2025 Annual Christmas Update

 

Merry Christmas from our crew to yours! We are grateful for 2025 and ways the Lord grew each of us this year. God has been gracious and merciful to us as we hope to glorify Him with our lives. We had more ups than downs this year and are excited to see what unfolds in 2026. John and Deanna celebrated 27 years of marriage this year and thought 2025 would be the year we would become empty nesters, but God had other plans. We are happy to report we have two adult children living with us as we begin next year and are thankful for more memories with them in our home, including dinner a few times a week. Also, Jonathan adopted a black lab/pointer puppy this fall and we've all enjoyed the playfulness and snuggles that come with her each day in our home. This is Bailey and Bear is still in denial that she is living here. 2025 highlight: Our crew was able to all be together in KC for Jonathan's high school graduation in May! Deanna's younger sister Adrienne came out to celebrate too which was so nice. Ashlyn and Josh will be home for Christmas this year and we are excited to all be together twice this year. 

John spent the this year in a new job at Lockton on the Plaza in KC. He works in Accounting and has really enjoyed leading a team there. He loves his team and enjoys the work he has done all year there. He is still in the Operator Candidate process for Chik-fil-A, but is considering withdrawing from the process next year. He loves his current role at Lockton and knows the CFA process can be long and uncertain. We'll keep you updated on that next year. John continues to volunteer with Partners Worldwide, People to People, his business mentor group, and our church, Bethel Baptist Church. John and Deanna traveled to El Salvador in November with our PW team for a week, and John visited Butte, Montana to look into a possible CFA restaurant. John continues to enjoy day trading, investing, reading, and hiking in his spare time. He stayed consistent with walking barefoot every morning in our neighborhood and continues to enjoy his pour over coffee every morning before leaving for work.

Deanna spent most of 2025 traveling! She visited 6 more National Parks this year. She went with Joshua over Spring Break to Texas and New Mexico and then Montana and Canada with Ashlyn in June. She LOVED the Canadian Rockies so much and has decided Banff , Jasper, and Yoho National Parks in Canada are her favorite! She is already planning another trip there for next year. Each year, Deanna and her good friend Lisa take a girl's trip and this year they went to Oregon. It was beautiful! So many waterfalls and hikes that were unforgettable. She also took Jonathan on a graduation cruise to Honduras and Mexico which was very memorable. Because John's new job provides health insurance, Deanna spent a lot of 2025 taking care of medical appointments she had missed the past couple years without health insurance. After getting the results of her first colonoscopy in June, she was diagnosed with stage one colorectal cancer. Thankfully it was caught early and she was able to remove the cancer with surgery only - no chemo or radiation was needed. She had a long recovery from surgery and would say she's back to normal for the most part. Needless to say, she loved the extra time with Bear and her friends and family who visited with her so much this fall. She is most thankful to God for His hand on all the details during testing, treatment, and appointments. She was still able to go on three planned trips during this time and felt well enough to enjoy them all! Here are a few pictures from a few trips this year. 

Ashlyn is still living in Seattle, WA and is enjoying her role on her AWS Quantum Computing team. Amazon is a couple blocks from her apartment so rainy days seem more bearable to walk a couple blocks to her office each day. She still has a bearded dragon named Barry and loves international food choices downtown. She's been enjoying musicals lately (mainly Hamilton and Wicked) and has many soundtracks memorized. She's cooking and watching Dancing with the Stars when she isn't on call or reading. She enjoyed a couple trips to Mount Rainer this year, a trip to Glacier and Canada with Deanna, and enjoyed her old roommates wedding in Colorado in November. Since she turned 25 this year, she has been renting cars more often and taking short road trips to hike or shipping sprees. She is hoping to move out of the city in March to an suburb and buy a car. We hope she can find a good place in a safe location. We are so proud of her and look forward to our weekly phone calls. If you're ever in Seattle, let her know so she can meet up with you.

Joshua started 2025 back in Rolla at the University of Missouri Science and Technology still majoring in Chemical Engineering. He completed his summer internship with Black and Vetch in Overland Park as a Gas Process Engineer intern. He enjoyed his team and change of pace an office engineering job had over the plant job he did in Iowa. He accepted a full time job there after he graduates in May and will start in June. He plans to move to Overland Park, KC and will only be 40 minutes from our home. He's already ready to graduate and finds it harder to love schoolwork now that he has the job offer. He's still a member of the SigEp fraternity along with the Baptist Student Union and has executive positions in both organizations this year. He is very busy going from project groups, to the fraternity, to the BSU, church, and other clubs he is a part of. He was finally able to move out of the frat house this year and has a roommate at an apartment close to campus. He has enjoyed this a lot, especially sharing a space and bathroom with only one other person. He enjoyed a Spring Break trip with Deanna and is hoping to take a trip in May with a few friends from college before starting his new career as a Process Engineer.

Caleb was injured at work in May when catching a furnace being lowered from an attic. The unit slit his right wrist, which led to an ER visit and stiches. Following PT for 6 weeks, they found that the tendon was not working correctly and had to have surgery and more PT. So he has been home since May for 7 months. He's such a hard worker and this is driving him crazy. He's having an ultrasound done at the end of December and hopefully will be able to return to work in January. He has been bored at home, but was able to recover with Deanna for a couple months together. He helped with a few small house projects too and took a trip to Utah for a week with his girlfriend's family for a wedding. Caleb enjoys hanging out with his friends and girlfriend, shooting at the range, and of course buying tools at Home Depot and Harbor Freight for fun. He was trying to buy a house for months this year and then looked into a few rentals. Because he is not working full time, he has decided to save money and live in the basement for the rest of the year. He was also waiting to hear about John getting a CFA before moving in case he was going to take over our house or move with us. We're thankful for the time we've had with Caleb more this year and are excited to see what 2026 holds for him.

Jonathan officially became an adult and graduated high school the same week in May. After a couple college visits, he decided to choose UMKC here in KC in order to graduated debt free. He was accepted into the More in Four program there where he will earn both a Bachelor's and Masters degree in Business in 4 years. His girlfriend Audrey is going to school three hours away, but they have been so consistent at staying involved with each other and talking pretty much each day. Besides college, Jonathan is still working part time at Quik Trip and is able to hang out with a lot of his close high school friends who are still in KC this year. He went with Deanna on a cruise in June where he got to hold a sloth and bought a used Rav4 in December. He is looking forward to visiting Audrey more next year now that he has a more reliable car. His big purchase this year was at a pet shelter in October when he adopted a 4 month old puppy. Bailey is a black lab/pointer mix and keeps are house very active. Jonathan is a good trainer and reminds the rest of us how to do it. He is excited about his Spring school schedule where he will only go to campus two days a week! He plans to take Bailey to the dog park more when the weather is warmer.

Thanks for staying in touch with us through the year via social media, texts, calls, and visits. We love our city and would love for you to come visit if you haven't soon. We are still in pondering how quickly the years go by and how grown up everyone has become in our crew. We started our blog in 2006 right before Jonathan was born. It is a treasure to spend time together and it's such a joy to see them flourish in their own lives. Deanna is often on Facebook and John is typically on LinkedIn. Feel free to touch base with us there or leave us a comment here and let us know what you have been up to. As we reflect on Christmas and the reason as Christians we celebrate, we pray that our Savior Jesus Christ is reflected in our lives and this Christmas is a reminder of our salvation in His birth, death, and resurrection for our sins. We love and miss you all!

With love, 

John and Deanna Hanson

(and the rest of our crew)