In Which You Might Reconsider our Invitation to Dine on our Deck

This past weekend, we invited some cousins (and their parents of course) over for some dining on the deck.  It was such a beautiful day, and I'm starting to feel like if we don't make the most out of these wonderfully warm Fall days, we (and by "we" I mean "me") will regret it.  So, it was decided that we would grab take-out, and dine on the deck.

House picked up? Check.

Food ordered? Check.

Good conversation flowing? Check

Deck? Um...

As The Hubs, our niece,  Bucket Gracie the dog, and his brother chatted outside, The Sister-in-Law, and I prepped plates, dished out helpings, and poured drinks.  When all of a sudden I hear this horribly loud noise.  I can't really describe what it sounded like, but I thought that something horrible had happened to Bucket Grace.  Like maybe she fell and bonked her bucket on something, or maybe got her bucket stuck in something and then fell.  As I quickly moved over to where the sound came from and frantically tried to see what was happening, I also noticed that Bucket Grace, The Niece, and The Bro were all in a state of panic, and looking quite off balance.  As I rounded the corner and tried to get outside to figure it all out, that's when I saw it.  Our deck.  Well, I can't really call it a deck anymore.  Why?  Because it is halfway hanging off of our house.

So, because I am calm and cool in these types of scenarios, I started screaming all panicky like, "Get off the Deck!  Get off the Deck!  Get inside quick!"

As if that wasn't their first instinct.

Of course, they came inside.  Duh.

Well, except The Hubs.  After he felt like the deck was done ripping away from our home, and wouldn't plummet the the depths of the rocky ground below (OK, it's probably like six feet), he decided he needed to stand there and BOUNCE ON IT.  He was trying to figure out, "What in the world just happened here?!"

I was still screaming.

Hey, I wanted everyone to know the safest place was inside the house.

That's when The Hubs looked at me all annoyed like and said, "No one's dying.  Calm down already!"

Oh.

Since I still couldn't stand to watch him bounce around on a deck that is ripping away from the house that is holding it up, I thought I would just go somewhere where I couldn't see all the bouncing that was going on.

(Seriously though, why do we need to bounce around on a deck that is falling to the ground?  Because we need to know why it happened?  That makes no sense to me.  I mean, it's falling off.  Who cares why.  Let's not kill ourselves in the process of working it all out and trying to make sense of it all.  (Sorry, Hubs, I still love you.  You are amazing.))

Since everyone is safe, we can all laugh about it now.  Since The Hubs has figured out that the reason it fell has nothing to do with his precise workmanship, he can laugh about it now.

My main concern was how this was going to affect our car buying budget.  Because these things NEVER happen when you don't have anything in particular that you are saving for.

Good news:  We can get it fixed "temporarily" for pretty cheap until next spring/summer when we will actually be using it again.  This should allow for some savings, and for us to plan better for the type of deck we would like (as opposed to the type of deck the previous owners liked). 

Phew.

 Wait a minute!  That large gap isn't supposed to be there:

Does your deck have a downward slope?:

*No humans or bucket-headed dogs were hurt in the making of this blog post.