Little Monkey

The most recent general conference of the Church was held a couple of weeks ago. The weekend before that, the Church also held the first-ever women's meeting, and all LDS women aged eight and older were invited to attend.

(Yep, I have some catching up to do yet again here on Electric Bassoon.)

At any rate, while the women in the family were attending the women's meeting, Ben, Steve, nine-month-old Christian, and I had a guys' night out together, first enjoying dinner at Sizzler together, then going over to Ben's and Adi's place to watch the Real Salt Lake soccer game.

As a nine-month-old, Christian has a bedtime much earlier than ours, though Ben gave him a bath before putting him down to sleep. His bathrobe resembles a monkey.

Dead Men *DO* Wear Plaid!

A shameless plug goes out today for Murray Arts Council's production of Forever Plaid, starring my brothers Ben and Steve as half of an excellent cast of four.

Yep, I'm biased. Admittedly.

For those not familiar with it, Forever Plaid is the story of the four Plaids, a doo-wop singing group killed in a car accident on the eve of their first major performance in 1964. In 2014, however, the singers are allowed to come back to Earth for a special one-night performance. Good, time-tested music and hilarity ensue. I went to see their opening-night performance Monday and was thoroughly entertained.

To obtain any additional information, visit the Forever Plaid Facebook event page at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1411848399074698/. The show plays through this Saturday night.

Basketball Time with Kylee

My 16-year-old niece Kylee made it on the Layton High School sophomore girls basketball team this year. The team has been doing very well, having lost only two games all season.

I finally made it to a game Friday afternoon, which was also Valentine's Day. The Lancers beat the Northridge Knights by a score of 56-26. Though Kylee is not a starter, she got about five minutes' playing time, shooting 2-2 and scoring four points. She also added a couple of steals and generally played very well and aggressively.

After the game, I snapped the above photo of her alongside her dad, my brother Mike. She wears #5, which was also Mike's number when he played sports.

February Family Birthday Party 2014

Sunday's bi-monthly family dinner also doubled as our family birthday party for late January/February, for which we recognized Dave, Jeff, and Jessica. Accordingly, we sang "Happy Birthday to You" . . .

. . . and ate delicious cake, not to mention another spirited game of everyone's favorite, "Pass the Parcel."

Grandma Plowman (along with everyone else) also enjoyed spending time with seven-month-old Christian, feeding him strained carrots during dinner. Like you do.

Luke's Baptism

My eight-year-old nephew Luke was baptized into the LDS Church Saturday by his dad, my brother Dave. We're all proud of his decision and are grateful for the great young man this kid is becoming.

Here's a photo from after the end of the baptismal service, with Luke standing next to Jenna, Jessica, Jake, Dave, and Kira.

Normally, I post just one photo for an event like this, but I love the look on Luke's face in the second photo. So, lucky you—you get to see two of them.

All Is Calm, All Is Bright

Christmas was last week. Perhaps you've heard of this holiday.

I am a week (and also a year, depending on your point-of-view) late in posting photos of our family shindig, but suffice me to say that we had a good one together. I was down and out with strep throat though I was on antibiotics, and the family was good enough not to shun me from spending time with them and observing the many goings-on.

Our annual family Christmas Eve program was very well put together, as it always is, by my sister. Kira enjoyed playing the part of Mary, while Luke was one of the three wise men:

Dad grew out his annual holiday beard for the occasion and gave Kuma a good scratch on the head as he looked on.

Gifts were also exchanged, and among the many given and received, I must say that my family knows me well enough to get me gift certificates for Dee's:

I hope the rest of you out there in blogging land, likewise, had a good Christmas holiday and that the year 2014 is a good year for one and all.

Rasslin'

My nephews Luke and Jackson, both neverending sources of entertainment, got in some old-fashioned rasslin' Sunday after bi-monthly family dinner at Ben's and Adi's house in Centerville.

The Family 5K

How was your Thanksgiving this year? I hope it was a good one all around. As far as the Plowmans' holiday went, four of us (Mom, Dad, Biz, and myself) participated in our first 5K race.

