Falling Behind

Man, I really have fallen behind. It's been over two months since I've posted anything. Actually, I've blogged a couple of times but gotten distracted, never finished, then forgotten until the post was too out of date to post. I've had a couple requests for updates but just haven't gotten around to it, not that I don't have anything to say. I can always come up with something regardless of if anything is happening or not. It just so happens, however, that right now so much is happening that I haven't had time. After a phone scolding this morning, I thought I'd better get on it though. So, Heidi, my dear cousin, this one's for you. :)

I suppose I'll start where I left off. I last discussed Conan's 2 month checkup. Well, last week we went in for the 4 month, and I must say, I was a bit surprised by some of their findings. I was excited to get Coney's percentages because he really is quite, even super, fat. He also just seems really big in general to me. I was surprised to find out that he is only in the 25th percentile for height and even more surprised to find out that he's only in the 50th for weight. Honestly, I thought he'd be around 60th or so for height, and I really thought that he'd pushing the tops of the chart for weight. Shows what I know. In fact, Miles was was taller and at least the same weight at this point. And he always seemed little to me. I guess, if you are looking at percentiles, he is still twice as fat as he is tall. People have been asking me about his head size (it's a novelty in my family because the young ones tend to have freakishly gigantic noggins), but I didn't get that measurement. I'll ask next time we're in. I'm sure it will only be a week or so. We're there all the time. Actually, while we were there for the well-child, the nurse commented that it was so nice to have us there healthy. Everything else in the appointment looked good. No rare diseases so far. The only thing is some pretty bad eczema, and we'll take that. I'm also convinced that Conan already has allergies. They won't diagnose this early though. Dr. Ditty said that many doctors don't believe that kids can have allergies this young because they haven't be exposed to everything. I told him that I didn't believe that for a second. He chuckled and said that he didn't think I would (he doesn't either). He said that I would be the one to know, with Ben and I both having pretty severe asthma and of course, Miles. I can tell the difference between allergies and a cold, and I can say pretty confidently that Conan has allergies.

In the last post, I also ranted for a while about insurance. The saga continues. Within about a week of having Conan, I received a bill for $500+. We had the same policy with Miles and paid nothing, so I already thought that this bill was probably not right. Not only that, I knew that there was no way that they could have submitted to the insurance and gotten a reply within a week of my hospital stay, so certainly I wasn't going to pay it. They were very persistent though. We seriously got this same bill almost weekly for about a month, so Ben finally called on it. I loved what the lady told him. In not so many words, "Oh, we always bill that amount right after someone has a baby because it usually costs at least that much". Really? Really?? Nothing had been denied from my insurance because they hadn't even billed them yet. I would love to know how many people who don't know their policies just assume it's legit, and pay it. Well, ours wasn't, so they finally stopped billing us after the call. That was about 3 months ago. My favorite part happened just last week. That $500+ bill was zeroed out, but I got another bill for interest on that bill. And when I called on it, the lady said, "Well, it was paid late, so you need to pay interest". That was after I explained the whole situation. Clearly, she didn't understand, and after much argument, I finally got it taken care of. Sneaky hospital billing. They're all seriously so crooked. As a side note, I've never had an insurance problem. Both, Aetna and Select Health have been so wonderful, helpful, and attentive to our family. It's always been problems with the hospital billing. (I have to stick in there that I love PCMC dearly, and I do like Alta View as well. It's just all of their outside billing that sucks) Again, I highly recommend going over every medical bill with a fine-toothed comb. Call on everything, regardless of if it's fishy or not. You may find something you shouldn't be paying for, and if you don't, all you're out is a phone call.

