Plowman Family Dinner/October 2019

On Sunday evening, we gathered for our Plowman/Wood monthly family dinner and birthday party at Biz's and Jeff's home in West Bountiful. JB provided the desserts, including a pumpkin roll and this delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting:

Tanner was among the many who enjoyed her baking.

October is a busy month for birthdays in our family, including those of Kira, Jana, Steve, Ike, Ben, and yours truly. It also marks a year since Dallin, our current Elder Plowman, left for the mission field in New Hampshire. It's incredible to think that his two years are already halfway gone.

Improvables: Eleventh Annual Halloween Show

The Halloween season and Improvables together have been a winning combination for 11 years now. It's hard to believe that it has been that long!

For the first time in five years, I was not in the scheduled lineup of players for our Halloween show, which was A-OK by me. Others in the troupe need the chance to perform in the Halloween show, after all, and I'm also in the middle of some physical therapy on both aforementioned shoulder and foot injuries.

Nevertheless, JB and I attended the performance in our costumes, which were inspired by the TV show "Parks and Recreation": yours truly as Ron Swanson and JB as his true love, America/bacon and eggs. We enjoyed watching my colleagues perform from the audience, alongside our fans. Chance, Heather, Keenan, Landon, Lorin, Richard, Truman, Tyler, and MC Parker did not disappoint, as we knew they would.

After the show, we all posed for a group photo together with everyone who attended in costume.

Obedience School

Last week, Leia completed a six-week obedience school course at Coddled Critters, located near us in North Salt Lake. JB did the grunt work in finding out the details, signing her up, and taking her to all of the classes, and I joined in attending for about half of them.

Here's JB and Leia on graduation night:

This doesn't mean we have a perfectly behaved puppy, of course, but she has gained valuable skills through this class, and we hope to build on them at home.

Out and A-boot

One of the fun things about getting older is that muscles and bones start to ache randomly. Such as the peroneal tendon in my left foot. (Don't know what that is? Neither did I.)

As a result, I get to wear this lovely boot for the next few weeks, which makes me look as if I'm about to administer corporal punishment in some far-off country.

Bathing Leia

LEIA UPDATE: Tomorrow marks two months with our four-month-old mini-golden doodle, Leia. Every day is an adventure. We're going through all of the growing pains of pet ownership and are enjoying the highs while enduring the lows of it.

One of the fun things has been bathing Leia. Since she's so small (eight pounds currently), she is small enough to fit in our kitchen sink for a bath.

If you had said she looks like a giant rodent this way, you'd be spot on.

Arbuckle Family Dinner/October 2019

Admittedly, I don't take as many photos of the family dinners for JB's side of the family. But I'm working on doing better at it. (I now get to try to do my part in capturing two family histories.)

Most photogenic of all are the kids, of course, and some are opening up to their newest Fun Uncle at different rates than others. It's a labor of love, though, and the Grantsville family dinners are always a good time.

This past Sunday, we saw Zack and Spencer re-create the "Shoulder Angel" from the BYU-TV sketch comedy show "Studio C."

"Bad Seed"

My niece McKenna did a stellar job in one of the lead roles, playing Christine Penmark, in Bad Seed at Davis High School in Kaysville this week. Mom, Steve, Summer, and I attended the Saturday night performance. We may be a bit biased in this assessment, but nevertheless it's true.

(JB, in the meantime, hosted a girls' night for her side of the family at our pad, so things worked out well for both our schedules.)

I had seen the Bad Seed movie years ago but never had seen the play before this night. It was engrossing and came with a twist ending.