2025 Annual Letter: So That Happened

Goodbye, Friend

On Christmas Eve, my best friend, Vinnie, passed away. I did some estimating, and because I work from home, I spent more time with him than anyone else during my lifetime (the next closest are my parents, and Jessi will pass them in a couple of years). I truly enjoyed having him around.

And it's not just the time, like eating lunch together and cuddling at night. It's all the little ways he constantly interacted with us. For example, when I arrived home, he greeted me. He inspected what we bought when we put grocery bags on the ground. Dropped food on the ground? No problem! He'd hoover it up! He also knew when we were sad and simply needed a friend nearby.

We knew it was coming, but it's still incredibly hard, and I imagine I'll continue to have moments of sadness for the rest of my life. Right now, those moments come at unexpected times, when I suddenly realize he's not here. For example, I said goodbye to him when I was the last one to leave the house. Now, it feels like I'm missing something when I leave. :(

We don't have any immediate plans to get another pet. As much as I hate this feeling, I also want to sit in the loss and honor his memory. Plus, as our kids start traveling more with us, it potentially gives us more flexibility in our planning.

Vinnie, you were a good boy. I miss you.

Jessi's Benign Brain Tumor

That's how we ended the year, but we started the year with an initial shock. Here's Jessi on her health situation:

We started the year leaning that I had a benign brain tumor on my pituitary gland. It was causing problems which led to the diagnosis but it was a classic meds caused more side effects than the actual tumor. My friend named the tumor Tina so I could have someone to yell at on the hard days.

Some days I just slept, others seemed halfway normal and still others were riddled with nausea and vertigo. For now the medication seems to be doing its job and I have reached an equilibrium and a new normal. I am about 1 year into a 2-3 year treatment plan so not done but making progress. It has been a blessing too though! Seeing my kids grow up before my eyes handling everything with empathy and maturity. And also learning to accept help. Thank you for all of your prayers and care for our family!

Naming her tumor is kind of goofy, but I'm on board with whatever helps her feel better.

Travel With Kids

2024 wasn't all bad (actually, it was a good year). For example, I took four plane trips this year, each with at least one kid (1 with Elinor, 2 with Samson, and 1 with both). It turns out that both kids are super fun to travel with!

Like me, they think airports and airplanes are cool. Elinor likes window shopping, and both enjoy walking the entire terminal with me. I enjoy seeing where other planes are going and asking if they'd like to go there someday. They usually have no idea where it is, but they play along. All the other parts - the rental car, the hotel, and the reason for going - are also super fun with them.

I want to keep taking them on trips, so I dipped my toe into the credit card hacking game to help afford it. I'm still a n00b, but I'm learning, and I had our last flight wholly paid for with points.

Seeing the Mississippi River

Is Samson a man or a muppet?

A Wonderful Split Summer

We tried a new schedule this summer with the kids.

I worked until 11am, and Jessi watched the kids. Jessi mainly focused on academics.

At 11am, I'd take over, and Jessi would go to work (and stay later). Sometimes, I helped them finish their academic work, but most of the time, we just played. And sometimes, they'd join me in a meeting or tour a property.

It was fantastic! We felt like we had meaningful time with the kids, but it wasn't in day-long chunks, which can feel exhausting by the end of the day. It also offered tons of flexibility and diminished boredom. In short, it was great, and we want to keep that schedule in future summers.

Real Estate

On the business front, we purchased four properties with nine other investors. We got:

1. A single-family home that was in pre-foreclosure. We did minor repairs and sold it as a fixer-upper.
2. Another single-family home from an owner with advanced dementia who needed to move into assisted living. We're gutting the place and will resell it as a starter home.
3. A manufactured home that the park owners repossessed. We're doing cosmetic updates and will resell it.
4. Two homes on a single lot, which we'll split into two lots and resell.

It's a different type of investing than I've done before, but I love that we can solve more complex problems by partnering with other investors. We plan to buy more in 2025, so if you want to partner with us, you can check out our investment thesis and track record.

I partner with people who may not have the time or expertise to invest independently. It works well because they can earn passive income through real estate without dealing with tenants, toilets, or headaches.

I also know that some folks already own rentals but don't necessarily want to manage them themselves - which I understand because Oregon isn't landlord-friendly. So, I recently started offering property management services. It's another way I'm helping investors earn passive income.