Jeff also joined us for the South Davis Recreation Center's Family 5K, a race covering parts of Bountiful and Centerville. As for the four aforementioned first timers, it wasn't necessarily about speed or competition but rather in crossing the finish line, which we did together after about 66 minutes on the road.

 

And now we have these cute medals to show for it. So, it was a win-win all around.

The Leaning Tower of Dallin

At last week's family FHE, Mike taught an object lesson with wooden building blocks. Basically, the lesson was that, together, we can do and make things better than we can on our own.

As part of that object lesson, Dallin and Jackson worked in tandem to create the night's tallest Jenga-like structure, which reached up to the ceiling.

The Little Drummer Boy

Mike, Jana, and the kids recently acquired a drum set from some friends who were moving and didn't have a place to put theirs.

Not too surprisingly, Jackson has now taken up drumming.

Carving Pumpkins

Halloween is, sadly, now over. Still, I have one more photo to post today from recent Halloween-related festivities.

Last Monday night, I joined with Mike, Jana, and their kids to carve up the pumpkins we picked out the week before for FHE. As you can see, we (collectively) made some pretty great jack-o-lanterns.

Ben's Birthday Bash 2013

It was Ben's birthday last Saturday, and to commemorate the occasion, Adi put together an enjoyable birthday party for him at their home in Centerville. It being only five days before Halloween, the event was also organized as a costume party.

Our family seemed to unofficially capture Disney/Pixar as a theme for our costumes, as Ben and Christian, respectively, dressed up as Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story:

Summer and Steve were two Pirates of the Caribbean, yours truly dressed up as Squishy from Monsters University, and Adi portrayed Hamm (also from the Toy Story films). Adi's friends Corinne and Joe were a couple of bank robbers, and Biz and Jeff were a couple of zombie killers from the movie Zombieland.

In one of my favorite photos from the event, five-year-old Kira took a turn holding her three-month-old cousin Christian.

Ben and Adi also brewed up some Butterbeer, which was based on a recipe from the Harry Potter world. It was surprisingly good.

Here's to many more birthdays, Ben.

Monday Night at the Pumpkin Patch

For family home evening last night, the Plowman clan (minus Adi and Christian, who are in Florida visiting Adi's friends where she served her mission, and Jeff, who was in class) made our annual trip out to the Pack Pumpkin Farm in Farmington, something that has become a much-loved Halloween tradition for our gang.

Jackson, entertaining as always, enjoyed running through the hay maze and then posed as a zombie atop a different stack of hay bales:

Luke, McKenna, and Jenna posed alongside the pumpkins that they picked out for themselves:

We posed for a family picture . . .

. . . and then the others arrived, after which we took another one. I must say that we are pretty good-looking motley crew:

Good times were had by all.

Another Year Older and Deeper in Debt

Last Thursday was my birthday. A group of about 15 friends, including Ben, Adi, Steve, and Summer, joined me at the Karaoke Café in Murray to celebrate by singing karaoke and eating cheesecake---two of my favorite pastimes.

Getting older is acceptable as long as I can do those two things in the company of good people.

The Plowmans Invade Oklahoma

It was essentially "The Plowman Show" last Saturday night at the Murray City Amphitheater, as three members of the family starred in Oklahoma! together. Ben and Steve headlined the production as Curly and Will Parker, respectively, and Summer gave support (and made her acting debut, to boot) as Gertie Cummings.

Prior to the beginning of the show, however, Ben joined his bluegrass band, Bluegrass Thunder, on stage to perform a number of tunes, including "The Orange Blossom Special" and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," to get the crowd warmed up.

That was only the start of Ben's marathon evening, as the main event then followed. He and his castmates poured their hearts and souls into the performance. My brothers did their share of solo/duet singing and stage kissing, and I may be somewhat biased when I report that they did a great job. We were kept well entertained throughout the evening.

In particular, I enjoyed Steve's improvised moment when a very loud helicopter passed over the stage and amphitheater, as well as Summer's giddily amusing laugh as Gertie.

