On The Road

Although my birthday was over a month ago, I still haven’t published the exciting conclusion to the day!

So after getting to go up in a glider and getting other sweet presents we went to Red Lobster for some tasty food then we opened up some more presents that included more awesome t-shirts, a cool book about Everest from my parents and a gift card for more cool books from my In-Laws.

As if that wasn’t enough, Dustin, Jenna, Ryan, another girl whose name we will not mention, Karleigh, and me all piled into the car and started driving north.  This was another surprise so I didn’t know how long the drive was or anything about what was going on.

Eventually we got off I-15 up in the Big O (aka Ogden, UT).  I was somewhat confused since Ogden is generally a crappy place (in my opinion).  Well it all became clear when we pulled up to a new shopping/entertainment complex and there was a huge sign on the side of the building that said Fly Utah: Indoor Skydiving. 

Yep, after going up in a glider that morning we were all going indoor skydiving that night.

We had a brief class on how to do it then we got suited up and ready to go.  Since it was my birthday and the guys working there knew this I got the purple and yellow flight suit with the pink goggles just to make sure I felt extra special.  But no one really looks good in those flight suits so it’s all good.

   
The skydiving was awesome.  It’s crazy how the smallest movement changes how you fly.  We all flew two sessions of one minute each.  I posted the first round of everyone flying here and the second round here.  The instructor flying at the end of the second round is incredible.  (Of course me biffing it hard in the first video was pretty good too.)  You’ll have to play your own music since Google took the audio off of the video.  And to answer the most common question from people who see the video, ‘Yes, that is filmed in real time and nothing is altered, sped up, or slowed down.’

So to wrap up my awesome B-Day I recommend that anyone who has the chance to take a ride on a glider or go indoor skydiving should jump at the opportunity.  Of course, it’s always a little better when your wife knows you so well and plans it all out for you.  Thanks Kar.

For the past few weeks (maybe months) Karleigh has been getting really excited about what she planned for my birthday.  She knows I don’t really ever do anything big for my birthday so she decided to change that this year.

My real birthday is in two days but she planned a lot of stuff for today.  She told me I had to get work off today and that she would kill my boss if he didn’t let me have it off.  He wisely obliged my request but I still had no idea why I was taking it off.

This morning we got up and went to Kneaders for some french toast before heading out on my mystery trip.  I tried throwing out a few guesses as to where we were going but I really had no idea.  Karleigh was driving and we headed down 800 N. in Orem so I knew we were going up Provo Canyon but that was about it.  The canyon leads to a ton of stuff.  She said we weren’t going out of the state so Wyoming and Colorado were off the list which left me thinking about Heber, Park City, and that’s about it.  There are more options, I’ve just never been on a lot of the highways out there so I have no idea where they go.

When we got to Heber she turned right which is a road I have never been on (I have only ever turned left when pulling into Heber).  We drove down the road a while then she started laughing and pulled a U turn and went back to Heber then turned like we were going back down the canyon back to Utah Valley.  I was very confused.  Then we turned off the highway and went to the small Heber airport.  I started getting some ideas but I couldn’t really nail down what it was quite yet.  They have an air museum up there and some cool planes outside and also a small flight school and a company that does glider rides.  Well… it was the last one.  She got me a glider flight which was awesome and I’ve never been up in one before.

The flight was awesome.  We flew over the Heber airport while we gained altitude then headed towards the backside of Timpanogos and then kinda in the direction of Snowbird.  Since it was still early and there weren’t a ton of thermals yet we were towed up to 10,000′ (the airport is at about 5,600′).  When the cable was released it was a weird feeling, I just watched it spring forward and the tow plane banked right, dropped altitude, and was gone and we were left just hanging above the mountains.

We were able to catch some small updrafts from the wind that comes up the canyon and then hits the mountains to gain some altitude but it was amazing how little altitude we lost over time even without the thermals.  When we crossed over Deer Creek Reservoir he let me take the controls and I flew us over to the mountains above Wallsburg.  I caught a small updraft on the way there too but our time was soon running out.  Tom (the instructor) took the controls and flew us back to the airport after that.

It was really cool to fly in something like that where you don’t hear the engine roaring and you don’t have to wear a headset to communicate, you can just talk normally.   The crazy thing is the fun isn’t even over yet.  Apparently there is still something planned for tonight and I already got a new Wii game, a sweet t-shirt, and new sunglasses.  I think it’s going to be a birthday to remember.

For a few years I’ve been wanting to try setting up a slackline and giving it a try and on Sunday I finally did.

The other day i Stumbled on a site that had some videos of people slacklining and doing some crazy tricks like backflips and what not.  I showed Karleigh and we decided to try it out in her parent’s backyard.  I had most of the stuff in my climbing gear and since we live in Utah, the Mecca of rock climbing, the other stuff like webbing isn’t too hard to come by.

