Sunday, August 02, 2009

Phew! What a Week!

It has been a busy, wild, and very hot week. Earlier this week we hit a new record for heat. Officially it was 95 degrees for our fair city in Washington State but Mommy has pictures of our temperature gauge showing 102. It was HOT! Super HOT. But we survived and have spent many hours in our pool.

We started our weekend early with a trip from Grandma and Grandpa. They came up to visit for a night and stayed at a local pool with a hotel. Okay, a local hotel with a pool but now you know where my priorities lie. We went to visit (and escape the heat) and played for a long time int he pool. It was fun! We love playing in water. Especially with Grandma and Grandpa!

This weekend was very busy for Mommy and Daddy. It was Daddy's 20th Class Reunion for High School. Mommy met Daddy's very first girlfriend and got to spend time with some very nice people. It was a three day event that included a social, a evening dress-up dinner, and a picnic at the park. We are all very tired after all the festivities and look forward to a nice long sleep tonight in cooler weather (today's high was mid-80's).

We also got some very big news this weekend. Daddy has been activated to full-time duty for the Navy. He will be stationed at his regular base and that means he is taking a years military leave from his main job with our fair county (Daddy is a Corrections Deputy for our Sheriffs Department). We don't know when his activation starts but this although this means Daddy will be gone a lot this year, there is some very good news in all of this. We will be eligible for medical benefits from Daddy's work and from the military (two medical coverages) which will eliminate our medical bills for a year. In addition, we will also receive some stipend with housing (our mortgage payment), a food stipend, and Daddy gets an increase in his pay so we will be able to save a little bit of money over the year. This is good. We were starting to struggle with medical costs this year. Let us explain:

We are very fortunate that Daddy has a wonderful job with the county and for the most part we have excellent insurance. But the insurance falls short in one particular category and that's with therapy. We have a $2000/annual therapy cap for health insurance coverage which includes my Speech and Occupational Therapies. Following using this $2000 in therapies, we have to pay the rest out-of-pocket. To put it simply....$2000 doesn't go very far when your therapies are approximately $120/per session and you attend 2 times weekly. Yep. We have been paying some serious bucks for my therapy lately and it was starting to take its toll.

We'll keep you updated on when Daddys deployment starts. It will be a rough year but as stated earlier, it has it benefits. One more bonus to Daddy being in the military for the next 12 months is that he will actually have holidays off! With Daddy's job as a Corrections Deputy, it is rare that he gets a holiday off so it will be great to have him around for all the holidays this next year!

There you go. One busy week.

5 comments:

Carolyn said...

Dylan, give your Daddy a "high five" for me on his military status. Congrats Ray !!!

So glad you will have more health benefits and be able to save some $$. That's always hard to do.

Glad it is cooling off a little there. Hot nights can be s"sleepless nights".

Hugs,
Carolyn in WV

Erin said...

Hey Dylan and Mommy!

I'm so excited to hear that Daddy will have benefits that will help offset your therapy costs! That's amazing!

I've been reading your blog for quite some time and would love for you to visit mine! I think you guys will really enjoy it!

Let me know what you think! I'm so proud of you, Dylan!

Anonymous said...

My thoughts and prayers are with you all. While some parts sound great, I can't help but think how much ya'll are gonna miss each other.

Sandi said...

Wow. Oh my goodness. Big stuff Gillig's. We are thinking about all of you. Lots of love!

sunshine glynn said...

OH sister...what a blessing...and also a hardship. Nothing is ever easier when you're doing it more often then not...by yourself! Love the new glasses!!!