Furlo Capital Real Estate Podcast

Jessi and I started a podcast at the beginning of last year. We committed to doing 50 episodes before even asking if it was worth it. And pleasantly, I noticed two benefits shortly after starting:

1. It's a fantastic way for Jessi and me to connect on what's happening in the business - so we're better aligned.
2. I regularly practice sharing what I do, which makes conversations with investors better.

These two benefits make it worth continuing, so that's the plan! We'll also occasionally invite people to do interviews. Thanks to everyone who listens or watches our short clips.

Health

I felt an acute decline in my health last year. Everyone over 40 knows this, but it's harder to stay fit, injuries happen easier, and recovery takes longer. It's lame, but there's still plenty of aging I control. So, I'm doubling down on my health intentionality. For starters, I created a 1-page reminder/affirmation that I'll regularly review to keep things top of mind.

Am I missing something? Let me know.

You'll notice there are no health goals, like losing 20 pounds or having visible abs, because those are results. Instead, I'm focused on my behavior, like tracking my calories and working out. If I do that, my body will do its miraculous thing and take care of the rest. I know I won't do everything on this aspirational reminder perfectly, but that's OK.

The Setting of Time & Priorities

I have a looong list of business and personal things I want to accomplish this year. Some are year-long projects, but many simply require 10-40 hours of focus.

To help me get everything done, I'm experimenting with some new daily rhythms. One area I'm changing is my evening activity.

I'm a morning person with an energy drop-off from 1-4pm. I bounce back until 8pm, and then I'm mentally done. As a result, I tend to default to Netflix (et al.) after the kids go to bed. I know it's not the best use of my time (or great for my health), but it's all I feel like I can muster.

This year, I'm attempting to read, write, or work on a hands-on project (or go to bed early). It's not my "best" time of day, but I'm trying to enjoy the process and not get distracted by "how much better it would be if I did this in the morning."

As a bonus, it should slightly increase my NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) and help my overall health.

Looking Forward To 2025

I modified a Jim Rohn quote that I regularly review:

"Don't pray it was easier, pray I am better. Don't pray for less problems, pray for more skills. Don't pray for less challenge, pray for more wisdom."

One lesson from last year is to be careful of what you pray for - because God answers prayers (that align with His will and are best for you in the long run (Rom 8:28)). I also know I can pray those requests with confidence because if God gives me more than I can handle, it'll be to produce a character that relies on the hope of God instead of myself (2 Cor 1:8-9 & Rom 5:3-5).

All that to say, 2024 was a tougher-than-average year for us, but that's OK.

I don't know what's in store for us in 2025. I mean, I'm an unbounded optimist, so I think it'll be amazing! But even if challenges continue to pile on, that's OK. We'll keep praying to be better equipped to handle it and rely on God. If 2025 turns out to be a year of generosity, we'll REALLY have to double down on our prayers to handle it gracefully.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to check in with us throughout the year to see how things are going.

Elinor's piano recital

A random day in May

One of Vinnie's favorite spots

Every parent's dream

Camping with my extended family

I think we need a bigger pool

July 11 - Slurpee Day

Legoland

He "cleaned" our peanut butter containers

Thanksgiving

Yeah. That's happening.

Ready for a wedding

Classic

Fishing!

Watching the Knights baseball game

The kid's Christmas concert

Vinnie's final resting place. A surprisingly fun time as a family.

Old Shirt, New Shirt, Red Shirt, Blue Shirt...

The Idea

James isn't much of a collector, in fact he loves getting rid of things. We even just took another load of stuff to St. Vinnie's yesterday!


That being said, he was going through his clothes one afternoon and had a HUGE stack of shirts he was going to get rid of. I, in my most pack-rattish tone, said "What are you doing with those? You can't just toss them! I could use them for something!" So, I of course put them in my craft room and held onto them for about two years waiting for just the right opportunity.



The Opportunity

I don't exactly remember how the opportunity came up to turn that pile of old sports, clubs, business, mission trips and souvenir shirts into a quilt...but what I do remember was thinking..."oh yeah, that's a great idea...it will be easy."

Famous last words. It is all about perspective when quilting. To an experienced quilter, someone who has spent numerous hours measuring, pinning, cutting, re-pinning, sewing, cutting some more and loosing track of time because they are so  into their project, a t-shirt quilt is easy. However, I learned very quickly that deciding to use all 108 shirts to make the grand-daddy of all t-shirt quilts was just a bit more than I could handle as a novice, no, as a non-quilter.

