My 2025 in Review

Happy new year! It’s that time again. I last updated about this time last year, and then again mid-way through this year.

It was a good year. It was a challenging year. Lots of fun, connection, new experiences, trips, family, friends. Some loss and grieving.

We got through it.

Family Life

I think the theme of this year was riding the highs and lows of newborn life.

When you have a baby, you don’t have much sleep.

Let me rephrase that: you don’t have consistent sleep. And this has a big impact on:

• My sleep schedule (duh)

• My workout routine (I typically get up at 4:30am to work out, and mid-night wake ups thwart this)

• My sanity

Little Levi is one year old now, and I’m happy to report: sleep is almost back to normal! We’ll have the occasional wake up from one of our three kids (5, 3, 1) here and there, but it’s returning to pre-baby levels.

A constant during this time: remembering to give myself grace: This is a temporary window, Josh; you will fall back into better habits and routine before you know it.

Work life

Continued to ship things on the team I’d joined at the end of 2024. Learned a ton, mainly about the people and team aspects of the job I’d never considered before.

This was valuable and I definitely grew from it!

Fitness Life

Still going to CrossFit a few times a week. Still enjoying the community and accountability aspects of it.

I would like to try Brazilian jiu jitsu at some point. I wonder if there are Iowans who do this locally.

The year

OK, breaking things into seasons:

Spring

I went to React Miami!

It was a solo trip, and I booked it well before the baby was born. I met a lot of people in person who I’d only previously known on the internet, so that was really fun.

At the end of the school year, I organized a block party at the end of our street:

It was awesome, 10/10, highly recommend doing this in your neighborhood, too.

Finally, I went back to Toronto for the second Shopify company all-hands over Memorial day weekend:

Summer

Fourth of July was fun this year. We were actually around home instead of traveling on the actual 4th, so I started the morning doing a hero WOD at the gym. Then I ran a local 5k race:

We took the boys to a pancake breakfast and a parade right after that:

I felt like we’d crammed a week’s worth of celebrations in before noon. So fun, much country, very America and community. Next year is gonna be a banger.

Then, a couple days later, my younger sister Hannah got married over the fourth of July weekend in Dows, IA.

Me with my sisters.

It was so nice getting my family together, getting pictures, and celebrating. They did fireworks outside on Main Street at dusk, but of course my children were too tired, so we’d left by that point 😅

Bri and I went to Indianapolis to see an Indiana Fever game. We drove, which was a nice quiet break from children. We ate at some fun restaurants, too.

In late summer, we got together with some cousins at Lake Okoboji in Northern Iowa before heading over to Sioux City to visit family.

Fall

Barrett started Kindergarten this year! Our kids are growing up. It couldn’t have come at a better time. He is thriving there:

Bri and I took a trip to Chicago in October to see Ben Schwartz. We also ran into Bri’s cousin randomly on a walking ghost and gangsters tour!

I went back to Toronto in November for a team on-site.

Aside: You guys, I go to Toronto multiple times per year. I don’t have any emotional attachment to it, and I find that I struggle to get excited about it. I’ve only ever been there for work, walking the same three streets back and forth between the hotel and the office. I’m trying to get more excited about the city. I even asked ChatGPT for advice on how to reframe it into an exciting place to go. Here’s hoping it happens in 2026 😊

And at the end of November, some high school friends and I got together for a cabin retreat:

Great way to reconnect with old pals. Again, highly recommend.

Winter

Bri and I took a fun trip to NYC. We saw a few awesome shows:

• All Out: Featuring Eric Andre, Ike Barinholtz, Abbi Jacobson, Jon Stewart, music by Lawrence, and written by Simon Rich. We saw Simon Rich just hanging at the back of the theater before and after the show! Almost went and talked to him. I loved this show. It was a collection of humorous short stories read by these comedians. I would love to do something like this in my own community.

• Oh, Mary: Starring Jane Krakowski as Mary, written by Cole Escola. This was funny and great. I could see how the play was absolutely written by and for Cole originally.

• After dinner, we caught an impromptu improv show at UCB. It was Ceara Jane O’Sullivan’s show which features her writer and comedian friends from SNL. We got to see Chloe Troast, Ben Marshall and Mike Birbiglia perform with some other people. Really fun treat.

And of course, we got to see that Rockefeller Tree:

We went and saw all the cousins again in Iowa City for Christmas.

Loss

After I published my birthday post in July where I talked about how blessed I was that I have my family and that we’re healthy, people in my community started passing away from existing illnesses or getting new illnesses.

It was sort of a “when it rains, it pours” feeling. A couple friends lost their mothers to brain cancer. A neighbor was diagnosed with cancer. A gym friend lost his wife to a sudden, aggressive form of cancer. Another friend lost his long-time friend to cancer. A three-year-old daughter of friends from church was diagnosed with cancer. It was one bit of bad news after the other, all in the last half of the year.

I really hope this was a blip and that this isn’t the new norm as I get older. Let’s hope next year is a healthy one, not only for me but for the people I love.

Next year

I’m gonna do 100 push-ups a day. I want to get better at push-ups because I suck at them during workouts, especially during Murph on Memorial Day. So let’s see if 100 per day helps.

BOOM. That just about does it.

It’s been our first winter break home with a Kindergartner who has school off for two weeks. I don’t know how people do this!

See you next year!