I missed a pretty big one last month. We went on an incredible Disney dream vacation. It was seriously so great! You know, I've been really Disney blessed. I've had some amazing Disney experiences, and this one was up at the top with Brooklyn's grand-prize winning in the "Year of a Million Dreams". (If you don't know about that one, feel free to leave a comment, and I'll tell you all about it in the next post. It was crazy!) Anyway, Ben was lucky enough to find a seriously smoking deal for a package stay at the Grand Californian. As the nicest of the Disneyland hotels, it's definitely not someplace that has ever really been in our budget, but we just happened to hit a great deal. To give you an idea, their most basic rooms, average right around $500 a night. We certainly didn't pay close to that though. But, we did get all the same benefits as someone who does. The hotel is right on site. In fact, we had our own private entrance to California Adventure, and Downtown Disney was right outside our doors. It was so nice to have everything so close. If the kids got tired or ornery, it wasn't a big deal to go back for a nap or lounge at the pool. With 6 days in the park, it was also our longest stay at Disneyland, so we didn't feel at all rushed. It was great. Ben's brother and his family joined us, which always makes it so much fun, and his mom flew in for a couple of days. It was great to have family there with us. Disneyland has always been a family place for me, so it's always kind of been the more family (especially the kids) the merrier.

Since we were staying in such a nice hotel at such a great price, and since we forfeited any vacation last year due to constant medical problems, we decided to try to have the full Disney experience this time. What were some of the highlights? Let's see, one of the greatest things, despite the bad service (only time I've ever said that about anything Disney) at the restaurant was the VIP access to the Wonderful World of Color. It was so cool! For anyone who doesn't know about this, look it up and watch part of the show on the internet. It's kind of a light/laser show on water at the pier at California Adventure. It's kind of like the show at the Bellagio, only a million times cooler. The pictures are as clear as movies, and the water shoots hundreds of feet high. It really is indescribable. I recorded most of it, but a video just doesn't do it justice.

We also had some really great meals. We had dinner with Alex and Jenn at my personal favorite, the Blue Bayou, while grandma watched the kids. It was so much fun to be able to have a double date in the happiest place on earth. It's been a long time since we've hung out with other people without little kiddies. It was nice. We also did character dining for the first time. We went to Goofy's kitchen, and had some great photo ops for the kids. And poor Minnie was terrorized by some little monster of a child to the point that she had to run away out of the restaurant for about an hour. You all have my permission to spank my children if they ever do something awful like that. We also tried out a new BBQ place by Big Thunder. We made friends with the cutest little waitress named Sundai, and we spent the hour just a couple tables away from Whoopi Goldberg and her family. My brush with greatness.

We got to be in the park while the Halloween season was getting underway. That was a lot of fun. Haunted Mansion was all dressed up for the season like Nightmare Before Christmas. It's pretty amazing how they can transform it so much. They also Halloweened up Space Mountain for the first time. It took me a couple of rides before I could keep my eyes open through the whole thing (or past the first poltergeist). I'm a huge wimp when it comes to rides, but I've never been one to be afraid of ghosts and such. This was totally the exception. The special effects were really terrifying. Speaking of me being a wimp, I did go on Splash Mountain this trip. I don't do falling. Ben thought that he was going to get me on Tower of Terror, and I ended up agreeing to go on Splash Mountain just to get him to shut up about the other. On the record, I still hate it.

Back to the present, Ben just started a new shift at Fidelity. This is a fun one. He leaves for work around 3:30 pm, and doesn't get home until about 4:30 am. Good times. He gets to do this Monday, Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday. As crappy as this sounds, it does have some benefits over his prior shift. A: He gets to go to church, most of it anyway. B: We get a pretty sweet shift differential. It's also kind of nice that he gets 3 days off in a row. Not that the shift isn't bad enough as is, but Ben has training this week. That means that after getting off work at way-too-early o'clock in the morning, he had to be back at 8 am the same day, about four hours later. Yikes! Not only that, it also means that the poor boy is working 7 consecutive days this week, at least two of which are 10 hour shifts. Poor, poor, Benny.

