World Traveler

Just a few days after getting home from Salt Lake City, I packed up my car and made the 11 hour drive down to my parent's house in Florida.  It was my Dad's birthday and my mom and I came up with a plan to surprise him.

The dogs stayed with Baron and I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to make the drive.  I drove into town at about 6 o'clock in the evening and just walked through the front door.  My Dad was sitting in his living room when I arrived and just stared at me for a few seconds before getting up and whispering, "Does Mom know you're here?!"  Haha!  I guess it was a good surprise!

I got to spend a few days with my parents and see some friends too.  I got to see my friend Vicki and her kids, Rachel and Carson.  We're now working on a plan for Rachel and Carson to come visit this summer once we have the house finished!

On Monday evening I drove up to Jacksonville to have dinner with some of my best friends.  I wasn't really invited to dinner but I got the details from my best friend's sister and I just showed up on my best friend's door (where I lived before getting married).  She opened the door and just stared at me for a few seconds letting the door close on me!  I opened it and we both dissolved into puddles and hugs all around.  Our other friend was meeting at her house so I hid in the bathroom and when she arrived I yelled, "What took you so long?! I'm starving!!".  She just said, "NO WAY!!" and ran over to hug me, insert more tears!

We had dinner at "The Loop", one of our old stomping grounds.  And after dinner, as a tradition, we drove over one of the biggest bridges in Jacksonville, with the windows down, screaming singing "Don't Stop Believin'" at the top of our  lungs.  We may or may not continued our tradition of a chinese firedrill at the stoplight at the bottom of the bridge...things we'll never tell our kids...or will force our kids to participate in, we'll see!

It was the shortest trip ever but well worth the drive to see some friends and family.  Sometimes the thought of being so far away from people I love is overwhelmingly sad, but the fact that I haven't seen these people in six months but we can pick up right where we left off is a blessing.  I have to remind myself how lucky I am to have family and friends even though they're 682 miles away from me, because there are people in the world who don't have anyone to lean on.


House Update:
The short story is that the realty company who works for the builder has been acting totally unprofessional.  At one point the woman who we don't really care for called our realtor and yelled at her for being "hard to work with" and then hung up on her.  After that she called our realtor's boss and told on her for being difficult and told them both that if they had a problem with her they needed to talk to her and not her boss.  Um really?! Because we have...several times...then we went to your boss. 

Apparently they all worked through their issues and it was left at an agreement for the woman we can't stand to apologize to all parties and come up with a solution for us. 

A week and a half later we got an email from her that listed five options that we had to move forward.  Problem was that none of the options were really anything new, just variations of options that we already knew we had! 

Baron and I both decided that we are no longer comfortable moving forward until we can meet with the builder directly.  We no longer want to talk to people who have no authority and who keep promising things to us and then changing their story later. 

We are calling the builder today to set up a meeting as soon as possible. It will just be Baron, myself, and the builder.  We do not want the people from the other realty company there because it will turn into a "he said/she said" and nothing will get accomplished, therefore it would go against "ethics" for our realtor to be present.  Our main objective is to let the builder know how he is being represented and that we are not happy.  Hopefully we come to a resolution that we can both agree on.  It's not the money that is bothering us the most, we just need to get a feel of the builder and how he responds to our complaints.

Ugh...never saw this being a part of our house building process.  I know it'll all work out and in a few years we probably won't even remember all this drama.