Cruise-iversary

2014 has been a bit of a whirlwind around here, which is my excuse for not posting anything during that month. After a great Christmas season with Jarom’s parents visiting we did what any sensible person would do: we celebrated Christmas again with Alixa’s parents after they got back from Utah. Jarom couldn’t have been happier to have multiple Christmases and basically not have fund any of them because they were so grandparent dominated. And you don’t exactly have to try and sell more presents and celebrations to Lix and the kids.

 January in Frisco - Scooting and outdoor picnics

 Emmy doing her favorite things - eating and sitting around

 Supporting Daddy while he plays basketball

Speaking of celebrations, Lix has been planning her 10-year anniversary cruise for many months now, and it occupied the last week of the month, ending on February 2^nd, also known as Alixa’s birthday. I’ll get to the cruise in a minute, but first let’s look at the solution to the problem of how to adequately celebrate Alixa’s birth. She’ll be cruising around the Caribbean the week before, and then in Disneyworld the week after, and then in Delaware visiting friends and family for another 2 weeks after that. So obviously you turn the first 3 weeks of January into her birthday party. Please everyone, feel very sorry for this poor tortured soul.

Since Alixa and Jarom have been using mismatched furniture their entire married lives, Jarom felt like it might be time to finally get a bedroom set. So for Alixa’s birthday he got a bed for the new mattress they recently purchased, and got some end tables and a few dressers to go with it. Now they can finally get rid of the hand me down falling apart dresser that they got from Amanda Erickson (now Boyd) when they lived in the Enclave at BYU. It was probably worth about $12 when they got it, and they would probably have to pay someone to take it now. The new furniture looks great, and it really makes the master bedroom feel more like an adult’s.

 Jarom's dresser in the closet, and the other furniture in the bedroom. Jenna thinks she is Vanna White.

 Bo promptly turned it into a racetrack where he would run over princesses

The rest of the month was filled with an assortment of dinners, parties, pedicure trips, and other fun things. Jenna continues to do well and really love school. She is doing a pretty good job learning to read and write, and we think she will love kindergarten in the fall. It is crazy to see what a grown up little girl she is. Bo behaved during a haircut for the first time, which was an amazing surprise. He and Jenna are best buds when they aren’t annoying each other to death, and love to fight and wrestle and chase each other and pretend. Jenna also got a haircut, trimming off a whole bunch of hair. She is a great big sister for Emmy, and both she and Bo have recently started to interact and play with our littlest one a lot more. A big part of that is that Emmy is starting to play back, and can know scoot and crawl around and make more responsive noises and gestures and faces.

And back to the cruise. Lix had wanted to do some sort of fun trip for a long time and we recruited a Grandma to come and stay with the kids for a week while the happy couple sailed off. I won’t get too mushy here, but it has been a great 10 years (in July) for this couple. And they still seem to very much love each other and are generally quite happy with their life so far. It is pretty easy to be satisfied when you are married to the most loving, devoted, caring, funny, intelligent, attractive, amazing person in the world. And Jarom is lucky to have Alixa too. So to celebrate having not killed one another in their sleep for a decade, they recruited a few friends and headed down to Galveston for a 7-day Caribbean cruise.

 3 on 3 tournament team (below) and fan club (above). As you can tell by age, physical condition, and skin color the team didn't win.

The vacation started on Saturday when the babysitter and the Carters arrived. On Sunday they packed up and made the 5-hour drive down past Houston. In retrospect they probably should have left a little bit earlier or driven a little bit faster or not stopped for lunch, because they were literally the last people on the boat. As in, they stepped on the boat and the crew then took the gangway off and the boat shoved off from the dock. I can only assume that had they missed the boat we would have seen the fastest transition from “anniversary celebration” to “divorce proceedings” in history. But they made it. The first few days were at sea, filled with laying out, sleeping in, working out, taking naps, playing basketball, eating food, more laying out, reading books, and generally not being in a hurry. It was nice to be away from the kids, but it was also really nice to be away from phone and internet connections. There was lots of dressing up for dinners, and did I mention the eating? Most of the dinners consisted of multiple appetizers, sometimes multiple entrees, and often multiple desserts. The theory was that you could order whatever you wanted and just eat a few bites, but in practice not much food was getting tossed. Oh well, there will be time to burn off those calories later. It was great to spend time with our friends (Carters, Ajirogis) who we don’t ever get to see.

