Larsen Family Love

Matt has had this nasty varicose vein ever since I met him. The vein runs from the top of his thigh, across his quad, around the back of his knee and down his calf. A few years ago it started giving him trouble. I knew it was a problem when he brought me an ad he had cut out of the paper for varicose vein removal.

Anyway, I made Matt an appointment and after the initial visit they scheduled him for an ultra-sound. At the ultra-sound they found the vein that was feeding the varicose vein. They decided that it was only going to get worse so they scheduled him for surgery.

I never knew that varicose vein surgery was a two part deal. I took him in the first day of surgery and they ran a laser through the varicose vein so that it would kill it and put a stint in the feeding vein. When they were all done they put him in a compression thigh high sock. He looked ULTRA sexy! We were sent home and told to come back the next week for the second portion of the surgery.

Little did Matt know that days 4 and 5 were going to be very painful. Matt called me on day 5 and told me that he was heading to the doctors office because he was worried about blood clots and the level of pain he was experiencing. The doctors did an ultra-sound to check for blood clots and thank goodness, nothing was found!. The doctor explained that the vein was shrinking and breaking off from other veins which it had been attached too and that is what was causing the pain. He told Matt that he should be feeling the popping when the veins break (ewww).

The night before Matt's second surgery we got to shave his legs! He technically only needed to shave one, but he thought he might look funny with only one hairy leg, so we ended up shaving both legs. Matt didn't think shaving his leg would be too bad but by the time we finished the second leg he was over it. That night when he climbed into bed he asked how I felt about sleeping next to a metro-sexual. Ha, like he would ever qualify as that!

The second day of the surgery included the doctors making about 25 small incisions in Matt's leg and pulling the dead vein out. When I picked him up his bandages had already started to soak through with blood. He was in a lot of pain and couldn't wait to get home.

Recovery was a pain. Because the varicose vein was so large and went from the front of his leg, to the side of his leg and then to the back of his leg, he could not get comfortable in bed. Poor guy didn't get much sleep.

One night before the bandages came off, Matt had some friends over to play pool. Tim, one of his friends took the picture below and sent it off to all of Matt's other friends. When people
responded back asking what happened, Tim replied that Matt had been bitten by a shark!

The sad thing about this photo is that it only shows about a third of the incision.

At the end of April I decided that I wanted to finish my bachelors. (I know sometimes I get a wild hair!) So I started researching online colleges and let me tell you, there are a lot of diploma mills out there. I spent a lot of time researching and talking to admissions offices. I finally decided to go with Arizona State University Online. When admissions processed by transcripts I was surprised to find out that I only had 40 credits left to complete my Bachelors of Criminal Justice. I am hoping to be done in less than two years. I'm not looking to win the race when it comes to completion time, I'm just trying to squeeze classes in as I can! Go Sundevils!

Tonight Camden and I went out to dinner with Uncle Luke, Grandpa Terrell, Katt and the girls. While we were at dinner Luke was fighting on the phone with his on/off girlfriend. Katt and I ended up taking his phones (yes that's plural) away from him and turning them off. The consensus was no fighting in front of the kiddo's. Camden of course is paying attention to what's going.

Camden: "Mom, I'm NeVeR dating til I'm like 20!
Mom: "Pinky Promise"
Camden: "Yes, Pinky Promise" (pinky swear done)
Mom: "I'm putting that one down in the books!"

Another school year is over.. I can't believe how quickly time goes by! This year the 1st grade put on an end of the year show about FaMiLy. The boys dressed up like their FaThErS and the girls dressed up like their MoThErS! We actually had to stop by Grandpa Terrell's house to get a tie because daddy didn't have one! Camden had a speaking part and did such a great job!

After we got back from our cruise in January, Camden was ObSeSsEd with snorkeling equipment. Every time he got in the tub it was "where's the mask?" Bath times greatly increased and it was like pulling teeth to get him out of the tub!

We have this great group of friends that we love to cruise with. We planned another getaway for January 2011. We booked a 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise on the Carnival Splendor. Anyone remember what happened to the Carnival Splendor? Oh yeah, it caught on fire and was put out of commission for 3 months. At first we thought the Splendor would be up and running two weeks before our cruise, but in December we received a call from our travel agent that they had just canceled additional sailings through February. Because our entire group already had time off we re-booked on the Holland America Oosterdam. It sailed out one day later and hit all the same ports. All was good... right?

Wrong... Turns out Holland America is a mecca for senior citizens. An entire ship full of senior citizens made for quite the interesting and boring cruise.

As we were sailing to our first port, the Captain decided because of the violence in Mexico, to change our cruise path, delete a stop and add a different city, which changed all of our original port days! Yeah, not good. All of the plans we had made in port were all messed up and we didn't even know anything about the new city we were going to.

We stopped in Puerto Vallarta and had booked an all day canopy tour with Vallarta Adventures. (http://www.vallarta-adventures.com). It was awesome, we rode a jet boat, some kind of 4x4 utility vehicle up the mountain, rode donkeys for 30 minutes and then zip lined and repelled down this huge mountain. One of the funnest adventures ever!

These are some of the photos that we took on the Vallarta Adventure. Once we reached the top of the mountain (after the 4x4 ride but before the donkey's) they made us up our backpacks and cameras away, so the only shots we got were the ones we bought from the tour company.


