the last couple of weeks

Over the last couple of weeks I celebrated a birthday. And I really have to say - turning 31 was MUCH, MUCH better than turning 30 last year. There really is no other way to put it - my birthday last year was pretty much the pits. I really think it was a combination of things, but I turned 30 on Mother's Day last year, was super-depressed about not being able to get pregnant and almost everyone (except my immediate family) seemed to forget about me - probably because it was Mother's Day.

This year was much different though - I got all kinds of calls and well-wishes, not to mention it is always better when the birthday isn't competing with another holiday. I told Justin that he wasn't allowed to get me a present since we bought the frames for our masters' degrees, but he did get me some tulips (one of my favorite flowers) and they were beautiful - sorry I didn't take a picture.

Then a couple days after my birthday we had a full house again. Justin's mom, his brother, Eric, and his brother's soon-to-be fiancee, Joanna, came and visited us. On Friday we went and wondered around the new outlet mall for a little while, and then saw the new Narnia movie - Prince Caspian. On Saturday Justin went to the Aquarium downtown with them and then it was time for Eric and Joanna to head back to Florida. Justin's mom stayed with us for an extra 3 days after that and became Colby's new best friend. Colby was so sad to see her go back to Utah.

Justin has been on vacation this week and we have mainly been vegging at home - something that we intend to do all weekend long! It will be so sad when he has to head back to work on Tuesday. And then next week is my last week of freedom - my summer classes start up on June 2.

One more semester down

I am done with yet another semester and have 3 weeks before summer classes start. I have to admit - I am soooo glad to be done with this semester. I had quite a few students that were really starting to get on my nerves and I have heard enough times over the past couple months, "Why do we have to know how to do this?" Not only that, but they wanted me to tell them exactly what problems would be on exams - how spoiled are these kids?

Summer classes will be better and worse. They will be better because I am teaching Calculus 1 and Calculus 2, which means that the kids in the classes will actually be pretty good at math (when I teach the business calculus class, the students have a lot of trouble with the algebra making the whole class frustrating). It will be worse because 1) summer classes move super fast so it will most likely be a lot of work and I am spoiled and like working part-time and 2) the classes are more theoretical which I don't care for - that is why both my BS and my MS is in statistics - it is application and not theory.

During the 3 week break, we are expecting houseguests. This past weekend we had my mom here as well as one of my sisters and her husband and this week we have Justin's mom, brother and (possibly) sister coming in to town.

Decisions, decisions

Most people have to make decisions about their benefits at the end of the calendar year, but Justin's company's year runs July through June so we are currently making decisions for next year.

For the past 4 years, we have had the most awesome health insurance plan. It has been a cross between an HMO and a PPO - as long as we stayed in our network we payed low co-pays for doctor visits, but most other things have been fully covered with no deductible or coinsurance (thus making it like an HMO). But at the same time we could go see any doctor or specialist we wanted to, without having to designate a specific primary care physician or get a referral (thus like a PPO).

It has been really fabulous and has saved us TONS on our medical expenses.

This is all to change though. Although they are still calling the plan the same thing it was before (an Open Access Plus plan), they are completely changing it and doing away with the HMO aspect of it. Although we still will have co-pays for doctor's visits themselves, it will now be a PPO - anything more than a doctor visit we will have to pay for until we meet the deductible, and then we will pay a percentage of our costs over the deductible.

We know that we have been super-spoiled in the past as we look at how much we are going to have to start paying for our health costs now. And why are they calling it the same thing? It isn't the same at all.