Yup! You guessed it. Its Hot! I mean Hot! Real Hot! Its hotter than the hinges of hades out there and we're busy tryin' to stay cool! We have averaged over 100 for I can't remember how long. Its so hot our Chevy Venture's temp guage now reads random temps in the 70s and 80s…wishful thinking on the cars part I bet.
In other TX related news, our kids started school this week and everything seems to be going very well. Everyone but Maisie is in school five days a week with Matthew now heading off to Frisco Montessori each day. The only trouble is that Cheryl spends about 3-4 hours per day getting kids to and from school. Yikes! All aboard! Well so far Maisie has been handling being carted around every day pretty well and we hope the drivee-time will get shorter as everyone figures out the school schedules and pickup situations.
Our house is coming along too, although we have had some issues with the builder not following the plans too closely and we've been meeting with them weekly to discuss issues. The problems mostly stem from the fact that the house we bought was planned for someone else and when they backed out, we jumped in. Well, the first buyer had made quite a few random changes which we reversed to the original spec. We also made additional modifications as needed. We met with all involved and documented the final plans. You would think this would set everything straight…think again.
Since doing all of this, we have found numerus problems which were either items the first buyer wanted that we wanted removed but are still being built into our house, items we added but are not being built into the house, or things that were not on any plan we are aware of, but are still being built into our house. Items like doors missing, windows missing, closets missing, gas outside fixtures being added, sink plumbing added, a wood burning fireplace rather than gas fireplace, ceiling variations, floor plugs on the opposite side of the room and shower pans poured into the foundation in the wrong places.
In addition we pointed out some structual problems we see with the roofing of the house and are concerned about. To that end, we sent them photos of the issues and have contacted a structual engineering company to advise us on the integrity of the structure.
The builder has stated that they will fix all of these things and has fixed some of them at this point. Its just driving Cheryl crazy that all of these problems keep coming up and are not addressed quickly. We are meeting with the builder and rep Monday evening again to discuss our concerns and see what we can do to get things straightened out. At this point I told Cheryl that if she wants to, with all of the documentation around the problems and things not being addressed, I think we could easily get out of this deal if she wants to. We'll see what happens next week and keep you all informed.
Well, I'd better get to bed. It's getting late and I need my beauty sleep. I know I've been bad about getting new photos up so I'll try to get some photos of the kids going off to school and our house up in the next few days.
Take Care!
-Brian