We just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hopefully, we will see lots of you over the holiday! Grandma's garage is all done and looks great! Also, her foot is doing really well. She has a doctors appointment today to see if they will let her start walking on her foot. She has been using a walker a little bit with the physical therapist. Happy Holidays! We love you all!

Annoying Private Blog

Hey everyone! I'm following the trend and putting our blog private. I really do hate that you can't see current updates etc, so I am SORRY, but I feel like I should. At least for a little while. If I haven't sent you an invitation that means that I don't have your email. Just email me and I will send you an invite soon! melissa_0902@hotmail.com

It's been awhile!

Well everyone, it's been awhile since anybody wrote anything, so I thought I'd break the ice!
Nothing too exciting is happening in my household.
I'm getting WAY excited for Christmas and all that comes with it! I cannot wait to see my siblings--I SOOO wish we were closer! I'm coming with the 3 boys (Jer is of course working) on the 27th or 28th and staying for as long as I can--hopefully the boys will be healthy and the Nelson house won't be TOO crazy! I'm wondering what all the Richfield clan is doing? I definitely want at least a day there to see everyone and let the kids play!!! It's been WAY TOO LONG!
Hope everyone is doing great. Sorry you won't get Christmas cards from us this year, as well as most previous years. I'm in charge of our ward Christmas activity (we're doing a Night in Bethlehem--lots of prep) and along with neighbor gifts, shopping, getting sick, taking care of my 3 monkeys, and having Jer gone all the time, I decided I wouldn't stress about cards this year.
Well, now that I've rambled for awhile--I'm good at that--I better go read some books to the kiddos and send them off to bed.
Much love to you all!
Les

Grandma's Foot Update

The doctor took another look at Grandma's foot and decided to have a CAT scan done. Well, surprise, surprise, it has "at least 5 fractures." They just didn't show up on the x-rays. We feel so bad for her!!! She is a real trooper. We love her.

Grandma's Foot Continued...

LaRita and Dean came over Saturday to visit and LaRita said to take a picture of Grandma's foot and post it so you can all see how awful it looks!! Believe it or not, it actually looks better than it did a week ago.

By the way, Dean looks great!! Keep up the great recovery!

Grandma's Foot

Grandma went to the doctor yesterday. He told her she has the most "unique" injury he has seen all year! She actually called him the day before to ask about the blister, because it just kept getting bigger and bigger. (We decided it was about the size of a half of a large orange sitting on top of her foot!) Anyway, he told her to poke it so she did. She said lots and lots of stuff ozzed out of it, but it felt better to not have so much pressure.

Her garage is almost finished. The sheetrockers have been there and Don has all of the siding on the outside. It is really nice! My favorite is her new driveway and sidewalk. I totally agree with Melissa...I would love to have something like it at my house. They did stained, stamped concrete. I told Don yesterday it is almost too pretty to drive on!

I don't know if everyone knows or not, but Grandma tripped in her back yard last Thursday and twisted her foot. Don was there working on her garage, so he took her to the emergency room. The x-rays showed that it wasn't broken, but it sure is black and blue! She also got a huge blister on the top of her foot. (They aren't sure why) She is supposed to stay off of it completely for a week. Kathy got her a wheel chair, so she can push herself around her house. Hopefully it will get feeling better soon!

When we stopped yesterday to visit, Danny had stopped to see Grandma and say Hi. It was fun to see him too!

Love to all!

Grandma's Garage

On Haloween we went over to Grandma's for Trick or Treating. She was sitting out on a chair on the sidewalk near the street, because she had just gotten her new sidewalks stained.

This is a dark picture, but it looks AWESOME in real life. WOW! I wish we had done something to neat on our sidewalks!!

Here's the garage! It's going to be so nice for Grandma. Don hasn't done the driveway yet, but things are coming right along. They have the siding on the side of the garage put up, but I didn't take a picture. Everything is looking so nice, and we are happy for Grandma that she is doing something so nice for herself! (We all know she deserves it!!)

We're Home!

