Larry's Life

13 Months, Shame On Me

I see my last blog entry was when my youngest granddaughter was born.  It was a great event, on July 1st--2009.  That's over a year ago.  13 months from tomorrow, to be exact.  And I realize I didn't even come back to tell you this little cutie's name.  It's Bailey Nicole Richardson.  She is definitely a keeper.  She's walking all over the place now.  I'll try and scrounge up some recent photos and post them on here so you can see what she looks like today, 13 months later.

New Kid!

She was born yesterday (July 1st) at about 5 pm.  It was a Caesarean delivery due to the baby being breech.  Six pounds ten ounces and 19.75 inches.  And gorgeous and obviously intelligent.  Her name, you ask?  Well, that hasn't yet been decided with finality.  When the decision's made there will be another posting.  Here are a few photos of the newest addition to Dean and Heather Richardson's family. 

    

 

 

Matt is Home!

Arrived on schedule at Phoenix Skyharbor Airport at 1:25 pm this afternoon.

He looks good!

 

Check out the THREE returning missionaries in the photo above on the left.  All are from Matt's mission.  One is also Spanish speaking.  The other English speaking.


We had a great delegation of greeters.  Bill and Judy and their grandkids--with signs!  Julie, Jeremy and, Zach; Heather, Dean and their kids; Kathy; and of course, Sandy and me!

My Intelligent Daughter!

Great news!  Becky, who has been accepted into the Dental Hygiene program at Utah Valley University starting this fall, found out today that...

SHE GOT A SCHOLARSHIP!

It pays full tuition plus a bit more for each semester for her first year of the program.  And she can apply later on for year 2.  What a fantastic accomplishment!  Obviously, she's very excited, as are we.

Well done Rebekah Erin Barney!

Sixty!?

Today is not only May Day, but it's also the 60th birthday of my oldest brother, Dave. 

 

Not too long ago I thought 60 was ancient.  Not anymore.  It's still in the future for me, but no longer the distant future.  It will be here for me before I know it.

But there's something I don't understand.  How did 60 get to be so young?

Happy Birthday Dave!

A Free Month!

My brother, Bill, signed up for a gym membership today--and I got a free month for referring him!  Can't beat that.  Actually, neither of us care as much about free months as we do about finally making the commitment to lose some weight and get into better shape. 

I've been faithfully going to the gym every day except Sunday.  I'm starting to feel better, and I'm starting to--slowly--lose some weight.  My suit felt just a little looser last Sunday.  I look forward to increased looseness as the days and months go by.  In the meantime, my focus remains on going to the gym every day and trying to eat a little better than I was before.  If I consistently do those things the other things will take care of themselves.

No Pain, No Gain!

Well, after years of sedentary life and half-hearted efforts to lose weight and get into shape, we finally decided that the time for excuses was past.  We signed up for a gym membership. 

AND, we signed up for 6 months worth of weekly sessions with a personal trainer.

Last Thursday we had our assessment and Dominick (the head trainer) punished us for about 20 minutes.  My biceps ached so much that night that I woke up from a deep sleep and had to take some ibuprofen.  Since then I've been to the gym 3 other times and just worked out on my own.

Today, Sandy and I met with our assigned trainer, Josh, for the first time.  He seems nice, and although my muscles are a bit sore, he didn't kill us too badly.  He assured us that there is more pain and misery in our future.

We signed up for an 18-month contract for the gym.  That coupled with the cost of the personal trainer should be enough that we'll keep going back, just to get our money's worth if nothing else. 

Hopefully, a year from now, I'll be a mere shadow of myself.  

  

And the Answer is YES!

Becky has been accepted to Dental Hygiene School at Utah Valley University.  She called yesterday afternoon with the news.  She is very excited.   

The Hiatus is Over!

February 17th was the last entry on my blog. 

That was almost 6 weeks ago!  And to make it even worse, that entry wasn't even made by me.  My lovely wife Sandra did a guest entry on my blog on 2/17.  So what does this mean?  It means I have to repent and start building the blogging momentum again.

What's happened Larry's Life since then?  Here's a brief recap:

--Larry and Sandy went on a fabulous week-long cruise to the Mexican Riviera, with stops at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas.  More on that to come.

             
--Dave & Deedee made two trips to Arizona to see Darwin play baseball.  Looks most likely that he's Tennessee-bound for the regular season.

                           
--Mike & Brenda told us that they are going to be parents sometime in November!  We're pretty excited.  Seems like they were just married, but it's already been already been over 7 months!  It's really hard to believe that by the end of  year, with this new baby as well as Heather and Dean's 5th child (4th daughter) scheduled for a July debut, we'll have SIX grandchildren.  We aren't nearly old enough to be grandparents, but we're really not old enough to have SIX grandchildren.  However, regardless of our age, being grandparents, is REALLY cool!

--We received the letter Becky has been waiting for.  She's been calling every day to see if it's arrived.  She's waiting to hear if she's been accepted into the Dental Hygiene program at Utah Valley University.  We received strict orders to NOT open the letter, but to immediately send it on to Provo where Becky's anxiety continues to build.  We mailed it yesterday--Priority Mail--so it should arrive on Monday.  Even though Becky threatened that she'd be mad at us until she's 35 if we opened it, we were still sorely tempted.  16 years didn't seem like too high a price to pay!  However, in the end, we resisted.  For the record, the letter seemed pretty thick--at least 3 or 4 pages worth--so our blind, unseeing opinion is that it's good news since a rejection would likely have been a 1-page form letter.  But just in case, we included two photos with the package.  One of excitement to match the feeling if the news is happy, and another if  it truly does take the bureaucrats at UVU 3 or 4 pages to let unsuccessful candidates down softly.

Babysitting Grandkids is Educational for EVERYONE!

Larry has graciously allowed me to be a a guest blogger today.  Hello.  I am Sandy, Larry's wife.
I had to blog about my babysitting experience yesterday.  I babysat for my daughter, Heather.  She has four children.  Three girls and a boy (the youngest).  She and Dean were going to have an ultra-sound to find out the sex of their next child.  (Their 5th!  Due in July.)  I love to babysit it is always fun.  The girls were great.  They helped me clean the kitchen for Heather so I let them watch a movie.  They wanted to watch "The Sound of Music".  Well Emily didn't but she learned that majority wins.  I warned them that I knew the words to every song in the movie.  I proved it by singing along with all the songs.  They would look at me so strange.  Kind of like you look at an odd looking bug.  I had a great time.  Then the question was asked, "How do you tell if the baby is a boy or a girl in Mom's tummy"?  Gulp.  I threw the question back.  "What do you think?"  They just didn't know.  No idea.  "Well, how do you tell the difference between a boy and a girl"?  After I dispelled the notion that it had anything to do with long hair for girls or short hair for boys, or makeup, I finally had to spell it out for them.  You could literally see the light go on over Taylor's head.  Ohhhhhh.  Sometimes I wonder what they teach these kids.  All in all it was a fun time.  They learned that Grandma is weird AND the difference between boys and girls.  Oh, in case you all wondered, the new baby is a girl, although how you can tell anything from those ultra-sound pics is a mystery to me.