From UT to

I spent the first few years of my life in the western United States, where people talk about “Utah’s Holy War” and claim to “bleed cougar blue”. I hate to break it to these people, but they don’t have the slightest idea what it means to be a fan. I now live in SEC country, home of the best college football teams in the country(just ask THE Ohio State University). And it isn’t just that the teams are good. The people here live and breath with their schools. It seems as though every car has at least one orange T on it somewhere, and everywhere you look someone is wearing orange. We are very excited for the football season to start in a few weeks, and though Alixa and Jarom didn’t get season tickets they will definitely go to a few home games this season. It should be an awesome experience.

Our new living room

Our first full week in Knoxville has consisted of many trips to the store, whether that be WalMart, Sams Club, Bed Bath & Beyond, or others. We are starting to feel like we have things under control, and the walls are getting covered with pictures. To see the full album with moving pics and some shots of our new place click here. Jarom and Lix have taken advantage of the pool and tennis court here, although they still have no friends. Hopefully they will get some soon, because I am tired of hearing the Friends theme song every night.

All Jarom has to show for 12 years at BYU

Alixa has been busy with several things while Jarom started his graduate classes this week. She is looking for a job, and while she is as yet unemployed, she has several very promising leads. There should be good news on that front in the coming weeks. She also got library cards for her and Jarom, which has been a great find. The library has a huge reserve of movies that can be checked out and lots of new fiction for them to read. They don’t have a lot of experience using libraries, but it seems like TN has a great system here and they are thrilled to use it.



After golfing 5 times while in Delaware, Jarom couldn’t make it very long without hitting the links, so he took Lix and they played 9 holes Friday morning. He got to use his new rescue club, which he loves (thanks Mars), and Alixa got to use her new golf bag. It was a beautiful morning on a sparsely populated course, and they each hit enough good shots to keep them happy and enough bad shots to justify maybe going again this week. I think it is cute that they are able to share this hobby.

X Country

It has been a long time since I have written, and much has happened to the Winn family. We have moved from Provo, Utah to Knoxville, Tennessee, where Jarom will start graduate school this coming week. There was also a two week vacation to Delaware to visit the Winn Hotel and enjoy the amenities that it has to offer (lots of entertainment is included with the daily rate, which is quite reasonable.) Now we are all back in Knoxville, but allow me to digress and recap the past few weeks.

The Move

After procrastinating for as long as humanly possible, Jarom and Lixi finally began the process of putting stuff in boxes and prepping for the move. Alixa is much better at this than Jarom, who had to constantly be reminded to “stop dawdling” and do something. But progress was made, and on Monday, July 29, they were mostly boxed up. They went and picked up a 17 foot UHaul truck and a tow dolly to pull their Camry across the country. A few friends from the ward came over and did an amazing job helping them get the couches and tables into the truck. They did such a good job packing that there was actually quite a bit of space left empty, even with the motorcycle in there. Since Jarom doesn’t mind driving at night they decided to take off as soon as everything was packed, which meant about 8:30pm.

Jarom chose to take I-80 because he loves the scenery of Wyoming and Nebraska. We stopped for a bite to eat at a McDonalds in Evanston, Wyoming. It was decorated like a posh hunting lodge, complete with a fireplace and flat screen TVs on all the walls. This did not match the typical customer, who was wearing cowboy boots with spurs, dirty blue jeans and a hat bigger than a smart car. It made us laugh. We drove until about 3am, at which point we pulled into a rest stop and crashed for a few hours until the sun came up.

Tuesday took us to Kansas City, where Jarom’s mission buddy Devin lives. He has two little girls, ages 3 years old and 3 weeks old. The 3 year old seemed to like me, and I was just happy to have a break from the bouncy truck for a couple of days. We mostly just hung out, catching up and relaxing. On Thursday it was time to get moving again. We again left at night, except this time when we stopped at 3am it was in a southern bayou and not high in the mountains. After about an hour of unsuccessful attempts to fall asleep in the heat and humidity, Jarom ran a few laps around the rest stop to wake himself up and got back behind the wheel. Fortunately, he didn’t fall asleep and we made it to Knoxville by about noon on Friday.

The New Place

A very helpful EQP and some missionaries looking for some service helped unload the truck, in which the stuff had not shifted at all, thanks to the great packing crew. Nate and Kenz arrived to help empty boxes and reassemble stuff. By Saturday afternoon it was starting to look like an apartment, so Lix and Jarom decided to leave me to watch the fort while they took off up north to Delaware. It is a ten hour drive, although Nate lives right on the way, so they made a pit stop for dinner.

Delaware

The Winn family reunion didn’t start until August 10th, so Jarom and Lix had the house mostly to themselves for a week. Kristi seemed more than thrilled to have someone to share it with, especially because Jarom occupied so much of Bruce’s attention. Jarom got his dad’s old golf clubs as a birthday present, so he needed to take them out a few times and play, and he also had to help his dad choose a new set. Since they didn’t want to feel like total bums, they did a few chores to help out. They cleaned a chandelier and did some weeding and pulled up a dead tree and a bush that was in the wrong place. But mostly they enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and enjoyed being with family.