Thanks for all your prayers and concern. You don't know how much it is appreciated. I am happy to report that Dean's heart went back into the right rhythm last night at 6:30. It has stayed there since. He is on some medication and will taper off of it for the next month. The condition is called A-Fib (for atrial fibrillation.) "Atrial fibrillation (AF or afib) is a cardiac arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm) that involves the two upper chambers (atria) of the heart. It can often be identified by taking a pulse and observing that the heartbeats don't occur at regular intervals, but a conclusive indication of AF is the absence of P waves on an electrocardiogram (ECG). AF is the most common arrhythmia."
Being in a-fib isn't the worst problem to have and can usually be treated in one way or another. Some people have it for years and some don't know they have it. Anyway, we were happy to go home with it "in sink" and hopefully it will stay that way. The doctor is very hopeful that it will.
The mechanical valve is working beautifully, and if you put your ear near his chest you can hear it clicking. It's a wonderful sound. They replaced a section of the aorta with some tubing made of Dacron. We are so grateful for the expertise of the medical profession and equipment. We are also grateful to Heavenly Father for inspiring this knowledge and for His watchful care over Dean. We are thankful to be home and "on the mend." I will take off the rest of this week and Dean will be home for six weeks--when we visit the surgeon and he gives his O.K. Thanks again to everyone for you love and prayers. We love you all. LaRita

Dean's recovery

I'm sure all of you have had contact with my mom some way or another, but I'll update you a little bit.
Dad is doing well. Expected to go home probably tomorrow. He's up walking around and getting stronger every day. Danny & Breanna were up there this weekend and Christi & Jeremy and Matthew & Megan are close too so they were all able to visit. From what I hear Grandma Larsen, Kathy, and Grandpa Nelson were all there too.
Thanks for your prayers and support. I know he felt it.
Les
An update: I talked to my mom this evening, she said it was kind of an eventful day. Dad's heart went into A-Fib (where the heart just flutters). The doctors said this happens to about 30% of heart surgery patients. Sometimes the heart fixes itself and sometimes they have to shock the heart which is successful 85% of the time. Well, they had to shock Dad's heart. They gave him something so he wouldn't remember it. Apparently, it's something you do not want to remember. Horrible. Well they started out with a more minor shock and ended up having to shock him 3 more times--the last being the most they could (I'm not good with the medical terms, I should have Jeremy write this--he does this alot at work). Dad remembered the last 2 times they did it--yikes. This worked for about 30 seconds but his heart went back into A-Fib. He can still go home but will have to go back to the hospital soon to either be shocked again or have a different procedure done--which he's had before. Once again, I can't remember what it's called. It's not a life-threatening thing, but something that needs to get fixed.
Anyway, keep him in your prayers still. I'm sure it's discouraging going home knowing that more is still ahead.
I'll write when I know more.
Les

Family Newsletter

Hi Everybody. I've totally been slacking lately, but it's that time again. Time for another newsletter. I'd like to get out by mid- November so if you could get me all your stuff, that would be great. Thank you. I'm also going to follow up with an email. Thanks tons!

Dean's Surgery

Hey everyone! Dad is going in for heart surgery on Wednesday and we decided to have a family fast. I thought I'd let you all know in case you wanted to participate. We feel really good about things and are just anxious to get it over with!

Also, I decided to go private on my blog so if I haven't sent you an invitation I need your email address. Just email me at jerandles@infowest.com and I'll send you an invite!

Love you all! Leslie

Grandma's Eyes

Just for everyone's information, Grandma Larsen is going in tomorrow for catarac surgery on her eyes. Thought we could keep her in our prayers!!

surgeries

Graci's surgery went very well. If you want to follow her progress, go to www.kidjunkies.blogspot.com
Dean's appointment with the surgeon went well and surgery is scheduled for Oct. 22nd. It looks like he will be getting a mechanical valve replacement and about a 4-5 inch reconstruction of the aorta artery. He will then need to be on cumadin (sp?) the rest of his life. One thing good about the mechanical valve is that it lasts forever. Another is that the body wont reject it. Yea! We will be glad to get it done. The surgeon said without the surgery he might live 2 years. Crazy, huh? We are so grateful for all the medical advances and doctors. Thanks again for all your concern and prayers.