The Process

Sewing together t-shirt material is an art form. T-shirts are stretchy, which is great when you're wearing them and horrible when you're sewing them. So, step one is to fuse (iron on) a stabilizer to the back of each piece you will be using.

All of the designs cut out and placed

Had I read the directions that my awesome experienced-quilter-mother-in-law had shared with me I would have known that fusing THEN cutting makes your life easier. I however, in all my quilting wisdom cut each piece and then proceeded to fuse each piece and yes, RE-CUT every piece again. At this point I was thinking, "This is step 1?"

Well, I made it through the hard part, so I thought. I was super excited to start sewing things together so I called my mother-in-law and said I was bringing down the pieces on my next visit to put it together. Of course I was very
surprised to find out that you had to have things like "precise measurements" and "same sized blocks" and in order to get there you had to use a "fabric ruler" and "rotary cutter" neither of which I had.

The back laid out and ready to sew

Thank goodness for Dawn, she helped me make a plan and cut and get things in order and she gave me all the tools I would need to be successful.

So, I went back home with a mission. I was going to get all the blocks pieced together for the front and back (Oh, yeah, I added that little step of quilting the backside as well as the topside...am I nuts?!) before the next visit so we really could start sewing that time.

The back sewn together

I put in a lot of man hours sewing small pieces together to make the larger blocks. I did math in my head and math on the white board and cut and re-cut, so many times that I needed a vacation from my craft time. But, I did it. I got every block finished and packed for our trip down during Christmas last year.

Exhausted after a long sewing session

My mother-in-law was so excited to finally get started on the sewing she did what she always does and double checked  the measurements. Much to my horror each piece was off by about 1/4-1/2 of an inch. Come to find out one of the rulers I had been using was warped and off by about 1/4-1/2 of an inch.

At this point I was pretty sure the quilt was a goner. Had it been up to me I probably would have forced the issue and just started sewing the thing and hoped and prayed that when I got finished no one would notice the crooked seams or lopsided edges. Dawn, the experienced quilter, said..."That's ok, we can just trim them all to match." Oh, such a simple statement. She proceeded to trim each block...all 149 of them to be exactly the right size. Without her help I never would have made it past this step! Thank you, Mom!

Vinnie "helping" me tie the quilt

Once they were all the right size the sewing actually was pretty fast. We got most of the strips put together that week. I finished putting the strips together once I got home. Then on her next visit up Dawn helped me spray the top and bottom with fabric  glue and stick them to the batting to hold them in place for tying. I decided to tie my quilt since I don't have a big enough machine to do any actual quilting through all the layers.

I turned on some CSI and tied until my finger tips couldn't tie anymore. Then (I know the mind reals that there could be more!) I watched a couple you-tube videos about binding the edge. It took about four 2 hour sessions of Olympic highlight videos to get around the whole thing but I remember that last stitch... I felt like one of the athletes I had been watching...accomplished, trained, practiced, I had put my mind to it and finished and I had gotten the gold, well at least I had gotten a finished quilt and had gotten to be poured into by my mother-in-law about a skill and passion that she adored. That was reward enough.

We love our t-shirt quilt. I think Vinnie loves it most of all. And we will have the memories both from the shirts and making the quilt for a very long time.

The Finished Product

Vinnie Enjoying "his" quilt

Vinnie Unleashed

Quite literally. Jessi thought Vinnie could handle it. I, in all honesty, didn't think he'd make it 100 feet.

I'm happy to admit I was wrong. The first part of our walk goes along a quiet street, which is perfect for a dog prone to exploring. Thankfully, he never wondered into the street, and came back to us every time we called him.

His normal behavior was to run out about twice as far as the leash would normally allow and then sniff around until we got there. Only once did he eat something super gross. He didn't even wonder that far into other people's yard, which is what I thought he would do constantly.

The nearby school, which is where these pictures are taken, was another place I thought he'd run away at because of all the different smells.

Nope.

He stayed close by. Yes, he did mark every single tree, and it was nice not having to worry about the leash getting all wrapped up.

We did leash him up when we hit one of the more busy roads though. I see no reason to tempt fate against cars going 35mph.

