Some Video Fun

Christmas was great in Cleveland. We are staying pretty busy doing fun stuff, so I won't write much now, but here is a video of Alixa helping Jenna with one of her new favorite pastimes.

Cold (Cleveland) and Colder (Wisconsin)

I want to start this entry on a bit of a sad note. Well, I don’t really want to, but I am going to anyway. Thursday marked a very sad day for the Winns, as the family cat of over a decade had to be put down. Chewie was an old cat, and recently seems to have suffered from kidney failure, which means that he had definitely lived with the right family. Chewie was a stray who was found by Jarom’s neighbor in the parking lot of a Costco as a kitten. As was the case with all the other cats that the Winns have had, Jarom sort of took majority ownership and spent more time playing with him than anybody else. They loved to wrestle, and over the years messing around with Chewie became a fun part of coming home to visit Delaware. He would always come running up from the backwoods when Jarom would call his name from the back deck. Sadly, we are in Cleveland so Jarom was unable to go with his mom to the sad appointment. Mostly I am sorry for Nancy, who doesn’t handle these sorts of things well. It is hard enough for her to say goodbye to her kids at the airport. I guess it is a good thing that he was a good enough cat that tears were shed when it was time for him to go. Anyway, we will certainly miss him, but he had a good run.

RIP Good Buddy

This week was Jarom’s first at his new job and he spent it on the road. He had several days of training in Madison, Wisconsin, learning the computer system that the hospital in Richmond uses to manage patients. The training was nice enough, but the weather was awful. Usually Jarom doesn’t mind a little cold weather, but this was a whole new level of chilly. The temps got up to around 20 in the middle of the day and down below zero at night. One evening Jarom walked to a TGIFriday’s that was about 2 blocks from the hotel and almost didn’t make it. As he considered the possibility that he might freeze to death in an office parking lot a hundred yards from central heating, all he could think about was how on earth the Green Bay Packers play football games in this stuff in the middle of January. Brrr.

Jenna, sitting up in one of Lix's favorite outfits, and in her first "big girl bath"

But he did make it back, and even brought a new company laptop with him, which I am using to post this. He got back to Cleveland on Thursday night, just in time to spend Friday helping Jenna get better. Alixa had a little cough/throat malady last week and she seems to have transferred that on to her darling daughter. What a great mom, eh? Thursday evening Jenna began to make a wheezing sound when she breathed. They went to a local urgent care facility, and she was diagnosed with the Croup Virus. There isn’t really much that you can do for it, but she continued to get worse during the day, so they made a second trip, this time to a pediatric ER nearby. They treated Jenna with some steroids and a nebulizer, which seemed to help. It was at least enough to allow the poor girl to get some sleep (and her parents and me). She seems to be recovering nicely today and even felt well enough to go with her mom to the local tennis club to watch her dad and opa play in a tennis tournament. They performed at an alarmingly mediocre level, finishing 3rd out of 5 teams.

The ER had cute penguin gas masks, but Jenna still didn't really enjoy the experience

The only sad part about Jenna’s recovery is that she has stopped making her cute raspy barks. We have tried to get a recording of it, but have yet to be successful. The best analogy that I can make is that she sounds like Copper from The Fox and the Hound, at the point where he meets Todd. It’s hilarious. The remaining Hegewalds are starting to arrive, with Abe showing up today and Zak and Sam landing on Tuesday, so the house is going to be filling up for Christmas. Hopefully everyone is enjoying the snow that seems to be falling all over the place. Merry Christmas!

The light at the end of the tunnel

What a week in the life of the Winns. Last Sunday Jarom and Alixa went to their old ward to say goodbye to their friends and had a wonderful dinner with the Zufelts, who they will miss now that we are leaving. Monday was spent closing cable accounts, returning library books, packing up clothes and assorted other stuffs, and generally getting ready for about 6 weeks on the road. Monday night Jarom had to go to campus for his final squared. On Tuesday morning we all got up and headed out early so that Jarom could be at school by 8am to present his master's project. He left Alixa and I in the car to sleep, and was back by about 8:10. It turns out that he had misread the email that gave the presentation schedule and he wasn't supposed to present until 10am, which would explain why there wasn't anybody there yet. Unfortunately, Jarom had an interview for a job in Richmond at 3pm, and Richmond is 6-7 hours away. An executive decision was made, and we left. Jarom called his professor from the road, and he was very understanding and accomodating, and it shouldn't prevent him from getting a diploma.

