Da Daa Da DAAA

Here it is folks!
I should explain that this is just a short clip. I was lucky enough to get to watch all sorts of things while the ultrasound tech checked out how things were going. Olivia had to lay down and her angle did not let her see too much. It was soooo stinkin' neat to see that little body bouncing around. I really cannot describe the feelings that I had. It was just really neat.
Things are going well, but we are really friggin busy. Olivia is getting busy with her studies, practicing and studying. She gets pretty tired and is trying to keep up. Sometimes I might not be as understanding as I should. I am trying to be better. I still think that she is just doing wonderful things, and I wish that she could see all the great things that I see her doing. My schooling is getting busy, but that is Law Skool. Oh well, stuff happens.

Health, Hunting & Church: What a Weekend!

We had some great fun this weekend! It all started with me, puking incessantly until I could hardly hold up my head. I had skipped most of my Thursday classes and all of Friday. Mac went to work and school like usual on Friday, until I sent a text that read: "I need you to come HOME ASAP". Unfortunately, he had left his phone at school while he went to work for a few hours. So, my desperate call for help went unnoticed, all the while I am puking every little thing that went down my throat. Finally, he went back to the school for his class and received my text and quickly began to head home. When he got here, I asked for a blessing. It helped calm me, but I still felt miserable. So, we headed into Quick Care. Little did we know we would spend the entire afternoon there. After about two hours waiting for a urine sample, I finally peed and the doctor produced the outcome: I have a cold and sinus infection (I already knew that), a very dehydrated body, and a urinary tract infection. Oh joy. While They were waiting for my sample, the doc came in and said that I could always have an IV to speed things up. I thought about it a couple of times, but I really don't like needles, especially when they poke me. It ended up that I had to have one anyway, and the poking began. It took three tries to set the needle and catheter. You see, because I was so dehydrated, my veins had shriveled so that they were not visible, or big enough to hold the needle. And I could feel every movement of the needle, catheter, dripping, you name it. Two hours later, the bag was finally empty and we could journey home. It took a while for me to recover, I was lying on my back the entire time, and was still nauseated. Mac said when I sat up, all the color in my face immediately drained, and I was extremely light headed. But, I had lots of fluids to get my body going, and soon I would have lots of drugs, too. Mac will pickup from here....
So I ran Olivia home in the Subaru, because driving that thing at night is dangerous, as it has no lights unless the brake is pressed. I jumped in the pickup and headed back to town, destination: Wally World's Pharmacy. As I drove, I thought the truck was pulling to the left, which was odd. I have driven that truck for over ten years, and it always pulled to the right. However, it had been over a week since I had driven it, and I just couldn't place why it felt so funny. When I got to Wally World, I found out: the tire was dang near flat. I procured the pharmaceuticals, then set to changing the tire. I had to be careful with my feet, I was wearing a brand new pair of boots and I didn't want to scuff them. I had the tire changed out and I was on the road in no time.
I arrived home to find Olivia in the capable care of Pat & Tim (our landlords). Pat had cooked up quite the meal and I finally had breakfast. Yeah, that is right, I had not eaten all day, mostly cause I just plain forgot to.
Saturday was another long day, but I did get to do some hunting, which was fun, even though I didn't see a dang thing. I took the tire in to Bruneel's, to have it fixed. I dropped it off with high expectations, because they are a local shop and were pretty congenial. I returned to find out they couldn't fix the tire. Now, I am not going to try to defame them, but they told me someone had patched the tire before, and that the patch was leaking. I didn't tell them that I had bought those tires new and had made records of when I bought them and rotated them and such. I have never had a flat with that set of tires. NEVER! I took the tire over to Les Shwab, even though I figured they would charge me, since it wasn't one of their tires. Luckily, one of the fellas that works there comes into the Sure Shot quite often and he recocnized me. He looked at the hole and told me that the problem was Bruneel's had tried to grind to deep for the patch. They were trying to stick the patch to nylon instead of rubber! They ruined my tire and wouldn't own up to it! So Shwab's mounted a used tire on my wheel: free of charge. I will be a Shwab patron for the rest of my life, because they have treated me good more than once (one time on a Sunday when I really needed to get down the road from Rexburg to Burley)...
Sunday was a bit bitter sweet. We finally made the switch to the Student Stake. The good news is that it was the right thing to do, and we know it. The bad news is that we will miss all our friends in our old ward.
It was ward conference in the Fourth ward, and it was great. Heck, that was the first Sunday in over a year that Olivia and I have sat by each other for Sunday School! She has always been in the Primary... At least one Sunday together.

