This is the month that Elle officially started walking!

I’m not going to bury the lead. September was all about Elle walking! Although she took her first independent steps on August 28th, it was a few weeks later that she started to officially walk on her own. On September 16th, after weeks of easily walking, holding nothing but one of our fingers, Elle decided she was ready to walk. She took her first independent steps on August 28th, but for the next two weeks refused to walk without having some connection to either Jenn or me. But on the 16th, still in her pajamas, she took a few more steps and was off to the races. By the time Jenn got home from work, she had built even more confidence and, over the next few days, was increasingly walking. It’s one of the last few big milestones of her baby/toddler age, and Jenn and I relished every second of it. Elle loves to walk and becomes more and more determined to walk longer and faster with each day. But seeing her independence grow has been by far the best part of September.

Elle first days of walking

Before Elle started walking on her own, the month started with us watching a lot of the US Open and enjoying the slow shift from summer to fall. Every night we’d walk as a family and give Elle a chance to try to walk a bit. Most of the time, she’d just hold onto one of our hands, but a few times she took a few steps on her own. Otherwise, the month was really about us getting into more of a routine as a family. Jenn had a crazy busy start to the work month, while I’ve started to think more aggressively about what’s next for my career. I’ll never forget taking both Elle and Frasier to Fashion Island and seeing Elle walk with Jenn while Frasier and I looked on.

Amy came down with Gracie and Cam on the 14th, a few days before Elle started walking. We made hot dogs on the BBQ and all went to the park afterward. That evening was our first Emmys party in years. We used to do them religiously before we moved to NY, but with them starting at 8 PM eastern, we rarely stayed up to watch past the opening monologue. We filled out our ballots, and like the good old days, I won!

It is hard to imagine, but Jenn and I celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary this month. We celebrated the next day when we went to see Million Dollar Quartet at South Coast Repertory. It wasn’t our top choice to go see, but we wanted to go out for our anniversary, and it ended up being one of the more enjoyable live performances of the year. After the show, we had dinner at Oceans 48 in Fashion Island. It wasn’t as good as we remembered it from Mother’s Day, but it was nice to have an adults-only meal for once and to celebrate easily the best decision I’ve made in my entire life. It’s hard to imagine how far our relationship has come since 2009, but even more exciting to think about where it could go.

A few days later, Jenn flew up to San Francisco for a week of meetings. Originally, Elle and I were going to drive up with her on the 21st, but with some schedule changes on Jenn’s end, we drove up on the 23rd. We know our opportunities to join Jenn on her work trips are coming to an end, and so we wanted to make sure we were able to spend the time with her. After having lunch at Islands Restaurant, we dropped Jenn off on Sunday evening at John Wayne Airport, and I had a few days with just Elle and Frasier. On September 23rd, I packed up the Volvo with Frasier and Elle and dropped Frasier off at Wags and Wiggles before driving us up to San Francisco. The drive up wasn’t bad. Elle got bored a few times, but I brought a ton of books for her to peruse while we made the drive up. We stopped at McDonald’s, where she got a Happy Meal and a toy that she loved. Ironically, she didn’t like listening to my audiobook (like her mother), so I had one headphone in for most of the drive. We arrived at the 1 Hotel in San Francisco at 2:30 PM, got our room key, let Elle stretch her legs, and went out to the nearby park that she loved a month ago.

It was a beautiful week to be in San Francisco. It was a perfect 70 degrees almost every day, and Elle and I enjoyed the city. We started every morning getting a bowl of eggs for Elle at Devil’s Teeth Bakery, and most days, we just walked around the city, going to different parks and letting her walk around and stretch her legs. I didn’t try to cram as much in on this trip, given we were just here less than a month ago and got to see so much. We were lucky that several evenings during the week Jenn was free for dinner, so we could have dinner as a family. On our last night, we all went to Waterbar, the same place we went on our last trip out. It was a beautiful way to close out our time up there. We drove back home first thing Saturday morning and picked up Frasier around 2 PM.

