I know it seems as though it has been forever since the last
post here at the corner. It has. The reason for that delay is that everyone
here at the house has gotten new phones, and now everyone is too preoccupied to
get anything done. Alixa managed to keep her iPhone 4s for 2 years without
breaking it, and rewarded herself with a new 5s. She chose the gold color, and
just keeps rambling about how amazing it is to have an extra row of apps on her
screen. Jarom on the other hand threw in the towel on his fight against
progress. As many of you know, Jarom hasn’t ever had a smartphone. In fact, he
didn’t even have text messaging enabled on his dumb phone. He claims that this
was in order to save money, but deep down it was really because he was afraid
that nobody would text him and he would have to face the reality of what a big
loser he is. But a great guy at work offered to give him an old iPhone 4 for no
charge, and he hooked himself up with a prepaid plan that only costs $25 a
month, so his inner cheapskate left his behind in the past and has leapt into
the world of emojis and pinterest and Instagram. Ironically, he now has
unlimited texts and limited voice minutes, so he has become a prolific texter.
He is like the Saul of Tarsus of text messaging.
When I last wrote to you all the crew was headed off to
Orlando for a memorable week at Disneyworld. It already seems like ages ago,
but it was an amazing trip. All of Jarom’s family was there, which is a lot of
people. They were able to spend a day at Epcot, a day at the Magic Kingdom,
another at Hollywood Studios and the last one at Animal Kingdom. Epcot and
Magic Kingdom were the favorites, although the best single ride may have been
the car stunt show at Hollywood Studios that came complete with a visit from
Lightning McQueen. Bo was sobbing at the end because he didn’t want to leave.
As anyone who has been to Disney knows, the rides are okay but the real treat
is the general experience and the details. Every facet of that place is
meticulously planned and designed to create a memorable experience. From the
shows to the rides to the lines and the characters, it was one cool thing after
another. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
After a wonderful week at Disney Jarom had to come back to
Dallas for work. Alixa decided to take full advantage of still having no job
and no kids in school and headed up to Delaware for another 10 days. She and
the kids were rewarded with snowfall after snowfall, which they turned into fun
days sledding and making all manner of snow creatures. She got to see her east
coast friends that we don’t get to see nearly as often as we would like, and a
few new houses that some people have recently purchased. All that new house
seeing only served to ramp up her normal level of house hunting and she has
been in overdrive lately trying to get Jarom to approve the purchase of a new
home. As she said at dinner last night, “I just can’t see how we are going to
be able to fit in our house. It just won’t work.” Oh boy.
Upon her return to Texas Alixa was greeted with the news that
we would once again be heading to a new ward. This time the stake redrew the
boundaries of 3 units to make 4, and we are in the entirely new ward. The first
week the only callings were the bishopric. The next week there were all the
presidents, followed by the complete presidencies, and now we even have
teachers and piano players and the like. It has been interesting. Alixa has
handled this transition much better than the last one, which was famously
terrible. When the announcement came down everyone immediately came to her to
see how she was holding up. Alixa is apparently known across several wards as “the
girl who cries when ward boundaries get changed.” She was asked to put together
a meet and greet style activity the first week and it was a big success, and
has now been called to run activity days for the 9-year old girls. We will miss
the folks that we left, and we will be sad that we won’t be seeing them as much
as we did, but we’ll be okay. The new ward is much smaller, which has been
nice. Jarom and the kids showed up about 2 minutes late last Sunday and were
still able to get a seat on a pew. That never happened before.
Jenna is playing soccer, and it is going as well as you
could hope for a 4-year old playing soccer. She hops and dances and skips
around the field. Sometimes she kicks the ball, and sometimes she even kicks it
in the right direction. Her games are pretty fun to watch, not because any of
the girls can play but because they are all about 60% clueless about what they
are supposed to be doing. Bo goes to all her practices and plays with Jarom,
and I think he is actually better at soccer than his sister. Emmy is crawling
everywhere and seems to be very interested in walking, which she’ll probably be
doing soon. She can go up the stairs, but hasn’t quite mastered going down,
which is dangerous, especially because she is quick and can vanish instantly.
She is as smiley and happy as ever, even though she spent a good part of
February with the flu and an ear infection. Alixa is playing in a rec
volleyball league, which she loves. Jarom hasn’t had a chance to go watch her
yet, but you better believe there will be some video as soon as he does. Way to
go, new old iPhone.
Kids eating limes. Always funny.
