Adventures in Marriage Pt 1

The house we bought is fairly old. It was built in 1924. This definitely has it's perks - the sweet doors, the fireplace, the ancient cabinets :), etc. but we knew we'd probably have a few things that needed updating. We've ended up making a few (dozen) improvements and fixes so far and I'm sure there are more to come. About a week before the wedding it had been raining so much in Iowa and the ground was so saturated with water. The water had no where else to go... except our basement! The ground drain in the middle of the basement just couldn't take it and we found that water was getting in in a few other spots as well. We did what we could... but had a few other things on our mind in the upcoming weeks.
The DAY before the wedding, I was getting ready to leave the house to go decorate at the church and I noticed some water on the floor right by the front door. I looked up and couldn't visibly see anything coming from the ceiling but there was also some water on the fireplace mantle/ledge that wraps around the corner right by the front door. There was nothing I could really do about it at that point so I went on with my day.
The day of our wedding it STORMED. Like crazy. (Are you singing "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette in your head?) It rained so hard that the gals and I were at breakfast at Smokey Row and had to wait out the storm a bit before we could dash for our cars to head to the church to start getting ready. Thankfully, the skies ended up clearing up just enough for us to get some outdoor pictures - something I definitely prayed about!
The day after the wedding, we opened gifts with some family and noticed that there were some water spots on our ceiling in the living room. Awesome. Jed, his dad and his uncle did some investigating and made some guesses as to what the problem was (water leaking in around the very, very old chimney) and brainstormed some ideas to fix it (roof sealant/crack filler stuff). However, we weren't letting this keep us from our honeymoon so... off we went!
When we returned to Iowa, the water spots had spread and ther were 2 more a little farther away from the first 2. It was time to get down to business!
Home Depot has become our new "favorite" store! We headed there to get some roof tar crack sealer stuff (that's the technical brand name) and a tarp to lay in the attic around the chimney. We also bought some basement crack filler waterproofing stuff and Jed got to work while I worked on putting away and organizing all of our wedding gifts!
(Are you still reading? I'm just realizing this is incredibly long!)

Problem: We don't have a ladder.
Sarah's solution: Call up the Comforts and ask to borrow one of theirs!
Jed's solution:
I was sure that I was going to become a widower. Or at least have to take my new husband to the emergency room for some type of broken bone... especially after his first attempt included just 1 or 2 bags of mulch and he slipped on his way up and scraped his knee real bad on the edge of the roof. No worries.... there was more mulch in the garage.
He made it up (and amazingly back down again) and sealed around the chimney. Thanks Jed for being handy and hard-working - maybe next time though we can consider safety and your wife's sanity as a priority too! :)