It was pretty to easy to set up and in no time we were falling off the line and breaking each others collar bones trying to regain our balance.  Luckily my wife is a great photographer so she got some pictures that make it look like we already know what we’re doing.

We’ll keep practicing and maybe some time we’ll be posting videos of us actually walking on it instead of pictures of the split second where we look balanced.

Ok, so I guess it’s about time for another post especially since what’s been going on in the past month.  I haven’t posted recently because my whole point for this blog was to track my travels not my personal life… but I suppose getting married is noteworthy (plus we did travel some).

Karleigh and I got married a month ago on February 12th.  It was pretty much a blur so I have to look at pictures to really remember what happened but it all went pretty smoothly and fun was had by all (I’m pretty sure anyway).

Karleigh’s blog has all the pictures so I’ll just link to that for wedding pics since I never had a chance to touch a camera that day plus I was really the subject of all of the pics

After the wedding we went up to SLC for a few days and just hung out with our phones turned off and went shopping up in Park City.  Then we headed back down to our place in Orem to open up all the gifts and try putting our apartment together.

We relaxed for a few days then headed to Pittsburgh for some sightseeing and an open house.  We left Wednesday night on a red-eye and Karleigh’s parents and brothers left Thursday morning and we all met up in PIT. (Pictures Here)
In PIT it was a bit cold with near hurricane force winds kicking up snow in our faces.  Well, it was windy anyway.  But we braved the wind and cold and toured Pittsburgh Thursday afternoon and into the evening and picked up again on Friday morning.

We managed to see most of the Pittsburgh staples like Mt. Washington, the Duquesne incline (and the Monongahela incline for some), Station Square, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The Strip, and driving through the Ft. Pitt tunnel to the Ft. Pitt bridge.  We also ate at Primanti’s, the Hunan (in Moon), Wholey’s, and had a few different flavors of Pierogies from Forgotten Tastes (also in Moon).

On Saturday night, after decorating all day, we had the open house.  A ton of people came including Colby, who drove all the way from Philthydelphia to hang out for just a few hours and drove back in the morning.  It was great to see all of the people who showed up since I hadn’t seen most of them in a pretty long time.  After everyone left we just hung around in the living room with all of the family that was there (the Dobson’s out numbered the Haglund’s in Moon Twp.!) and then the younger crew went to Eat’n Park for some dessert around midnight.

Sunday was when everyone started to head home.  Colby left before we even got up then Doug, Julie, Ryan, and Dustin took off after breakfast.  Karleigh and I left that afternoon while my mom and dad finished taking down a few decorations around the house.  Since we had to connect through JFK our flights of course didn’t go too smoothly. (Travel Alert: Avoid JFK at all costs!)
After ground holds and taking forever to get de-iced we took off for JFK a few hours late.  After flying for a little while we were put into a holding pattern then released from that one and put into another one a little bit closer to the airport.  By this time I was getting queasy and ready to be on the ground.  We finally landed and both Karleigh and I were nauseous.  We stumbled into the airport where our connection had left over an hour earlier.  Luckily we had shiny new keys to my parent’s apartment in Queens.  We made it to the apartment and promptly crashed.

In the morning we left for San Diego.  Yes, that’s correct, San Diego.  In order to get back to SLC at a reasonable hour we decided to fly through San Diego and make it back around six.  Luckily the flights that day went pretty smoothly and we made it home in time to go to sleep again and go back to work on Tuesday after a week and a half off.

Now the gifts are all put away in the apartment and things seem to be back to normal.

As I sit here on the floor in the Philadelphia Airport, listening to gate changes, delays, and cancellations because of the lovely weather outside, my fingers are crossed that I can make it on one of two flights to Vegas so I can make it home to SLC very early tomorrow morning.  The first flight I’m trying to get on is delayed so that gives me time to update my blog as long as this super crappy AT&T connection doesn’t fail me.  (I had to show student I.D. to get a login number, otherwise they charge for Internet at this airport, which I find odd considering the city is supposed to be blanketed by free Wi-Fi in the coming months. Anyway…)

Sunday was the Iris Festival in Brussels.  Apparently the Iris is a national symbol of Belgium and even though the flower was on many flags that day, the real thing was almost nowhere to be found so I’m still a little confused by that.

The day started off by fighting through massive crowds to see the Red Bull Soap Box  car races. They were pretty funny but kinda hard to see with the bazillion or so people packed on this small street.  A few people wrecked into the hay bails and one guy’s car was pretty crappy and he had to be pushed across the finish line.  But a majority of the cars made it across the finish line under their own power and relatively unscathed.

