Our Day Out with Ike 2025, Part 2

Our nephew Ike turned eight years old in October. We were finally able to catch up with him in order to go on this year's birthday outing this past Friday, November 28.

Ike chose to go to Nickelmania in West Jordan, which is a choice we can always get behind. For added fun, his 10-year-old sister, Katy, accompanied us. Katy spent a lot of her time on the ticket-producing strategy games, while Ike was more interested in the racing games.

Once we tallied up our combined tickets, Ike chose a green ninja sword, while Katy opted for a ... whoopee cushion. (Unexpected, but still a great pick!) We then adjourned for treats at Swig.

Thanksgiving 2025

This being an odd-numbered year, we did not gather with a large group of family on either side on Thanksgiving Thursday. We did, however, make a few alternate arrangements.

Our first Thanksgiving occurred simultaneously with Plowman monthly family dinner on Sunday, November 23. We met up at Steve's and Summer's home in North Salt Lake, where all of the fixings were there: turkey, ham, rolls, bean salad, Yorkshire pudding, fresh fruit, cranberry sauce, JB's award-winning stuffing, and (my favorite) Talin's sweet potato casserole. We also had pumpkin, apple, and chocolate pies. What more could you ask for?

Well, people, I suppose. Fortunately, we did get to see most of the family:

We had football on the TV. Everyone was happy and full of stomach.

Second Thanksgiving, as a hobbit might call it, fell on Thanksgiving Thursday, November 27. With numerous family members spending time with in-laws, we nevertheless welcomed JB's parents at our home for dinnner. JB prepared many of the main and side dishes, while her mom brought the pies. (Yes, I helped, too. I did a lot of the cleaning. I helped with some of the food stuff JB allowed me to. I also frequently stood in front of the door or drawer she needed to open at the moment she needed to open it.)

We once again enjoyed a delicious meal. And ... I didn't get any pics from that day. 😖However, I was successful at getting Mom and Dad to watch football after the meal. Like, pretty much a whole game (Kansas City vs. Dallas). I almost couldn't believe it. My in-laws are not quite the sports fanatics like the family I grew up with. But they also go with the flow and didn't really want to watch any Christmas or other shows.

Ike's Baptism

Our eight-year-old nephew Ike (Isaac) was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Saturday, November 1, at his stake center in West Bountiful. His dad, Jeff, performed the ordinance as well as the subsequent confirmation.

Ike was so excited for his baptismal service that he also volunteered to lead the singing of the opening and closing songs:

... and he did a great job doing so.

Other family members participating included Ike's 12-year-old cousin Christian giving a talk on the Holy Ghost, his eight-year-old sister Katy acting as one of the witnesses, and yours truly offering the opening prayer.

Following the service, family on both sides and friends congregated at Biz's and Jeff's home in West Bountiful for good eats and good company.

Improvables: Seventeenth Annual Halloween Show

After trick-or-treating concluded on Halloween night, I took my TuPac-o costume over to Backstage Performing Arts for that evening's annual Improvables Halloween show. Because of course I was gonna be there after missing last year's performance.

Yes, I'm (or I was for one night) the whitest white guy rapper you know—even more so than the guys who recorded "Mormon Rap." Which is something I happily embraced on stage. I had a few chances to improvise rap songs, so in true white bread fashion, I included lyrics about growing up in the 'hood (Mr. Rogers's, that is), shooting people ... with Nerf guns, and being good, responsible citizens by calling your Congressman to voice your opinion on important social issues.

Anyhow, the rest of the show was a blast. Poor, exasperated Parker struggled in vain to describe the murder weapon in "Mumbling Movie Murder Mystery," which was something from the movie Hocus Pocus ... a movie I haven't seen in far too long.

In other words, I didn't guess that part correctly. But I did get the other two things correct.

We also played "Campfire Tale," "Nightmare," "Tombstone," and other Halloween favorites.

The cast was rounded out by new Improvable Chris as a UTA bus driver (which also happens to be his day job), Claire as a Middle Ages peasant who definitely did not have the plague, Ian as a character from the TV show "Peaky Blinders," Keenan as Dad Peter Parker from Across the Spider-Verse, and Parker as Noir Spider-Man from the same film.

