We asked you to tell us your top 3 favorite things about 2025. Here are some of our favorite things about your favorite things! (Make sure to read the last one; it shows just how awesome our community is!)

Goodest Girls! Adoptable dogs in the Tri-Cities

Bonnie C.

From left to right: Cadence (Mikey's Chance), Glinda (BF Humane Society), and Bella (POPP).

There are so many wonderful dogs looking for a home. Foster/rescue/adopt! <3

Best boardgames played this year

Brendan

  • Huang
  • Inis
  • Hot Streak

From left to right: Huang, Inis, and Hot Streak

Podcasts to help us get through this

Squinn

  • The Daily Beans
  • Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
  • What A Day

From left to right: The Daily Beans, Assembly Required, and What A Day

Honorable mention: It’s Going to Be OK

Top 3 things I had to see this year

Lora Rathbone, Sustainable Tri-Cities

  • Gray Whales at Depoe Bay, Oregon
  • Redwood National Park
  • Hands Off Rally on April 5

From left to right: Gray Whales at Depoe Bay, Redwood National Park, and the Hands Off Rally on April 5

Honorable mention: Earth Day at the REACH museum

Best Indie RPGs played this year

Brendan

  • Shadowdark
  • Mothership
  • Daggerheart

From left to right: Shadowdark, Mothership, and Daggerheart

Some favorites this year

Jenny Rieke

  • Getting up early on frosty mornings and seeing what designs nature has left on windows or plants.
  • Camping and hiking in the Blue Mountains during the spring wildflower season.
  • Touring Biosphere 2 near Tucson, Arizona, where nine people lived in a closed self-sustaining environment for two years starting in 1991. The biosphere had five wilderness ecosystems (tropical rainforest, savannah, desert, mangrove marsh, and ocean) and two agricultural systems to provide food, water, and balance carbon dioxide and oxygen with no waste. These included animals, birds, insects, bacteria, and microbes, as well as crops. It was an experiment to see if it was possible to be self-sustaining without outside input for an extended time, as a precursor to travel to Mars. They found it’s very hard to duplicate nature in a man-made sealed environment. Nature is an incredibly intricate system with unknown interdependencies and interactions that provide us all the things that life in its varied forms needs to continue and prosper. Isn’t nature in all its known and unknown intricacies wonderful?!

From left to right: Frost on the window, Wildflowers in the Blue Mountains, and Biosphere 2

Best novels of 2025

Erick Peterson

  • Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo
  • Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
  • Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

From left to right: Life, and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo, Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, and Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

Honorable mention: The Antidote by Karen Russell

Best Tri-Cities moments

Kade

  • The community coming together for the yearly Pride event, despite the political climate
  • People showing up for each other in the Tri-Cities when SNAP benefits were uncertain
  • Jodi DeVore, the local autistic baker, giving away tons of free baked goods to anyone in need all year long!

From left to right: Tri-Cities PRIDE, one of many free community meals, and baked goods

Thank you to everyone who submitted their favorite things from 2025!