Hi Everyone, Just letting you all know that Graci didn't have her surgery on the 18th, but has been rescheduled for Monday morning, the 22nd. The doctor was ill. Oh, and Dean has the bad gene, or Factor V Leiden, which is a blood-clotting problem. We knew he probably had it because Christi and Leslie have it and I don't. What this will influence is the type of valve Dean will get and it is probably the cause of the artery blockage. We have our meeting with the surgeon on Tuesday. Love to all, LaRita

Publish Post

Happy Birthday Grandma Larsen and Keith

Happy Birthday today to Grandma Larsen and Keith! Grandma is 81 and Keith is ?????? Hope you both have a great day!

Dean's Heart

We're so glad Diane doesn't have to have surgery yet. That's great! Dean went in for his first procedure on Friday. They put a stent in his renal artery and checked out all the arteries. There is no other blockage, so no bypasses. (YEA) He was able to watch everything on a monitor because they didn't put him clear out. It took just a couple of hours. He stayed down for two hours and then they let him go since we could stay in the Salt Lake Valley. He's back to work tomorrow. He is on a Plavix for a month, then when he's off that for at least a week, they can do the open-heart surgery. We will go up in about a week to meet with the surgeons to determine a date for that. We just want to get it done. The hospital there is so amazing and wonderful and we are so greatful for all the new technology and doctors. It will be so much better to get done now than 15 years ago. Love to you all.

Diane's Heart Update...

Well, I was waiting for my mom to post her update, but she hasn't done it yet, and I'm impatient! But, she met with the heart surgeon, and he said they are okay to just watch it for a little while. She will have to have the valve replaced, but hopefully they can wait a while before having to do it. She will have to have an echo. every 6 months to see if anything has changed. We are excited that she can have a little more time before the major surgery stuff. Thanks for everyone's fasting and prayers in her behalf!! Love you all!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Melissa! Hope you have a great day!!

Visitors

We had some lovely visitors yesterday--Teisha & Jacob! I was SO glad she called when they were in town. We were getting ready for a BBQ and swimming so we only visited for a little bit, but it was fun to catch up and see each other. Teisha--thanks for calling and stopping by! Please do it anytime! And for the rest of you--please call when you're in town! It'd be fun to see you!

Summer's Gone

Hi to Everyone, Becky and Chris are blessing their baby next Sunday (31st), so we are heading up to Idaho then. Grandma Larsen is going with us, so that will be fun. Dean is having his first surgery (cath through veins in groin) on Sept. 5th. They will check out all his arteries and put a stent in the one to his kidney and any others that need it. The next surgery (open heart) will then be scheduled. Graci goes in for her open heart surgery on Sept. 18th. We are back in school after a fun and busy summer and our kitchen and dining room are almost done. We were in Richfield the other day and WOW Don has been doing a lot of work at Grandma's house. Love to you all. LaRita

Grandma's Project

Hello family! Grandma Larsen is having a fun project done at her house, and I thought I would share some pictures. This is Preston "surfing" on the concrete that has been torn out of Grandma's driveway.
Here is a picture of the big pile. Don Adams is taking all the concrete out of Grandma's driveway and car port, and going to pour new concrete, and build a garage! (This is not even half of the concrete that will have to be taken out)

This is where the hill used to be that we would ride bikes down as kids. They are digging footings, because the garage will come out further than Grandma's carport did. Here is another picture of the pile with Chandler and Preston. I thought it would be fun for all of you to see this transformation, and I will post more pictures as more work gets done. Love you all!

Out of touch

I've been out of town for a week and haven't been able to check the blog. I'm sorry about everything for everybody. I had no idea. I'll keep ya'all in our prayers too.

What a Great Family!

Thanks so much to everyone for your thoughts and prayers! What a great family we have. So far I have been told that I have a heart murmor (or however you spell it!), and my heart is "moderatly enlarged" I have the same problem with my aortic valve that Dean has. Both of us have a valve with only two flaps when there should be three, so it leaks which makes the heart work harder. From the test I had run last week, they are recommending that I meet with a Cardiac surgeon to evaluate everything, so I don't know too much yet. They said they may just watch it for a while and make sure it doesn't get any worse. We will let you know when we know anything else. Like I said, thanks so much to our wonderful family! Dean and Gracie will be in our prayers! Love to all. Diane

