Jenna's and Max's Wedding

Our niece Jenna was sealed to Max on Saturday, April 13, in the Draper temple. It was a beautiful spring day with beautiful weather, and the popcorn was definitely popping on the trees.

Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a family friend of the Woodburys (he was Jenna's grandparents' mission president in San Diego), performed the sealing. He gave some very wise words of counsel along with the ordinance. But he was also not the only General Authority in the room. Kristin Yee, second counselor in the general Relief Society presidency, was also there. (She had previously served as one of Jenna's Young Women leaders.)

So, we basically had all of the famous people there. We also had this whole group of folks:

The sealing was only the beginning of our long day! We then congregated in the cultural hall at Dave's and Jessica's meetinghouse in Woods Cross for a wedding luncheon. We were served a delicious meal, catered by Cafe Zupas.

The day was capped off with a wedding reception at the lovely Eldredge Manor in West Bountiful, where Biz and Jeff's reception was held nearly 16 years ago! Way back then, Jenna was a five-year-old bridesmaid (seen here on the right, with five-year-old Kenna and nine-year-old Madison):

The refreshments at Eldredge consisted of a wonderful waffle and crepe bar. (We were basically spoiled all day long.)

JB worked very hard on the baking the wedding cake, which turned out like this:

Of course, a family wedding wouldn't be complete without our getting to take a picture along with the bride and groom:

The evening concluded with a lot of dancing, after which the bride and groom hustled off on a plane ride to Hawaii.

We are happy for Jenna and are also grateful to have Max as a new member of the family. The future is bright for these two.

Our Day Out with Katy

Our niece Katy is nine years old! We took her out last week for her annual birthday outing with Fun Aunt and Uncle.

Katy chose a LEGO set she liked at the store, so we bought it and took it to our house to build it with her. On the way there, we also stopped by Fiiz for drinks and cookie bites.

The finished product of the build looked like this:

She's a pretty amazing kid, and we love spending time with her. This year, Katy is a third grader at her school! They grow up so fast.

"Big Fish"

Our acting bug-bitten niece Kira recently appeared in CenterPoint Academy's production of Big Fish, which we saw in the black box theater on March 25 (yes, I am a bit behind; both of my followers have sent emails wondering when I was going to update the blog). And I may be a bit biased, but she did great. It was also one of the better CenterPoint shows we have seen in the past few years.

There was a very funny and accidental blooper when the lights came up too early in one of the scenes and the man supposed to be on his deathbed was still scrambling to climb into it. But the kids handled it well and improvised to cover the error. (It was still pretty funny, and I don't blame those who busted up laughing on stage.) I guess you had to be there.

Plowman Family Dinner/March 2024

On the Sunday before Easter Sunday, we gathered for monthly family dinner at Steve's and Summer's home in North Salt Lake. Our menu included lasagna, garlic bread, salad, veggies, and other goodies.

We also celebrated our three March birthdays: Katy, JB, and Jake.

One of the highlights for me was getting to see the comic books that my nephews Christian and Danny have created—independent of each other—in the last little while. It reminded me of a young Paco, because I once made my own comic books. Ben suggested they consult with "the master" about the work they have produced so far.

(Yes, back in the day, the 20th century anyway, I used to create and write my own comic book stories, quite a few of them, between about the third and tenth grades. A fun story for another day. Those books no longer exist because, well, I threw them away in a moment of self-doubt. The moral of that story is: Do what you love to do, and don't let any high school art teacher stifle your creativity!)

I captured a pic of only one of Danny's books:

I'm pretty proud of these kids for pursuing these artistic interests, and I look forward to reading what else they will be creating in the future.

Improvables: Fifteenth Anniversary Show

Biz, Brianne, Ian, Ryan, and Steve returned to the stage Friday night for the annual Improvables reunion show. Crazy to think that we started this thing almost 16 years ago. Keenan, Parker, and I joined them for this performance, along with MC Scott and Willis on keys.

Among the many games we played were "Late for Work," "Town Hall," "Film Noir," "World's Worst," "Story Genres," "Novelist," "Musical Understudy," and "Don't Make Me Heckle." We also included another favorite of mine, "Marshmallows," which we played on this night as "Peeps" (with Valentine's Day candy clearance providing the marshmallows).

I am kind of fond of these people—and not just the two I am related to. Together, we have undertaken the greatest creative experience of my life, through hundreds of shows over the years. I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to work with.

Christmas 2023, Part 2

On Christmas Eve, we gathered for Plowman family dinner at Biz's and Jeff's home in West Bountiful. We had all the fixings for a Christmas dinner, including ham, candied yams, funeral potatoes, charcuterie, meatballs, and other goodies.

Dinner was followed by our annual Christmas story pageant. The niblings enthusiastically dressed up as shepherds, wise men, angels, stable animals, and of course Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. In fact, six-year-old Tanner got a little too into the part of playing the baby, seen here resting (and cooing?) in the lap of his three-year-old sister Sadie, who portrayed Mary:

As always, the kids had a wonderful time taking part. As part of the pageant, we continued the family tradition of listening to Dad's recording of the Christmas story as found in chapter of the gospel of St. Luke.

Perhaps we began a new tradition by also playing a recording of Mom reading The Monster at the End of This Book, a family favorite since my siblings and I were very young, while Biz turned the pages in the story. We collectively felt her loss rather acutely during this holiday season and on this particular night, too, but I think this moment helped many of us to feel she wasn't really that far away from us.

In fact, it gives me a great deal of comfort to think that if she weren't already one of the angels who sang at the birth of the Christ child 2,000+ years ago that she is one of those angels singing His praises now.

Next came the exchanging of gifts. The niblings drew names from a hat to purchase gifts for each other, while my siblings and I did the same for each couple in the family. This way, everybody got to open at least one thing. Sadie was especially grateful for and protective of her Frozen action figure set:

Then followed a few family games, including a new one, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Cup," that Biz borrowed from the Johnson Files, one of our favorite Instagram accounts. You had to be there to grasp what exactly this involved—but it was fun for all who played.

Christmas Day was, well, a rather lazy day at our house. Santa Claus came and left goodies, and JB and I exchanged gifts, too. My wife is very thoughtful when it comes to this sort of thing. One of my favorite presents was this T-shirt, based on The Lord of the Rings book/film series:

Hopefully, your Christmas was a good one spent with your own loved ones, too. If not, here's hoping for better times ahead and a better year for us all in 2024.

Christmas 2023, Part 1

On Friday night, we hosted a Christmas gathering at our house for JB's side of the family. This night marked the culmination of another week of "Reindeer Games," our third annual series of "Minute to Win It" contests.

The evening's events included the candy cane drop, in which contestants had to try to get as many candy canes to stick on a line of string in 60 seconds' time. Tatum had the best score, with 4.

JB came up with some great prizes for the winners, including blankets, a board game, and a card game.