May 2026 - Elle Turns Two
Monthly Recap
After a little over a year in Newport Coast, we moved out of our three-bedroom townhouse to a brand new house in Irvine. We weren’t planning to move, but the owners got divorced, and the husband and his girlfriend were moving back in. After a lot of searching, we eventually found a beautiful 4-bedroom with space for an office, playroom, and a nice backyard. We had some carryover between taking the keys and moving in, so we slowly started bringing stuff over. We had the rest of our items moved into the house on the morning of May 2, while Elle spent the day and night with her Grandpa and Joan, Jenn took deliveries of a few new pieces of furniture, and I handled wrapping up our move. We had done such a good job of prepping it that we were done at close to noon and spent the rest of the day unpacking and focusing on getting Elle’s rooms ready.
We spent the whole weekend unpacking and were done with the boxes by the time I flew up to San Jose on Monday for work. By the time I got back on Wednesday, we were mostly moved in, and it felt like we had already lived there for a while. I’ll never forget that Friday, going out to eat at Cha Cha’s Latin Kitchen and feeling a wave of relief that we'd found a place and that the hard part was behind us. The next morning, we drove to Vista to celebrate Teddy’s second birthday at Ally & Tim's house. Elle seemed to love the splash pad but was less excited about everyone else there, mostly keeping to herself.
The next day was Mother’s Day. I’d love to say that we had an elaborate day planned and that Jenn was fully pampered. Elle helped me make a Mother's Day brunch with eggs, waffles, bacon, and ramen for dinner. But more than anything, it was a quiet family day where I did my best to take care of Elle, even though what she wants more than anything in the world is to spend every waking moment with Jenn. Jenn pretends sometimes that she feels the burden of this, but we all know deep down she loves and cherishes every second.
Jenn left for Seattle for work the next day, and I stayed behind to watch Elle and Frasier. This was Jenn’s 3rd trip in 4 weeks, but her last one for almost a month and a half. By the time she got back late Thursday night, it was clearly evident she was over the travel. We celebrated her return home and had a late Mother’s Day dinner at Baekjeong for Korean BBQ. On Saturday, the 16th, my parents and Jake came over for breakfast (bagels, eggs, bacon, and Champagne) and to spend time with Elle.
And that brought us to the end of May. We had a glorious long Memorial Day weekend. We intentionally kept it light, went for walks around the neighborhood, and finished up around the house. The following Thursday, after a tumultuous week at work for me, we left for a short trip to Indian Wells to celebrate Elle’s second birthday. We had originally planned to go to Scottsdale, but thought better of the long drive and shortened the trip. Without recapping it again (already did here), we had such a nice time. Elle loved the pools and lazy river, but more than anything, loved walking around the hotel and hitting the elevator buttons. We did choose to cut it a day short and came back on Elle’s birthday, where we went back to Baekjong and had a Nothing Bundt Cake for dessert.
TV We Watched
May was a month of wrapping up a few of the shows we’d slowly been making our way through. We finished the final season of Hacks, which was a bad final season except for the finale, which I enjoyed quite a bit. We also wrapped up the first season of Rooster and the second season of Paradise. I found Rooster to be a very enjoyable, easy-to-watch 30-minute comedy starring a bunch of people that I tend to like anyway. Jenn and I will agree to disagree, but I found the second season of Paradise to be pretty bad, aside from a few episodes.
Books I Read (Or Listened To)
I’ve had The Great Believers on my list of books to read for a number of years. It’s won tons of awards and has an average rating of 4.25 on Goodreads with 150K+ reviews. It's a book that spans two time periods, present-day Paris and 1980’s Chicago, and I was ultimately only interested in the latter, finding the present-day section quite monotonous. After hearing my sister Ally's praise for Dungeon Crawler Carl, I finally bit the bullet and jumped on the hype train and read the first in a multi-book series. Was it funny? Yes. Do I want to read the next one? Maybe. It was fun, it was dumb, and I doubt I’ll go back to it.
The best book of May was another book I’ve owned for a number of years, All In: An Autobiography by Billie Jean King. As a tennis fan, I know the Cliff Notes version of her career, but reading her autobiography gave me not only a great perspective on her and her impact in tennis but also on the world at large. A truly remarkable life, and the stories of her early days in professional tennis and the horrific conditions/expectations for women athletes were shocking. I finished the month with The Mad Wife, an interesting but flawed book about a 1950’s housewife. Not my cup of tea.
Movies We Watched
For two weekends in late May, I watched movies during Elle’s nap while Jenn either worked, shopped, or took her own nap. We have yet to restart our Friday/weekend movie nights, but I hope that changes in May. I started out with the very compelling Marty Supreme, a movie I thought didn’t deserve the Oscar buzz but was great nonetheless. I finally saw the Ron Howard movie, Eden, which was fine. I watched the second Richard Linklater movie from 2025, Nouvelle Vague, a movie I thought would be made for me but turned out to be just fine. The premise of the movie and the glimpse into the French New Wave of cinema were fun, but, similar to Blue Moon, I found it a bit tedious.
I ended May with two solid, enjoyable weekend afternoon watches. Relay was phenomenal until it went a bit off the rails at the end, although I didn’t hate the ending as much as most critics. Eternity, for its many flaws, is still a well-acted high-concept romantic movie that I found charming.
Games I’ve Been Playing
In a turn of events, I actually spent some time playing video games this month. The majority of it (+90%) was in MLB The Show 26, which I usually play for 15-20 minutes every evening before Jenn and I watch a show. I also did a few skirmishes in Age of Empires IV and dabbled in a few races in both Forza Horizon 6 and Mario Kart World for the Switch 2.
2026 Goal Tracking
Goal #1: Read 50 Books: I’ve read 21 books and am on track to hit my goal of 50 books this year!!!
Goal #2: 12 Monthly Recaps: 5 for 12!