Another stop was Cabo San Lucas. We had originally booked a snorkeling tour but because our ship came a different day and wasn't in port longer than 6 hours we just ended up going on a quick boat tour and had them drop us off on a beach to snorkel.

Our final stop was Mismaloya. We had absolutely no idea what to do, because the port was added after we had already sailed. So when we got off the boat we just talked to vendors and ended up taking a taxi ride to a beach. We spent the day in the sun, drinking margarita's and eating the best guacamole I have ever tasted. I could have lived on that stuff! While we were a the beach, one of our friends found this crab!

This is our friend Phil. He was being quite funny in the room one night so we shot some video. The video quotes our favorite saying from the captain "It's just the motion of the ocean" like it would be anything else rocking the boat, lol, cause it wasn't a Carnival Ship, this one was just full of seniors!

Christmas time... We love it.. It was a little different this year because halfway through the day, I had to go to work. Boo, no fun.

We had a regular size Christmas tree this year. I was a happy
camper! I even helped decorate.

We woke up after 8am and opened presents. Everyone was really excited with their gifts.

I bought Joe and Matt portable heaters for the shop because
they
are always freezing.

Camden got toys, toys, toys and a gun (from his dad).

Matt followed my directions exactly and I got books, pedicures and perfume!

Camden had some out of control long hair (to go along with his shark tooth necklace) and a super huge candy cane.

It was soooooo tough getting over our big screen. I mean it had been a part of our family FoReVer! So we took a few week to mourn its passing and then went TV shopping.

Personally, I was all about the 60" LED LCD but Matt didn't want to through down 4K for one... so we settled for the Sanyo.

Camden was excited to see the new TV and it was even cooler when the TV was as long as him.

A long time ago in the year 1992, my father purchased a TV. It was the bomb, hi-class, top of the line "Big Screen" TV. It graced my fathers house until July of 2006 when he handed it down to ME!

Matt took the TV apart and dusted the bulbs and it was like 1992 again, the screen was bright as the noon day sun and the image was sharp! Well, 1992 kick-ass quality, if I must be honest.

Around Summer of 2010 the power button started working intermittently, so if it didn't work we would have to push the button on and off really, really fast and it would eventually catch. So the policy became "DON'T SHUT OFF THE TV".

Unfortunately, my brother Barry didn't know of this policy. After the football game on Thanksgiving he turned the TV off... For the last time!

No matter how fast we pushed the power button that TV never came back to life.

So farewell my super cool "Big Screen".

Thanksgiving this year was done at my house. I have heard rumors that the best turkey is a deep fried turkey. I figured I should try it out.

I knew that my co-worker (Julie J) would have a deep fryer. She had every kitchen gadget you could imagine (even if she only uses it once). When I asked her if she had a fryer she said yes and was awesome enough to lend it to me.

I researched a lot of recipes and finally found one I was excited about.

I read numerous articles about how the frying process should work. I printed them out, told Matt about it and was determined to follow the directions exactly!

Step 1: Thaw the turkey
Step 2: Put the turkey in the fryer, fill with water and mark so that you know how much oil you will need
Step 3: Remove turkey, pat dry (inside and out)
Step 4: Season turkey and refrigerate

(Sounds pretty easy up til this point, right?)

Well after all of my reminder to Matt and to myself I forgot Step 2. How much oil do I need? I have no idea. (Seriously mad right now and it's 2 am Thursday morning)

I consider rinsing the turkey off, even though I seasoned it to perfection but decide that instead I will run to Smiths to buy another turkey the same size so I can put it in the fryer to see how much oil I need.

So off I run to Smiths. Can I find a 12 lb turkey the morning of Thanksgiving? Well yes but it isn't just a turkey... It's a turkey, with a chicken and stuffing inside. So for my mistake I spend $26 buck on a 12 lb turkey that could be my fryer dummy.

I am sure you are all just thinking well why not buy extra oil and put it in the fryer. Well because you have to heat it up to 400* and if there is too much oil and you put the turkey in then all the oil comes out over the top of the fryer (I am sure we can remember all those great vidoes on YouTube from the genious' that go this route). Sounds much more dangerous than spending an extra $26 bucks on a turkey.
Ok so turkey is marinated. Phew!

Thanksgiving day... the big day... We pull out the turkey and come up with this ingenous way of getting it into the fryer. The boys put a broom handle through the top so that they can lower it down slowly, while standing 3 feet away from the fryer (per instructions, see I did read them). The turkey goes in and it smells amazing. No oil over the side, no flames coming out of the fryer. We got this!

Then we go to put the thermometer back into the oil and it spins. Oh PERFECT! Now we can make the temperature any degree we want it (so much easier ya know). You would think that we would have some cool gadget that would measure the temp digitally but nooooo, Matt left it at work. So I send my brother and step-dad out to find a thermometer 15 minutes before the stores are closing, luckily they were able to track one down.

The great thing about fried turkey.... 36 minute cook time!

I was a little nervous when we pulled it out of the fryer. It was burnt black (only on the very outside) but smelled divine. We carved it and tasted the first bite. To DIE for. The most tender turkey I have ever eaten. Moist and juicy with a nice flavor. Fried turkey is without a doubt the way to go every Thanksgiving from here on out!