Feel the burn

Recently it occurred to me that we have now been living in Texas longer than we lived in Virginia. And even with the summer heat starting to roll in we are pretty happy with the choice to move. A few weeks ago we had Emily’s blessing and had a little get together at the house afterwards. It is nice to have so many great friends that we’ve made here in such a short time. The blessing went well and people said they were impressed with what Jarom said, especially because he usually doesn’t say anything. Alixa was a little worried that Jarom didn’t mention anything about a spouse. I’ll let you make your own interpretations of that omission.

Around the house we are all staying pretty active. Alixa has found a weekly volleyball game to play in and is enjoying it immensely. She is also working very hard to shed her baby weight by regularly attending the gym since the day that Emmy was old enough to go into the day care. She even recruited a few friends to switch from 24-hour Fitness to the Frisco Athletic Center so she could have some friends to work out with. The husbands of those friends also switched, so now Jarom has some lifting buddies and has starting an actual weightlifting routine for the first time in years. Jarom is also playing lacrosse in an adult summer league and very much enjoying it. His first game he played midfield exclusively, and between the exhausting 80-yard runs back and forth and the general rust from the 6-year layoff he wasn’t anything to write home about. In week two he played mostly attack, and scored 3 goals. His mind is definitely still faster than his body, but he is having a great time playing with the young guys and is holding his own despite being one of the oldest ones out there. Lacrosse is definitely not an old man’s game.

Jenna and Bo get most of their exercise these days in the pool. Pretty much every day is a pool day and they are both little fish. As soon as Bo gets his floaties on he will fearlessly leap into the water and paddle himself wherever he needs to go. You definitely still need to keep an eye on him, but it is nice that Lix doesn’t have to worry about him as much as she used to. And we are glad that the painful experience that he had with Dani pretending to catch him as he leapt off the Chipotle bench hasn’t turned him into a scaredy-cat. Jenna continues to improve her swimming technique, and can now put her face in and swim moderate distances. She is enrolled in some swim lessons at the FAC and is doing great. Her next hurdles are keeping her legs straight when she kicks and side breathing while swimming.

Sonic gets his exercise by following other people around the neighborhood. A lot of people take walks, and Sonic is very friendly and will follow them and go right up to them. They see a purebred Siamese cat and assume that he shouldn’t be outside because he is far too pretty. So they call the number on his tag, and Jarom will go over and get him. Sometimes they call from the front yard where they found him hanging out, and Jarom can just tell them to put him down. But a few times he has turned up 3 or 4 blocks away. I guess not too many people have outdoor cats here. A lot of people have expressed concern about coyotes, which are definitely around, but I think we are far enough away from the fields where they hang out. Alixa says we should take the tag off, but I think there is a chance one of these good Samaritans would just keep him if he didn’t have ID.

Summer comes with other forms of entertainment too. The family took their annual trip to see a Roughriders game on a blanket past the outfield wall and enjoyed it immensely. The kids are becoming very good at playing with each other and imagining things. Their favorite right now is to play ninja turtles. Jenna is always Donatello and fights with a stick while Bo is Raphael, who fights with forks. They do karate on the bed and run around the house fighting each other and general crime.

Jenna is turning 4 this week and we celebrated with a pool party a few days early. All her friends came and splashed around for a few hours, enjoyed some cupcakes, and opened presents. Jenna got lots of awesome toys from the nice people that love her, and when it was over everyone went home and there wasn’t a messy house to clean up, so everyone wins. Later that day mom and dad hooked Mimi in to babysit and were able to have a fun evening out on the lake boating with the Ogdens and Nates. Jarom got to continue to work on his wakeboarding (he can get out of the water and ride, but can’t do any tricks yet) and Alixa got to have an arm workout and a tanning session. She was actually very close to getting out of the water and will hopefully be able to do it the next time we go. Most importantly, she didn’t have to ride the tube, which is her greatest fear. It was a very pleasant evening and it was great to be able to just ride around on the water. Perhaps someday we’ll get a boat, or we can just keep finding friends who have one and mooch off of them.

Emily is getting her exercise in the form of growing, which she is doing like crazy. She is no longer the tiny little baby she used to be. She is starting to be a bit of a chunker. At her last doctor visit the possibility that we were overfeeding her came up. We’re not there yet, but that is how much she is growing. She is mostly a very sweet baby and is sleeping very well. She doesn’t fit comfortably into her 3-month clothes anymore, so Jarom is going to have to climb up to the attic and bring down the next batch. Alixa wants to change her name to Brookie, a decision that got voted down by everyone else in the house. Jarom thinks Emmy is great, Jenna chose Brightly, and Bo steadfastly refuses to call her anything other than Emilybrooke. Alixa keeps trying to work it in, but I’m not sure it is going to happen. But whatever you call her, she is getting to be pretty darn cute.