So, I'm a Day Late

When we got home from running around town last night, we got sucked into the TV to watch the season finale of Lost. As we went to bed, Eric checked his schedule to verify when he needed to be at work. That's when I realized what day it was.
So, here's a late Happy Birthday! for Susan.
And, happy anniversaries to both Mom and Dad, as well as Sarah and Chris!
I'm a dork, what can I say? I just hope I can remember long enough into the day to call at appropriate times for you guys!!

Missing Them Already

So, Mom, Dad, and Jake left early this morning. I'm bummed already. We had so much fun with them this weekend!! Of course, they also made sure to spoil us rotten and we feasted on a lovely roast dinner Sunday to be followed by Grandpa's Tacos yesterday. Oh, it was all so yummy!! Although, I think paint-balling won out for favorite activity for Dad, Jake and Eric. We also got to go down to Andersonville (aka Camp Sumter) yesterday.
Emily got up this morning and found us in our bed still trying to get some z's. She asked, "Papa?" And then when we told her that Mema (she calls her Mommy-ma) and Papa and Uncle Jake had to go home, she said, "Papa, I luh-lu" (which is her "I love you").
I just wish it wasn't such a long drive and we could make more frequent trips home for visits instead of spending two days or more traveling to and from.

Anticipation

My parents and youngest brother are headed down to visit us this weekend. We're excited to have them here. The last time they came down was a day after we came home from the hospital with Emily. Although we didn't let that stop us from going and doing, it will be more fun this time when Emily can really interact with them and we can show them some of Georgia's heritage. I think we'll go to Andersonville (it was the worst prison camp during the Civil War and has been featured on the History Channel, if you are interested). I'd also like to take them to one of the peach orchards that are near-by. Fresh peach ice cream is so yummy, and it's been my tradition to do that with Daisey and her mom every year. Wonder if we can capture Ma for an afternoon... The boys are all going paint balling Saturday (or at least that's the current plan). That means the girls should get a treat, too! Stef mentioned pedicures. I don't think Mom has ever had one, so that'd be fun to treat her to...a be-lated Mother's Day, I'd say. Now, if we could just really figure out how to maximize their time here...
Emily does NOT understand the concept of "Friday" or "soon". I keep mentioning to her that they are coming and each time she immediately says, "kay," and runs to the door. She thinks they need to be here NOW!

Hilarity in Hair Pulling

Eric is the "responsible" parent and takes care of Emily during Church on Sundays. He takes her out when she is unruly in Sacrament Meeting. He takes her to Nursery and picks her up. Well, occasionally he works on Sundays and leaves before Church is out. That means I'm supposed to pick her up. I actually remembered (someone said something that prompted me going to get her) this time!
Emily was still happily playing with toys when I came in. I tried to collect her things (she has a thing w/not wanting to wear shoes lately) and get us back to my Presidency meeting. Another little girl wanted to make sure that Emily did not leave with someone else's things. She grabbed Emily's ponytails that had been fastened with flower claw-clips and insistently pulled them while chanting, "These Anastasia's! These Anastasia's!" It was a difficult thing to convince this child that the claw-clips really WERE Emily's and to stop pulling her hair. I had a hard time because she was CERTAIN they belonged to another little girl, although miraculously, Emily had kept her hair in her clips all day!

A Re-direct on our Storm Story

I'm going to redirect you again to our friends' Stefanie and Ryan's blog for the "news report" on our Sunday Storms. You can see some of the images they recorded with their camera and also read their experience. We've canceled mutual tonight as the area the church is in still does not have power. A friend who lives over there told me that they were told not to expect power for another couple days.

First Engagement Shoot

YES! WE FINALLY DID IT!! We may have had to schedule and reschedule and then reschedule again, but we worked it out and had a ton of fun on our shoot yesterday with Cheyenne and Andrew. This is my favorite picture. I think it is hilarious and just reveals some of their personality. Okay, so maybe they can't use it on their announcements, but I thought it was great!

Trumped

I took some pictures of the crazy hail that came down yesterday afternoon after my last post. I thought I'd put that up, but then it got trumped this morning. Around 5-6am, high winds/tornado (National Weather Service still hasn't given the final say on it) hit Macon. We, thankfully, didn't experience anything terrible. Just the rains, thunder and lightening. However, some of our fellow church members suffered worse. Although lives were not lost in any of those cases, it is still going to be devastating for them.
The police were on the news telling people to stay inside today and not travel if possible. Certain areas of town were completely closed off due to the destruction. We've heard that several buildings have been destroyed or basically gone.
All is well for the Boyds, though. We are safe and sound and have our power back on. We were blessed in this tempest!

Predicting Rain

I know meteorologists rely on high-tech instruments to give them the ability to predict rain. I can do it more accurately. If we wash Hannah, the next time we put her on the chain, we'll have torrential downpours. Well, Mother Nature, I psyched you out! Although we washed Hannah and put her on the chain, I suddenly woke up from my nap and thought I should bring her in. Just in time. It's currently Noah's Arking it down here!!

Medicine/Insurance Annoyance

2007 started out with a bang...well, pain, definitely. We've spent the time following the surgery trying to fix the hospital's mistake with insurance billing. I was notified a few months ago that I had an account going to collections...and account I didn't know existed, nor that they had used. HELLO! I didn't go to med school, no one really told me (nor Eric) about the procedure or the apparent testing (I know, obviously it makes sense, but if you don't know it is happening, you don't think about it being charged to you) on the gall bladder. So, this account turns up in collections and they are threatening to send it to my credit report. Again, HELLO! I have good credit for a reason. Don't you think contacting me personally might take care of the situation? No, let's pull the big dogs out.
Anyway, I got that lady to get me enough information to track down the pathologist and speak to her billing department. No problem, the lady is nice and takes down all my correct info and sends it to our insurance. She also assures me that she will tie the dogs back up so to speak.
Then yesterday, I receive another call. This time from a rude lady with the collections/law firm (I hope this isn't the kind of intern you are looking for, Ryan!). She WILL NOT give me any information and refuses to give me any contact information from the collecting office. Amazingly, I'm not a bimbo. I actually know to make records when I call on things. So, when I got off with this lady, I pulled through all my documents with this surgery and voila! found the pathologist information again and called Nice Lady and the Billing Department. She calls back and acknowledges her office's inability to collect from the insurance due to them not "filling in a timely manner" (which, our insurance already told me this was the reason and that they could not bill me for this). She promised to send the information to her supervisor and to "disregard that notice". So, I'm disregarding the notice and we'll see what happens in another couple months when they send out the dogs again.
My question is thus: why do patients have to go through so much turmoil for medical care and yet doctors are always being put away as it being so hard on them b/c of malpractice insurance? I mean (and, no offense, Jules, I'm just being devil's advocate on this one), the doctor is the one driving the huge expensive cars (yes, plural) while the lowly patient, myself, is struggling to meet the daily care bills.
Okay, enough of my soap box. Just a little frustrated with that. I have insurance for a reason and that should be enough!

Horses and Strawberry Fields

We went to a local strawberry field where you can pick your own strawberries. Let's just say that those lovely fruits had no sway upon Emily. She would rather spend the whole day feeding the horses.
At one point, after lunch, Emily returned to her chosen activity and was giving the nice horsey some more hay. However, the horse also thought that her blonde curls looked appetizing and reached for a bite. Thankfully, the horse didn't get a good grip and Emily thought it was funny that the horse was trying to eat her!