Baby Kellen Van is here!

My employer recently switched insurance carriers from Pacificare to UnitedHealth. No big deal right because UnitedHealth owns Pacificare. No worries, baby comes in January, not a problem, surely Centennial Hills Hospital 2 minutes from our house takes UnitedHealth. Well, turns out it doesn't. We find this out on Wednesday, a mere two days before the baby is scheduled to arrive via c-section. Next closest option is Summerlin Hospital, about 25 minutes away from our house. After a few days of begging for an in-network continuing treatment exception to allow us to go to Centennial Hills (much closer, more convenient, easier for folks to see us), we decided to make the switch when UnitedHealth was noncommittal. Naturally, not even 45 minutes after we make the switch UnitedHealth approves our request for an exception. Too late by then.

Luckily, we have the best doctor ever, Dr. Tammy Kelly. She is excellent! I even made it known that I used to do medical malpractice as an attorney while we were chatting the OR and it didn't faze her!!:)

Baby came out just fine, 8lbs, 6ozs, 20inches long, little bald-headed like his daddy with a bit of reddish blonde hair.
See pic below!

Miley Cyrus overload

No baby yet. If I don't go into labor, I have a c-section scheduled for the 16th. So I'm trying to exist the next 10 days. The worst part is I'm not sleeping at all. Between getting up to pee and trying to turn myself over and an aching back I literally wake up every hour. I'm a walking zombie. But even worse than that is that when I wake up at night I always have Hannah Montanna songs running through my head. Zoey got a guitar hero hannah montanna game for christmas and after hearing her play the game it's the one thing that I can always seem to remember.

Ooops!

So in this day and age of the internet, email, text messaging, and online bill pay I rarely have need to use traditional methods to communicate. (the post office) It makes me think about that Seinfeld episode when Kramer tries to stop the mail from being delivered to him because he realizes it's just a conspiracy for pottery barn to put their catalogue on your counter.
Anyway, I officially apologize to anyone who got a christmas card from us that required additional postage. I innocently bought two boxes of chrismtas cards, one being square, and one rectangle. Apparently the square ones, though no bigger than the other card costs more to send. I feel cheated by the card company because I think they should have written in big black letters across the label, "requires additional postage" because how am I supposed to know. So if anyone actually dug in their piggy banks and rescued the card from its holding cell at the post office consider it a christmas present to us.
But to everyone else we wish you a wonderful Christmas. We love you and hope for the best in 2009!

Global Warming??

The snow has continued to hit Las Vegas. While I am loving it, it is such a rare occurance here in the desert that people don't really know what to do. This morning they canceled school for the whole district, which just makes me laugh. Having grown up in Utah, I remember one time during my whole educational experiences that they canceled school. And there was so much snow that we could sled down the middle of the roads; it was piled so deep by our house that my brothers and I could jump off the roof of our house onto the front lawn and land safely cushioned by the snow.
But these cold conditions brings me to another issue that I have problems with, Global Warming. While I consider myself environmentally aware and concerned, I don't really believe in it. I think it's just a political conspiracy. I think true climate changes happen over millenials and Las Vegas's 30 degree weather this week will really throw a damper on the records. If your going to be worried about anything it's global cooling. There was a 10,000 year ice age, I don't recall anything about warm ages over the course of our earths history.

Let is Snow!!!

It is snowing! For only the second time in the 4 1/2 years we have lived here, it is snowing. We are loving it. Christmas can officially come now.

Finding Buddha

It continues to be very warm in Las Vegas. Zoey still goes to school in shorts and a t-shirt and our air conditioner is running. In fact I'm ready for it to cool down because it doesn't feel like the holidays are here yet. But we spent the weekend at Red Rock loving the sun and blue sky. My brother-in-law insisted on taking a picture of me relaxing on the rocks and I look exactly like buddha with my big belly!! So enjoy. And yes that is Joe climbing with his shirt off. Welcome to Las Vegas at Thanksgiving.

Continuing Disarray in the Went Household

So our house is torn apart again, stuff everywhere, no order or organization. But this time it's because we're getting new carpet!!! Yeah!! It has been high on my list of home improvement projects but just kept getting pushed aside. Then the right deal came through for us and we jumped on it. So our whole upstairs and staircase is getting done. It looks so much better! I love it and can't wait for it to get finished.
But when the carpet guy was ripping up the old stuff it started making me sick thinking about all the nastiness that was lurking there. Carpet in general is probablly just a nesting ground for who knows what. But I have to push those thoughts aside because it only makes me think of all the other nasty things that we use everyday.....like food. We trust so many different hands with our food before we actually get it home from the store to eat. I sware If I could, I would organically grow everything at home and make it from scratch. Then I would always know what has touched my food. But that of course wouldn't be possible in this day and age. Maybe I'd have made a good pioneer. These are the neurotic thoughts I've felt today....I need more sleep.