Mandatory Vacation

It rained a lot last thursday. Then I noticed the my shower was draining very slowly. Then we heard our toilets burping all night. Then water was coming up the upstairs bath. I called our builder's emergency line at 5:30am, but they didn't deem it an emergency, but they eventually sent a plumber out at noon that day. He worked a while with a snake and a camera from the main line in front. He deduced there must be a break in the pipes because he was hitting mud. So I began calling and emailing and submitting "service requests", but Standard Pacific's computer and phone lines were down. Eventually someone got back to me and they said it was too wet to send a backhoe out until monday...they said they would put us up in a hotel. So I said, "so you will put all 8 of us up in a hotel all weekend?" and the lady said, "well that is an unusual amount of people to have in one house, so we may not cover it all." I was so insulted and pissed. We BOUGHT this house, we are not tenants that have to abide by their rules. It's their fault not mine. Plus, we needed a hotel that took dogs. So they called back and apologized (apparently the builder was arguing with their in-house mechanic contractor on who was responsible) and said they'd pay $600/day for food and lodging. So we booked 3 nights at NYLO in Plano, near John & Jim's work. The hotel is where I used to play music--it's all modern and artsy and industrial, but we figured it was probably the nicest/cleanest we would get that took pets. It was a horrible night.
    All cement floors don't work when you have 2 babies that won't sit still. Tyrone was barking at every noise, the bathroom was tiny and provided no privacy, and there was no bath for the babies. John had to work too, so I would be alone with all 4 in a cement room, with a barking dog that needed to be let out. I decided to go home--it'd be better to let Tyrone have the yard, and the kids have the game room to play in, even if we couldn't flush. Here's some pictures of our bad night--Ironically I took this photo in the middle of the night after feeding Eustace,

and JOhn took this photo while he got ready for work at 5am. We both must have thought someday this will be funny..when we have 8 kids and we can say, "remember when we just had 4?"

   Anyway. they came and found the problem Monday, which was this: They used to have a construction trailer on our lot, and they had their plumbing hooked up to the main city sewer line. When they decided to build the house here, they cut the main sewer line instead of their separate trailer plumbing. So when they hooked up the plumbing for this house, they didn't know the pipe they were connecting to, led to nowhere...led to mud 7 ft under the house. I don't know how that passed any inspections, but whatever it's fixed. Heres the hole in the front--which is now refilled with mud and our sewage:

   They are coming to repair the sprinklers and lay new sod next week. Thank God it rained as hard as it did, because if not, it would have taken a long time to find out our pipes led nowhere, if not for the saturated dirt. And by that time, the builders might have said it's not their fault.

    Everything is working and draining well now, so I hope to move passed this, but I am anxious to rent his house out and buy elsewhere with another builder.

   Anyway, here are the kids' costumes so far:

And a shot of Frankie's diva face:

Kids started a ninja warrior class tonight. Pictures soon.