October Highlights

October is easily my favorite month.  For a while there July was creeping up on October because who just doesn't love summer?  But then we moved out of Provo and to the humid South, so October stays at the top.  And Spring, I still hate you so don't even try to get in on this favorite month mess.

However, this October has also been a very busy one for me.  I have spent nearly every night sewing Halloween costumes, which I swore last year I wouldn't do again this year and I swore this year that I won't do again next year, but I know I'm going to spend all October next year sewing again.  Of course, this is not to mention the added stress of our basement tenet moving out and not returning phone calls and such.

Nevertheless, we have had an exciting month.

We started with October 1st and some Halloween decorating with the help of our neighbor Derick.

That night we went to the Young Woman Halloween Party.  The kids were soooo excited to dress up.  These are old un-themed costumes so they obviously wouldn't do for real Halloween but for October 1, I thought they were ok.

Rex is a ninja turle; Alice is a vampire

Then there was General Conference, which my children were quiet for so I got to listen to most of it.  We watched just our family and ate too much and it was perfect.

I took the kids to the doctor's for their well-child visits.  Rex was slated for 4 shots and was super cocky about needing shots, until they gave him the first one.  Then things changed, but he held still and got three.  They didn't have the last one, but he had opted to do three one day and the fourth when he it came in.  Not his best choice but he picked it nonetheless.  They didn't have any of Alice's shots.  I took the kids back this week to get their shots.  Alice took hers like a champ.  All she said was "Ow!"  Rex, on the other hand, had to be convinced a bit more, but in the end, he took the last shot.  No more for him for like 6 years.  We also registered him for kindergarten.  I'd be sad if he weren't soo completely excited.  It's all he talks about.

We were there for like 2 hours.  Alice found ways to entertain herself.

This is Rex pre-shots.

We have also had perfect weather--as in no heater or air conditioner for most of the month, so we decided spur of the moment to go camping the second weekend in October.

Oh, I'm sorry Alice, are you tired after a night of playing "Jump on Mommy and wake up at 6 am?"

The next weekend I ran a Color Run with some friends from church.  It was an untimed race and there were seriously like 5 people running, the other 3000 were cool with just walking.  It was fun, and brought on tons of nostalgia.  The Color Run was started in Utah and is based on the Spanish Fork Holi Festival, which Greg and I went to in our younger days.  But it also reminded me that I'm not in my early 20s anymore and that I feel like I'm in my late 30s.  Seriously, I am such a kill joy.  One of the ladies in our group wanted to join in the color throwing Holi style, and I was like, "No, we're too old for that stuff."  Really, Heather, really?  Grow down!

No comments on how fat I look--also I'm wearing my "Emma Wilson 5k shirt," which I only wear when I do a 5k with Emma Wilson--so yes, this is the same shirt I wore in the mud run last year, hence it's creme instead of white.

Wednesday we went to a super awesome pumpkin patch complete with tractor rides, farm equipment to play on, animals, and super long slides.  We were only there for an hour but easily could have stayed for two or three.  Next year...

Rex was in little boy heaven on a combine harvester.

The toilet flushing is too loud for my children so of course they cover their ears on the tractor ride.

Alice LOVED the slides...Rex, well Greg may or may not have throw/pushed him down one, but then he had fun.

Then this weekend we (Greg really and he did a great job finding one and negotiating the price) bought a van (what!?!), took family pictures (sorry guys, you'll have to wait until Christmas for those, though if you want a Christmas card, send me your address), and went to the ward Trunk or Treat.

Sully, Mike and Boo

I'm Randal.

Took this idea from Pinterest

Today, Rex got his giant cookie for memorizing all the Articles of Faith.  Though he can't actually recite any of them now, I'm super impressed that he did it.  When we started this back in January, I was hoping the Primary president would take pitty on a Sunbeam and only make him memorize half, but she had him do all of them and he did.  He even shared some of his cookie with me and Greg, even though I told him he didn't have to because he worked hard for that cookie.  Is it ok to say that I'm super proud of him?  

This week is going to be crazy.  Monday we need to carve our pumpkins still.  Wednesday Greg leaves for Utah to check on our house.  Thursday is real Halloween.  Friday morning I fly to Vegas for Greg's brother's wedding--Greg is driving down from American Fork.  I get home Sunday.  Greg will go back to American Fork and come home late on Wednesday.  And then we have to worry about Thanksgiving and Christmas--but once that holidays are done...there's nothing, so I'm soaking this all up while I can.

I Win!

This week has been a big week for me in the "I Win" department.  Rex may or may not have learned some new crude phrases as I won my various battles against The Man that I won't share here.  But know that more than one happy dance was done.