Matters of the Hearts

LaRita writes: I thought I would let you all know what is going on in regards to Dean's and Graci's hearts. Graci had her heart catheter yesterday. They heard from their doctor tonight that he would prefer doing her next surgery within a month. She will need valves replaced and the hole in her heart repaired. This, of course, requires another open-heart surgery. It will be so good to get past this point. Then, hopefully, she will only need valve replacement every 8 years. Right now she is very healthy and so much better than she was prior to her first surgery.
As for Dean, we had his check-up with his cardiologist last Tuesday. He has some congenital malformed valves (murmurs) that they have been watching for many years. He has gone at least 5 years longer than they anticipated before they have to replace valves. They found this time that an artery to one of his kidneys is partially blocked with plaque. He needs to have that fixed soon, probably in September. They do this by going through the groin with a balloon and placing a stent inside the artery to keep it open. (At that time, they will also do a catheter to check out all the arteries, etc.) They also found blockage near the aorta valve, and the valve needs to be replaced along with part of the aorta. This will be done approximately 3 months after the stent is placed, so around December. He is now restricted as to activity. He can walk, but not jog. He is not supposed to exert himself by lifting heavy items or anything that requires hard labor. The doctor said he could probably mow lawns but to be careful and go easy. He will mind the doctor and I plan on having him as healthy as can be by the time he has his open-heart surgery.
So that's the basic lowdown on the hearts from our family. We appreciate your prayers and fasting and will do the same for Diane. Apparently, they haven't heard back on her tests. Let us know as soon as you hear.
Otherwise, we have been having a fun summer visiting our kids and grandkids, remodeling our kitchen and dining room and going to Richfield a lot, visiting Mom and trying to make up my mind at Ogden's Superstore. We've also been to Fishlake, Bryce Canyon and Park City. We especially enjoyed our second visit to Rexburg when Becky had her baby. Of course, I was in 7th heaven! We can't believe it is already August and school starts on the 19th. I'm in denial and maybe it will go away. Love to you all. LaRita

Special Fast

For anyone who doesn't know, my mom has a leaky valve in her heart. It's not too serious yet, but she has had to have a few tests done. Our Christensen side of the family is fasting for her this Sunday, and I would like to ask the Larsen side to as well. Also, I heard that Uncle Dean has had more tests done on his heart as well, so please include him in the fast also. Thanks!!

Pioneer Day

For the 24th G-ma, Diane, Jerry, Melissa, Ryan, Preston, Chandler, Dylan, Jacob, and I went to fishlake. Some of us went on a hike to the totem pole and this is a picture of us. We had a lot of fun. Any news on if there is going to be an upcoming family reunion?

Holidays

So I know it is kind of early to be thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I am. What are everybody's plans for those holidays? We are thinking about Thanksgiving in Richfield and Christmas on the east coast, but nothing is set in stone. If we do that, we would probably go to Richfield the day after Christmas.

Brigham Isaac Wilson

I am posting this for everyone, I hope it's o.k.
Brigham Isaac Wilson was born July 10 and weighed in at 9 lbs 11 oz! Mommy & Baby and Daddy and siblings are all doing well! My mom and dad went to Rexburg to help and of course my mom is in heaven. You know her. Becky came home Friday night and from what I hear everything is going great! I'll have to get my mom to post some more pictures--I pulled these from their website, I don't know if they'll work.

New Addition to Our Family

I heard a rumor that Becky and Chris got their new baby! Congratulations!! We'd love to see pictures!!!

3rd of July Fun

As you all know, Richfield has a Primary children's parade on July 3rd. Well, this year our ward went all out. Preston and Chandler were in the back of this wagon, that was pulled by the Bishop and male Primary teachers in our ward. They had such a great time!
And because I'm in the Primary Presidency, Dylan got to be in the parade with me. He's supposed to be pretending to go to a "Family Picnic 100 years ago" but he's just trying to steal anything from my purse he can get!

I took Leslie's advise and read on Christi and Jeremy's blog. She's right, the last few entries are so funny!! Having 3 kids is hard enough for me! I admire so many of my cousins for how great you all are with your children!

