Life of a Salesman

Some might say that Alixa is accident prone. Others may say that she is clumsy, or doesn’t watch where she is walking/driving. I’ll let you make your own judgments. A couple weeks ago she was driving the Carlotta (the new Santa Fe) around near our house when she ran over some sort of puddle. Unfortunately, that puddle happened to consist of yellow road paint, and she splattered it all over the driver’s side of the car. So they had to take it in to get detailed at the hefty pricetag of $350. The reimbursement from VDOT is in the works, but now that the government has announced its spending freeze, I am not sure when we might get that money back. For the rest of the post, I’ll let Alixa tell you about her vacationing.





Since the craft fair was so hectic and so much time was spent preparing for it, I decided that I needed a break and the next weekend Jenna and I took off for Delaware. I invited Jarom to come, but he was still working the night shift at that point and was sleeping all day so he said to go without him. Turns out he stopped working the night shift the day after we left and actually had the whole weekend off. He ended up golfing and playing paintball while we were away. I am pretty sure he just wanted some alone time but he claims he didn’t know that was going to happen. Whatever. One of my excuses to go up was that Annie needed to find a house, and I am an excellent house shopper, so I was going to go help her look at houses. Well, that didn’t actually happen, but we had a lot of fun and I am really glad we went up.

We started our trip on Friday and left Richmond around 10 am. We would have left the previous night, but Annie called and said her kids were puking and that I should give it another day, if I came at all. Well, I wasn’t about to let some flu symptoms ruin my weekend, so I waited until Friday, packed up the car and left. I was so proud of myself for driving the whole way by myself. I had never done that before because I get really sleepy when I drive and Jenna isn’t much for coherent conversation, but I did it and we made it in one piece. We only stopped once for lunch at Panera at the busiest shopping center in the world. After that we hit traffic and it took forever. So the trip ended up taking about 6 hours with stops and all, but Jenna was really good and only whined a little.



When we got there we started having fun immediately! Annie and Jamie are such good hosts. They let us eat their food and play with their toys. Jamie even bought us doughnuts! Jenna still only eats baby food and spaghetti noodles so I mostly enjoyed the good food by myself. Jenna did LOVE playing with her cousins though. She thought Hailey was awesome and had lots of fun jumping on the bed with her. I know she liked her because she kept calling her “Nenna” (Kenna) and that term is reserved for only the best of friends! There was one incident where Hailey stole the toy Jenna was playing with and after having to give it back picked up whatever toy she could find and threw it at Jenna as if to say “Fine, take them all!” But they all narrowly missed her head. Hailey has a surprisingly good arm! Other than that they got along really well. Jenna also tried to play with Luke, but he loves his mom too much and wouldn’t leave Annie’s side long enough to play. So Jenna played in Adri’s and Juliet’s room. They have awesome toys! Her favorite toy was the doll stroller that she pushed around the upstairs landing for at least 3 hours a day. She would put a purse on each arm, put a doll in the stroller and push and push. It was pretty cute. She became very independent on this trip. One minute she would be in the kitchen with me and then next she would be headed up the stairs to the girls’ bedroom to get the toys. Then she would play up there until I came to check on her. It was really fun to see her be so independent. While the kiddos played, the moms chatted. It was great to catch up with Annie and Jamie. Annie and I even managed to sneak out and do some shopping while Jason watched the napping kids. We also had dinner at Gramma K’s house on Sunday night and ate some delicious chicken tacos. Kimmie and her family came and we chatted all evening.



We were supposed to leave on Monday so I could be back to watch Kenna on Tuesday, but Nate called and said he had the day off and he could watch Kenna, so we stayed another day. We went up to Lancaster, PA on Monday and hung out with Amanda Boyd, a friend of mine from back in my BYU days. We ate at the Olive Garden and did some outlet shopping. Jenna had lots of fun with her daughter too. Her name is Addison and she is almost three. She called Jenna “Jenny” and it was super cute. They ran all over the Gap together while we found some Christmas dresses. Once again, a successful shopping trip!

Tuesday we finally left because we missed Jarom and Jenna really missed Kenna. Jenna was so exhausted from the fun weekend that she slept nearly the entire way home. We didn’t even have to stop. We had a fantastic time up in Delaware and will probably make more weekend trips up there in the near future. It is so awesome that Jenna has so many cousins her age to play with!

It's not fair!

Alixa is roughly halfway through her pregnancy, and we have now left behind the nausea phase and entered wholeheartedly into the hormonal weepy phase. Over the past month or so there had been subtle hints of this transition, but events of this week really brought it into focus.

The first event was movie night, when Lix rented Toy Story 3 to watch with Jarom. The latest offering from the Pixar crew follows Woody and the gang as they struggle to deal with their abandonment issues when Andy gets ready to leave for college. It was a wonderfully done movie, as Pixar movies usually are, and at the end there are some scenes where Andy’s mom is giving him a hug and Andy has to give his childhood toys away to a little girl. **Spoiler Alert** Jarom was just trying to enjoy the movie but he kept getting interrupted by the sniffling coming from the girl on the other couch. After the movie ended, Jarom tucked Lix into bed and got ready to leave for his night shift, but before he left he checked on Jenna and then made a comment to Lix comparing Jenna and her stuffed animals to Andy and his toys. For some reason this set off the waterworks all over again.

