The Travelling Pants

When we left off last the Winn family was crashing at Winn Manor in Delaware. That went on for a wonderful two weeks. Alixa and Jenna were thrilled to have Jarom around all day long, and everybody had a great time hanging out with lots of cousins and stuff. Jarom and Lix pawned their kids off on some doting aunts and played a round of golf together, there were family dinners and trips to malls to go shopping with the girls and swimming in the hot tub and swinging on the swing set and consoling JD while watching BYU games. All the wonderful things we have come to expect from a Delaware visit. And after a few weeks of not being a productive member of society, Jarom was actually pretty excited about the prospect of getting back to work and getting into his new job. So on Friday he helped pack up Carlotta and sent Lix, Jenna, Bo, and I westward towards Ohio, while he loaded up his car for the trip southward towards Dallas. As you might imagine, Alixa’s trip of 6 hours with 2 kids did not go nearly as smoothly as Jarom’s trip of 24 hours with 0 kids. I will let Alixa share her thoughts.

When I was talking to my mom one day about our plans while we were homeless, I mentioned that we would be spending our time in Delaware. It was only a four hour drive, there was lots of space for us, and Jenna had cousins there she could play with all day every day. It was a perfect place to be for three weeks until we could get to Texas. But my mom suggested that I spend some of the time in Cleveland with her so she could see her Grandkids one more time before they move so far away. I reminded her that it was an 8 hour drive to her house, not something I was willing to drive by myself. She said she would fly in and drive with me, so I agreed that we would go to Delaware for 2 weeks, and then come see her the last week. Well, a few days later, she said since I was now driving from Delaware, a drive that can be done in 6 hours, she was not going to spend the money to fly in. I said ok, thinking I have driven 5 hours by myself before, what is one more hour? So Friday the 23rd I packed up the car and the kids and headed out to Cleveland.
It was raining, which is no fun to drive in and I was hoping it would stop before we had to stop to feed children and change diapers. But unfortunately, it didn’t stop. It got worse and as we stopped for gas and a sobbing Bo, the rain was coming down in sheets. I stopped in a parking lot to feed Bo squished in the backseat of the car, but now Jenna was crying because she was tired and hungry, and that upset Bo, so he did eat, he just cried. So we were all crying in the cramped backseat of our car as the rains came down. I finally calmed Bo down enough to get him to eat, and promised Jenna something (I don’t remember what) if she would stop crying. After feeding Bo, we drove over to a gas station, thank goodness for covered gas pumps! I filled up the car and proceeded to change Jenna’s diaper. I pulled her out of her seat, and she was soaked. She had peed through all of her clothes. I started to panic because her suitcase was buried in the back of the car and I would have had to unpack most of the car to get her some new clothes. But, as I looked down, I saw the jammies that she had worn the night before that I didn’t pack in the suitcase, but had just thrown into the front seat on my way out of the door. They were a small miracle to me, just sitting there, I almost cried for joy. So, I put her clothes on her and then tried to decide what to do about lunch. Jenna was hungry, and I had minimal food in the car, but I couldn’t get both kids out of the car and into a restaurant without all of us getting soaked. So I settled on an Arby’s, the only fast food place at the exit, and got Jenna some French fries, and me a roast beef sandwich. Not the greatest lunch, but we were back on the road.
As I was looking at the route to take to my mom’s house, I decided to go up to I80 instead of taking the Pennsylvania turnpike (I 76) so that I could avoid Pittsburg and all of the construction going on around the city. I did not realize that to get up to 80 was a small road with not very many lanes. It was slow moving for a little while but we finally made it to 80 and I was excited to be moving at freeway speeds again. We were cruising pretty well for maybe 30 minutes, and then everything stopped. Literally, stopped. We weren’t even inching along. About ten minutes of just sitting there, people started getting out of their cars to walk up and see what was going on. I asked a trucker and he said there were two major accidents, one after the other, and that was why we were stopped. So I took the opportunity to sit in the back and hold Bo and play with the kids. We were stopped for a good hour and then started inching along. I assumed we had bypassed both accidents since we were stopped for so long, but that was not the case. We drove about 2 miles down the road, and stopped again. This time we were stopped for 2 hours. Not moving, just sitting. This time I was able to feed Bo again, change diapers, and get everyone ready for bed. I also fed Jenna her “dinner” of an m&m kudos bar, and some cheezits. She asked for real food, but that was literally all I had in my bag. So all in all, we were stopped for 3 HOURS. It made our journey and 11 hour trip instead of a 7 or 8 hour trip with stops. After we started moving again, the kids fell asleep and we were able to make it with no further problems. We pulled in around midnight. It was a terrible day of traveling, but we had survived. I learned a lesson… always have extra clothes available for the kids, and lots of food, just in case!

