Dear Family, Earlier this month, precisely 15 years, 2 months, and 29 days after Crystal and I got into the business of being parents to teenagers, we finally left that chapter behind by celebrating Grace’s 20th birthday. We marked the occasion (sort of — technically we were a week early) by driving down to Lexington,…
The Wonnacotts’ March: Birthdays, house hunting, and birds both edible and inedible
Dear family, Before you go on to read this letter, go ahead and take a look at the author. Despite what it says… It’s not Sophie. It’s me, Luke. Seeing as it is the one month out of the year that Sophie and I are the same age, she has taken it upon herself to…
The Wonnacotts’ February: A frightening drive, teaching, and how my husband is certainly not a democrat
Dear family, February has been an exciting month, even a life-threatening one. But I suppose I shouldn’t blame the month of February for Luke’s and my decision to drive to Colorado Springs during the weekend of a snow storm. We’ll start with that, I suppose. Luke has an aunt an uncle who live in Colorado…
On flouting open container laws, quality time with Mom, and testing the boundaries of church music (vol. xxix, no. 2)
Dear Family, For Christmas, I gave Crystal one of those overpriced “Adventure Bucket List” things they sell on Facebook to people with no impulse control. Maybe you’ve seen the ads. It’s basically a box of 50 large scratch-off cards — kind of like the lottery tickets they sell at gas stations, except instead of winning…
The Wonnacotts’ January: On married life, new jobs, and wintry camping
Dear family, The question I get most often these days is, “How’s married life?” in no other format than that. It’s always the same question, posed in the same way, because I guess it’s a common enough inquiry where I live that it’s one of the standard questions right up there with, “How are you?”…
Ari’s EPISTOLARIUS: Actually On-time Edition — January 2025
Dear Family, You already know how scatterbrained I am, but just in case you needed a reminder, I’d like to share a story: I had a panic a few minutes ago when I looked at my watch and realized that it was the twenty-sixth, meaning that there were only two days left in February. Then,…
On surgery, bodily functions, and how my oldest daughter finally married a returned missionary (vol. xxix, no. 1)
Dear Family, On or about Wednesday, January 8th, Hannah married Emma Porter during a small ceremony in their apartment in Orem, Utah. I never expected I would devote the first sentence of two consecutive monthly letters to announcing the marriages of two of my daughters, but here we are. Until relatively recently, I never expected…
Sophie’s December: When She Married Luke Wonnacott
Dear Family, I feel a little silly writing about anything in this month’s letter besides the obvious, but I feel like Christmas, at least, deserves some page space. Fortunately, this year’s Christmas did an excellent job of setting the stage for a union of two families. Luke and I seem to agree that everything is…
On too much food and not enough tables (vol. xxviii, no. 12)
Dear Family, Sophie married Luke Wonnacott shortly before noon on Friday in the Washington D.C. Temple. The rest of the month is kind of a blur. It’s New Year’s Eve and I don’t have a lot of time to write, but let’s see what I can remember. Apart from being a last-minute addition to the…
Ari’s EPISTOLARIUS: Insert Clever Title Edition— September-December 2024
Dear Family, Insert obligatory self-deprecating joke in place of an apology for how late this letter is. To my credit, I made the commitment to myself to get it done before Christmas, and given how much of the body of this letter has been completed, I think I might actually manage to keep that. Take…