2025 Wrapped: Getting engaged, buying a home, work assignments and deleting my social media

Well, 2025 was a mostly slow year with just a few really, really big life events.

I didn’t do as much travel as I normally do during 2025, because Ryan and I were (spoiler alert) so busy with wedding planning and home renovations.

Regardless, it was a pretty decent year with a few notable highlights.

・・・

GETTING ENGAGED

Well, the biggest event of the year. After a little more than four years of dating, Ryan and I got engaged on a camping trip in April of last year! We’re in the middle of wedding planning, and I’m really excited that I’ll get to call this incredible man my husband at the end of this year.

BUYING A HOUSE

Yes, you’ve heard all about it. Because planning a wedding wasn’t enough, Ryan and I bought our first home together. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper and we’re in the middle of renovating it. I’m really excited to finally be done with landlords, leasing offices and property management groups and able to pick out my own paint colors and knock down whatever walls I want to.

And maybe to adopt another dog.

Which, speaking of dogs…

CELEBRATING ONE YEAR WITH OCHI

We celebrated a year with our goofy, stubborn floof last year. This pup is such a handful, but he makes our lives better and we are always so grateful we get to call him ours.

VISITING ITALY WITH MY SISTER

This trip already seems like it was so long ago it’s hard to believe that it was actually this year. Kelly and I hit up Venice, Rome (and the Vatican), Florence, Pisa and Venice again. We ate tons of pasta, took a glass modeling workshop, toured the Colosseum, saw a slew of Renaissance art and celebrated Carnevale.

ATTENDING WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

It was my second time attending the When We Were Young music festival and it was just as awesome of an experience as it was the first time around, even if my knees did hurt a little more at the end of the day than they did the last time Ryan and I attended the festival.

BACKPACKING THE SUPERSTITIONS

Ryan and I make it a point to head downstate and backpack every winter, and it remains one of my favorite off-season memories.

TEACHING S-203

If you’ve been here for a bit, you know how passionate I am about my job. It was such an incredible experience to teach S-203 (the Introduction to Incident Information class) at the annual Arizona Wildfire Academy, and I’m really fortunate that I didn’t fuck it up enough to the point that I was invited back to teach it again this year.

WORKING ON THE DRAGON BRAVO FIRE

This was a tough fire assignment for many, many reasons. However, I learned a lot. I was able to help out in a terrible situation where my skillset was needed, and I met a lot of really awesome people I’m looking forward to working with again in the future.

STAYING AT MONUMENT VALLEY

This was a quick weekend trip, but it was a blast. The girls I went with were really intentional about making a full weekend trip out of our visit, and we had a chance to watch two sunrises in the park’s cabins, and to take a guided tour through the rock formations. It was a quick trip, but definitely a memorable one!

GOING BACK TO MICHIGAN

My visits to Michigan are few and far between these days, but the times I do get to go home and see friends and family are well worth the wait. I got to celebrate my cousin Lexy’s baby shower last summer and catch up with a few folks I can’t ever get enough of.

DELETING MY SOCIAL MEDIA

This is a big one that I never, ever, ever thought would happen. Seriously, if you knew me in 2015, you’d wager like, all the Bitcoin against me. But I deleted my Facebook, Instagram and Threads accounts last summer. I thought it would be a temporary break during a very busy fire assignment (see above) but I ended up really loving the disconnect. I loved it so much, in fact, that my temporary respite from social media is still going, six months later.

I might get back on social media in the future — and in fact, I do need to reactivate my Facebook long enough to download all the photos I have posted there — but for now, my hiatus still feels like the right thing to do.

・・・

Just a few highlights! There were a ton of other incredible moments — hiking and camping trips with friends, little moments of joy at the yoga studio, milestones in wedding planning and home purchasing — but I think these were the highlights of my 2025.

I’m mostly looking forward to 2026. Ryan and I will hopefully wrap up the big home renovation projects (like, completely rebuilding our kitchen and replacing a rotting wall) and I’m really looking forward to seeing all my friends and family here in Flagstaff for our wedding!

But I’m definitely a bit nervous about, yunno… *gestures wildly.* The government shutdown was hard on us (financially, mentally, physically) and I know that the instability and uncertainty I faced at my job is only going to get worse as we move into 2026.

But I’m trying to focus on the things I can control and let go of what I can’t, and hope that everything ends up OK regardless.