The cruise had 3 stops: Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. In Jamaica we hopped on a bus and drove a few hours to a place called the Blue Hole, which is about the most amazing spot in the world. There are a bunch of waterfalls, rope swings, caves, and places to jump from. We spent a few hours there climbing around the rocks and jumping off, and being amazed by the aerobatics of our guides who were fearlessly doing flips from 35+ feet up. Alixa was very brave and did every jump that was offered to her. We had a great bus driver who entertained us during the long commute, and we also picked up some phenomenal Jamaican jerk chicken for lunch.

On Grand Cayman we headed over to Stingray City for some snorkeling and stingray fondling. It was fun to drive around the island and remember the places we had been when we visited there with a 6-month old Jenna. While at stingray city Jarom tried to do some snorkeling, but got yelled at by the boat captain for straying too far away from the group. He pretended not to hear him as long as he could, but eventually the captain sent one of the workers to swim over and yell at him, so he had to come back. Lame. They also did some diamond shopping, but it turns out those things are really expensive, so it didn’t work out.

The last stop was Cozumel, where the group had nothing planned. So we wandered a little bit, found a taxi and squeezed too many people into it to go to a nearby beach where we could paddle some kayaks, rent some jet skis, and climb on some inflatable water toys. We got to barter with the locals for some cheaply made trinkets and managed to not get kidnapped or robbed.

After one more day at sea we arrived back at the Galveston harbor. Unfortunately due to a thick blanket of fog we couldn’t actually enter the harbor, so we had to sit just off shore for an extra 6 hours waiting for Mother Nature to end our vacation. It did allow us to have one last leisurely sit down breakfast, and Alixa even had the chance to finally order something from our favorite bartender Akos, who had spent all week complaining every time he passed us about how nobody in our group drank alcohol. It was supposed to be virgin, but he may have spiked it. The Carters and Ajirogis had to make flight changes and move plans around, so the delay was pretty inconvenient. It also meant that Jarom and Lix didn’t get home until almost 11 pm, which isn’t a lengthy turnaround to unpack and then repack and then try to sleep a few hours and get up at 4 am to get the kids ready and catch a 6:15 flight to Orlando for a week at Disneyworld. I’ll cover that in the next post when I have the pics.

This little pirate was so happy to see mom and dad she woke up to hang out

I guess the moral of the story is that we don’t have too much to complain about around here. 3 great, healthy kids, a nice home, a great mom, a passable dad, wonderful family that volunteer to babysit for a week with no compensation and even let you come home to a clean bathroom and a newly organized kitchen. It’s been a great first decade and hopefully there will be a few more in the future.

Wrapping up 2013

It has been a wonderful final month of the year. The first week of December came with an ice storm. When that happens here in Dallas, everyone just stops everything until it warms up and melts. That meant that Jarom got to work from home and we got to spend about 4 days sitting around the house together. The kids seemed to enjoy the ice in 10 minute spurts, so Lix would bundle them up, they would head outside and slide around the yard for a bit, perhaps knock down some icicles or something, and then come back inside to crawl under a blanket and watch a show. Fortunately nothing on the house was damaged and nobody wrecked a car during the freeze. After a long week of painfully slow commutes and slush on all the roads our wonderful Dallas weather returned and we saw some days back up in the 60’s, just in time for the arrival of Jarom’s parents.

 Brrrrr.....