The drive went smoothly, and at about 3:00 Jarom once again left Lix and I in the car and headed in to try and get a job. The interview went well, and he was offered the position of Prelude ADT Support Application Coordinator for Bon Secours Hospital System, Inc. The job title is pretty self-explanatory, but I have been surprised in the past by the level of intelligence among my readers, so I will go into further detail. Jarom will be helping to change the hospital's patient care system from a paper based model to an electronic model. In truth, I can't tell you much more than that because Jarom doesn't really know anything else. The whole process has been very accelerated. Jarom will actually start tomorrow by heading to Madison Wisconsin, where the predicted low on Tuesday is -7 degrees, for a week of training. But he is very excited to be starting a professional career, and the company is great and there are lots of perks like vacation days and relocation assistance and a salary, none of which he has ever had before.

After getting the job, we continued on up to Delaware to reunite with Jenna, who had been hanging out with Grandma for the last ten days. It was late when we arrived, but we woke Jenna up and she seemed very happy to see her parents, much to Alixa's surprise. The next two days were spent faxing employment contracts back and forth and getting to see all the new tricks Jenna had learned, like only drinking warm bottles and pooping up her back. By Friday it was time to head towards Cleveland, where we would settle down until after Christmas. It has been a bunch of years since the entire Hegewald clan has been together, but everyone will be in Ohio in another week. Jenna got a new, improved jumper so that she can demonstrate her skills to Mimi and Opa, who are appropriately doting as first time grandparents should be. Jenna is getting chunkier by the day, and is starting to turn into a real person. She talks a lot, mimics people, grabs things, rolls around, and is generally curious about everything that is going on around her. She will be six months on Christmas, and Alixa is very sad because she misses her little baby girl. This is bad news for Jarom, as she will undoubtedly begin asking for another baby, especially since he now has a job. Jarom is content with just the one for now, and is very sad that his new job will take away the days that he got to spend alone with Jenna, but I guess those are the tradeoffs that you have to make if you want to have any money.

The next few weeks will be good ones for us. We will be in Cleveland until the new year, and then we will go back to Delaware to join Grandma and Grandpa for a trip to the Cayman Islands. I say we, but I really mean everyone except me, not that I'm bitter about being left out or anything. I guess the trip is to celebrate Jarom finally finishing school, and they are extremely excited about it. Then Jarom is off to Madison for a second training week and then we will move down to Richmond about January 15. The company has some apartments there that we will be living in until Lix is able to find a house that she likes. So in general, a lot of big changes going on here, but all very positive ones, and we are very excited about them.

Every town, has its ups and downs...

As I write this post I am getting a little misty-eyed, because it will likely be the last installment from my Knoxville base of operations. It has been a bittersweet week in the Winn household. First and foremost, Jenna is missing. She is spending a wonderful week in Delaware with Grandma and assorted other homeless family members who don’t believe in paying rent. Immediately after Jarom and Alixa left last Saturday, she caught the diarrhea bug and has yet to stop pooping. It is certainly a good thing that she is so cute and that Grandma loves her so much, or she surely would have been FedExed back to Tennessee days ago. She is sorely missed by her parents, who have seen her via webcam most every day. She doesn’t seem to really understand what is going on though, and mostly enjoys hitting the keyboard repeatedly. They are very glad that they aren’t around for the messy diapers, and are enjoying their beauty rest, but are quite anxious to get back to her on Tuesday. She won’t say it because she is polite to a fault, but Jenna is also excited to be done with Grandma, who can’t quite figure out how to do her hair.

As you can see, the hair is a mess, but she is very smiley anyway

The reason for Jenna’s absence is that Jarom and Alixa will be leaving Knoxville and having a kid around makes it harder to tie up loose ends. Lix has worked more at the Olive Garden this week than she has in years, and as a result we are all filthy rich. Then she noticed that the Camry had a flat tire. So Jarom took it in to get a tire replaced, came out with 2 new tires, some new brakes and a few other stuffs, and now we are all flat broke. Those were good times, being rich. Oh well.

Jenna has been spending a lot of time in the tub because she keeps pooping. She doesn't mind because the tub is her favorite place in the world.

Jarom is almost finished with school, again. He has a final presentation in one class and has to present his master’s thesis (sort of) on Tuesday morning at 8, after which we will immediately head north, whether he passes or not. Even the nice weather is finished here, so there isn’t much keeping us. We looked out the window this morning to see snow falling, which was quite a shock. And last but definitely not least, Jarom put his motorcycle Roxy on craigslist to see if there is any demand for her. He doesn’t really want to sell her, but he will hopefully be getting a real job soon and thinks that a car might be more practical, not to mention the decreased risk of being run over.

