Been a long time

I am too lazy to actually check this out, but I think this is the longest gap between posts since I started this thing. The past few weeks have been very eventful for the Winn clan. Jarom finished up his classes with good grades and Alixa finished up her time at Rural Metro with a wonderful baby shower thrown by her coworkers, many of whom she had little or no contact with. She even got a present from the mail lady. I guess Lix just makes good impressions on people. But then it was time to go, so we packed up our clothes and a few basic supplies for the summer and hit the road for Richmond, where we would spend an enjoyable evening hanging out with Nate and Kenz. We met one of their neighbors on Sunday morning as we were leaving. He saw a young couple, one a pregnant lady, and assumed that we were the new people next door that he hadn’t met yet. Good people.



We made it to Delaware safely, where we found a wonderful setup. There is enough closet space for Jarom to keep his clothes in his own room, which is a treat. Lix is excited because the hot water lasts for more than 7 minutes. I get a spot next to the window, where I can enjoy the sunlight and keep an eye on what is happening. Jarom and Alixa aren’t the only ones who like the house, which means that I have had a steady stream of visits from grandchildren Allie, Madison, Adri, and Juliet. They all seem to love me, although there are varying degrees of braveness. Some touch my tail, some hold me, and some keep their distance. I’m sure they will all get used to me by August.

Jarom loves the wallpaper

After pulling in on Sunday, Lix spent most of our first week here transferring from Tennessee Medicaid to Delaware Medicaid. It was a painful process that saw her put in three separate applications at three different locations. Then we started to get calls from people wondering why there were so many different applications put in. So she then had to go around and cancel them. But it seems as though things are all taken care of, and she has had two doctors visits at the hospital here. She is already dilated to a 1 (I don’t actually know if that is good/bad/unique/normal for this stage of the game, but I thought I would throw it in there) and is really hoping for an early baby.

After 4 days of his parents, Jarom just had to get out, so they jumped in the car and took off for Cleveland to see the Forest-Keepers. After an uneventful drive across PA, they got to OH just in time to see Mars and his rec-league volleyball team lose in the finals of their league championship. One day they went golfing with Mario and a couple of kids from his branch. It was a beautiful day, a wonderful course, and a great time, but the additional guests were not exactly quick players. It took 6 and a half hours to get through 18 holes, and by then even Jarom was ready to get out of Dodge. One morning they went to see Mikah at her art school, and loved the work that she does. Jarom wants to get her to do some art for our house someday. He is very jealous of people who can draw. Nights in Cleveland meant Settlers of Catan marathons with Mars. Unfortunately for everyone, Lix is both a good player and very sneaky, and she wins most of the time. Before leaving the state, they decided to renew the vehicle registration, which meant a quick trip to the shop for a new catalytic converter and an emissions test. It was a steal at only $450, plus they threw in a hefty batch of new cigarette smell that we are still trying to get rid of.

This week it was back to DE so that Jarom could start his internship at the University of Delaware. It’s been a couple of days, and it seems like it will be a good gig. He gets to wear shorts to work, and will get to learn a variety of systems and tasks that will hopefully be useful as far as future employment goes. Lix is struggling in her new role as housewife. She got a little bored one day, and was highly offended when Jarom asked her to do the laundry while he was gone. She has started quilting, played a little bit of piano, and done a lot of cooking.



This week Jarom got me a pair of feeder mice, since I hadn’t eaten for about 4 weeks and the pet store was out of rats. I only wanted one of them, so I graciously offered the extra to Chewie to play with. Jarom tried to get him to bat the little guy around, but the best he could get out of him was a steamroller. But it turns out that Chewie just likes a good chase, because today the little mouser turned up on the garage steps. Jarom is glad that even though he is getting old, his cat still has some killer instinct left in him.

Moving Day

Yesterday Jarom finished another semester of school and Alixa has about 1.5 workdays left until we head up to Delaware for the summer. I am not allowed to put our new location on the internet, because Alixa is terrified of strangers reading it and hunting her down and murdering her in the night. So if any of you find the urge to send cute baby girl clothes to us irresistible, you’ll have to contact us to get the address.