Someday these two will grow up and leave Mr. Tiger and Midnight behind

The next day was the start of the craft fair that Lix and Kenz have been working so hard for over the past few months. The booth that they set up looked great, they had made approximately one trillion bows to go with the hats, bow holders, carseat canopies, and blankets. The doors opened and the people began to trickle past, admiring the display and commenting on the cuteness thereof, but not offering to buy anything. After a few hours Lix left to grab a bite to eat and had a breakdown. She thought of all the people she knows and wondered who would be the most sympathetic, perhaps someone who regularly weeps for apparently no reason at all. That person is Jarom’s mom. She was a great virtual shoulder to cry on, consoling her about the slow pace of sales at the fair and empathizing with her on the unfortunate truth that children inevitably grow up. Between that call and her always understanding and ever supportive husband Lix recovered admirably.



Business at the four-day fair improved each day, but after it was all said and done it fell short of the lofty expectations that had been set. Two days before the fair the inventory had been tallied and the anticipated gross sales amount was over $20,000. The first and most important business lesson that was learned is that theoretical sales are just that. I guess there is a reason that most start-up businesses fail in the first year of their existence. It is tough work. But the products that they have are well-made, so they will keep tinkering with the prices and look for new outlets for sales. I’d be remiss if I did not do my part by plugging their website, www.babybabblesboutique.com, where you can see examples of the things they do and place your orders. Free shipping on orders over $25!* Tell your friends! They do custom orders, too! (*offer not available in all areas, see website for details.) Hopefully they will be able to continue selling their inventory, and while they will certainly not reach the $20,000 mark, they can still make a little money.



Profitability aside, the experience has been a great one for Alixa. She very much enjoyed improving her seamstering talents, and has become better friends with Kenz as a result of their shared time and effort. And should she ever try her hand at another business venture (investors, hide your wallets!) she will be that much wiser about how to do it. Jarom is very proud of her for going out and doing this, and is also happy to have a new well from which he can pull jokes out of. Seriously though, go to the website and buy some stuff, or Jenna won’t get to go to college.

This is what happens to Jenna when she gets tired.

Recently we took a field trip with all the Richmond Winns to the petting zoo, where the goats apparently love Ritz crackers more than anything in the world.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

I don't know if WonderWoman flies or not, since I wasn't alive back when she was a big deal, but irregardless, Halloween was a smashing success. The festivities began on Friday at the Ward Halloween party, which Alixa was helping to put on. Jenna got all dressed up in her WonderWoman costume and Alixa made herself into a q-tip by gluing cotton balls to her head and feet. The party went well, with lots of kids in cute costumes. Jenna spent most of the evening looking quizzically at all of the strange looking people and playing with Kenna, who came as a bumblebee.







On Sunday the girls headed over to Kenzie’s house around 4 to take some pictures and start the trick-or-treating. As usual, pictures were difficult because these little girls have no interest in sitting still. So after playing in the front yard for a bit they decided to get going, even though it was still very light out and at every house people had to go searching for candy because they weren’t ready yet. The girls were a little shy at first, but it didn’t take long before the excitement of getting candy overcame any apprehension that they may have had about the strange people they were meeting. At each house Jenna would happily take the offered candy and put it in her pumpkin bucket, and then reach for more. It is hard to say no to cute little kids in costumes, so more they would get. Jenna got very good at going up to the door and knocking, and even did her own version of trick or treat, which was basically just a series of grunts.







After getting her candy Jenna would quickly turn and head to the next house. Unfortunately, Kenna did not share her long-term investment strategy of collecting as much candy as possible while the getting was good. She wanted to eat each piece of candy the moment she got it. In fact, she was in such a rush that she didn’t even wait for Kenz to unwrap the candy, opting to try and chew through the wrapper instead. As a result of all of the stoppages to eat candy, it took 45 minutes to get through 8 houses. After they had hit up all of Kenz’s neighbors they picked up Jarom and headed down to the hospital where Nate and Jarom are spending their workdays. All of their coworkers enjoyed seeing the enna girls, and they collected many more handfuls of candy.







They stopped at a few more houses on the way home so that Jarom could see Jenna in her now expert trick or treating form. It was fun to watch her enjoy the experience so much. She was loving every minute of it, and seemed to be aware of her cuteness. She even got comfortable enough to do some poses, sticking one arm up in the air whenever Lix would say “do-di-di-doo!” Lix probably loved it more than anyone, in part because she believes that her child is the cutest kid in the world, and in part because she loves trick-or-treating, and finally got the chance do it again after a many-year hiatus.



Other than the joys of getting free candy and dressing up, the only real news from the Winn house is that Lix is going to divorce Jarom. This is because Jarom has started working night shifts and must get his sleep during the day. Alixa, ever the reasonable spouse, automatically assumes that since Jarom doesn’t have to be at work during the day he should be available to do things around the house, babysit, and run errands with her. But instead of doing those things, he can sometimes be found lazily sleeping the day away, sometimes for as many as 7 straight hours! She has made her displeasure known, and now the ball is in Jarom’s court as to whether he will continue his delinquent behavior or get his butt in gear. Happy Election Day!