Liz M., as Dipper from "Gravity Falls," was MC, while Kyra, who ran tech, portrayed ... someone whose name/description now eldue me. Incidentally, Kyra added to the decor by carving this phenomenal jack-o'-lantern featuring the troupe logo:

And so ended another unforgettable Improvables Halloween show. If you weren't there, then you were likely doing something else.

Halloween 2025

Halloween, objectively one of the best holidays of the year, rolled around in October, like it is always wont to do. We enjoyed ourselves a great deal.

Our first taste of the holiday came during Plowman family dinner on Sunday, October 26, for which we congregated up at Mike's and Queenie's home in Layton. As always, Queenie (aka Jana 1) had the house (and grounds) all decked out with myriad Harry Potter knickknacks and other pretty cool Halloween things.

Yes, I should have snapped more pics. Their house always blows me away each October with so many creative things that have been crafted and displayed.

Many of the niblings showed up with their costumes in tow. We had a smattering of the following (about half of which I cannot identify, as I am now officially Old, with a capital O):

Naturally, we can't get together during a month with so many family birthdays—including yours truly, Kyra, Queenie, Steve, Ike, and Ben—without playing "Pass the Parcel."

Three-year-old Lighting McQueen (Sam) was the winner!

We also had birthday cake, for which 17-year-old Kyra and eight-year-old Ike did the honor of blowing out the candles.

Well ... cupcakes, shmupcakes. Whatever.

Fast forward to Friday, October 31, for which we celebrated ... get ready for it ... Halloween night! As we did the previous year, JB and I set up a trick-or-treat station outside the front of our house to greet several dozen of our neighbor kids. My favorite costumes were the two kids who dressed up as Harry and Lloyd in the pale blue and bright orange tuxedos from Dumb and Dumber, accompanied by another kid portraying the Monopoly man, monocle included.

As for me, I dressed up as TuPac-O, a mashup of Paco and iconic rapper Tupac (... get it?). My fellow Improvables actor/musician Willis gave me that nickname years ago, so I finally ran with that idea and turned it into an actual costume this year:

JB accompanied me as her cute, Halloween-Muggle self and sat with the puppies as we greeted our trick-or-treaters.

To start with, we passed out bags of microwaveable popcorn. Once that supply had been exhausted, we went with a mix of sweet candy (licorice and Jolly Ranchers) and chocolate bars.

Once that was done, there was still more Halloween left to celebrate. Stay tuned to find out what TuPac-O, the whitest white rapper in history, and the Improvables did later that night.

Our Day Out with Danny & Tanner 2025, Part 2

On Saturday, Fun Aunt and I picked up ten-year-old Danny and eight-year-old Tanner for this year's birthday outing. They chose to spend a couple of hours at Fly High, a local bouncy house/castle/complex thing (?) in Woods Cross that I can describe only as a modern-day Pleasure Island (from the Disney version of Pinocchio), except that it has far fewer boys and girls turning into donkeys or smoking and a lot more trampolines.

This time, we got around to Danny's and Tanner's outing much sooner than we did for last year's birthdays ... ergo, part 2 (in case you were wondering!).

What else can I say about Fly High? Except that they had a great time, and they wore us out just watching them rather than wearing themselves out after expelling all of that energy bouncing around ... literally.

Afterward, we ventured over to the boys' new favorite ice cream parlor, Handel's—which just so happends to be our favorite ice cream place—for (you guessed it) ice cream.

Tanner's Baptism

Last Saturday, October 11, our eight-year-old nephew Tanner was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father, my brother Steve, performed the baptism as well as the subsequent confirmation, which Tanner's uncles and Grandpa Keeler joined in on. This event was held at our stake center in North Salt Lake. (In case I've not mentioned it previously here on Paco Nation, JB and I now belong to the same stake as they do.)

A few other family members were asked to participate in the service. Jana 1 conducted the music, Mike gave a great talk on baptism, and Danny was one of the witnesses. Also, we all filled out 3 x 5 cards with messages of encouragement for Tanner, and they were compiled together for to have as a keepsake.

Following the program, we gathered at Steve's and Summer's home for refreshments.