Last week we were given news that we have been approved for all our loans. We will be able to start remodeling our new building hopefully at the end of this week. We are going to work our tails off to try to have our doors open March first. We won't be doing any public advertising until the doors are open because Dr. S has said that as soon as we make it public he will sue us. So spread the word to give us a call and we'll set you up for an eye exam!
Thanks for all your support and friendship! We have been incredibly blessed during this time and we want all you you to know we wouldn't be where we are now without all of you!
I am posting this email that I wrote to a friend explaining what is going on with us incase you didn't know. Oh, and please don't tell Dr. S about this post!
Here is the short version, well as short as I can make it. I have to start at the beginning for any of it to make since. In Nov. of 2005 Jeff and I came out here to meet with Dr. S. We agreed then that we wanted to go forward with the purchase of his practice. We agreed on a price, and a date. The date we agreed on was Jan. 2007, so a year ago. We were waiting for the promised contracts even before we moved from Ohio. We were anxious and a little nervous that we hadn't received them yet, but since both Jeff and I felt really good about coming here we moved thousands of miles without a contract. We waited and waited for the contracts and never received them in time to do the buy out in the agreed amount of time. So in essence Dr. S was in breach of contract. Jeff was constantly asking Dr. S about the contracts and he just made up excuse after excuse on why they weren't ready; my lawyer is in China, my lawyers wife is sick, my lawyer is on vacation, my lawyer is behind because of all of that, and so on. Jeff and I both knew it was a bunch of hog wash, but we continued waiting. Finally when he got us the 1st of the 3 contracts (1.the employee agreement 2. the purchase agreement 3. the lease agreement), that first contract had wording tying it to the 2nd contract which he did not give us. Jeff didn't want to sign it because of that reason. He told Dr. S that he would sign it as soon as he had contract #2 or if he took the wording out of #1 that tied it to #2. Then a little later he got us contract #2 and that contract had wording connecting it to contract #3! Are you confused yet? Anyway then the waiting game started all over again. During this time Jeff was closely watching his numbers to see if we were in the ball park of being able to pay back the loan we would need to buy the practice. Since Jeff doesn't practice the same way as Dr. S (sending patients in for surgery sooner than necessary, doing extra unnecessary testing and so forth) his numbers were not high enough. So Jeff approached Dr. S and suggested that they renegotiate the price since Dr. S had already renegotiated the time of the buy out. Dr. S refused. We didn't know what the next step for us was until October 2007 when he FINALLY got us all the contracts. Jeff and I were fuming mad when we read them. I can't tell you how selfish that man is. Those contracts were so incredibly one sided that we would have to be complete idiots to sign! In the mean time Jeff has access to all bills going through B. R. V. Dr. S is incredibly cheap and has B. R. V. pay all his bills, for tax reasons of course! Anyway the last time his lawyer had billed him was in Nov. 2006! In plenty of time for us to do the buy out. Dr. S had the contracts all along, but he held on to them while Jeff remained his cash cow. This all made since since what good lawyer would take a full year to write up contracts, and also what good lawyer would use wording connecting contracts if he was going to prepare them months apart? All kinds of fishy stuff was going on with Dr. S. So next, in November 07 we started looking into "plan B," which is starting up our own practice if Dr. S refused to work with our counter offer. We spent a couple months going over things with our accountant, lawyer, advisers, and bankers and came up with an offer that was more than fair, better then fair for him anyway. Jeff approached him a couple days before our lawyer gave us the revised contracts and told Dr. S that we were going to be making him a lower offer on his practice. Dr. S was quite put out and told Jeff that if anything we should pay him more since his numbers were up for the last year ( I wonder why!). He asked Jeff what he would be doing if they couldn't work things out and then threatened Jeff that if he tried to open a practice in this area that he(Dr.S) would bankrupt himself before he saw us succeed. So we had that lovely weight sitting on our shoulders for the next week. Jeff gave him the contract, they had more words and Dr. S again asked Jeff's plans. Jeff told him that he would tell him as soon as we had word that we could go ahead on it (meaning getting the loans set up). Jeff accidentally left his brief case at the office, Dr. S searched through it and found his plans for "plan B". Dr. S then called Jeff and fired him over the phone. Jeff was on his way home from work so he turned around to take the keys back. When he got their Dr. S admitted to going through his bag and tried to use some lame excuse that some papers were hanging out that had his name on them, not a chance! Later we found some papers were missing which we know Dr. S stole from Jeff's bag. Dr. S was also frantically searching for a letter that had Jeff's signature on it. We are not sure yet why he wanted it, but we are suspicious that he may have used it on the unsigned contracts. I guess we'll see since his lawyer notified us that if we don't cease and desist our plans to open a practice that Dr. S will open a law suit against us for breach of contract. Funny since we never signed them! And so it goes, we are unemployed, being sued, and trying to get a business started. We have been approved on all the loans except one and we should know tomorrow if that one is approved. Our bank guy is positive it will go through. So the plans are to open 2 offices, one in Montpelier in the same place Dr. S is now (Dr. S was given the boot!) and the other will be in Soda Springs in a building we are planning on buying ( that is the loan we are waiting on). Oh did I mention that Dr. S has pulled this trick on another OD also. We also have a list about a mile long of people willing to testify against Dr. S and his character. Also daily we have people calling us to tell us that they can't stand Dr. S and will gladly give us their business. Even the girls at his office tell us of all the cancellations they are receiving since Jeff is gone. Oh and one other thing, Dr. S fired Jeff a week and a half before Christmas! We love that one, everyone around here thinks he is worse than slime.
So there it is. Sorry that was so long
Good thing we bought a 4-wheeler last year to push snow. It has been snowing and blowing constantly out here for the past couple weeks. Check out the HUGE ice cycle hanging from our house!
Jeff and the kids had fun playing outside in the snow today. They built snow cave and buried themselves chest deep in the snow. We have also had a blast sledding and skiing the slopes. Caden and Talon earned enough money to go to ski school. We have a 4 day school week here, so on Fridays the boys hit the slopes. Pine Creek ski mountain is only 45 minutes away and a bus takes them for us. Last week I went along as a chaperon and got to ski with them. We had a blast!
Here is the part of the view from our back deck. We overlook almost all of Georgetown. The other picture is of Caden making his way down the stairs in 2 + feet of snow, you can see Emilie's head just poking out of the snow in the back by the shed.
Brin's first wish! Hope it was a good one!
I don't think she liked her birtday cake much. The rest of us loved it though!
Greg and Sherilyn came to celebrate with us.What a cutie. Brin has been trying to walk for about a month now. On her Birtday she finally started walking more than crawling. I am going to miss that cute little behind wiggling as she crawled away from me!
