising over $8,300 for 23 different charities!

A week or so later I participated in a different type of charity event – this time instead of an activity where you would make a donation in order to be able to participate, I was able to donate my time building meal packs for food insecure families in the area. In addition to the work I do, Microsoft pays the charity for my time, at I think $20 per hour. I actually got slightly choked up filling up the bags with food for people, knowing that there are people all around us who really need this. It definitely felt great to lend a helping hand, and this is just another example of why I love Microsoft and am so proud to work there. We recently received the final numbers for all the charitable events in October, and I was blown away to see that the Cloud + AI organization within Microsoft raised over $32 million in the month of October! That’s not for all of Microsoft either, that’s just for our organization within Microsoft, and it’s a combination of employee/personal donations, Microsoft matching our donations, the work we do for different charities, and the amount Microsoft pays to these companies for our time. It’s mind boggling and humbling to even be a small part of.

I know I haven’t mentioned this in a post for quite a while, but I recently crossed the 6 month mark doing daily Italian lessons on Duolingo. I continue to do 10-15 minutes a day, and as one might expect, I’ve learned a lot. I’m now finding myself supplementing my studies by watching Italian cartoons, and subscribing to various channels on YouTube that teach you Italian. Most exciting of all, I’ve become friends with the father of one of Ava’s teammates, who was born and raised in Milan. He’s obviously fluent, so whenever I see him we spend a few minutes conversing in Italian. I also frequently text him asking him the appropriate way to say this or that. I’m still far from fluent, but I find that I understand a lot more than I am able to speak. It’s pretty hard putting entire sentences together without some form of help, yet when I’m listening to someone else speak I’m generally able to follow along pretty well. I have no agenda with this other than enjoying the challenge, trying to make myself that much more well-rounded, and most importantly of all, passing it down to my kids. It’s working too because they’re constantly asking me how to say this or that in Italian. I don’t always know, so then we get to look it up together. They’re already retaining it so well, and it’s become a fun activity for all of us to participate in, so I’ll definitely be continuing with my studies. I’m proud to not have missed a day in 6 months, but there’s a long way to go.

Besides playing my guitar whenever possible, I’ve been staying as busy as possible with hockey. I just recently treated myself to a nice new pair of skates, and it just so happens that I’ve scored at least one goal in every game I’ve played in them, so they’re obviously now my lucky skates. It’s funny to me how this sport has become such a big part of our lives, and it’s only going to get bigger as time goes on. It’s become my social circle, it’s what I “train” for at the gym, and it’s the only sport on TV that holds my attention.

I also recently realized that hockey is the only team sport I’ve played as an adult. As a kid I did team sports like baseball, basketball, and soccer, but as an adult it was always martial arts, surfing, and snowboarding. It took me a while to realize this, and it might sound a little funny, but I like the person I’ve become in the context of being involved with team sports. I’m so much more social at hockey (my own or Ava’s) than I am anywhere else. This wasn’t the type of benefit I was expecting to get from playing hockey, but has been a nice surprise. I find myself getting so excited to play every chance I get, and I keep getting better and better at it, which then makes it that much more fun. While I’m a little surprised at the role hockey has taken in our lives, I’m thankful for it more than anything.

In addition to each of us having exciting updates, our house needs to be included as well. Back in the Summer we hired a contractor to build a new front porch on our house, but one thing that wasn’t done was the railing. We ended up having to hold off on that for a little bit, but no more! Last Sunday I teamed up with 2 of my neighbors, and with their guidance, we were able to put up a nice new railing on the porch. It involved a fair bit of engineering because some rails were being attached to railing posts, while others were being attached to house posts. It went really smoothly though, and we lucked out with clear sunny weather, so it was actually a lot of fun. Most importantly, we no longer have to worry about any kids falling off the porch.

Going back slightly further, we were recently joined by Grandma and Grandpa Martin for a Halloween visit. They drove the bus up from Colorado and spent about a week with us. As usual everyone kept busy with various pumpkin-related activities, including trips to the pumpkin patch, lots of trick-or-treating, and a neighborhood pumpkin carving party with all our friends. Unfortunately I was on call at work that week, so I didn’t get a ton of time to spend with everyone, but that’s not a big deal. I’m just glad the kids got so much quality time with them. Halloween was also my Mom’s birthday, and it was a bummer that we couldn’t be with her, but that was all made up for based on her surprise visit a few weeks later for Ava’s birthday and Thanksgiving.

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, it’s pretty much full steam ahead for Christmas. We’ll be traveling to Colorado this year, and a winter wonderland filled with holiday activities awaits us. There’s a bunch of people coming so it’s going to be a packed house. I expect this to be my first Colorado trip where I don’t go snowboarding. It’s not that I’m against it, there’s just too much other fun stuff to do and I’ve done that so many times. I’ll be bringing our ice skates and am especially excited to do some outdoor pond skating with everyone. In addition to that, we’ll be snowshoeing, riding snowmobiles, and doing all kinds of holiday stuff. It should be a lot of fun, and obviously I’ll have plenty to write about when we get home.

Before I go I just want to say again how proud I am of Miss Ava. I can’t believe you’re 7 now! You’ll understand when you’re older how fast this time flies by, but at the same time, I think I’m loving this stage for you more than any other. You’re doing great learning to read, your dedication to hockey blows me away, and you’re just an all-around awesome kid. Like Elise and Enzo, I’m so proud to be your Daddy, and very excited for all the adventures yet to come. Thank you for helping make us the parents we are, and for literally reshaping the course of our lives. Ti amo tantissimo Ava. Sei la mia bambina. Sono fiero di te!

Ava’s 1st grade photo (Elise did retakes so we don’t have hers quite yet)