And that closed out September. Elle is now officially walking, and Jenn and I have become professional chasers. She loves to explore, and with each passing day, she becomes increasingly confident. It’s also been fun to see her and Frasier start to interact more with her new mobility. I bet a year from now, they will be inseparable. One of my favorite pictures of the month was on the 29th when Elle wanted to dress Frasier up, and he seemed to love it.

TV WE WATCHED

This might be a first monthly update where every show we watched in the month is roughly a 30-minute episode. That shows how tired we’ve been every night. We should start with the final season of Acapulco. I loved the first few seasons of the show, and even though the final season was rough, the heart and soul were still there; I will miss the beautiful cast of characters.

The surprise of the month was the fourth season of The Bear, which I think was my favorite of the series. I still think the show is over dramatic, but I love food, and this season had depth that was lacking in Season 2 and 3. I finished the first season of Stick. I’m not sure why I kept watching; it’s really bad, likely the worst show I’ve watched all year. Outside of that we are still working our way through Platonic, and just started the new seasons of Only Murders in the Building and English Teacher. We did start the new series The Paper, which I’ve really liked so far but Jenn is far less of a fan.

BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)

I’m going to skip to the good part and say that My Friends by Fredrik Backman might be my favorite book of 2025. It was so good that both Jake and Ally have now read it and loved it. It’s a story about love, friendship, loss, art, creativity, and how those shape your life. It was such a beautiful novel. I cried, I laughed, I would take longer walks or stay in the car to get a few more chapters in. It's one of the few books this year stop thinking’t stop thinking about.

I started the month with Chilean Poet, which, as the title suggests, is about Chilean poets. What I loved about this book was how it weaved a few different characters’ love for poetry into a family drama that was quite compelling. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid continues her streak of writing incredibly captivating and fun novels. People We Meet on Vacation was the first physical book I read this year. It took me a while, but I finally finished it in September, and it was as good as a literal beach read could be.

The most disappointing book of the month was The Long Walk by Stephen King. I’m still excited for the movie that just came out, but the book felt rushed, underdeveloped, and lacked strong characters. It’s a haunting book made less so because you don’t build any interest in 99% of the characters. And finally, The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn was a very good WWII novel that centers around three siblings, their theater they made out of washed-up whale, and their connection to the productions they put on before the war breaks out.

MOVIES WE WATCHED

What a month of movies. Sadly, outside of the first two movies of the month, Thunderbolts (my pick) and Glass Onion (Jenn’s Pick), we didn’t keep our Friday night movie streak going. I have been getting more into movies, though, and have been trying to keep up with more of the new releases.

The first attempt at that was Warfare, an intense look at what starts as a rather mundane day for US soldiers in Iraq that escalates quickly and shows the boredom of terror that comes with war. Not a perfect movie, but incredibly intense. I also watched Friendship, which I didn’t care for at all. I get the Tim Robinson sense of humor, but for 90+ minutes, it became grading. Sacramento was more my cup of tea. A simple movie about two guy friends reconnecting and helping each other deal with things happening in their lives. I re-watched Superman with Jake, which was just as good the second time, and watched the new Spike Lee movie Highest 2 Lowest. I will just chalk that movie up to one I didn’t get. The style of the movie and the way it’s paced was incredibly off-putting to me. It felt like a soap opera in the worst ways.

And finally, it’s been on my “to-watch” list for a while, but I watched the Julie Delpy-directed movie from about ten years ago, 2 Days in New York. I love her in what is arguably one of my favorite movies/series of all time, Before Sunset, and this movie has some of that charm, but it’s a bit of a mess. There were some laughs, and the broad brush strokes of the movie work, but it felt underdeveloped.

GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING

It was a very light gaming month. I played a little of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, but for the most part, my focus was Madden NFL 26. I’ve been playing through the franchise mode and am on the second season. It’s the perfect 20-minute break before I go back to my day.