Lots of trip planning going on...

Well, these past few weeks have been pretty busy… getting back into the swing of things. I’m pretty busy planning a travel schedule for these next few months, with Kim busy planning our wedding in May.

My nephew Ryan is coming in tomorrow with his lovely wife Sarah, and along with Kim’s son Brenden and me heading down to enjoy the annual Hall of Fame football game in Canton. The game not only kicks off the NFL season (yessss!!!!!!!!!!!!) but is played in what is normally a high school stadium, making it a more intimate setting than normal NFL games. The close contact with the players makes you realize how impossibly huge they are, and how physically gifted you have to be to play on that field.

This coming week, my oldest of Navy buds, Brian Ransom, is coming through town with Tomi, his wife, and will spend Friday with us catching up and whatever else we care to do. They’ll leave Saturday morning, and that afternoon I’ll be taking off to Minneapolis on business.

I’m going into Minneapolis on Saturday to spend some time with my sister Brenda and her family, then meeting with our PR firm Monday and Tuesday, coming back that evening.

There are a few other trips coming as well, including a trip over to Van Wert (home town) for the county fair and visits with family over Labor Day, the motorcycle trip in mid-Sep, and the annual boat trip with the guys to Dale Hollow, TN in October.

The motorcycle trip is shaping up differently than was originally proposed. It now looks like we’ll all meet up in Indianapolis (coming in from Cleveland, Milwaukee and St. Louis) and spend a few days riding Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky. I'm really looking forward to this one!

The October Dale Hollow trip started out years ago as a business planning trip when our Indianapolis and Cincinnati offices were in a single Rockwell Automation district. Over time the offices have been organized into different Districts, and many of us work in different places (like me in Cleveland) or in different companies, but we (usually 7-10 of us) still get together for 4 days of boating, tubing, poker, smoking cigars, drinking, and blowing stuff up.

Kim’s been actively researching wedding venues and services. It seems that we’ve settled on the afternoon of May 22, outdoors at a South Carolina plantation (Middleton Place). As has been the plan all along, Brenden will walk her down the “aisle,” with Marnnie serving as Maid of Honor and Travis as Best Man. Following the wedding, we’ll take some pictures there, then go to Charleston for more photos, probably including the Harley, and dinner at Tristan’s, one of our favorites. We’ll then head back to the beach house and kick back, enjoying a few days relaxation. Simple… I think.