ledger not attached to house questions

[storm789]

I've done decks with a contractor for like 2 years and I have no idea how to do this deck I'm doing for a relative. After demoing the old deck , I found that the ledger was resting on cinderblocks that were on the ground, and the joists were just nailed to it. I'm used to bolting the ledger into the house under the threshold. However, as I look at where the ledger should be bolted in the house, there is what looks to be 3 2by8s or 2Xsomethings stacked ontop of eachother on their sides. This probably has to be the way the house was framed-how else could someone put these in their without the house collapsing!? Here are pics I took (some are sideways and have to be copied and pasted into url bar for some reason)

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1053530/Copyof1(2).jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1053530/1.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1053530/1(3).jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1053530/1(1).jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1053530/1(4).jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1053530/1(2).jpg

I've been reading online about ledger boards not attached to the house- I'd much rather attach it to the house- I'm afraid the whole thing will buckle if I don't.
Does anyone know a good way to frame with ledger not attached to the house? I was thinking about knotching 2X8 posts and having the ledger sit inside of the knotch-that or just bracing the hell out of everything.

I'm going to further inspect the 3 stacked 2Xwhatevers to see if I can bolt into them(after flashing of course)
Also, there is no basement under this section of the foundation, but there is a crawl space if that matters.

Thank you very much if you have a good solution to this.