As we get ready to transition from one decade to the next, the main thing on my mind is the fact that, although we have so many great things to look forward to, both long-term and near, nothing will ever compare for our family to the life we’ve experienced over the past ten years. This decade started off with Jessica and I getting married, then a month later we were off on our journey to San Diego. We spent the first two-and-a-half years of our marriage there, Ava was born there, I made my career change there, and got back into school.
A job opportunity at Amazon brought us back to Seattle in December 2012, and soon after Elise was born in July of 2013. June of 2014 was huge for us in the sense that we bought our house and I received my bachelor’s degree, then about 7 months later, in January of 2015, Enzo was born. Even if we stop right there, the events I’ve just listed could never be matched or replicated, and we’re only half-way through the decade!
The second half of this decade for us has been mostly about hitting our stride as a family – in school, work, and activities. Hockey made an unexpected entrance in our lives, and now takes up a good chunk of it. Jessica has been working at El Gaucho for 7 years as of this month, and as of next school year all 3 of our children will be full-time students. Certainly there have been challenges along the way, but overall Jessica and I feel so lucky to have the family and lives we have. I don’t see how things could have turned out any better.
We’ve got a lot to look forward to, but for now we’re focusing on the near-term, meaning our 10 year anniversary in April. If you’re reading this, chances are you already know how we’re going to be celebrating, but if not, out of respect to the kids I’m not going to say specifically what we’re doing because it’s still a surprise to them. All I’m going to say for now is we have something big planned, and that we wanted to go all out for such a major event in our lives. Much more to come on that in the coming months.
So where does that leave us right now? Well, obviously we just celebrated Christmas a few days ago, and it was our first one at home in several years. We had an excellent family dinner at El Gaucho on Christmas Eve, which included King Crab legs, filet mignon, baked potato, scallops, wicked shrimp, roasted beet salad with burrata, and more. We probably overdid it on the dessert course by ordering sorbet, banana bread pudding, and key lime pie, but that’s okay. It was a special night that we won’t soon forget.
After returning home from dinner that night we put on our pajamas, opened a couple presents, and proceeded to not leave the house or change our clothes for two whole days. The biggest Christmas present this year was a Nintendo Switch, and we literally spent all day on Christmas, as well as the day after, playing Mario Kart and Super Mario Odyssey. It was exactly the type of experience we were hoping for, and everyone loved it. We made plenty of phone calls to family members, ate some nice meals at home, watched every episode of The Mandalorian on Disney+ (thank you Nana), and just enjoyed spending time at home.
Finally on Friday, which was two days after Christmas, we got back into a normal routine and started taking down all of our Christmas decorations, but those two days were pretty epic. That night we had a great time at Kristy and Beto’s house doing a family Christmas with them, Madi, Uncle Jim, and Aunt Brenda. I made a big pasta dish for all to share while Kristy took care of the salad and told us all about their honeymoon in Italy and France. They have a brand new German Shepherd puppy named Maximus who was about to turn 7 weeks old the following day, so everyone enjoyed holding and playing with him. It was a great night with family and reminded me of Christmas as a kid.
Yesterday our good friends the Jodi, Leon, and Miles came over to spend the afternoon with us. The kids played upstairs while the adults hung out downstairs talking, eating, and watching the College Football playoffs. Leon and I have been good friends for nearly 20 years, but our relationship has evolved since both of us had children. Now it goes so much beyond just the two of us, as our families have become the best of friends. Five hours of hanging out with them goes by in no time, and it’s so fun (as well as reassuring) to compare stories about life, and the various difficulties brought on by parenting. We snacked for a while, then for dinner I made filet mignon, roasted garlic risotto, and green beans. They brought pie and cake for dessert, but the biggest hit for the kids was the cotton candy machine.
Overall spending Christmas at our house this year has been really nice and relaxing. We’re making memories at home and avoiding all the holiday travel hustle and bustle. Although we haven’t yet formalized plans for next year, I think we may be in for more of the same, but we’ll see.
Since my last post was for Ava’s birthday, which was right before Thanksgiving, I should probably touch on that holiday as well. We were visited by Grandma and Grandpa Rudd from Iowa, and had a really nice week with them. The kids went swimming at their hotel a couple times, we all went out for lunch and shopping more than once, we made cookies, and Rick helped us decorate our Christmas tree. Thanksgiving day itself was spent at home with Grandma and Grandpa, as well as Uncle Butch and Aunt Carol. Rick took care of the turkey this year and I did all the sides. Overall it was a great meal, and a very relaxing day at home.
The week after Thanksgiving Enzo started his Learn to Play Hockey class, which was something he had been asking for. One of the families we’re friends with at Ava’s hockey has a little boy named Gray, who Enzo has become friends with, and when Enzo found out Gray was going to be in this class, he really wanted to do it with him. It’s through the Seattle Juniors Hockey Association, and their class meets every Saturday morning at 8:00. We found out that older kids are welcome to attend and help out on the ice, so I’ve been bringing Ava along for every class, and both of us are out there assisting. The first two classes went okay, although Enzo was having a hard time with all the gear, getting sweaty, falling down, etc. He would break down in tears and need a breather, which was totally fine, but always wanted to get back out there. He turned a corner on week 3, meaning there were no tears, no issues with being sweaty, and really had a great time. Then yesterday we were there for week 4 and he did great again. By the end of class he was saying “Daddy, I love hockey so much!”