Good times were had by all.

Shakespearean Festival 2013

A couple of weeks ago, many of the members of the family and I made our annual trek down to Cedar City for the Shakespearean Festival. For more than a decade now, it has been an important family tradition.

This year, Mom and Dad; Dave and Jessica; Ben, Adi, and baby Christian; Steve and Summer; Biz and Jeff; and Jeff's brother, Dave, and sister-in-law Ginny made the trip. At the matinee, half of us went to see Twelve Angry Men, while the other half, myself included caught Love's Labours Lost, which was very comedic and entertaining but nonetheless had a somewhat ambiguous or abrupt ending to it that confused more than a few in our audience.

Well, you can't win 'em all, Mr. Shakespeare.

Between shows, Ben snapped this photo with me sitting next to the statue of the Bard:

At night, we together caught the evening show, Peter and the Star Catcher - which was based on a book co-authored by Dave Barry no less! It was very imaginatively carried out and amounted to a sort of prequel to the ever-popular Peter Pan story and movie.

Good times were had by all, and we are looking forward to the shows in 2014.

Weekend of Reunions

I'm a week late in posting, but I made it out to Spring Mobile Ballpark in Salt Lake City last Friday, July 19, to attend what has amounted to my annual Salt Lake Bees' baseball game. Mike had obtained some great tickets (behind home plate) through his work, and he invited Biz, Jeff, Kylee, and me to tag along for the evening.

As for the game, well, the hometown squad was beaten soundly, 18-7, which sounds more like a football score than a baseball one. There were also two grand slam home runs, which is something I had never seen live, as well as multiple other two- and three-run homers throughout the skirmish.

The real highlight of the evening, however, was the appearance of five actors from the 1993 movie The Sandlot at the ballpark. They, along with the film's director, were in town to commemorate the 20th anniversary of having filmed the movie in Salt Lake, and, in addition, they sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch.

Following the game, I went over to the nearby Off Broadway Theater to perform with my Improvables teammates Bryan and Keenan in a head-to-head matchup with our sister troupe Laughing Stock. This was another reunion for me, as Improvables co-founder Eric Jensen appeared on the Laughing Stock team, and it was also my first performance on the OBT stage since I discovered their Improv-okie nights and began taking improv classes there approximately 11 years ago.

My "weekend of reunions" was rounded out Saturday night by my 20-year high school reunion at the Little America hotel in downtown Salt Lake. I saw many old friends from the Bountiful High class of '93 there and was able to catch up with them, as well as meet their spouses.

Pioneer Day 2013

It's Pioneer Day, don't cha know? It's the holiday that we celebrate here in Utah that commemorates the day in 1847 that Brigham Young looked out over the Salt Lake Valley and said, "One-hundred sixty-six years from today, our pyromaniac descendants will be blowing up this valley piece by piece with bottle rockets, Roman candles, cannons, M-80s, Molotov cocktails, etc."

No, of course, he said, "This is the right place; drive on." As a family, we gathered at Mom's and Dad's house in North Salt Lake to barbecue (the hot dogs and steak were delicious) for the occasion, afterward we gathered in the street for a small fireworks show.

Here, Jenna, Kira, and Dave throw snaps out into the street:

If you think I was joking about the cannon comment, by the way, the parents' next-door neighbor actually brought out a small cannon to fire some ear-bursting shots into the atmosphere.

Christian Jordan Arrives

On Thursday, July 11, Ben and Adi welcomed their first child, Christian Jordan Plowman, into their family at 12:46 p.m. at University Hospital in Salt Lake City. He weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, was 20 inches long, and has red hair and blue eyes.

Here is the "before" shot of the parents, taken just five days prior to the birth (following a family movie outing to see Despicable Me 2):

And here is the "after" shot of Christian, taken just yesterday:

I am grateful to have my fifth nephew (of a total of nine nieces and nephews) here safe and sound.

Fatherhood

Fatherhood . . .

. . . you're doing it right.