 When it is too cold to go outside you pretend to be afraid of Mitch on the stairs 

and turn pantry doors into snowmen

Bruce and Nancy came for a 12-day stay that would be split between our house and Nate’s. Nancy had been here once for Callie’s birthday, but this would be Bruce’s first visit. The day they arrived was lovely, so they grabbed some dinner and headed out to the park to enjoy the sun and let the kids swing and play. That became the theme for the next few weeks. Grab some food and go somewhere so the kids can play. It was great. Grandma took the kids to see Frozen, everyone went to see ICE at the Gaylord hotel, the Moms got to go shopping together, some golf was played, there was bowling, Alixa and some recruits did a great job singing in the ward Christmas program, BYU lost their bowl game, the zoo was visited, the adults had a nice dinner out with no kids, Jarom and Nate avenged an early season loss in their rec league, and somewhere in the middle of all that we managed to celebrate Christmas.

 Enjoying the 9 degree temps at ICE

It was wonderful to have grandparents around to play with the kids and spoil them. Christmas was mostly sponsored by Grandma and Grandpa. Bo got lots of Planes gear, from the movie to toy airplanes to pajamas. Jenna got a new pillow pet, because she has been sleeping on Pete for almost 4 years and he is starting to look his age. So now she has a unicorn named Violet. Emily got to chew on some wrapping paper and found some stacking blocks and rings underneath it eventually. Alixa got a few house cleanings and Jarom got a new set of golf clubs. And the entire family is getting a trip to Disney World at the beginning of February. The kids have paper chains that they can use to count down the days. In terms of presents, it was a wonderful Christmas.

 Emmy is pretty much crawling now, although not very quickly. And Bo wants a puppy. Great.

Enjoying the beautiful weather

 Experiencing Build-a-Bear for the first time

A few days after Christmas Alixa got a bonus present. She has been asking for a new ceiling fan in the family room for a long time now, but Jarom has dodged her requests. But in an ill-fated (or not, depending on your perspective) attempt to change the bulbs in the old light Nancy managed to short out the fan, thus requiring a new one to be purchased. It is now bought and installed, and Jenna commented this morning on just how beautiful the new fan is. I even got into the Christmas spirit by sparing the life of MousySkunk, the friendly black and white rat that Jarom tried to feed me. After letting him hang out for a day he let him go outside, where he will have to take his chances with the hawks.

 Old people and less old people, doing fun things

 Grandma and Grandpa did some leaf bagging while they were here. It was a wonderful favor, and a much bigger job than they thought it would be when they started it.

  

But it isn’t all good news around here. Alixa ended her fantasy football season by losing to Jarom in the playoffs in both of their leagues. Jarom followed that by losing in the finals in both of the leagues, to Abe and Bruce. He did get to try his new golf clubs, and they are a significant improvement over the old ones. After playing hundreds of rounds with his old clubs and never damaging any of them, he made it all of 18 holes with his new ones before misjudging his follow through and bending his 5-iron on a tree. But tonight he gets to take out his frustrations by playing dodgeball with high school kids. Happy New Year everybody!

Jenna gave her first talk while all her grandparents were at church with her. 

This is obviously not at church, but it is the same talk.

What we are thankful for

Jarom is thankful for a brother who comes up with silly athletically themed ideas. You would think that Jarom would be the one coming up with these ideas himself, but it seems like Nate always proposes them and then Jarom makes them happen. I guess it is a good system. Last year it was the half marathon. This year Nate decided that he would like to play basketball in a local rec league. So Jarom got signed up and put a team together and they have started playing. The first game they played was a seeding game. They were matched up against a team that was noticeably darker in the ‘skin pigment’ category and significantly superior in the ‘ability to dunk a basketball’ category. It was a fun game, but they lost badly, which sent them to the bottom division. That’s probably a good thing. After a disappointing last-minute loss to open their regular season they have run off a couple of solid victories and are having a good time doing it. Alixa even came to watch one of the games and got some mediocre footage of each Winn scoring a basket.

