Dear Diary #1

Well, it's Friday. And what does that mean? Apparently it means that I blog. Because it seems as though I have been consistently posting on Fridays, and an occasional Tuesday afternoon. And, since my only justification for starting a blog used to be "we can use this as a journal", I thought I should tell you a story that I have wanted to write down since it happened, back in November of '07. (You think this is bad, you should see how my Journal looks. Just an example "Dear Diary, I am sorry it has been 2 years since I have written. I will be better. These last two years have been great. Love, Erica"). All side-tracking aside, please read on:

Because I have this husband who has an ability to attract all-things-amazing to him (including his wife. ha), we were blessed to get a sweet deal on our housing situation. Last year before we got married, Brandon saw this ad on KSL that said, "Free Rent for Work". So, from then on, we have been able to live in an amazing little basement apartment in a beautiful area...for free. However, I use the term "free" lightly because, well....Brandon has to do a lot of stuff around the house to "secure" our monthly rent. And, sometimes he does about $1000/month in labor, and sometimes he gets lucky and only has to do around $300/month. Either way, he's always working hard on SOMETHING, and because of this we: a) live in a beautiful home with green grass, and b) have a lot of funny stories.

Exhibit A:
If you lived in Utah last winter, you may remember that it was cold and snowy. This meant that there was tons of snow build-up on our roof. Well, one night, conveniently at 11:45PM, our Landlord (who is really cool) noticed that there was *water leaking down the side of the house and cracking the edging of the house. So, what Brandon and Landlord were supposed to do is get up on the roof and chip away at the ice and then put an ice-melter gadget on the roof. So, unbeknownst to me...Brandon got up on the roof while I soundly slept. And, this is the story I heard the next day:
First off, we don't have a ladder at our house, but we do have a trampoline. So, these guys thought up a brilliant idea. They would move the tramp over to the edge of the house, and then Landlord would double-bounce Brandon onto the roof. One bounce, two bounce, three... Brandon flies into the air and lands on the roof. And since the only grip he could find was to the pile of snow...he slid right off. Of course, not to be defeated, they thought of another brilliant idea (I mean, they were on a roll after the tramp idea). Brandon went in and grabbed two forks. See where this is going? So, Landlord double bounced Brandon once more and Brandon dug his forks into the snow atop the roof. He had a grip. But the capacity of a fork is somewhere around 4 lbs., so the forks began to bend. Brandon's grip was loosening, and he was slipping. But with all of his might and force, he began to "ice climb" with his forks. And, he flung one fork into the ice at a time. And yes, he made it on the roof. What about Landlord, you ask? Oh don't worry. He just grabbed onto Brandon's leg, so that Brandon could pull him up too. It's Rescuers Down Under meets Darwin Awards. All in just a matter of minutes.


*typically not how this is explained, but I don't know how to explain this process because I don't have the vocabulary that Brandon has.

Just so that I don't lose all my readers (I love that I refer to my friends as my "readers"), I thought I would let you know that we are going to be in St. George for the weekend celebrating my brother-in-law, Tim's birthday. This should be a pretty promising weekend, as Krista even sent out an evite entitled, "Did Somebody Say More Cowbell?" Which means we will be rocking out to the XBox game "Rock Band". And, if you aren't aware of how intense the parties can get, go here for an example of New Year's Eve.