Earthquake? REALLY?

Some of you may know (if you're from Utah) that Salt Lake City is sitting on a big ole time bomb...otherwise known as the Wasatch Fault. This is a big fault line that runs north/south along the mountains and also along the city. And supposedly a rather large earthquake has been in the works for a long time now...years to be exact and that the city could quake any day. Here's a picture showing the fault line:

Last Thursday I woke up and heard on the radio that Wells, NV (which is about 2 hours away from SLC) had a 6.0 earthquake that was felt throughout the Salt Lake Valley. (I personally didn't feel a thing, but I heard plenty of comments about it on the radio) Anyways, I think it shook a lot of people up because of the reality of it actual happening semi-close to home. This is a recent picture of Wells, NV after the earthquake on February 21, 2008:

Well, last night at around 3:00AM Mike wakes me up and says "I just felt an earthquake!" In a daze I say "Are you kidding me?" (My first thoughts were "Why do I always MISS it!?") Anyways, he goes "No I'm not kidding, it felt like this" and he proceeded to shake the bed. In my head I slightly started to freak out. I sat there in bed thinking to myself "Holy crap...we're gonna end up with a HUGE earthquake tonight, or sometime soon, what are we going to do? How are we going to get out? What if our house crumbles while we're in it?" ect. (I worry about our house because its made of old brick, and according to recent news reports, these types WILL crumble). Anyways, during the next 45 minutes of the night Mike and I got a plan of escape worked out if something did happen...where we would go if we were at home, or where we would try to meet if we were at work, how would we grab our food storage ect. Well, I woke up this morning and remembered the events that took place last night, and once again asked Mike if he still believes that he really felt an earthquake, and he said yes. Turns out...I listened to the radio the whole way to work, and checked news reports on the internet ect, and sure enough...NO EARTHQUAKE. I love my husband, but he's got some CRAZY dreams! Oh well, at least we got a plan now. :)

3 Day Weekend

Because our lives pretty much revolve around our work schedules, and the fact that both of our families live hours away we rarely stay in town for a 3 day weekend. They come so few and far between, we love it when we get an extra day off. This weekend we went to Island Park to visit my parents cabin. My brother Tyler came with us, and we met up with my sister Krista and her roommates. I love being able to go up there and do nothing but sit on my butt, read a good book, take multiple naps in 1 day, and watch movies. (Mike and I almost never get to watch movies at home because heck, it takes 2 hours and we rarely have 2 hours to spare). Oh yeah, and then there's the occasional snowmobile ride too. Our camera also broke a couple weeks ago and we haven't gotten a new one yet, so I borrowed Krista's camera for the few pictures that I got.

I have never seen snow so deep in my LIFE. I had to take a picture of this stop-sign showing how deep it really was.

This is in the driveway, another picture showing how deep the snow was.

This is above the garage. I was just waiting for it to fall on my head and kill me. jk.

The boys (Mike and Tyler) decided they wanted to be daredevils and jump out the upstairs bathroom window into the soft snow. Here's a picture of Tyler jumping out.

Just chillin. Mike looks tired in this picture, but really its hard to get him to be serious and take a normal smiling picture. So this one's pretty good.

Happy Anniversary

This week has taken an interesting turn of events. It all started Sunday night when our lights in the house started to flicker. I assumed it was the snowstorm going on outside, I thought "hey maybe snow is on the power line" or something like that. We ignored it. But on Monday when the lights were still flickering, and at times making us wonder if the power was going to go out altogether, we decided to call our neighbors and see if it was the neighborhood or just us. Turns out it was just us. GREAT. So we called the power company who came over to check things out. The diagnosis: our utility meter was fried and needed to be totally replaced. (You know the thing that usually goes on the side or back of your house and it tells the power company how much electricity you use)? Yeah they told us it was going to cost at LEAST $1,000 to fix. WOW. Oh the joys of being a homeowner.

Well, to back the story up a bit...when we bought the house on February 6, 2007 it came with a 1 year warranty. Meaning if anything broke or stopped working ect within the year, the warranty company would pay for it. When this electrical problem was discovered on Monday evening (February 4) we also got in the mail that same day a notice saying that our warranty was about to expire in 2 days.

So after the power company left we nervously called up our warranty company to see if the electrical work would be covered (they get so picky on what is covered and what is not). Well, lo and behold it was! They said no problem, we'll cover it. Hallelujah! We honestly couldn't believe the chances of this happening when it did. So to make a long story short. As of this afternoon, we have a brand new utility meter in the back of our house, power is running perfectly, and it only cost us a $55 service charge. Thank you Heavenly Father for this blesssing, thank you previous owners of our home for providing a warranty, thank you electrician for doing a wonderful job, and finally thank you house, for being so good to us and breaking when you did. We love you house, happy anniversary.