After that we wandered over to a greek restaurant to get some lunch and on the way there we saw some bands playing, a fire and rescue squad doing rescue demos on a car in the middle of the street and a bazillion more people.

Pretty much that’s what the day was, just wandering around watching street performances and other oddities.  We did also go to the parliament building and walked through it.  That was pretty cool to see the whole inside of that building but it’s such a small country the building really wasn’t too big.  Also it was weird because in the main assembly room there was this band that I guess was supposed to be a jazz band but wasn’t really jazz, playing on the floor.  It was just odd.

Later we went to a big park and just chilled for a while people watching and avoided being hit by errant soccer balls.  After relaxing for a while we took off to get some Sushi back by Carter’s house which was quite tasty.

After dinner we headed downtown again to see some more bands.  We got there in time to see the end of the cover band ABBA Mania.  Ridiculous!  Those Europeans love their cover bands and they love their old music.  The crowd was seriously loving it and singing along and doing these weird seemingly spontaneous synchronized dances.  And half the people had horrible rhythm and couldn’t clap along with the beat.

When that wrapped up we headed to the college area of the city to get some dessert with one of Carter’s co-workers that lives over there.  We just chilled at a table on the sidewalk for a while until it started to get chilly so a little after midnight we headed home.

I made it to the airport this morning and am still sitting here in PHL just hoping that I can get on this flight to Vegas then connect to SLC and get in at 2:15am.  Then drive home, sleep, and be at work by 9am.  We’ll see.

Whatever happens it was worth it.

UPDATE: I made it to Vegas, now I’m waiting for that last flight to finally get me home.  I figure from door to door it’ll be about twenty four hours of traveling.  I think I’ll stay put for a week or two after this.

So this week marks one year since I moved back to Utah, a feat I said I would never do, but it’s been a good year.  I still managed to travel a lot, got a promotion at work (two really), actually got a girlfriend!, and a lot more.  Here are a bunch of pictures as sort of a summary of the past year in Utah (and travels elsewhere).

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I normally post when I travel somewhere. For Thanksgiving I didn’t really travel anywhere except all over Provo so I didn’t really think about posting anything. Kenzie reminded me that maybe I should post something since I took a lot of pictures and everyone else traveled to get here.

My family’s tradition for Thanksgiving seems to be to have it anywhere else but at home. Growing up it was normally in Mesa, AZ or Upland, CA. That has shifted in the past few years to Pocatello, ID. Sometimes it was in Irvine, CA or Abiqui, NM, but it was always away from home at other family members homes. Last year I was in London with Carter at his sister’s house. I can only remember one Thanksgiving at home and it wasn’t because we didn’t try, we just couldn’t work the whole flying standby thing to work in our favor and after a day in the airport we went home.

On a past trip a few months ago I found myself in my aunt Judi’s car going to crash on her couch where many a Haglund has slept on a Phoenix overnight layover. We were talking about where we were going to have Thanksgiving. She was going to have it at her daughter’s house (my cousin) in Springville and my family was coming to Provo. Our houses are maybe nine miles apart so we decided to join the two feasts. The end result was pretty good. My family came in from NYC, Los Angeles, Rexburg, ID and SLC. My grandma even made the trip from Upland, CA.

I still had to work some days and right when everyone was showing up my furnace went out as the temperatures outside dipped near freezing for the first time in weeks. It all worked out though. I got out of as much work as I could and we just kept making more pumpkin pies to keep the temperature in the house up and we weren’t eating at my house anyway.

In the end I think fun was had by all but I’m still hungry for pumpkin pie.

Here’s some pics:

Adam killing the Turkey with a sub compact XD.40.

A little Catch Phrase waiting for the food to be ready.

No on in the family really watches football.

Jacob Ian with his grandpas.

The brothers. (Haven’t gotten around to photoshopping it yet.)

Everyone. (Also in need of photoshop.)

I’m wrapping up what I believe will be my last visit to Pittsburgh this year since I’ll be spending the holidays out West and it’s been quite a trip.

I actually paid for a ticket because I was coming back for Mike’s wedding and since I was the best man I figured it’d be a good idea not to risk a stand-by fiasco as I’ve been prone to those lately. For the first time in a while the flights out here were uneventful.

In NYC I met up with my mom and we flew home to PIT to an empty home. It was kinda weird because we had to turn the water on, relight the water heater, and turn the heat up. Also, since I grew up in a fairly quintessential middle class suburban town, we called the police department to let them know we were back since they stop by the house twice a week to make sure it’s all still secure.

Luckily the fall foliage hadn’t completely changed yet so there were some awesome colors that I got to see. This is what I miss in Utah; just having yellow and brown doesn’t count as fall colors.