So it wasn’t the perfect drive. But they did make it safely to see Mimi and Opa. And sitting at the top of their list of things to do that week was visit the zoo. So on Saturday they stopped by to see all the animals and Jenna could not have been happier. She loved the elephants and tigers and monkeys, but her favorite exhibit, and not by a narrow margin, was the seals and sea lions. She spent a whole lot of time just staring at them while they swam around, completely transfixed. And when the group moved on to other animals, she repeatedly asked to go back to see the seals until her request was approved. The rest of the week was filled with game playing and visiting and tea. All the wonderful things we have come to expect from an Ohio visit.

Jenna's new unicorn slippersHiding in the corner

Bo, excited as always

Eating some carrots, just like the deer in Opa's back yard

While the family was enjoying the changing leaves in northern Ohio, Jarom was wondering why it was still in the high 90’s in Dallas. The job started pretty well, despite the general discomfort and lostness that accompanies any new job. There was a lot of orientation and filling out of forms to get the right key cards and computer programs and the like. But the people that he is working with seem very friendly and he is feeling pretty good about their decision to move. But after having so much time off, you can’t just jump right into a 5-day work week. So he got a Thursday night flight out of DFW to go to Cleveland and retrieve his family, and begin another two-day car drive. This one went much smoother than Lixi’s last one. It is amazing what a difference having a spare adult makes. And the fact that we avoided any accidents or major traffic jams didn’t hurt. We left Friday morning around 10 in the morning, and were pulling into Bob and Melissa’s house in Memphis about 12 hours later. At least we thought it was Bob and Melissa’s house. Jarom had stayed there the week before, but it was late and dark and their neighbor also has a large pickup truck in the driveway. So poor Lix had to awkwardly apologize to the strange man who answered the door but was nice enough to point us in the right direction.

Getting ready for the street corner

Hanging out at the seal exhibit

We got a good night’s rest and Jenna got to play with their puppy, Max. But we were very anxious to get to our new house so we didn’t stick around very long after the French toast ran out. Another 7 hours across the super-boring states of Arkansas and East Texas and we had reached our destination. The kids actually hit their breaking point about 45 minutes before we got to the house, so the last few miles weren’t the greatest, but I was pretty impressed with how well they did throughout the trip.

We pulled in and our PODS were waiting for us, and through the miracle of packing everything so tightly that there wasn’t any room left, nothing was broken. Jarom did need to enlist Alixa’s help as he opened them to help prevent a cartoon-like explosion of furniture and boxes upon their release. It took about a day and some help from Nate to get everything out of the cubes and into the house, and then about another week to get things out of the boxes and into their new places here. But after living in the house for one week, we are now down to just a handful of boxes here and there, mostly containing wall decorations and stuff that Alixa hasn’t chosen a spot for or Jarom hasn’t had the time to put up on the wall.

The early stages of the POD packing

In addition to getting the house organized Lix has been very active socially, attending playgroup one day and going out with some friends on another day. She also got Jarom to go over to the Combs’ house on Friday evening for pizza and to meet a few couples. Brooke Combs (Alixa tries to find a Brooke to be best friends with everywhere we live) even came over to play and help unpack on Wednesday. I had the honor of meeting her and her kids, although they didn’t really seem to like me. The Winns got introduced in church today and Jarom has found a weekly basketball game that he can get in, so I would say that they are adapting to the move rather well.

Jenna's new bed, and all her animals

Jenna's new playroom, complete with her own TV

Other than the fact that the previous owners had dogs that left behind some hair in the carpet, everyone is pretty excited about the house. Jenna loves her new big girl bed and is excited about climbing up the ladder to lay down every night. The upstairs play room is great for Jenna’s toys and it is nice that we can keep the downstairs a little more orderly. Jarom and Alixa love that they have enough closet space to hang up all their clothes and Jarom likes not having to share a sink with his wife. They have been having regular family dinners at the table in the kitchen instead of on the coffee table in front of the TV, which makes Lix happy. And both cars now fit in the garage, which makes them happy. There will be little modifications and adjustments that will need to be made for a while, but right now everyone is thrilled to be together and in a home that is our own as we all try to figure out what life will be like here in the lone star state.

And a few videos of what the kids have been learning lately