Biggest Announcement of All

Sundance Resort
Originally uploaded by travisghansen

It's again past time for me to make another entry to my blog. I decided I better get at least 2 entries in this year :). Anyway, first off the biggest news of all, I'm engaged to the beautiful Emily Hecker! For those who don't know we've been dating since February and the plans are to get married in Logan on May, 5 2009 (cinqo de mayo celebration anyone?). Now, for a recap of the past few months...

Let's recap some trips

1. Emily and I did family reunions in Baltimore, Virginia Beach, and Ohio. First we went to Baltimore to visit with Jared and Christina which was great. Right after arriving we went to Famous Daves and I had some ribs and did my best to get bbq sauce all over my face. We also visited Mount Vernon while we were there and that was great.

2. We left Baltimore and headed for Virginia Beach. We got stuck in traffic and weren't actually able to make it to the beach in time to be there with Emily's family, but we still went to the beach and took in some waves. All of Emily's family was there and it was great to meet each of them and get to know them better. We visited a world war 2 era battleship and also saw Jamestown which I absolutely loved. Among other things I kicked some serious trash with Guitar Hero (sorry Anna) and had a sweet 80's talent show. If I remember correctly Peter got things off with some amazing dance moves.

3. We flew out of Virginia Beach into Cleveland. After arriving in Cleveland we left (after an insanely long trip to get to the car rental shop from the airport) for Kirtland to visit the LDS visitors' center of the reconstructed city and also the Kirtland Temple now owned by the Community of Christ. We unfortunately did not make it to the temple in time to get the tour but we were able to walk around the grounds and have a look at the outside. It's a beautiful and amazing structure. The restored historic city is great as well and I especially loved the N. K. Whitney store. Next we drove down to Seneca Lake for the family reunion (Emily's Dad Bill and his cousins) and had a great time visiting with family and playing on the boats and jet skiis. After the family reunion we headed back up to Cleveland to fly out but on the way we were able to stop at the Johnson Farm another LDS historical site.

All of that was in early august. Then in September I moved to Logan to be near Utah State where Emily is attending school. In October Jeff and I went to the ADT convention in Dallas and I played golf at the Dallas Cowboys Country Club. November I went to Charlotte, NC for some work and then it was thanksgiving in Rexburg at Emily's sister Jenny's house. December as soon as finals were out I came back to Spanish Fork to be with family and friends for the holidays. Christmas has come and gone already and it's New Year's Eve.

It's been another amazing 6 months and I'm looking forward to 2009.

6 Glorious Months

dsc_5111
Originally uploaded by a4gpa

Well, as you can tell from the last two entries (8 Glorious Months, and 6 Glorious Months) I don't find much time to write new entries. So, in the 6 months since I last posted let me see if I can think of all that has happened. Well, first I'm gonna go eat a braat...alright, done with that. Ok, so January went by pretty uneventful, I had my 26th birthday which was great. On the 28th or so I left for Baltimore to visit with Jared and Christina and their 2 kids. I spent a good couple of weeks on the east coast between Baltimore, New Jersy, and New York. After a couple trips back and forth I finally had a week to enjoy in Baltimore and helped Jared and Christina get some initial work done and their new house. I mostly painted enjoying not only the fumes, and the great music (The Last Waltz by The Band) but also some good quality chats with Christina. My favorite part of the trip was taking care of little Eli and Leah. Eli wanted me to rock him to sleep a couple times so I complied which means discussing without deviation 1 of 2 things...
1 - Fighter Jets
2 - Christmas presents

I'm sure he enjoyed my ability to tell him everything that Santa will bring him, but I'm also sure he was far from impressed with my ability to discuss fighter jets. His knowledge was at least 50 times greater than mine on the subject! Also while in Baltimore I headed down to D.C. for a 12k run which about killed me mostly cause I was pretty sick the whole trip and don't think my body was happy about running that distance. After all that fun I finally left for home somewhere around the 13th of February which was much less eventful than leaving (thank you 2 hour waits TSA, missed flights, and reroutes through Cleveland).

The rest of February was spent recovering from New York. March, April, and May were spent golfing (when the weather permitted) and now here we are in June. That was easy! The picture is from what was supposed to be a triathlon and due to weather became a duathlon consisting of simply a 500 meter swim and 5k run. Anyway, I finished in 35 minutes mostly due to a great carbo load recipe from my cousin Rebecca (thanks again).

I've got all kinds of fun stuff planned for the summer so stay tuned and I'll give updates more frequently. Look forward to...

1. A trip to Florida
2. A trip to Baltimore
3. A trip to Ohio
4. More triathlons
5. Other great happenings