Bo is thankful to be potty trained. We are approaching the two-week mark and he has been amazing. On day 1 he had a couple little dribbles in his awesome new unders, but was able to stop and hold it until he got to the potty. It took a few days before he figured out going #2, but on day 3 he got it and he hasn’t looked back. It was a pretty easy process with Jenna, although there were a few ‘cold bath’ incidents along the way. I don’t want to jinx it too strongly, but it looks like Bo has figured this thing out and will be even easier than Jenna was. He has some awesome sticker charts with all his favorite characters (Lightning McQueen, Mater, Dusty Crophopper, Raphael, and Guido) and he is very aware of the treats that he gets when he successfully uses the bathroom.

Emmy is thankful to not have to share diapers any more. That’s right, our ½ year old is so fat she is using the same size diapers as her 30-pound 2.5 year-old brother. She is also very thankful for visiting family, because it is always nice to have someone new fawning all over your cuteness. The crew celebrated Thanksgiving over at Nate and Kenzie’s, and were joined by Mikah, Mimi, Opa, Grandpa Brig and Grandma Dawnene. That’s a lot of aunts and grandparents to take turns holding a kid that sometimes resembles a wrapped butterball. She is starting to move herself around now. She spends a lot of time sitting up in whatever room Lix and the kids are in, and sometimes you leave the room and come back to find her a few feet away wedged under a piece of furniture. I’m sure she’ll be crawling soon.

Jenna is thankful for an Opa that takes her to see fun movies like Free Birds and Frozen. She has been really into arts and crafts lately. She has done a lot of neat things with her preschool group and loves learning. Mimi bought her an art class a few weeks ago and she painted some pretty cool things. She and Bo have also started to decorate my cage with pictures drawn on post it notes. It started with a picture of a worm (don’t ask me why) and grew to some more abstract images. But I am working on my art appreciation, and it gives me something to look at when things are slow.

Alixa is thankful for a husband that gets yard work done. It usually takes about 6 months longer than she would like, but you can’t have everything, can you? Recently she asked him to trim the trees in the front yard because the branches were too low and were blocking the view of house from the street. So Jarom spent a few hours one Saturday up on the ladder cutting down branches. Then he spent another Saturday cutting up those branches into smaller, manageable pieces. This also gave Alixa a reason to invite some friends over to enjoy a bonfire. For the first time ever, the weather cooperated. It wasn’t raining and it wasn’t hot. It was a chilly evening that was just perfect for sitting around a nice warm fire and roasting some marshmallows. Alixa is also very thankful for the gym. She continues to work very hard at her classes and is still losing weight and looks great. Jarom is going to feel very badly about himself when they go on their cruise at the end of January.

We are all thankful for each other and the wonderful blessings that our family has. We are thankful to be living in Texas and for the great friends that we have made here over the past few years. And I hope that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving like we did.

So that’s why Jon and Kate broke up

I’m kidding of course. Everyone knows that the reason Jon left Kate is because she is a crazy, demeaning, controlling, psycho-lady. But even if she was a saint they would have had a tough go at marriage, and sanity. This weekend Alixa signed us up to watch two Combs children, whose ages match up with Bo and Jenna. So for a long weekend we had two sets of twins and a baby. Any of the 5 children measured independently would be fine, but collectively it becomes quite challenging. And it is always a struggle to deal with other people’s children. You learn how to understand and interpret your own, so that even when their words don’t really make sense you know what they are saying. Not the case with someone else’s 2-year old. Much of the weekend was spent asking Reese to repeat herself or trying to get Kyle to translate. And every kid has their annoying quirks, even though you tend to get used to your own kids less-than-ideal behavior. Kyle and Reese are actually really good kids and able to do a lot of things on their own to greater degree than their Winn counterparts. But Reese is amazingly loud, almost like she has earplugs in or is in a very loud dance club and has to yell to be heard. And Kyle seems to have a very strong attachment to making fart noises. A lot of fart noises. But Reese is potty trained, and Kyle tried to make his bed after getting up and getting himself dressed, which was awesome. The weekend was actually pretty fun and the crew did some very entertaining things, but it did test the limits of everyone’s patience. It’s hard enough to be patient with your own kids, who you presumably love. It is even more difficult to do it with other people’s kids, who you probably love less.

