The story behind the story

Tomorrow, I will write a story about a family reunion with 3,000 attendees: the descendants of Henry Grow, who built the roof of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, several bridges, and some other buildings as part of the Public Works program in the mid-1800s after the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.

The reunion stretched over two days: Friday and Saturday. I interviewed two of the four main organizers of the reunion Thursday morning, and they were kind enough to invite me to come to some events during the Grow reunion. They set it up so I could join the family on a special tour of the Salt Lake Tabernacle at 10 Saturday morning. I was really excited!

I intended to drive the car up to Sandy and ride TRAX in to Salt Lake City, but when I woke up in the morning it was to an empty house (my parents and siblings had left to go to our family reunion at Snowbird) and no car keys. Mom and Dad left me Skip (the name of our car) as planned, but after calling them on the phone about the key problem we realized I'd inadvertently locked the spare key in the car. Roadside Assistance came to the rescue, unlocking the car for me at about 8:55 a.m. There was no longer time to ride TRAX; I sped all the way to Salt Lake. Luckily, I found parking right off (and it was free!) and walked quickly to Temple Square, where I made it just in time for the tabernacle tour.

The rest of the day was busy. I stayed with the Grows (who were all very gracious and friendly) until 12:30 or so, then sped home to prepare for a bridal shower my friend Sara and I threw for our friend Mara. We ended up leaving for the park later than we meant to, but still had enough time to get everything going. Jennifer was a lifesaver- she drove to the park to meet us at 6, the time we'd wanted to get there, and lay on top of one of the picnic tables so nobody would take it. Good thing, too- that park was busy last night! We saw a wedding, a baby shower, and a birthday all at the same time at the same park.

Holly and Kelly came to the shower too. We had a blast doing Mad Libs (Sara, Jennifer and I made them up specially about Mara and Josh), grilling spiedies (chicken shishkebobs), making homemade ice cream and feeding Mara more and more sticks of gum for every question she answered wrong about Josh. (Sara and I wrote a list of 40 questions and sent them to Josh to answer beforehand. Mara answered 14 of 40 incorrectly. It was very amusing for those of us watching.)

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Note the important edit made August 1: Mara answered 14 of 40 questions INcorrectly, as pointed out in the comments.