4 pies + 5 people = yum.

Every time I hear the word, "hockey," I hear Sarah Palin's voice.

Over Thanksgiving, the Phoenix Coyotes were playing the Dallas Stars. The hockey stadium is a stone's throw from our house, so we had to go. My dad is a hockey fan, and it was fun going to the game with my family. Although Matt and I don't watch a whole lot of hockey at our house, or any hockey for that matter, we still had a blast. I've never seen people get so excited about a goal, and my favorite part of the whole thing was the incredibly loud siren they sounded after every Phoenix goal.


Unfortunately, Wayne Gretzky carried a hefty price tag. He used to be the coach of the Coyotes, but was invited to leave once the team filed for bankruptcy. Whatever they are looking at must have been interesting.

Hannah, my mom, and my dad. It was actually surprisingly cold in the stadium.

GOOOOOOAAAAAAAL!

To top things off, every person in our row won free car washes! Because my family doesn't live here, we ended up with 5 free car washes! Matt also caught a t-shirt!

Our neighbors are Ute fans.

All in good fun, our neighbor boys came and chalked a giant U on our driveway prior to the BYU vs. Utah game. They also wrote things like, "BOO BYU!" and "Go Utah!" Later that night, we found more Utah drawings on our driveway, and a sandwich bag with a piece of blue chalk on our front step. The boy's mom thought it would only be fair to let us draw on their driveway too. Well, off we went to express our hatred of the U on our neighbor's driveway. Here's Hannah and Matt drawing on the pavement.

The next day at church, our neighbor's littlest girl, Sariah, came to Nursery (Matt and I are Nursery leaders). That particular Sunday she was a little upset about coming to Nursery and was crying while her dad was trying to put her down. Matt, in trying to distract her, asked, "Sariah, did you draw on my driveway?" Through her tears and while closing her eyes tightly, she wails, "NOOO." Matt asks, "Who was it, then?" Sariah, again with eyes closed tightly says, "It was Byran!"

Hilarious.

Fire!

We wanted to test out our new firepit, so we invited the Bushmans over to help us take it for a test run. We had fun roasting marshmallows and watching UP with them for FHE!

Phoenix Temple

I've never lived in an area where there was opposition to a temple being built. The temple in Idaho Falls was built in the early 1900's, and all the temples in Utah had been there a while, up until the last few were built. There is a temple being built in North Phoenix, not too far from Matt's school. We are excited to have the temple built so close to us, and look forward to the opportunity to go there. Here is a news story about the temple that was posted online. It's funny to me to see how people are opposed to such a wonderful building. Some of the things they have problems with is the traffic that the temple will bring and the lights on the temple. When I see or hear people on the news complaining about the lights on the temple, I can't help to wonder if the think the temple is going to look like a Las Vegas attraction with all the flashy lights. Have they not ever seen a temple?

City council OKs addition to Phoenix LDS temple

A Phoenix City Council zoning meeting has determined the fate of a controversial Valley Mormon Temple.
The Council voted unanimously Wednesday to allow the LDS church to add 10 feet of height to its proposed temple, to be built near 51st Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Rd, adjacent to the church's current building.
The building will stand 40 feet high, despite typical residential zoning laws preventing buildings from exceeding 30 feet in height.
"Being legally allowed to do something doesn't mean you're being respectful to the neighborhood," said Scott Anderson, who spoke on behalf of neighborhood protesters after the vote Wednesday night.
Anderson said a group of neighbors will not give up their fight to get the issue to voters.
According to city leaders, a group must gather 9,798 legitimate petition signatures from registered Phoenix voters within thirty days in order to push the issue towards the ballot.
Supporters, meanwhile, say they are anxious to move forward with their plans.
"We're going to make every effort to make peace with the neighbors," said Paul Gilbert, an attorney representing the temple supporters.
Gilbert said the temple supporters have already made several concessions regarding the proposed addition, including agreeing to turn the lights off at 10 p.m. and changing the color of the exterior paint they had intended.
Residents living nearby have expressed concerns about the proposed 126-foot high steeple which they say will obstruct their mountain views.
On Sunday, November 22, dozens of protesters picketed services at the north Phoenix LDS church.
Thirty people lined the north Phoenix intersection, letting passing drivers know of their opposition to the church building a temple.
"We respect their right to worship, this isn't about religion," said Anderson. "What it's about is a building that's incompatible with the neighborhood."
Neighbors like Don Egigian have also expressed frustrations with the proposal.
"Their impact as far as making our neighborhood better is zero," Egigian said.
Neighbors say, for one, the temple will bring in additional traffic which they claim the roads in the area can't handle.
"Anytime you put a high intensity, large project next to low intensity homes, it creates problems," Anderson said.
Most residents take issue with the temple's height; proposed plans have it at 40 feet with a 78 foot spire with a light on top.
"Lighting is a huge issue, it'll be lit until 11 o'clock at night," Egigian said.
Many neighbors say a building of that height doesn't belong in a residential community. There is also concern the light at the top of the steeple could be distracting.