At the end of the first week everyone else arrived, filling up the house and making it easier to find someone to play with. They went down to the beach for a day, played some more golf, went shopping and bowling, visited some friends in Lancaster, played a mean game of whiffleball, and took a trip down to DC to visit the temple and see the zoo.

Back to TN

Alas, real life called and they had to leave, much sooner than they would have liked. They made the 10 hour drive back with another stopover at Nate’s. There have been several trips to Wal-Mart and Bed Bath & Beyond to get appropriate housing decorations, but the place is looking nicer and nicer. I don’t really care too much about how things look, but I do like the humidity. I am a jungle snake, so the dry air in Utah didn’t suit me. Jarom starts school again this week, and Lixi has to try and find a job that she loves. All in all, we are excited about the future here in Tennessee and glad that everything went smoothly with our move.

So long, Farewell....

Things continue to be busy for the Winn household. After returning from Las Vegas, they promptly packed up to head out to Cleveland to spend a week with Alixa’s family. As per Winn family tradition, they arrived at the airport late for their flight. Fortunately, the flight had been delayed and they were able to make it. The first order of business once they got to Cleveland was to do some more traveling and head down to Knoxville to find adequate lodging for their new adventure in the Smoky Mountains. After looking at a number of options, they settled on a two bedroom, 1.5 baths, two-story town home. It has new carpets, and no pets are ever to be allowed in there, so I will have to be kept on the down low. It is OK though, because I never leave messes on the carpet anyway.

Both Jarom and Alixa are nervous and excited about moving to Tennessee. It will be nice to be closer to family (8 or 9 hour drive to both Cleveland and Delaware) and Alixa can’t wait to have another bathroom. But they will be sad to leave some wonderful friends that they have in Utah, and the unknown is always a little scary.



After making sure they had a place to live they drove back up to Ohio and spent the rest of the week hanging out with family. They swam in the pool, played a round of golf, saw the new Batman movie, did some shopping, played games, and even managed to go to the local tea house for an interesting meal. Jarom doesn’t really like tea, and the whole experience was far too fancy for his liking, but the food was pretty good and it was an interesting experience. It seemed very much like he had been shrunk and placed inside a dollhouse for about an hour.

They showed up at the Cleveland airport to find another delayed flight, which was good because they were late again. It was good to get back to Utah, even though they would only be staying for a week before beginning their cross country trek.



On July 24th, Alixa had her anniversary. She has survived four years with Jarom, a feat that should be admired. They celebrated by hiking up to Squaw Peak, a hike that Jarom did several years ago and wanted to do again before he left town. It is a 6 mile round trip, climbing up 3,000 ft to the peak, which is almost 8,000 ft high. It was a good workout and very pretty, with a great view of the valley from the top.



Our last few days in Utah will be spent packing, which is where my lack of arms is a serious drawback. The plan is to get everything packed up and hit the road on Monday or Tuesday. There will be a stop in Kansas City to visit some friends living there, and then it is on to the Volunteer State.

Vegas, Baby!

Our time here in Provo is drawing to a close, which means that Lixi and Jarom wanted to make one last trip down to Las Vegas to visit their favorite Vegan. They took the trip with the Grants and the Carters, and spent three days in the dry heat of the desert. A great time was had by all. They visited assorted hotels and casinos, played some mini golf, ate at wonderful restaurants and generally enjoyed each others company.  Much thanks to Grandpa Winn for sponsoring the event and hosting the participants.

Much to Lixi's surprise, this guy was NOT a statue

Jarom won another softball championship, this time in an Orem City league. He was a sub and only played a few times during the season, but he did earn co-player of the game honors in the championship for going 2-3 with a double and a triple.

Alixa collecting eggs from Jarom

Jarom also bought and sold his first set of golf clubs this past week. He was very excited about them until he heard that he would be getting his dad’s old set for his birthday. Free clubs always beat cheap clubs, so he took advantage of his friends accommodating return policy.

Alixa is officially tired of working. She had been doing very well the past couple months, but last week she hit a wall. It is OK because we will only be in P-town for about 5-10 more days anyway. We are all getting excited about the move. Not the actual move, which will be a terrible pain in the tail, but being in a new place and starting at a new school and stuff. That part will be fun. We are also excited to see Tennessee. We have heard great things about it.

The Winns with their diminutive friends, the Grants

Tomorrow I get left again as Jarom and Lix go to Cleveland to visit the Hegewalds for a week. They are also going to swing down to Knoxville and find an apartment to live in. It should be a wonderful trip.

Looking typically excited at Church

Correction

Hello, Alixa here. I would just like to clarify that I did not say I would get back to my brother about Mitch. Jarom has a bad habit of not telling the truth, so I needed to make sure it got in the blog. He apparently told Mitch that I would not mind getting rid of him when in fact, I told my brother right away that we would be taking Mitch with us because he is part of our family and we could never part with him. So there, I am not a cruel and heartless person. I am glad that this has been cleared up.