Christi & Jeremy

For those of you who haven't visited their website lately, click on Christi & Jeremy, then click on "home updates" in the left column, and have fun reading the last 5 or so entries. Hilarious. Oh but start on the Happy Independence Day and then move up.
Also, as for the talk of a reunion, when is the best time for everyone to get together? Weekends? Summer? Fall? I would like some input so maybe we can actually plan one!

Hi Everyone,

Tasey, Thank you so much for the wonderful family newsletter. It was so amazing and you made it so cute and fun. You must have spent so much valuable time on it. You are definitely the permanent editor of this publication. Anyway, I loved it, and thank you so much for the idea and then following through on it, even when some of us were late getting it in. I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. I am so thankful for the opportunity of living in this free land and for all the blessings it brings. Well, keep up the blogging. Love to you all, LaRita

Finally posting!

Hi guys, finally thought I should post a quick hello. We've been way busy this weekend. had a huge neighborhood / friend / family party at our house on the 4th. We pulled the bbq in the street and had tables of tons of food. After, we did fireworks and the show lasted 2 1/2 hours and the best was we only spent $35. We just watched everybody else's fireworks. Anyway, Hope everybody had a great 4th. Yeah, just watching the news. Supposed to be over 112 tomorrow. EEEK. Swim lessons at 10, Dr for Tatum at 1 and then probably swimming the rest of the week. Love ya all.

P.S. Thanks Les for the compliment on the newsletter. It was fun and I enjoyed it.

Umm....

Dear Melissa, Diane, and Chad-
You are not the only family posting because if you remember I was the first person to post on this blog...and now Leslie has as well.

Dear Everybody-
We have spent this last week or so in Pennsylvania. We spent a lot of time at the Kutztown Folk Festival (if you want to read more about it visit my blog.) We went to Philadelphia to see the parade on the 4th. There was a lot of neat floats and people there, but my favorite was the mummers. Here are some pictures of them.They play music and dress funny. These pictures just do not do them justice. I hope that everybody else had a wonderful 4th! (and I look forward to more posts) leslie-a reunion would be great.

Newsletter

WOW!!! Were all of you amazed as I at the family newsletter Tasey put together?!?! Tasey--thank you thank you thank you! You are so cute and fun and CREATIVE!!! I couldn't believe all the fun little graphics and layout. Incredible! It was fun to read about everyone. And it got me thinking--um...reunion????

We are the only family posting!!

Looks like we're the only cool family here because we're the only ones posting! Just kidding. We haven't done that much these last couple of months, but this month will be REALLY busy! So, we'll have more pictures to post later. The very end of April, we went to Ecuador to where I served my mission. It was a blast!!!! Other than that, we've just been hanging out in Richfield, working our lives away. But for those who know us, you know that we don't stay still for very long, so we have a few trips planned in the next couple of months. What can we say? - We love to have fun!!! We are the Wolf leaders for our Cub Scout Pack in our ward, and that has been an.... experience. We've kind of had fun with the 8 year olds, but kind of not. We will be celebrating our 2 year anniversary this Saturday! The time has flown, but it seems like we've know each other forever! Anyway, that's our life for now.
Chad & Aubrey

If we can blog, anyone can!

We just got back from a cruise to Alaska with some friends. Jerry had wanted to try kayaking for quite a while now. Diane was a little hesitant, but we did it and had a great time!

Happy Posting!

Barclay Family Signing In

Hey Everyone! Hopefully this will be a fun way we can all stay in touch! I'm also really looking forward to the newsletter that Tasey put together! (Thanks for doing all that work Tasey!)

Since Eastering is something that we all have in common, I figured I'd post some of my pictures. This is my Dad-not too bad for an old Grandpa huh? Just kidding Dad, you're not THAT old.

Here is Gracie getting ready for her climb. She did great too!

Here is a group photo of our family. We had this taken right before our "Church meeting" on Sunday.

Here is Grandma Diane, Chandler, and Anistyn waiting for Church to begin.

Well, I hope to see you all posting soon!

Hi Family!

I thought that this would be a good way to keep in touch with those of you who don't have your own blogs (even if you do have one you can use this one too) (Thanks for the idea Melissa) Anybody can sign in and post whatever they want whenever they want. Get in touch with me and I will set you up with a password.