When we hit the last section of the loop we were back on quiet streets and unleashed him again. Once again, he behaved really well. There was only one garage he bolted for. The owners laughed while he gorged himself on cat food.

It's a shame we tried this at the end of summer, but we'll probably get a couple more good walks in before the weather turns too ugly.

Way to go Vinnie!

Backpacking In Willamette Forest

This weekend Jessi & I embarked upon an epic backpacking trip in Willamette Forest near the McKenzie River to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. We actually hiked around 4 small lakes: Scott, Hand, Tenas & Benson Lake, and up one mountain: Scott Mountain. The map above shows our approximate 9 mile loop.

We started Friday morning near Scott Lake & headed for Hand Lake. There we stopped & ate lunch, relaxed a bit and practiced filtering water from the lake. See the beginning of the video below. We eventually came to a choice: Go over Scott Mountain or go around it. Going over involved snow and steep elevation changes. Going around was MUCH longer (easily 3 times), and didn't appear to have as many water options. We decided to go over the mountain.

Sitting by Hand Lake for lunch

We stopped on the hill for the night, with absolutely nobody else around. It was awesome! Unfortunately, the mosquitos were bad, but manageable.

Our little camp-set up

Just the trees and us. That's it!

For dinner we ate toasted bread, cup-of-noodle soup, boxed wine (yup!), and enjoyed raspberry crumble for dessert. Vinnie enjoyed several special snacks including some beef jerky and string cheese.

The stove that made it all happen. It worked like a champ.

Celebrating in style. The raspberry crumble was very delicious.

Vinnie still had room for his food after all the snacks we fed him.

The next morning we broke camp and were met with snow patches. Thankfully we talked to a couple people the day before and they told us to follow their tracks. It's a good thing too because we never would have been able to follow the trail! During this part of the hike we let Vinnie off the leash and he ran around like crazy! We were a little concerned about how far he would be able to go, he is pretty short after all , but he did amazing. He easily walked 4 miles each day and probably could have gone further.

We made water from snow. Here we are finding a clean spot to shovel from.

One of the many snow patching covering the trail.

Vinnie ran all over the place! He loves the snow.

He surprised us by jumping into a mini-lake and ran around in it for a bit.

The one thing he didn't like was sleeping in the tent. At first he fell right asleep, but then he woke… and wanted out… He proceeded to walk laps inside the tent looking for an exit. I even got a good picture of him looking at the door practically begging me to let him out. As a result, none of us really slept much.

This was him at first. Totally calm an awesome.

This was him a little while later. Ready to do out and play. We did... at 2am, 4am and 7:30am. This was at 7:30am.

Anyways, the second day we arrived to Tanas Lakes and found a nice spot near the water where, surprisingly, there were no mosquitos. Yes! We hung out there for a few hours. I managed to push Vinnie into the water once, and he managed to fall in once all on his own. Poor guy - he's not designed to swim… ha ha. Hanging out at the lake was easily our favorite part of the trip: beautiful view, warm sun, cool water, no bugs.

Pretty awesome, right?

I took a nap & Vinnie decided to join me. I guess this was payback for pushing him into the water.

Another view of the lake. Pretty.

We made it to our second spot around 4pm and set up camp. This time the mosquitos were horrible! I literally had trouble seeing because of the cloud around us. When it's this thick, no repellent works. We set up the tent and hopped inside. Once we killed the 50 mosquitos inside the tent we relaxed and talked about options. After a lengthly discussion about the purpose of the trip, we decided to walk the last mile to the car and go home. The mosquitos were so bad that all we wanted to do was stay inside the tent: the exact opposite of what Vinnie would want to do once he woke up.

He literally climbed onto my lap and passed out for a bit.

Looking at the map and realizing we're only about a mile away from our car.

So, we hiked out and drove home. Once home, we set up our camp gear and made Mac & Cheese for dinner in the drive way. We also toasted marshmallows & finished off our boxed wines. It was really nice not worrying about bugs.

We even busted out the car-camping stove to speed up the cooking. :)

Classic

All three of us went to bed completely exhausted. It was a fun, adventurous weekend. Definitely an anniversary we'll remember for a while. The next day we counted how many mosquito bites we got.
Vinnie: 22 just on his face & ears that we could see pushing up fir
Jessi: 141. Check out the picture of her shoulder as an example
James: 248. What can I say? I must smell delicious.

Here's a video of a couple different times during the trip.