Merry Christmas all! I hope everyone was able to enjoy a day or two off of work and spend time with loved ones. Our family Christmas isn’t until next weekend – so our Christmas was pretty low-key and relaxing. Dan and I spent the day with my parents, eating good food, napping, and watching the Vikings squeak out a win. It was a good day.
And with less than a week left of 2025, this blog post will be the last of the year. Which means it’s time for my annual post looking back at all the highlights this year brought.
January always feels like the longest month of the year. It’s cold, the holidays are over, and it just feels like it goes on forever. January in 2025 felt even longer because I tested positive for Covid for the first time ever and spent over a week recovering. I worked from home a few days and struggled trying to work out because my lungs couldn’t handle it. So, here’s to hoping 2026 starts a little smoother than 2025 did. And here’s another reminder to make sure you wash your hands and stay home if you’re sick! 🙂
February turned around and got busy quick! Our annual NATE UNITE show was in February and it was in Raleigh, North Carolina this year. A snowstorm blew through the week we were there, so our golf tournament got cancelled, but the rest of the show went well! And a personal highlight for me was winning overall female at the Women of NATE 5K again this year.
March was the best month of the whole year. Dan and I went on our honeymoon to Belize, and it was worth the wait! Neither of us had been before – this was the first time Dan had ever left the country – so we were a little nervous beforehand. We didn’t know what to expect and new things can sometimes be a little scary. But it was truly amazing experiencing a new country and we loved every minute of it. It was really nice to see Dan unwind and relax a little too. We hope we get the chance to go back some day!
April is usually a busy month with Dan getting ready for planting season, and this year was no different. I went and helped when I could – or just to keep him company. There isn’t as much I can help with during planting as there is with harvest, so mostly I just try to provide meals and moral support. 🙂
In May I got to travel back to Washington D.C. for our Congressional Fly-in for work. It’s my favorite work event that we do and it’s always a busy couple of days organizing a ton of meetings for our members. Along with the Fly-in, I got to see some of my college friends while I was there as well, which is always a good time.
In June, we FINALLY got our patio redone! We’d been trying to find someone available to come do it for almost three years, and we were getting close to just doing it ourselves lol. But luckily, we found someone available this summer and now we have a beautiful new patio. We moved around a bunch of dirt and rocks to fix up the landscaping too, which ended up being a lot of work, but it looks really nice!
In July we celebrated our first anniversary of marriage and spent a lot of time exploring outside. We brought Dobby on a bunch of the adventures with us too. I love going exploring with my forever adventure partner, and it was great to escape from reality for a while.
In August, my nephew, Caleb, was born and he is a total sweetie pie! Such a happy little baby and it was so nice to get some baby snuggles in. I love hanging out with both of my nephews and my niece.
Harvest prep usually starts taking place in September, so Dan was very busy. It was low-key for me except for Dobby having his leg surgery. He was able to move around just fine, but for two weeks I had to keep an extra close eye on him to make sure he left his stitches alone. And I’m sure he hopes to never see the donut again!
Harvest was in full swing by October, so Dan was gone quite a bit, and I came down on the weekends to help out when I could. I took a long weekend to cut corn stalks for him, so I spent three days in a tractor, and I didn’t actually hate it. It was mind numbing, and it was nice to just hang out, listen to music, and help Dan get some work done. Dan even let me try driving the combine this year! It was terrifying and he’s way too trusting of me lol. That machine is massive! But I remember when driving the tractor was a little scary too. I’ll get better the more practice I have.
November officially started my favorite time of the year – the time between harvest and planting season! 😉 Dan gets to be home a lot more frequently in the winter time, so even though it’s cold, I’m just happy to spend more time with him. Another highlight in November was going deer hunting and getting my first buck!
And of course, this month Dan and I got to jet off to New York for a few days, see my friends, and experience Christmas in the big city.
As you can see, it was definitely an eventful year! We had a lot of fun in between all the hard work we got done. Overall, I’d say 2025 was a decent year. As with any year, there was plenty of not so fun things that happened as well. But, if I focus on that, it takes away from all the good that happened, and as you can see – there was a lot of good.
I’m ready to say “adios” to 2025 and I’m hopeful 2026 is going to be even better.
Hope everyone enjoys the last few days of the year, and I’ll see y’all in 2026!
Until next time! 🙂
Megan Nelson