Jenna and Grandma enjoying her very first snowfall

It will definitely be sad to leave east Tennessee. She has been very good to us over the past 18 months, but it is an exciting time for the Winns as we try to figure out where we will end up next.

Best....Christmas.....Present.....EVER!

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone! Jarom and Lix took Jenna on a long car ride to Delaware where they found a house full of 35 people for a few days. It was a great time. But before they left on vacation they took advantage of their friends’ kindness and sent Jenna off to be babysat while they went to the last home football game of UT’s season. Once again, Jarom was able to get some tickets from his football players on the 50-yard line, and once again the Vols delivered a good win. They stayed through a little of the fourth quarter, and at that point decided that 4 hours was probably enough of an imposition on their free babysitting service. But Jenna behaved herself, which is always nice news to get.

Also prior to leaving, Jarom gave Alixa her Christmas present, because he is really bad at reading calendars and because Lix loves getting things. I must offer a disclaimer stating that Jarom is not particularly proud of the present that he purchased, but it was the thing that Lix wanted more than anything else in the world, so he got it for her. One day after picking her up from work, he asked her to go grab him something from the living room, where the gift was sitting on a chair. It took her a few seconds to notice it, after which she reacted much like the kid in this video-



The gift in question is a leopard print snuggie, and Alixa has worn it every single day since she opened it up. She even has several design improvements, including pockets for hands, pockets for feet, and a tie so that you can walk around in it without getting a “butt-draft.” Maybe Jarom can turn those ideas into a job, since he is struggling to find anything else.

Jenna is still trying to grow into it

On Monday afternoon Lix and Jenna went with Jarom to studyhall where they met some of the football players and dropped of some cookies, and then the crew left Knoxville and drove 10 hours up to Delaware. All of Jarom’s siblings had come home, and there were also 5 cousins, some with families. So the house was crowded and full of babies. Sleeping in was pretty much impossible, as was going to bed early. Basketball and football were played, and three TVs were equipped with Xboxes for large-scale Halo games that went on until the wee hours of the morning. Huge quantities of food were consumed, especially on Thanksgiving, when about 7 more people joined us. Lix got to go see The Blind Side, her favorite story in the world, and loved it. She also got a haircut from Kristi and is quite pleased with the results. On Black Friday she got up to feed Jenna at 4:30 and then went to Walmart to get a Tomtom GPS for $60. It got some use on the way home and she loves it. Lix is very excited about not getting lost all the time when Jarom gets a job and they have to move to a new city. There was also a sale at Carters, where Alixa got about $9,000 worth of merchandise for about $50 (dollar amounts are approximations.) But mostly they enjoyed the company of so many funny family members.

Just a couple of cute pictures of the Winn ladies

Jenna spent the better part of her vacation in Grandma’s jump-jump, which is a little bit springier than her own. Every morning Jarom would take her downstairs and put her in it while he ate breakfast, and she would jump happily for an hour or more. Which brings me to Jenna’s latest animal impression, the springbok, a type of African gazelle. Enjoy the two videos that follow, and see if you can tell which one is Jenna (it works best if you watch them simultaneously)-





Alas, as all vacations do, this one ended. So on Saturday Jarom and Alixa left Delaware. Only this time they didn’t pack Jenna. She gets to stay with Grandma for 10 long days, while Lix works a few final shifts at the Olive Garden and Jarom finishes up all of his schoolwork so that he can get his final degree. They are both very sad to have left her, but confident that she will have a wonderful time and be very spoiled by Nancy. It will be nothing but warm bottles and licking sugary things and shopping trips for cute new baby clothes I am sure. Word on the street is that she doesn’t even miss her parents yet and has been very pleasant. We shall see how long that lasts.

Today was the Winn’s last Sunday in their new ward, the one that they were sent to a few months ago. After sacrament meeting one of the counselors came up and asked if he could speak with them for just a moment. They looked at each other and smiled because they knew what was coming. The three of them sit down in the room and after some brief chit chat the counselor asks them how long they are going to be in the ward. They informed him that they will no longer be there, and they apologized for not being able to take the callings. They are looking forward to being done with this phase of life, where they are constantly moving from apartment to apartment, never staying anywhere for more than a year or two. There are some job possibilities on the horizon, so we will see what happens. I will be sure to let you all know as soon as I do.

During and after pics of the trim