We knew it was coming, but that didn't really make it any easier to hear...
I had called before we left in February to switch our insurance policy from homeowner to a landlord policy since we would be having people renting our house while we were gone. Then I get an email about 6 weeks ago saying that they came out to inspect the house for the policy change and there were repairs needing to be done. It took forever emailing back and forth to figure out exactly what they were wanting repaired, but in the end, they wanted a new roof. We knew the house needed a new roof, but we ran out of time before we left to do anything about it hoping it could just wait until we came back. No such luck...insurance said it had to be replaced.
My brother found someone that could do it at a pretty good rate and fairly quick. Unfortunately while they were replacing it, they found that when it was put on before, they had done a pretty shoddy job (they used cardboard as shims!). Fixing the previous bad workmanship ended up costing us an extra $1000...ouch. But hey, at least now we have a nice new roof, right?
So then last week, I call my brother to see how the roof is coming along, and he asks "did you get my email?". I asked if it was the one about the roof and my stomach sank at his reply, "no, the a/c is out". This was yet another repair that we were dreading and really, really hoping wouldn't have to be done before we came back. It is supposed to be replaced today.
I think the only good thing, is that at least our house will be pretty much ready to sell, if we want to list it when we get back. It should be good to be able to tell people that it has a brand new roof and a/c, right?
Some people already know about our plane ticket woes as well, but for those that don't...it is really expensive to change return tickets. When we first booked our flights, we weren't sure how long we would be able to stay, so we just booked them to stay for 3 months. We knew we would have to pay the change fees to get the return dates changed but it still seemed like our best bet. It looked like it would end up costing around $1500 to change the tickets to a later date if we decided to stay. Well our return flight was on May 15th, so a few weeks before, we called to see about cancelling the flight and getting credit for our return. Guess how much it would cost for us to change the date to later in the year? $3000!! We could just about book one way flights back cheaper than we could change our existing tickets. When we got this news, we had a decision to make: A) go back on the 15th, B)pay up to change the flights or C)try to figure something else out. None of us were really ready to go back...we were already on our way to Bulgaria which meant we wouldn't even have a chance to go to Ireland (the one place Evan has been wanting to go), and Carter's dad was already planning to come meet us in mid-May. However, we also didn't want to blow $3000 on our flight home. At that point, we just decided that we weren't going to go home yet. We would look for a better/cheaper option, but if nothing came up, we would just have to spend the money.
Now, a month later, we have our return trip booked. It's more than we intended to spend, but a good bit cheaper than changing our return tickets. We're taking a transatlantic cruise instead! Who would have thought that a 14 day cruise would be cheaper than a one way flight? We will leave from Copenhagen on September 30th and arrive in Miami on October 14th. What better way to end a long trip, huh?
Now we've got 4 months or so to figure out what we are going to do when we get back.
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