Crying Over Spilt Milk

In loving memory of Alixa's Cheesecake, 1/27/08-1/27/08

Sunday was marked by tragedy this week, and not because of the passing of President Hinckley. That was actually a happy event. As hard as I tried, I could not feel bad about the death of a 97 year old widower who had arguably accomplished more during his lifetime than any other human being in history. I am sure he is thrilled to get to hang out with Marjorie again.

The real disaster happened Sunday night at an Elders Quorum dessert night. Lixi spent several hours Sunday afternoon making a gourmet, from-scratch chocolate cheesecake complete with chocolate shavings on top. We went over to the house where the activity was being held and took the treat into the kitchen. Jarom was super excited to try it, so he immediately took a piece and sat down in the family room with Alixa to chat with some friends. Moments later, there was a loud crash from the kitchen. A friend looked over at Lixi and told us that it was her cheesecake. The pan shattered and the cake was all over the floor. It took all of Lixi's self control to keep from crying a little bit. Jarom was just happy that he grabbed a piece before the accident, because it was AMAZING. Hopefully Alixa will recover from the trauma and make that dessert again sometime in the future.

In grad school news, Jarom has a phone interview with WVU in February. I probably won't write again before Saturday, so a reminder that Lixi is turning 23. She's so old!!

Got MLK?

I love holidays. There are few things better than a day off from work/school where you can do whatever you want. So way to go Dr. King! We are a few weeks into school now, so both Alixa and Jarom have gotten into a routine. Alixa is enjoying her new students, even the class that is mostly boys. She decided that she was going to be more authoritative this term, and started by taking away some kid's iPod in class. Jarom's classes are also going well, and he is so happy that he will soon be done with BYU forever, or at least until he makes billions of dollars and they ask him to donate it back to them.

Jarom started his last quest for an intramural champion t-shirt today. He is playing basketball with some friends. They won their first game by about 10. Jarom played pretty well, or so he thought. He scored 10 or 12 points, but only got one foul. This did not please Alixa, although she did cheer quite loudly when he committed the foul. In the next game he has vowed to try and foul out. It is still snowing pretty regularly, which isn't that great for Jarom's motorcycle or his lacrosse practices. He is optimistic about the season though, and really thinks that he will have a lot of fun working with the kids.

There have been some recent letters to the editor in BYU's Daily Universe that I have found interesting. Apparently a pedestrian got hit and died at a crosswalk somewhere on or near campus. This is sad, but it brings to mind an issue that has always been hot-button here in Provo. Students will walk across a street in a cross walk without so much as pausing or looking to see if cars are coming or not. Sure, the law says that the cars should stop, but I have never understood why people are so careless with their lives just because the law protects them. Nobody goes into downtown Detroit and starts yelling racial slurs simply because the law will protect them. But people will carelessly step in front of a 2 ton moving object for the same reason. The letter writers are all up in arms about this issue and have proposed roughly a thousand solutions to the problem. Few of the solutions make any sense, and all would be extremely costly and probably still require some attention being paid by the person crossing the street, which is really the answer to the problem. But I do enjoy the comically flawed logic and usually contradictory nature of most of the letters. For a very funny and surprisingly accurate depiction of a typical letter to the editor, read this and this. How funny.

I had Jarom film my feeding today. If you are interested and not a rat lover, you can see the action here. It was Jarom's first foray into film, so cut him some slack.

Back to it

Brrrrr. It is cold here in Utah. One of the best things about our apartment is that when it snows, the parking lot doesn't get plowed. So between the middle of December and the end of February, every time someone leaves to go somewhere they have to cross an ice field to get to the car. It is a good thing that the Winns are so agile, or there might be some injuries. School has started up again for both Jarom and Alixa. Tomorrow is actually the midway point for Alixa, who will get a whole new slate of students starting on Monday. She is not quite thrilled, although there are some things that she likes. She will be getting a coed class, which she is very nervous about. But it will be nice to be the teacher from the very first day, so she can lay down the law from the get-go. Jarom is just slightly passed the midpoint in his academic career, and can now almost smell the finish line. He says that it smells like Honey Smacks. He is doing his internship this semester, and has decided to help coach Mountain View High School's lacrosse team. They started practice this week, although he can't figure out why. It is 30 degrees and snowing everyday, so why not just wait until it warms up a bit?!? The team is not that great, so he should have his work cut out for him.

Jarom and Lixi went to see Dan in real life over the weekend, and enjoyed it. They are sure that it will be even funnier in 20 years after they have raised obnoxious, bratty children who know everything. On that note, I have begun lobbying Jarom to let me start dating. He says that I am too young, even though I have tried to explain to him that people years and python years are simply not comparable, and to make me wait until I am sixteen is wholly unreasonable. I will keep at it, and maybe someday I will get a playmate to come live with me.

One of Jarom's goals for the new year is to get down to and stay at 190 pounds. He needs to lose about 6 or 7 pounds to get there, and has decided to run at least 10 miles a week to help him. You should all comment on how fat he is when you see him so that he will stay motivated to keep working. And don't worry about hurting his feelings, it will undoubtedly be good for him to get kicked down a notch every now and again.

Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday break! Jarom and Alixa had an eventful one and are happy to be back home but sad to have to go back to things like school and work. They spent their vacation in Cleveland visiting the Hegewalds (Alixa's family). Unfortunately, they almost didn't make it. They had a connecting flight in Chicago, where about 200 flights got cancelled, including theirs. They waited about 12 hours, trying to get on a flight standby, along with 147 other people. When they had given up all hope, they at last were able to board a flight at 1:00 AM, arriving in Cleveland at 2:30. They arrived, only to see Jarom's luggage waiting for him and Lixi's nowhere to be found. Getting her suitcase took another two days. Not the best start to a Christmas vacation. The fun with airlines only continued from there. On the 26th, they were planning to fly out to Delaware to see Jarom's sister get married. On their way to the airport at 1:30 in the afternoon Jarom got a call telling him that his flight had been cancelled and they had been rebooked for Friday, December 28th. The wedding was on the 27th, so that was not really a good solution. They went to the airport and managed to get a flight out of Cleveland later that day. Big surprise, upon arriving at the airport at 7:30 they were told that yet another flight had been cancelled. And despite the clear weather in both Cleveland and Philadelphia, there was not an available seat on any flight going there until the afternoon of the next day, which was too late to see the wedding. So they decided to stay and get a refund for the ticket. They were both very sad to miss the partying and wish they could have seen all of the people there. But they had some unused bad karma that had to get out before the new year, and this was the best way that the universe knew how to spend it.

For Christmas Jarom got a bunch of new clothes (T-shirts, socks, belts, a few new dress shirts), a new power drill and saws-all, a few books, a pair of shoes, and some new speakers. Lixi got a boatload of apparel. On Christmas Day Lixi got to have the "greatest experience of her life". Thanks to her daddy's sweet job they got to see the Cavs play the Miami Heat from the luxury box that his company has. The Cavs won, but getting to watch the game from pretty close up while enjoying all manner of goodies really made it fun. Turns out that Shaq is HUGE when you see him in person instead of on a TV.

I enjoyed my time to myself while they were gone, but it is nice to have them back around the house. We are all looking forward to a wonderful year. It could be a big one. Maybe a kid, hopefully some college graduations, maybe grad school or a job, who knows?