After going downtown to buy Mike and KTs wedding gift Mike and I met up then went to pick up our tuxes. A funny thing happened there… Mike came the closest I’ve ever seen anyone come to getting beat up by an NFL player off the field. The guys at Men’s Warehouse told us that some Steelers were coming to pick some suits up so Mike started asking who and then critiquing their playing in last weeks loss to the Broncos. They said, ‘Tell them yourself, they’ll be here in a few minutes.’ We laughed and quickly went to the register to get our stuff and be gone before they arrived. Unfortunately we weren’t fast enough and Willie Colon walked in. One of the guys at the counter got his attention and said something like, ‘Hey Willie, Mr. Steele here… just wants to shake your hand, he’s a big fan.’ Mike’s face turned so white while that guy paused. The guy behind the counter said he was going to say something else until he saw Mike’s face. So Willie just came over, shook his hand, and I said hey, and that was it. It was hilarious.

That night we had a wedding rehearsal and then a dinner afterwards. It was actually a lot of fun. Everyone was pretty relaxed and it was a lot of fun to be with so many friends that I haven’t seen for a while.

Saturday was the actual wedding. Now, having not been to too many weddings I was really glad we had the rehearsal cause I didn’t have clue what to do. I really didn’t have to do much except hang out with Mike and make sure he didn’t run. I knew there wasn’t much chance of that happening so we just hung out in the basement of the church and kicked around a bottle cap playing hockey while we waited. Finally the Pastor came and got us and we went upstairs and waited in a side room talking about fantasy football until it was time to start the show.
The service wasn’t too long and I don’t think I messed up my standing there so it was good. Everyone did their parts and what not and it was pretty good. Then we took a bunch of pictures outside where it was a bit chilly but all survived. When that was finished we all piled (literally) into a limo and headed to the hotel for the reception.

The reception was pretty much the most fun I’ve had in a while. Now, I realize I haven’t done anything too exciting for a while, but it really was fun. Again there were a bunch of old friends, mix in a few drunk people, loud music (even some ska), and a pretty light and festive atmosphere and you’ll have a pretty freakin good time. As I sit here and type this I’m pretty sure I’ve lost my voice from yelling over the music. It was just fun, that’s all there is to it.

Since none of us were done partying (except Mike and KT), we headed over to Primanti’s for more fun. I think we took up the biggest booth there and two other next to it. We were all chillin in our tuxes having a good time until 1am. Finally we decided to call it a night but fun was had by all. (And throughout all of this I got to drive the Karman Ghia around. Thanks Adam)

The Snozberries taste like Snozberries!

I did my fair share of traveling last weekend so this weekend I was home in Provo working. Josh, however, was traveling and decided to grace us with his presence after a brief trip to NYC.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great for outdoor activities and I was working but I had fun while we were hanging out and hope he did too. We made dinner Saturday night with our brother-in-law Ian for ourselves and Lex and Little Jake. Then Sunday was Jacob Ian’s first birthday. Brook had already given him a ‘beep beep’ and he was thoroughly enjoying it before his birthday. (For an explanation of what a beep beep is you’ll have to ask a Haglund family member.)

On Sunday evening I went to Lex’s in-laws for cake and presents for Lilttle Jake. I got him some Duplos to try and start him out on a path of loving Legos as much as I did (if that’s possible). He seemed to like them a lot. Shortly thereafter was the cake. Alexis had made him a nice duckie cake (because of his love of rubber duckies). He started out by slowly sinking his fingers into the icing. He tasted it and decided it was worth exploring more and sunk most of his hand into the cake. At first he was just poking it all over then he started to squish it and grab handfuls and smear it across his face and into his mouth. He was doing it all very intently and ended up eating more cake than I could handle at twenty seven years old.

When I left he was shirtless and headed for the bath. He was a sticky mess but having fun. As far as I know he kept it all down and I’m sure Alexis is in for a fun night.

Here are some pics from this weekend. Even though Josh was the one visiting I seem to have more pics of Jacob Ian, sorry Josh, there’s always Thanksgiving.

So I headed back to Pittsburgh again. This time I went through San Francisco and New York to get there but I didn’t have to take any buses so it was better. I went back for Mike’s bachelor party we were having up at Lake Raystown in Central PA.

My mom picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to Washington, PA to meet up with Mike. From there, Mike and I drove the final 2 and half hours or so to the camp.

When we got there we met up with Fatt Mothers and Mike’s dad. Jeff met us up there later that evening along with Mike’s cousin Colin who drove up from WV.

Instead of explaining the whole weekend, I’ll just post some pictures and a link to a little video I made of all the footage I got over the weekend. Pretty much it was a bunch of chilling, some boating, tubing, and fishing. It was a ton of fun so those of you who missed it, too bad suckas.

Here’s the video.

Here’s the pictures:

Oh, and check out this plane I flew from PIT to PHX.