Now I really don't believe Mother Nature reads my blog, but one can hope right? Seriously. Things were progressing along nicely...we had footings, the in-slab plumbing was done and the under slab duct work was completed and nicely buried just waiting for some concrete to set it in place. And, we were headed to Mexico for vacation. All is good, right?
Wrong. Two weeks ago, we woke up at 5 a.m. to horrible thunderstorms. Lots of lightening, thunder, wind and rain. We were heading out of town (Mexico anyone? Happy 40th to me!)later that morning. Electricity was out all over town and we were excited to get away for a few days. We are sitting on the plane getting ready to take off and Danny gets an email from our very nice neighbor who tells us there is a large tree down on our foundation/footings. Danny asked them if they'd take a picture and send it to us. The picture above is similar to what we got. I won't repeat what Danny said because it is not appropriate for a family blog. So, we go off on our fabulous vacation and leave behind the big mess on our lot and the downed tree.
The night we got back, we went out to Dolce Vita. Danny thought the the tree would be gone, but it was not, so we all got to see it laying sprawled out on our footings. This tree was HUGE. It was so big the girls looked like ants crawling on it. As we stood there and stared at it, the realization hit us that we were really lucky. If we had been living in the house, the tree would have fallen on Sophia's room. I shudder to think what would have happened if she'd been in her room when that ginormous (love that word) tree came crashing down. Or, if framing had begun and windows were in, there would been much more damage. So, Danny and I both breathed a slight sigh of relief as we looked it and we are certain God was watching out for us and our family.
Did I mention Danny loved this tree? Everyone else thought it looked kind of sickly on the bottom, but Danny thought it was fabulous. Well, I guess Mother Nature and her F2 tornado (yes, what came through our neighborhood that morning was classified as an F2 tornado.) didn't like that tree much either. So, we had that catastrophe behind us. The tree was cut up for firewood (lots of burning will take place at Dolce Vita this summer) and we were ready to move forward. And then it started raining. And raining. And Raining.
Who knew you could flood on a hill? Yes, it can happen. All the rain drained down inside the footings and floated our in-slab duct work which was buried in dirt. Not good. Not good at all. So, Danny spent all last weekend draining water, digging under the duct work and trying to get it ready for the crews to come back in and put the duct work back in its rightful place.
All this "fun" has put us behind about 2 weeks. And, I guess if F2 force winds are going to come through our house, we'd rather it now when there is just dirt and wood than in an few weeks or months when things are finished and much more expensive to fix.
We are still meteorologist wanna-bees..watching the sky and weather. To say we are praying for a hot, dry spell is an understatement. I hate hot weather, but I'm crossing my fingers for a hot dry spell. I won't even complain about being hot if it means we can make progress. Next major milestone: get the slab poured. Now, all we need is a little help from Mother Nature. That isn't too much to ask, is it?
Now more than ever, I'm so happy we forced Danny to get the safe room. Sounds like we are going to need it.
