vegan – Pellegrini Page

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.

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.