I just submitted my final assignment of winter quarter, meaning that I am now officially on spring break. This one is special to me simply because its my last. I’m also excited about this break because I’ll be finishing it with a long weekend in Vancouver with Jessica. Not exactly your typical spring break vacation, but in my opinion this is infinitely cooler than some super cliche spring break trip that usually involves either being drunk on a boat in Lake Havasu, or cavorting around Mexico with a group of delinquents in search of sombreros and cheap tequila. I’ll take hockey games and shopping on Robson any day.
I’d be lying if I said both of us weren’t really looking forward to this getaway. As busy as I am with everything going on at work and school, Jessica might even be busier with everything she does with the girls. We’re definitely thankful to have Amy and Tom coming to spend some time with them. Elise has grown so much since they saw her at Christmas; they’ll hardly recognize her.
Having a new car for the past week has been awesome. No buyers remorse here. I forgot how nice it would be to be able to take the girls in either car (I got them matching car seats at Costco last weekend), and things like an adjustable driver’s seat, heated seats, a working driver’s side window, and power locks have all been very well received. Tomorrow I’m going to get the Honda cleaned up, photographed, and posted for sale. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get rid of it. Since my extremely generous mother refuses to accept the money we’ll get for selling it, we’ve decided to split it in half and use it to open savings accounts for the girls. Thank you Nana.
This weekend will be the first weekend I haven’t worked at all in about a month. We had a major deliverable on Monday and everything went extremely well. It was still a busy week but spirits were high, no more so for me than this morning when I received a little public praise from a senior manager for all my hard work on this project. That was pretty cool. I also had my first session with my new mentor at work this week. Amazon is really big on their mentorship program; they encourage everyone to get a mentor, to become a mentor, and to take advantage of the internal resources that are available to you. I definitely plan on becoming a mentor once I make it to the next level as a web developer, but for now I’m happy to soak up as much knowledge as possible from people who have been around for a long time. My new mentor has been with Amazon for 7 years, which probably puts him in the top 10% of tenure. Getting to learn from someone like that is an amazing opportunity so I’m glad to have gotten started.
I’ve been going to a lot of Jiu Jitsu classes at lunch lately. The exercise aspect of it alone is key, but being able to drop everything, clear your mind, and learn something new is great. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a couple extra classes in during spring break, but spending extra time with the girls is priority number one. This will be a little precursor to what we can expect this summer.
Jessica has tomorrow night off, and it’s the first time she hasn’t worked on a Saturday in months, so we’re going out for a night on the town. Laurel has been kind enough to volunteer to come over and watch the girls for us, so we’re going to bounce around to a couple different places. I think we’re starting off with raw oysters at Rock Creek in Fremont where our old friend Mike Duncan tends bar, then we’re going to visit Rico and see his new place Loulay. It was opened recently by the chef from Rover’s, which was probably our favorite restaurant until it closed last June. I guess this will be a little pre-cursor to our Vancouver trip in a couple weeks. Gotta take advantage of a free night when you can.
Elise has figured out a way to get around, although I’m not really sure what to call it. It’s not crawling, it’s more like land swimming, but it seems to work for her. Every time you set her down she’s on the move, and she’s developing such a cute little personality. She loves to laugh and enjoys watching her big sister running around being crazy. Ava continues to impress us with how good she is with Elise. The older they get the more fun and amazing they become.
Well, time to wrap it up and start enjoying this break. Jess is at work and the girls are sleeping so I guess it’s time to watch Top Gear and some basketball highlights. Perfect timing with March Madness going on. Until we meet again.