A Look Back - May 2017
Last month I decided to start making "monthly updates". Instead of trying to post a couple of posts a week, I would combine a lot of it into one monthly recap. I enjoyed writing about April so much that I've been staring at the calendar actually looking forward to the end of May just so I could write about it. So with no more preamble let's look back on our amazing month.
RECAP OF THE MONTH
May has been an insanely busy month, no doubt about it. It started off with me dragging Jenn to go see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at the Big Newport Cinema. Although if you asked Jenn today she would say it was a great nap, she actually really enjoyed the movie. The next night we hit our second to last Broadway of the season, An American in Paris. It was incredible and easily one of my favorites of the season. That same day we also went to the travel clinic in Newport Beach to get our slew of shots/medications for our big trip in November.
It was only a week later that Jenn and I got up at an ungodly hour and went to John Wayne Airport to take a direct flight to Chicago. It was our first time in the city and although I do not want to re-write my recap of our time in the windy city, I will just say that we had a blast. We had some incredible meals (including deep dish pizza), went to a Jazz Club, and even saw a Cubs game at Wrigley field. I couldn't have even imagined a better week in Chicago.
Although I came home a couple of days earlier then Jenn, by the end of the following week both Jenn and I were exhausted. We had a really nice recovery weekend. Jake came down and we had another glorious meal at North Italia, one of our favorite new restaurants in Orange County. Pretty much anytime Jake comes down at this point we go to North Italia. Feeling the Italian vibes, I even cooked a new recipe this month, a Creamy Tuscan Garlic Chicken, literally one of the best new recipes I've cooked.
If Chicago wasn't enough, the next weekend happened to be Memorial Day weekend. We joined Jake, Amy, Ryan and Ally for a road trip. We left first thing on Friday morning (I mean first thing) from Riverside in a black Town & Country van that Jake rented and headed off to Flagstaff AZ. We stayed one night in Flagstaff before leaving again bright and early for a half day at the Grand Canyon before driving to Scottsdale for two nights. To once again not take the place of the full recap I will say that we had an incredible time. It was great to spend so much time with the family enjoying one of the natural wonders of the world and some pool-time.
The month ended with us back at work and looking forward to a great summer. We have some fun stuff planned for June, but it will be incredibly hard to compete with May.
TV WE WATCHED
Two of our favorite shows in recent memory came back with new seasons in May. Those shows are Amazon's Catastrophe and Netflix's Master of None. Both of which we completely devoured as quickly as possible. I finished the first season of Luke Cage, and we also finished off the first season of Narcos. Although we were pretty busy this month, it turned out to be an incredible month of TV.
BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)
I'd say on average I read 2-3 books a month. With the great weather, long runs and drives, and some great books I plowed through 5 books in May. That included the first ever graphic novel, Dark Night: A True Batman Story. By far the standout was The Handmaid's Tale by Margarett Atwood. That's a book I will be thinking about for years to come.
MOVIES WE'VE SEEN
Although we don't watch as many movies as we used to, we do our best. In May we only saw one movie together (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), but I managed to get two others under my belt. Two of the three were great (Guardians and Get Out) while one of them was terrible (Keeping Up With the Jonses).
GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING
Because of all the traveling, my list is going to look incredibly similar to last month. The three games I've put the most time into over the last month is Horizon: Zero Dawn, NBA 2K17 (almost done with my second season), and Mario Kart 8: Deluxe Edition for the Nintendo Switch. I hope by the end of June with the momentum of E3 that I jump into some more games and expand this list quite a bit.