Not only is it great to see him out there having fun, but it gives Jessica and I so much joy to watch Ava helping other little kids on the ice. She gets down on their level and encourages them, showing them the proper way to do something. Although she may not yet realize it, she’s getting so much from teaching them; after all, to teach is to learn. After class last week, a man came up to her and thanked her for helping his daughter so much on the ice. Obviously we were quite proud of her.
Miss Elise has been doing great and is getting more and more into baking these days. Winning that cupcake competition really got things going for her, so she’s super into it now. We’ve started watching the TV show ‘Chopped Junior’ and I can see she’s getting inspired by all these young chefs. She and Mom made cookies decorated as ugly Christmas sweaters for the neighborhood holiday party, and we’ve got plenty of other baked goods on the agenda. As with all the kids, I’m just happy to see them trying different things and finding ways to invest themselves. She, along with Ava and Enzo, are committed to trying out Brazilian Jiu Jitsu next month, and there are actually 3 different schools within about 10 minutes of us, so we’re hoping to do a class at each one and see what they prefer. I really hope it sticks because martial arts would be good for each of them in their own way, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in particular is such an effective and non-violent form of self defense.
December has been a very busy month for Jessica, as it’s their busiest season at El Gaucho, so she has been working a lot of extra shifts. It’s been the exact opposite for me. As we entered December, I checked my vacation balance at work and saw I had 206 hours of unused vacation, plus another 8 unused sick days. You can only carry over 120 vacation hours into the new year, and you lose all your sick days, so I decided to take the final two weeks of the year off. I didn’t mind forfeiting the sick time, but it seemed silly to do that with the vacation time, and my manager was super supportive of me getting this break. All together it adds up to 20 calendar days off, which is the most time off I’ve had since we first moved to San Diego 10 years ago.
I’ve been really enjoying all the time with the kids, and doing my best to accomplish something almost every day. One day it might be Christmas shopping, while another day it was getting their passports, or going grocery shopping. As long as I felt like I accomplished something I had no problem going home and relaxing with my guitar or video games for the rest of the day. It quickly became clear to me that a day at home goes by a lot faster than a day at work, but that’s okay, as I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
One of my goals during the break was to record a new instrumental song featuring the 7-string guitar I bought in Japan, and I’ve done that. I decided to call it ‘B Sting’ because the 7th string on a 7-string guitar is an open B note (assuming it’s in standard tuning), and the opening riff I wrote for the song reminded me of a swarm of bees, so it’s a play on words. I spent more time than ever on this song (at least 20 hours) and am really happy with how it turned out. Recording my own music this year has become my primary musical outlet, and I’m definitely seeing progress with each song. The one I finished before this, which is called ‘Riverslide’, was recently used as the intro music for the Cascadia Hockey Podcast.
Once January comes around things are going to slow down for Jessica and she won’t be working nearly as much, however she is staying very busy at home becoming a reading tutor for Ava and Elise. As we learned a few months ago via extensive testing, Ava is dyslexic, meaning she doesn’t learn to read in conventional ways. It’s much more common than I ever realized (1 in 5 kids is dyslexic), yet the public school system where we live doesn’t have a curriculum meant specifically for dyslexic children. After a lot of research, we purchased a home tutoring system that teaches dyslexic children how to read, and Jessica started working with Ava on it during the holiday break. It’s been almost two weeks now, and we’re already starting to see improvement, which is really encouraging. Although we haven’t had Elise tested for dyslexia, we think she would benefit from the tutoring as well, so she will begin soon. This is not meant to replace their education at elementary school, but simply to add onto it, however it looks like Ava will be going to school a half hour late most mornings to allow time for her tutoring sessions at home with Mom. We’ve already met with the school about this and they are completely on board.
As we have learned, dyslexic minds are fascinating, and there are some very well known people like Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Tom Cruise, and Jim Carrey, who are/were all dyslexic. This is something we’re embracing, and we’re excited to see what comes out of this more specialized form of education. I have to give so much respect and thanks to Jessica for all her hard work and dedication in this area. She dove into this head first and is doing such an amazing job! I hope when the kids get older they realize how hard it is for a parent to take on something like this, and recognize what an amazing mother they have.
I think that’s about all for now. The kids have one more week of break before going back to school, while I go back to work on Thursday. Jessica will have a busy night on New Year’s Eve, but things should settle down for her after that. Obviously the clock never stops ticking for anyone, and the decade we leave behind will never be matched in terms of major life moments, but we’re ready and excited for all the good stuff yet to come. I can’t imagine what we’ll be talking about when the 2020’s come to a close, but I can promise one thing – I’ll still be writing.