Despite the happiness surrounding school and work ending, the weather here in Knoxville has been a wee bit gloomy, with many rain showers. This is clearly not the way it is supposed to be. As Alixa wisely noted, “It’s April showers bring May flowers, not April showers bring May rainy-ness.” I couldn’t have said it any better. Fortunately, during a sunny week not too long ago Lix applied a coat of Rain-X to the Camry’s windshield. It was her first time and she was very proud of herself for doing a good job. Now whenever Jarom drives in the rain he gets the odd feeling of being trapped in a 1990’s Windows starfield screen-saver. Isn’t Rain-X great?!

Our last Sunday here in town was stake conference, only instead of the traditional format the stake was part of a SLC broadcast. Unfortunately, there were some technical difficulties that made it a little less watchable. There seemed to be some type of sleep-mode activated on the projector, which caused it to turn off after about 60 seconds of the movie. It took over an hour to fix the problem, so most of the conference was heard in 60-second sound bites separated by 30 seconds of resetting the system. You could tell that the speakers had themes, it was just a challenge to figure out what they were. It was all better by the time President Monson spoke, which was a good Festivus Miracle. As always, it was nice to listen to the prophet’s stories, even if some of them were repeats.

Jarom and Lix also attended their third and final birthing class on Monday. It is actually the third of five, but we won’t be here for the last two. It was a great class, covering such wonderfulness as episiotomies and tearing, labor pain, and unique delivery situations. Much of the class was focused on the variety of pain meds that can be used during delivery. Thanks to Coralie and a number of books that Lix has read, she is pretty set on having a natural birth. This puts her in the minority, especially in their class, where most of the women wanted an epidural as soon as humanly possible. I support women deciding for themselves how much to be drugged, but I am mildly skeptical of Alixa. Also in the class they ran a “contraction simulation” that really wasn’t. They guys and the girls had to hold a bag of ice for one minute while they practiced their breathing. Alixa made it about 12 seconds before she put the bag down because of the pain. She claims that labor cannot possibly hurt that bad, so she will be fine without drugs. I suppose we will see.

Cribs

Hello everyone! I know Mitch just posted, but I couldn't wait until next week to put this up. So, we are leaving next week and we thought it would be nice to have a place to put our baby when we get back from Delaware, so Jarom finally put together the crib. It is really a cute crib, I think. So then I got so excited to have a crib up, I just had to look at bedding for it. So, this is the bedding we got. I need opinions. What do you all think of my make-shift nursery? Do the browns clash? It really feels like we are going to have a baby now. Weird.

He was much better at putting the crib together than at putting the mobile together

Also, while I have everyone's attention, I just wanted to give my friend Amanda some publicity. She just started her own online shop and makes really cute stuff. She will be adding a lot more items, but for now it is mostly cute crocheted hats and beanies for babies and headbands for little girls with big flowers on them. You should all check out her website.

Crossing the Line

The big news from Knoxville this week arrived on Sunday via our Stake President. As per Winn tradition, much to Alixa’s eternal shame and irritation, Jarom arrived at church with his robust bride a few minutes late. As they entered the chapel, they heard the bishop dismissing the congregation to go to Sunday school. This caused some confusion on Jarom’s part, as he wondered just how long it had taken him to brush his teeth that morning. But they were soon informed that the meetings were going to be reversed and a special combined sacrament meeting would be held with the other unit that meets in the building. Jarom neither knew nor particularly cared why this was happening, but the gossip of new ward boundaries traveled faster that VD through the Rock of Love Bus. It was all anyone could whisper about during the lessons that day, and surfaced repeatedly in the form of comments about following church leaders. After classes ended, Lix and Jarom made their way to the chapel, where they were forced to sit for about 30 minutes until the official start time of the Knoxville Branch. Finally, President Morgenegg (name has not been changed, because it’s funny) stood at the podium and began naming streets and avenues and highways that would mark the new boundaries of the West Hills, Knoxville First, and Pellissippi wards. Jarom didn’t hear any streets that he recognized, so he assumed (incorrectly, as he would learn later) that he was unaffected by the changes. After outlining the changes and stressing the importance of attending your assigned church unit, the President had the honor of opening up the testimony meeting. His remarks, not surprisingly, were focused on the changing wards. The general theme was summed up in a phrase he repeated multiple times: “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but…” He would then proceed to make a big deal out of it, by comparing the present experience (attending the same chapel at a different time, or possibly a different chapel altogether) with such historical events as the saints being forced out of Kirtland and Nauvoo (events highlighted by murders, beatings, theft, vandalism, illegal jailings, destruction of property, etc…) This went on for over 20 minutes. If any of you have watched the movies Australia or Lord of the Rings Part III you will be familiar with the sensation that what you are watching is about to end, only to have a whole new chapter unexpectedly start up…again and again. But he did finish, and was followed by other overdramatic testimonies, talking about the historic nature of the day, and even mentioning how we had been specially prepared in the preexistence to be in this chapel on this day. I must say, Mormons are crazy!