Now, in order of awesomeness, my victories:

1. Me v. USAA.  This is only the slightest of victories because it was unintended and was due to USAA being pretty awesome and having amazing customer service.  A month or so ago, I got a weird letter from them so decided to call about it.  The issue with the letter was quickly resolved, but then because they are awesome, USAA noticed a few ways they could save me money on my insurance.  Forty-five minutes later, they were saving me hundreds of dollars.  We got statement for our refund check (no check yet) in the mail Saturday.  Refund check means: I WIN!

2. Me v. UnitedHealth Care.  We have pretty minimal health insurance with a fairly limited listed of in-network doctors.  And guess what, mine is not on the list.  Well, guess again?  I won anyway.  After several hours on the phone with UnitedHealth Care, actually visiting a primary care doctor, more time on the phone with her staff, a bit of chatting with my preferred doctor--who got the in network exception?  Me!  Because I win.  Take that The Man.  Currently, I am working with my primary care doctor and her awesome staff to further maximize my insurance benefits.

3. Me v. Time Warner Cable.  Here is where I pulled out the expletives because this is where the fighting got nasty.  A few weeks ago, I was shocked when I opened my internet bill to find that the bill had gone up $11.  No thank you.  Apparently whatever promotion we had was expired.  Well, I don't care my service wasn't $11 better.  So I called Time Warner and after being hung up on several times, transferred to at least 3 different people, having to call back, sit on hold and using that last hour of nap time, I was told by a very unfriendly lady that I should be glad was only paying what I was paying.  No dice.  In all my time on hold, I'd gone back through our Time Warner history and noticed that our bill had increased $25 in 18 months.  Not cool.  Well, the unfriendly lady told me there was nothing she could do, so I said we'd switch providers.  She was not impressed with my semi-idle threats and we parted ways.  That was a Friday.  Over the weekend, I discussed the situation with Greg and we decided that we really didn't want/need to pay that much for internet so we would drop some of our services.  I called back on Monday to drop some of our services and the first guy I talked to agreed that we were paying too much, asked how much I'd like to pay, said he couldn't get me that low but maybe another guy could, transferred my call, and I won again.  Got my bill down by $15--lower than it was before the spike.  .  I got what I wanted.  I win.

4.  Me v. Aetna.  This one merited a 5 minute happy dance as I had lost all hope of actually winning.  You see, over a year ago, on September 26, 2012, Greg went to the doctor and got a new prescription, which he filled later that day.  As he filled it, the pharmacists informed him that Aetna (our insurance company at the time) would only pay for half of the prescription and that we would have to pay the rest out of pocket, which was no small amount.  Greg called Aetna and they said they needed a letter from the doctor saying the prescription was medically necessary (is that what a prescription is though?)  Greg asked the doctor to do this.  She did.  We were later informed that Aetna didn't care what the doctor said, they were still only going to pay for half.  That's when I got involved.  I appealed Aetna's decisions with a letter from the doctor and Greg's medical history from his previous doctor.  My appeal was denied.  Keep in  mind that while all this is going on, we are continuing to pay for Greg's expensive drugs plus over 10% of Greg's paycheck in insurance premiums.  I appealed again with an additional 20 pages of medical history showing that Greg had taken this medication with success in the past.  Denied again.   I appealed again and this time included a 2 page annotated bibliography of peer reviewed journal articles explaining that insurance companies should not dictate the amount of medication a person should take but that should be between the patient and the doctor.  Again, denied because by now it was March and our coverage with Aetna ended in December.  They told me that they could no longer review my claim because we weren't Aetna members.  So I resubmitted my previous appeal with an more in-depth cover letter.  All the while, Greg was telling me not to spend too much time on this as they would never pay up.  I called to check on the progress in May.  Nothing.  They didn't know what to do with the letter so they put it in some "we don't want to deal with" pile.  I had it moved.  Called again in June to check up on it.  Still no progress so I explained the situation again.  July I threaten to sue.  August I spent two hours on the phone just to find out that the doctor the previous year needed to speak to someone at Aetna and not just send a fax.  Are you kidding me?  September I start asking around about a lawyer.  Greg gets a call from Aetna.  They are re-examing our claim.  I decide to be patient.  Two days ago, we get a letter from Aetna.  Greg opened it and said it didn't say anything.  I later reread it.  Aetna finally accepted our appeal and would be re-reimbursing us for four months of Greg's medication.  I happy danced it up and threw in some choice words just for fun.  I stuck it to the man and I WON!!!! No check yet, but that's my chore for tomorrow.

Point is: I'm feeling pretty amazing about my winning skills--I'm about to run a seminar on how to make large corporations actually provide the services you pay for because you don't have to be nice to them.  Legally they may be people, but I'm not so sure that that counts in God's book.  More details on that to follow.