 Just some cute pics of Emmy

 All the kids at the doctor getting flu shots/autism

So the name of the game was to fill the weekend with as many things as possible so that we weren’t stuck in the house. Kyle and Reese showed up early on Friday, and Lix promptly took all the kids to the park for a few hours. Then she left them with Jarom (who was working from home) and ran off to have a lunch with some of her buddies. The afternoon brought more troops, as Kenna and Callie showed up for a few hours. There was some time spent outside raking leaves, walking up and down the block, and playing in the back yard. The kids got quesadillas for dinner and Jarom went to Chipotle to get a special treat for Alixa for not killing any children.

Saturday began at 6:30, because as soon as the first kid is up, they are all up. A movie was probably put on, but who can remember at this point? It’s all a blur. Around 9:00 the car was loaded up and everyone headed off to Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch. It was a great place to spend a few hours with too many kids. They had some black bears, kangaroos, lemurs, and a great petting zoo full of friendly goats and sheep. We got to take a safari ride through horses, camels, pigs, emus, zebras, llamas, and a few other animals. The kids got to ride on a barrel train. We even got to meet an albino monacled cobra. After everyone got their fill of the wildlife we drove to bustling downtown Aubrey for a wonderful lunch at Mom’s diner, which is exactly what you are imagining. When we got back home Lix decided to walk all the big kids over to Warren Park to watch a soccer game and run around some more. It finally got dark and cold, so everyone came back, had some pizza for dinner, and went to bed. The second night did not go as smoothly as the first. Bo had fallen asleep on the way back from Sharkarosa and wasn’t tired, so he was making noise. Reese missed her dad and was screaming about wanting him, so she had to be separated from the rest of the herd. Eventually we got those two to bed, but then Reese woke up screaming around 2am and Lix had to go sleep by her to keep her calm.

 I guess they don't get enough of snakes at home?

 Jarom was growing a beard for Movember. It annoyed him (and Alixa) so it is now gone

  

Sunday morning meant a great pancake breakfast cooked by Lix for everyone. Everyone got ready for church, but there wasn’t ever really a chance that they were going to make it on time. Realistically Jarom and Alixa were only concerned about getting there for Primary/Nursery, so that someone else could watch the kids for a few hours. As soon as Jarom dropped the kids off at their classes and headed off to teach his own he saw Alixa’s face in the window beckoning him. He needed to take Emmy because Alixa’s zipper on her skirt had torn and she needed to run home to change. It was a pretty amusing situation. After Lix made the kids lunch Jarom sent her to her room to take a nap and tried to get the kids to watch a movie. But they couldn’t agree on what to watch. Bo wanted Mulan and Jenna wanted Bolt, and they both tried to get the Comb kids to join their side. We settled on Pocahontas, which didn’t please Bo, so he caused trouble which made Reese cause trouble which made it tough for Lix and Emmy to enjoy their naps. After another late afternoon trip to the park (at least the weather was nice all weekend) they sent Kyle and Reese home.

 The sponsors of the trip, Mimi and Opa

 The prettiest zebra at the park

 This deer had been hit by a car. The lump on the right side of his face is his jaw. He was creepy.

 Yumm, chocolate!

 Here are the kids after the safari park. It is also a metaphor for Jarom and Lix on Sunday.

It was definitely a memorable experience and it is always nice to be able to help out a friend, especially since so many nice people have helped out and watched our kids and had to put up with all of the little annoying things that they do. But it was also very nice to be able to sit down and take a deep breath when it was over. I guess there is a reason why people typically only have one child of each age. And why animals that have litters kick their offspring out so quickly. You can only handle listening to so many arguments between two-year olds before your head explodes.