2025 EOY Newsletter

As another year rolls around, we once again reflect on what has been a massive 2025 filled with friendship, love and lots of change. Our 4th Annual EOY Newsletter marks the end of our first year as homeowners!

If you're only just catching up, you can find our previous newsletters for 2022, 2023 and 2024, (here, here and here).

Along the way we have also been on our usual adventures, so here are some highlights of our year:

Our first home

Purchasing our first home in the iconic McWhirters building has been the biggest highlight of our year. We love living in this lovely apartment of ours and feel very privileged to own a little part of Brisbane history. We both have been looking at this building for about two years before we finally purchased one. The very first apartment that we actually inspected back in 2022 was actually in this building.

After inspecting many different apartments in Brisbane, we knew instantly after stepping foot in our current home that this was the right place for us. It was spacious enough so that we could host our friends and family whenever they wanted to hang out with us, close enough to the city so that we could have the shortest commute time (as we both love our sleep ins) and most importantly it was a uniquely Brisbane apartment.

Collecting the keys

Built in 1912, the McWhirters building was commissioned by the McWhirter family to be an iconic Valley landmark that would become a key shopping mall for Brisbane. Interestingly, our apartment has a beam that runs across the middle of our unit, with one side being the original building built in 1912 and the other side being part of the expansion constructed in 1929.

Since we moved in late January, we have been fully immersed in the vibrant community and have become friends with many of our neighbours who all love this building as much as we do.

Sean's new job

After 4.5 years at Herbert Smith Freehills, Sean took on a new challenge at Ashurst joining their Projects and Energy Transition team in late August. This was an amazing opportunity that gave Sean the chance to broaden his skillset and work with predominantly renewable energy developers.

Socket Smart Homes!

Ed has also been busy planning the launch of his side hustle, Socket soon to be launched in 2026. It's been a long time coming for this idea. For those following along, you may have remembered in 2024 that Ed ended his time at Deloitte and took a short hiatus to plan a smart switch product. Since then, he's been busy working for Zen Group, a construction management and developer firm where he learned about large-scale residential building automation. Since then, he's had the opportunity to develop an in-house, web-app tendering and procurement system called TenderFlow. Fast-forward to now, and after much prototyping and design, the launch of an official smart switch website, incorporation and two rounds of product samples, he aims to bring his first product to market in 2026.

Concerts

2025 was a big year for us witnessing various amazing divas. We started the year with Laneway, seeing many artists at the packed festival, including Remi Wolf. The night culminated in peak Brat summer seeing CharliXCX. In May, we saw Peach PRC at Big Gay Day at the Wickham. We also saw Kylie Minogue (and Mallrat who was the supporting act) and finished the year with Lady Gaga. Sean put his concert light up bracelet on the tree.

Weddings

We have also been privileged to be a part of weddings of two of our favourite couples, Sophie and Anne + Taylor and Jack! We really loved reconnecting with all our friends at these weddings and seeing these two couples to start their new lives together.

Year of the gay tv shows

2025 was also definitely the year of the gay tv show, with three amazing shows gracing our screens. We had our millennial uni throwback with Overcompensating. Then came Boots. Yet the true highlight show of the year, has been the series everyone has been talking about – Heated Rivalry! This show has definitely been popping off in multiple group chats and is now bordering on actual obsession!

Trips

We did a few trips this year.

Ed started the year in the States, enjoying a white Christmas with his uncle's family, sister (who has been working in the US ski fields, and more recently in Canada), his mum and his brother Oliver. He feels like so much has changed since he last visited in 2012, that it was almost a culture shock. Ed first arrived in San Francisco and ventured up to Salt Lake City, Utah where he skied during December and January and celebrated his 28th birthday. Utah was incredibly scenic, with the Rocky Mountains surrounding the city connected by highways, wide roads and countless fast-food restaurants. By the end of the trip, he was relieved to eat some vegetables from what was mostly a grain-fed diet.

New Year's Eve in Salt Lake City

Almost immediately after returning, Sean and Ed ventured down to Melbourne for Sean's cousin, Chau's birthday. This aligned with Melbourne Midsumma, so we also stopped by briefly to have a look.

Mid-year, Ed and Sean took a trip to Kg'ari (formerly Fraser Island) with Ed's family. We toured the island by 4WD bus, did a tasting board, and a PowerPoint Presentation night.

Unfortunately, while on this trip Sean received the sad news that his paternal grandmother had passed away at age 87. The following week, Sean, his parents and brother travelled to Saigon to be with family. Although it was a tough week, Sean was grateful to have the opportunity to spend time with his family and to say goodbye to his grandmother. Sean's grandmother was a very special woman. She was very entrepreneurial and raised five children through her various businesses including seller her special prawn crackers (which Sean heard all about on his trip to Vietnam). One special moment Sean recalls was when he was standing at the front of his family home with his grandfather on the date of his grandmother's funeral. Within a few minutes they were joined by various friends of his grandparents who all reminisced about all wonderful memories that they had with his grandmother. It was special to hear these pockets of memories and to see how much his grandmother was loved by so many people.

Wrap up

Thank you all for sharing in what has been a massive year with us. One of our favourite things to do, particularly this year, has been to share our home with our friends whether it be for a dinner, predrinks before a party, kick-ons or even a belated Christmas bonanza. We love sharing our life with you all and we look forward to many more new memories in 2026!

See you all there.