What am I doing wrong.  

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum... it was a tough choice.

I would love get my husband on board and prove them wrong!

Am I right or wrong about any of this?

Soap Box ONOver time, most activities (e.g. businesses, sports, personal relationships, etc.) where judgement is involved, develop 'rules of thumb', 'short cuts', 'approximations', etc. which allow you to make 'quicker' decisions at the expense of less certainty; they will be wrong some of the time.

@Eric Schleif will correct me if I am wrong, but you need to decide on a few things before moving forward.

Wrong holiday....but I guess you could say due to all the men and women that laid it all on the line is a direct result of our independence.

By the looks of it i would say your Dad is right, it looks like the concrete has deteriorated due to water. you do not need a foundation co. just hire a mason to cement it back up inside, but first take care of the cause on the outside, get that leader pipe to drain away from the house by either extending the pipe above ground or dig a shallow trench and run a pipe under ground away from the house. also make sure the soil around the house is pitched away so that water moves away from the house.

It doesn't have to be exact, you just need to make sure your margins are big enough that it won't matter too much when something goes wrong.  

From the sounds of it I bet there are other things wrong too.