Via Con Dios, Amigo.

The first time I met Ed he was fat, lazy and just plain rude. We rationed his food, started him on an exercise program and watched his weight. He needed to lose about 200-300 lbs. He had been on pasture grass for most of his life. Ed was a horse.
Training Ed was kinda like riding a train that left the rails. You knew once you figured him out, you could control him. He had some crazy nervous ticks. He tried to buck a little, but he was too fat. He wouldn't break into his right lead, but that came with time. The one tick that stuck was the flapping. Ed flapped his lips and made a sound like an outta tune Harley. It was really annoying, at first, but then it got to where I didn't think about it, until someone would point it out to me. We weren't really sure that Ed could run very fast, but finally, one night, Ed showed his stripes. That booger could run. He even started looking at cattle and stopping like a heal horse. When I was home this summer, I roped off Ed and Simba. Both have ticks and niether was quite finished, but it was dang fun. By the end of my break, I was even roping like I normally should. The last time I rode Ed, he worked pretty dang good. Good enough that Dad said he was gonna start heading off Ed.
I called Dad to tell him about the great trade I made today. Dad sounded distant. I asked him how things was and he said, "Rough. The snow was bad, but its melting. This morning when I went out to feed, I didn't have to feed Ed."
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because he was dead. He died last night sometime. Dangdest thing."
I was so stunned I didn't even cuss. Just a sad thing.
I hate to say it, but I felt worse off after that news than a whole lot of things that I have heard.
Via Con Dios, Ed.

My Grape Ain't no Sissy!

With pregnancy comes the name game. What kind of crazy names can we come up with for our grape? (This week that is how big the baby is, in comparison.) Well, ya'll know me, I think a man oughta have a tough name and then he'll live up to it. My dad had a cousin, Steel. The guy was 6'4", 280 Lbs and tougher than nails. I have a buddy we call Virgil. He is a bit goofy, but he can drive a truck like nobody's business. My buddy Nacho is the craziest ropin' sunnovagunn, ever.
My folks disagreed about my name for a while. Mom wanted to call me McCord Brent Larsen. However, my dad thought it was too much. They reached a middle ground and just dropped the middle name. That is why my full name is McCord Larsen.
Now if we have a girl, we'll give her a fitting name, something cute and sweet. But I will be danged if the grape is a boy, we ain't giving him no sissy name that'll get his butt kicked every day. Unless we choose to call him Sue.

AS PROMISED!!!

A new post.
We have been puttin this off for a while because we have both be extremely busy. Olivia is busy with her schooling and I am just trying to keep up with school, work and life on the ranch. We hardly have any time for much extra, so blogging has not been on top of the list. We have also been busy figuring out how to tell everyone that WE ARE GONNA BE A MOMMY AND DADDY!!!
Boohyah! How's that for a post? Olivia is roughly 9 weeks along. Right now she is not too sick, but she gets really tired, and she feels crappy. Apparantly the baby is the size of a blueberry, so I call it "Blueberry." (Sometimes when Olivia is mad at me, I talk to her stomach and say something like: "Blueberry, this is your dad, please help me tell your mommy that I am sorry I... (however I messed up)).
I hope all of you are doing well and we will keep everyone updated!