A Look Back - March 2026
March was a very busy month that had lots of travel, family visits, and big decisions. It started with a trip down to Menifee on the first day of the month. My Grandma was visiting from Tucson, and the entire family, including all of Elle’s cousins, drove to my parents ho’ house to visit. It was great to see my Grandma, who seems to be doing well in her mid-80s, and to have all the kids come together for the visit. It will be fun to see how they all grow up together and the memories they make.
The next day, Jenn took the train to San Diego for a week-long conference downtown, while I stayed home (versus flying to San Jose) with Elle. It was a fun week, and I even took an afternoon off and played 9 holes with Jake at the Newport Beach Par-3 golf course. Elle and I had fun and drove down to meet Jenn in San Diego on Friday, the 6th of March. We stayed with her at the Marriott Marquis, the same place we used to stay with her parents when we were in High School. We arrived in the late afternoon, right as Jenn wrapped up her meetings, and took Elle for a walk along the boardwalk. We eventually made our way to Spaghetti Factory for dinner. I’ve seen Elle eat a lot before, but probably never as much as she did that night. She loves her pasta and soup!
Saturday morning, we went back to an old favorite in downtown San Diego, Richard Walker's Pancake House. We used to go there all the time when we stayed at my Grandma’s condo around the corner, and it’s still just as good and just as popular. We checked out of the Marriott and drove to the San Diego Zoo. We had gone in the fall, and it was amazing to see how much Elle had grown and changed in the six months. Then she was just starting to walk and say a few words, now she was “running” around, and yelling out animal names as we moved throughout the massive park. It was a beautiful day to be there and wasn’t very crowded until we left around lunchtime.
I was back in San Jose the following week, and the lead us to one of our favorite days of the year, Oscar night. I know it has become less and less popular over the years, but we still enjoy filling out our ballots and watching the broadcast. I watched a little over half of the Best Picture nominees and can’t wait to get to the rest. We admittedly had to watch in bits and pieces, while making sure that Elle was taken care of and her routine wasn’t off. I barely squeaked out the win on the ballot this year, Jenn putting together one of her best performances ever.
One of the benefits of being back in California is that we have options for childcare beyond the nanny we hired. Jenn’s Dad and Joan watched Elle on the 21st, so Jenn, Jake, and I could go see Project Hail Mary at The Lot and go to dinner at Darkroom. It was a great day, with a fantastic movie and a great dinner. It was nice to get out, and even better for Elle to have time with her grandpa and Joan.
And that took us to the end of March, where we not only decided on a new house to live in Irvine (more on that in April), but we also went on our first trip of the year to Cancun. You may be asking why we chose Cancun, and that was to finish Jenn’s bucket list goal of seeing all the wonders of the world. It was a great trip that I fully recapped and reignited the fuel to travel again in 2026.
TV WE WATCHED
It was a great month of television for us. There is still The Pitt and every other show. We haven’t had this much excitement and intrigue for a new episode of a show since the peak of Game of Thrones. We went through the middle episodes of Season 2 of The Pitt, and it continues to be excellent, making it hard to knock off the top slot this year.
There were a few shows I watched on my own in San Jose during March. Those included the downright bad Wonder Man, a few episodes of Last Week Tonight, the start of the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, and my personal guilty pleasure, season four of The Lincoln Lawyer.
We are still working our way through the latest season of Abbott Elementary, the second season of Paradise, and the third season of Shrinking. A new show that I’m really enjoying (and Jenn is to a lesser degree) is Rooster on HBO, a few 30-minute comedy with an excellent cast.
BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)
It was a solid-to-great month of reading. If the rest of 2026 holds up like February, I’m in for some truly memorable reads. I started the month out reading a stunning string of essays called These Precious Days by Ann Patchett. This is the third book I’ve read by her (previously read Tom Lake and The Dutch House), and I can officially confirm I’m a fan. I’d bet a lot of money this isn’t the last book of hers I read this year.
The River is Waiting may not have been my favorite book per se, but it was an exquisite audiobook experience. The narrator, Jeremy Sisto, embodied the main character to a degree that was almost haunting. A great book of drama that I’ve already recommended to a few people. The only disappointing book of the month was The Book of Charlie, about a 109-year-old man, and it just felt a bit pedantic, and there weren’t as many life lessons or great stories as I was hoping.
And finally, I finished the month with The Elements by John Boyne. He’s likely in my top 5 writers of all time. He knows how to write about truly devestating topics and breath humanity and life into them. This might have been too far, even for me. Originally released as 4 novellas, this string of books, each correlating to one of the elements, left me emotionally raw. It was a brilliantly written book, and the first story of the 4 interconnected stories was by far my favorite.
MOVIES WE WATCHED
It was a very light movie month for both of us. We started the month strong with our one and only movie night, where I picked Rental Family. Jenn actually liked the movie more than I did, but we both thought it was beautiful, about loneliness and the need for people in your life. A bit heavy-handed, but still a great movie. On one of my trips up to San Jose, I watched Louis Theroux’s documentary Inside the Manosphere and thought it was really well done and sad. There’s no doubt that something is happening with men right now, and this culture of toxic masculinity is quite disturbing. But everyone he interviewed, rather than being super macho, just seemed sad and lost.
To round out the month, Jenn and I went with Jake to The Lot to see Project Hail Mary. I loved the book when I read it in 2021, and thought it was a great movie. I have some minor quibbles here and there, but as a book adaptation, I thought it was great, and Ryan Gosling sold it. I could see myself, like in Interstellar, coming back to this movie again and again.
GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING
I have an itch to get back into a meaty game and go through it again. I played a little of Ghost of Yotei, and ended up uninstalling Madden this month. Most of my time playing games this month came at the end, with MLB The Show 26. If I were still reviewing games, I’d say this was a pretty bad update, but for my current time to play games, this felt like a great escape.
2026 GOAL TRACKING
Goal #1: Read 50 Books: I’ve read 12 books and am on track to hit my goal of 50 books this year!!!
Goal #2: 12 Monthly Recaps: 3 for 12!