It seemed like Frodo saved Middle Earth in less time than last week's church meetings took

As I mentioned, no boundaries were changed around the Winn apartment, but it turns out that we have been attending the wrong ward since our arrival last August. Our actual ward meets in the stake center, which adds about 15 minutes to their commute. Since we will be leaving for the summer, and then only be back for a few months before leaving for ________, the tentative plan is to hope that this all blows over by the time we get back. Meeting new people at church has never been Jarom or Alixa’s strong suit, so if they can avoid doing it they will.

Only 50 more days of parking here at the Walmart

The NBA playoffs have been going on, and will continue until about September. I have very much enjoyed them so far. All of my favorite players are on display, from Kobe dicing up the hapless Utah Jazz to D-Wade carrying the Heat against the Hawks. Kobe is my favorite because he is the only NBA star to use a snake as his nickname, and I like Wade because he pays tithing. The best series, without a doubt, has been the Bulls-Celtics, which goes to game 7 this weekend. Four of the six games have gone to overtime, including a triple OT thriller game 6. What really makes me happy is the struggle of Boston, because I hate them. Mostly I hate Paul Pierce, with his terrible looking facial hair and whiny disposition, which has carried over to the rest of the team. I am hoping for a Bull's win in game 7, and maybe even another Joakim Noah throwdown on Pierce’s noggin.



Only one more week in Tennessee. Alixa has fiver more days of work, and Jarom wraps up his finals on Tuesday, and then it is off to the greener pastures and less-humble surroundings of Bruce and Nancy’s in Delaware.

Playing Possum

Those of you who know Jarom and have children are aware of his proclivity for calling those children rats. Some of you have wondered out loud if he would continue this habit with his own offspring someday. It is still a little too early to tell for sure, but my magic 8-ball says “Signs point to yes”. As Alixa has become more and more pregnant, she and her little buddy have started to play games. This is often how Lix entertains herself during slow stretches at work. She will sit and balance things on her belly, waiting for Jenna to move them. She has been working on rolling over and sitting up with mixed results (Lix seems to think she’s a dog). This week, Jenna tried a new trick that she came up with on her own – playing dead. All morning on Tuesday Alixa didn’t feel any moving going on, so she decided to call her doctor, who told her to come on in to check it out. Even though she was pretty sure she was over-reacting, she didn’t want to take any chances. So she left work, drove to the hospital, waddled in and got all the monitors and doohickeys strapped to her, at which point Jenna decided to jump out from her proverbial hiding spot to say “Here I am!” Her movements while at the hospital were off the charts, making this the first official instance of Jenna making her parent look like a big fat liar. This story amused Jarom, who has since begun referring to the possum that Lix is lugging around. Oh, well. As a wise person once said, “A false alarm is better than a real alarm.”

No possums were hurt during the taking of this photograph

Also on the baby front, the Winns attended their first birthing class this week. It hasn’t been particularly valuable yet, but there are still a few more weeks to go. They got to watch a bad intro video that included a stand up comedy routine about childbirth that wasn’t funny. Their teacher is a strange lady who home schools her kids, has a thick accent, and says “OK” at the end of every other sentence. The main thing that they learned is that they wish they were going to be giving birth at this hospital in TN. The birthing rooms looked like hotel suites, and each came with a Jacuzzi tub for the mom to soak in before and after labor. Hopefully the hospitals in DE will be nice too.

I haven't put a pic of pregnant Lix up in awhile, so here she is at 8 months pregnant (32 wks)

We are all getting excited for the big move, which is only 10 working days away. We have been thinking about possible stops on our way up north, first considering Cleveland and then settling on Richmond, where we will get to see Nate and Kenz’s new house. But for now Jarom has a few papers and finals to wrap up and then he will have only two more classes to take in the fall to complete his Master’s degree. Alixa spent the week getting pampered by receiving a pedicure, her first in about a year, and getting a new hairstyle. She looks very beautiful, even though she is constantly scratching her itchy tummy and bosoms. Hopefully, she has less than 60 days to go, and is very excited about not being pregnant again someday.

I found this while looking for possum pics, and it's hilarious