In randomized order because the order I jotted them down clumped too many similar things together.

1. Eating cheese at the Guggisberg cheese factory
2. Sledding down the hill in Depew with Charlie during a snowstorm
3. Making hot sauce from the habaneros we grew
4. Making banana liqueur
5. Playing in the creeks in our woods with Charlie in all weather
6. Running into friends at the coffee shop, grocery store, on the subway, at restaurants, and at the park. In general, having a community of friends.
7. Visiting my family in Georgia, them getting to meet Charlie for the first time
8. Fixing the excavator toys at Depew
9. Making house falernum
10. Hearing the barred owls in our woods. Who cooks for you?
11. Meeting my best and oldest friend’s 18mo son, and having our sons meet
12. Picking and tasting wild muscadine grapes
13. A rare date night with Amanda during Christmas break
14. The Oklahoma Onion burger from Hamburger America
15. Hayden and Colin’s marriage celebration party
16. Learning how to turn bowls on the lathe, a goal of mine for five years
17. Hosting the Crisantes for Thanksgiving
18. Getting to see the joy on Charlie’s face as he got to steer an excavator and ride in a bulldozer
19. Traveling to the totality path to see the full solar eclipse
20. Many trips to the Cold Spring Tots Park
21. Cooking and eating dinner outside as often as possible
22. Learning how to tie flies
23. Turning more Christmas ornaments on the lathe
24. Going to the Bear Mountain Bridge: The First 100 Years documentary premiere
25. Visiting Colonial Homestead in Millersburg, Ohio
26. Rowing on the Hudson with Charlie
27. Trunk or Treat at Charlie’s daycare
28. Learning how to fish in the tenkara style
29. Book club with Chris and Jordan, discussing A Perfect Spy
30. Two solo flights with Charlie
31. Amanda making a cardboard ambulance that Charlie payed with in the living room for a week
32. Playing on the Peekskill soccer field with Charlie, kicking around an old ball we found
33. A New Year’s Day walk in the woods to distribute birdseed pinecones with Amanda and Charlie
34. The Garden Party and the Christmas Party at the Walls’
35. Vacationing in Groton Long Point with the Wasmer family
36. Fernando and his fiancee Gabriele visiting NYC and going to Double Chicken, Please with them.
37. Decorating the house for Christmas as a family
38. Looking at the moon and stars with Charlie whenever we can
39. Pizza dates with Charlie
40. Biking up and down the street with Charlie
41. Expanding the garden beds for a larger garden
42. Charlie catching his first fish, a little pumpkinseed
43. Charlie’s train adventure to Grand Central
44. Charlie pulling the air horn on a semi at the Touch a Truck event
45. Listening to Charlie talk about his day at school and his spooky stories
46. Serendipitously running into Colin at the Bleecker St subway station and commuting all the way back to Peekskill with him, two hours of nice chatting.
47. Making a tenkara spool on the lathe
48. Our garden’s abundance this year
49. Kayaking up Popolopen Creek with Jay and swimming in Hell Hole
50. Charlie serving us toy ice cream from his ice cream booth
51. Drawing with Charlie. In particular, drawing our own map of the park.
52. Building a sandbox in the backyard and playing in it with Charlie
53. Charlie playing really well with his cousin Nora at Christmas
54. Visiting the Stepping Stones Children’s Museum
55. Making pizza sauce for our tomatoes
56. Getting my lathe tool sharpening figured out
57. Trick or Treating with friends in Lake Peekskill
58. Bedtime books with Amanda and Charlie
59. Taking Charlie on his first camping trip with Grandma and Grandpa
60. Making rosin from pine sap I collected
61. Sketching fly pattern ideas
62. At work, moving into the lead role of the 51 engineering group
63. Swimming in the Rapids at Amicalola Creek
64. Charlie’s Hose Showers
65. Walking in the Groton Long Point Independence Day Parade
66. Redesigning this blog
67. The coffee plant in our living room producing coffee cherries
68. Charlie getting really into bath bombs (“Fancy bath”)
69. Apple picking at Fishkill Farms
70. Ice cream at the Blue Pig
71. Puttering with Charlie in the workshop
72. Cold Spring train trip with Jeremy, Miles, and Charlie
73. Charlie’s first back porch chiminea fire
74. Making dubbing wax blends with the rosin
75. Checking out bugs, snakes, toads, and frogs with Charlie
76. Laying on our backs on the porch as a family and looking at the clouds
77. Walking around Stony Point and visiting the lighthouse
78. Sandwich Fridays at Benny’s Brown Bag
79. Replacing the fence
80. Getting a Christmas tree from Emmet van Driesche in Massachusetts
81. Roasting a duck for a dinner party with the Walls
82. My father’s day bookmarks
83. Building the Little Free Library for Esther Place
84. Charlie’s backyard birthday party that turned into an inside party, but people still stuck around
85. Walks down by the river
86. Charlie asking to go on a bike ride in the rear seat on my bike that he wasn’t interested in before
87. Regular lunch dates with Amanda and prioritizing getting time together
88. Going to Jay’s reading at Stanza Books, and supporting friends in general
89. Playing with train tracks with Charlie in nearly every room in our house and the back porch
90. Catching wild brown trout at Amawalk and Boyd’s Corner on flies I tied myself
91. Making pikliz
92. Rebuilding the inside of my workshop to make it a nice, useable space. Insulated, added a heater, built a new bench, and added French cleats.
93. Setting up Amanda’s office and craft space in the basement
94. Building Charlie his own work bench and watching him use it
95. Amanda and Charlie baking together
96. Charlie wishing all of us a Merry Christmas individually
97. Adding in a sump and radon mitigation in the basement
98. Carbonating drinks with a CO2 tank
99. Making a baseball bat for Charlie on the lathe and seeing him have fun hitting it off of the tee
100. Early breakfast sandwich and coffee in Union Square Park

What I noticed about this list is that I am happiest when I’m making things or doing things with the people I love. More of that in 2025.

Other years: 2023, 2022, 2017