Since he didn't have that much time between on and off today, Ben stayed in Salt Lake to save the 2 hours of driving. (Thank you Cathy!) I've got a ton to do with Festival, so I decided to stay at my parents last night. I didn't want to drive home in the rain tonight, so I'm actually still here. The day was very full, but quite productive. Festival of Trees is sneaking up very quickly, and I realized yesterday just how ill-prepared I am. Festival is only a few weeks away. I had gathered a little bit of this and that for my display, but I didn't actually have a single thing for the tree itself.......and I hadn't picked up the tree either. It makes it a little imperative to get going because the most important parts of my tree have to be homemade this year. I'm doing a Cookie Monster tree, and I think that this may be my greatest creation ever, assuming it works out, that is. And that's a pretty big assumption. Right now, we're attempting to dye undyeable fur fabric blue to build a life-sized Cookie Monster. This has the potential to be a super awesome tree. Unfortunately, it has the potential to fail miserably too. That's why it's so crucial to get it done early. That way, if it's too awful, hopefully we have time to come up with an alternative plan. I really hope that I can realize my vision for this though 'cause it's pretty sweet vision. Today, we did pick up the tree, got all of our ornaments and ribbon, started making some of our hand-made stuff and got the fabric dyeing....we think. The only thing that we still need are some of the required supports, a couple of chef's hats, wooden spoons, a cookie sheet, oven mits, a small table, stuff to make an oven display and a 36" sign board. Everything will be super easy to come by but the sign. I can't find anything suitable, so we'll probably have to cut our own. Oh, I also need to figure out how Cookie is going to stand up and be shapely. That will be interesting. Anyhow, I'm super excited about this tree. It's been a while since I've done a tree that strictly childish, and I think that they're the most fun.

Please, everyone come to Festival of Trees. It's very near and dear to my heart. Every cent earned from tree sales, ticket sales, food sales, etc. goes straight to Primary Children's Medical Center. There is not overhead. No one gets paid or reimbursed. Even the space was willed to PCMC. I don't know if everyone realizes that kind of like Shriner's, PCMC offers financial assistance to many patients who have no way of covering their expenses. We've been very blessed to have wonderful health insurance coverage, but I know how important this is to many families who don't. I can only imagine what a horrific strain it would be to try to deal with such a financial burden while also trying to care for a child that's suffering in the hospital. Despite not having taken advantage of this financial help, I really love this hospital. I couldn't have imagined, 13 years ago, when I first got involved with Festival of Trees, what a close relationship I would end up developing with this hospital. And while I hate that my baby has to be sick, and I hate that he has to spend so much time at Primary, I'm grateful that I've gotten to see up close how important and worthy charities like Festival are.

Opening night for Festival of Trees is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. There is a silent auction for the trees, etc. It is by invitation only, but if you think you'd be interested in purchasing a tree, I'm sure you could get invited. Festival is open to the public Dec. 1st through the 4th (I think). It's typically open from 10am to 10pm. It's really a lot of fun for the whole family. Hundreds of themed trees and wreaths are on display. There are also really ornate gingerbread houses and playhouses that are so much fun to look at. There are crafts for the little kids. Lots of fun gifts and treats to buy. There are two stages with performers, and Santa is there with photographers. Oh, and make sure that you visit the scone and sweet roll chalet. I wait all year for those scones. If you have any questions about Festival or would like to volunteer to host (stand behind the velvet ropes and tell people not to touch--also, tell all the heart wrenching stories on the back of the signs about dedicated trees to the passersby), feel free to give me a call or message or whatever. You can also get most of the info you'd need from www.festivaloftreesutah.org Hopefully, I'll see you all there. Oh, and the name of my tree is "C" is for Christmas. If I remember correctly, it's kind of by the scone and sweet roll chalet (in the middle of the large trees). I could be wrong though. It will probably be one of the only big blue trees, so it will kind of stand out. My name won't be on the sign, but there will be a picture of my cute little Miles in the display.


Well, this is lengthy. Hope you enjoyed it, Heidi......and anybody else who wasn't too bored to read it. I'll be sure to be back sooner than I had been. 'Til then......