Another year has come and gone. There are a lot of good memories shared below, but on a more global scale, I think when I look back at 2025 it will be the year of AI. Sure ChatGPT has been around for three years now, but this year AI was a force multiplier in pretty much every aspect of my life. Every few months feels like another level up and every step we take forward is bigger and bigger. While there are certainly challenges and concerns with using it, it’s impossible to ignore the positive impact it has had not just at work, but at home and at church too.
Zooming in from that global view, we had a lot of trips around the country. There was our annual trip to Leavenworth with Tyla’s family in January, visiting MLC with Elijah, a trip to eastern WA as we crossed off more counties, camping with Tyla’s family at Ike Kinswa State Park, my solo trip to the synod convention in New Ulm, a summer week in Indiana, our family road trip to Yellowstone, another trip to MLC, and a few days in Mazama with my parents. Looking back at that list, maybe this is actually the year of New Ulm, MN! I was there three times this year. It’s a lot of travel to that specific small town, but Tyla and I are both really thankful to be part of those meetings at Martin Luther College.
Church continues to occupy a lot of time on my calendar and space in my head. We spun up a new leadership structure last year that creates teams to handle a lot of the work that we used to handle on council. That has certainly helped and is going well, but somehow it seems like the work for council is still a very long list. Thankfully we are seeing a lot of growth and energy while record numbers of visitors are walking through the doors.
I’m thankful to have spent another year working from home. That will be changing next year when they bring us back to the office in February, but for now it’s nice to have lunch with Tyla while also not spending 1.5 hours in traffic every day. The return-to-work next year will be a big change for all of us, but I’m still thankful to have this job so I’m willing to make that commute even if I don’t know where that time will come from. It’s wonderful to have a supportive family that is willing to roll with the changes.
Woodworking remained near the top of my favorite hobbies even though the list of completed wood working projects feels very short this year. I spent a huge portion of the year playing with different ways to make coasters. I finally landed on a fairly repeatable process and I made a bunch of MLC coasters. I enjoyed being able to refine my approach and get better each time, but eventually I had to stop because it felt like I was just troubleshooting little issues and it wasn’t fun anymore. I also built a new desk top for my standing desk, finished a nightstand for Tyla, and built us our own nativity set. More recently I have been experimenting with machine a plastic called HDPE. It’s like milk jug plastic, but it has white material sandwiched between two layers of color so depending on how far down you cut, you reveal different colors. I started with an American flag in the shape of the United States and then also made an MLC logo and an eagle sign.
If I look at how much time I spend doing various hobbies, piano would probably be at the top by quite a big stretch. I don’t think of it as a hobby because I’m usually practicing for an upcoming church service, but even when I have a break in the church piano schedule, I still like to play every day. I like to record every song that I learn in MIDI and then render out a nice audio version. Sometimes I do video too and, in those cases, I throw them up on YouTube.
2025 was “just another year” without any grand events, but that’s something to be thankful for too.
2025 Year In Review
Another year has come and gone. There are a lot of good memories shared below, but on a more global scale, I think when I look back at 2025 it will be the year of AI. Sure ChatGPT has been around for three years now, but this year AI was a force multiplier in pretty much every aspect of my life. Every few months feels like another level up and every step we take forward is bigger and bigger. While there are certainly challenges and concerns with using it, it’s impossible to ignore the positive impact it has had not just at work, but at home and at church too.
Zooming in from that global view, we had a lot of trips around the country. There was our annual trip to Leavenworth with Tyla’s family in January, visiting MLC with Elijah, a trip to eastern WA as we crossed off more counties, camping with Tyla’s family at Ike Kinswa State Park, my solo trip to the synod convention in New Ulm, a summer week in Indiana, our family road trip to Yellowstone, another trip to MLC, and a few days in Mazama with my parents. Looking back at that list, maybe this is actually the year of New Ulm, MN! I was there three times this year. It’s a lot of travel to that specific small town, but Tyla and I are both really thankful to be part of those meetings at Martin Luther College.
We had quite a few fun day trips too. There was a Boeing Factory tour, seeing the Piano Guys in concert, riding bike/train things, our Leavenworth chocolate tour, and seeing another professional disc golf tournament.
Church continues to occupy a lot of time on my calendar and space in my head. We spun up a new leadership structure last year that creates teams to handle a lot of the work that we used to handle on council. That has certainly helped and is going well, but somehow it seems like the work for council is still a very long list. Thankfully we are seeing a lot of growth and energy while record numbers of visitors are walking through the doors.
I’m thankful to have spent another year working from home. That will be changing next year when they bring us back to the office in February, but for now it’s nice to have lunch with Tyla while also not spending 1.5 hours in traffic every day. The return-to-work next year will be a big change for all of us, but I’m still thankful to have this job so I’m willing to make that commute even if I don’t know where that time will come from. It’s wonderful to have a supportive family that is willing to roll with the changes.
Woodworking remained near the top of my favorite hobbies even though the list of completed wood working projects feels very short this year. I spent a huge portion of the year playing with different ways to make coasters. I finally landed on a fairly repeatable process and I made a bunch of MLC coasters. I enjoyed being able to refine my approach and get better each time, but eventually I had to stop because it felt like I was just troubleshooting little issues and it wasn’t fun anymore. I also built a new desk top for my standing desk, finished a nightstand for Tyla, and built us our own nativity set. More recently I have been experimenting with machine a plastic called HDPE. It’s like milk jug plastic, but it has white material sandwiched between two layers of color so depending on how far down you cut, you reveal different colors. I started with an American flag in the shape of the United States and then also made an MLC logo and an eagle sign.
If I look at how much time I spend doing various hobbies, piano would probably be at the top by quite a big stretch. I don’t think of it as a hobby because I’m usually practicing for an upcoming church service, but even when I have a break in the church piano schedule, I still like to play every day. I like to record every song that I learn in MIDI and then render out a nice audio version. Sometimes I do video too and, in those cases, I throw them up on YouTube.
2025 was “just another year” without any grand events, but that’s something to be thankful for too.
Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024