The Return of Matt

After going dark for about a month during finals, I have resurfaced with some new projects and I am here to update them on the blog. Finals were fine and as a reward I got 2 weeks off. The first week I was occupied with Grandpa and Grandma Serafine visiting from California. They stayed with us a few nights and ended up in a time share resort for a few more nights. We had a good time and enjoyed their company. I also have had a chance to start and finish a few different projects. One major one was the backyard. Those that have visited saw the unfinished and unkept backyard. So, I fixed all of the sprinkler heads, cut down the old summer grass, planted new winter grass, cleaned the planters, built a firepit, planted some plants/trees, and finished a back porch overhang. I also golfed in 75 degree weather last Thursday. All in all it has been a successful break.




It was good to get the sprinklers working.

Stacy admiring her new garden plots

Dont mind the dirt yard, it hopefully will be green soon enough

Craigslist Upgrade

When we moved into our house, the only thing I didn't clean was the range hood. It was gross, and wasn't worth cleaning. We have been searching for a microwave to replace it with, but didn't want to spend a lot of money. Craigslist delivered for us, and we now are the owners and installers of a new shiny microwave.

DIY: Paint

Like many people nowadays, we purchased a home that was a foreclosure. Ours was in pretty good shape, but needed a lot of cosmetic work. Let's just say that as far as cosmetics go, our house was wearing blue eye shadow and hot pink lipstick. Anyway, one of the things in our house that needed a face lift was our cabinets. They are those really great ones that are part laminate and part wood, because they were too cheap to go all wood in the first place. The cabinets themselves were in decent shape, but the laminate was coming off in some places because when we pulled up the vinyl floor, the floor was glued to the cabinets.

Before I show you the actual cabinets, I'd like to introduce you to the Serafine featured product: Glidden's Gripper.

When I painted my laminate bookshelf a while back, I had to sand the whole thing down. Although it wasn't a big bookshelf, it took forever to sand and paint. I didn't really feel sanding an entire kitchen full of cabinets, and lo and behold, Gripper. Gripper allows you to paint anything. Even plastic. My only warning: it's super sticky and doesn't wash off your skin very well. I accidentally stuck my foot in some of it, and I had primer on me for a few days.

Cabinets before: (this is before we moved in)

During:


After:



Coming soon: stainless steel microwave. We're picking it up on Saturday. Our microwave just wasn't something I could paint and cover with contact paper. : )

the Arizona heat'll kill ya

You all knew it was hot here, but did you know it was this hot? Not too long ago, these poor melted pumpkins looked like this:

Matt meets Bill Simmons

White Coat Ceremony

Medical schools hold white coat ceremonies to officially 'coat' the first-year students. I guess it's the ceremony to welcome the medical students to the medical profession.

Here's Matt getting his coat. It isn't a very good picture, I know, because it was in an auditorium that was too dark to take any good pictures.

Matt and one of our new medical school friends, Sam Ashby. His wife Heather and I went to support these great students. : )

CSI: Our House

Last Sunday morning, Matt comes to me and says, "I don't know if you want to know this, but the cops are outside our house because someone got stabbed." Now, you may be thinking, 'Where in the world did these people move to?' Here's how the story unraveled: About 8:30 Sunday morning, Matt went outside to get the paper. When he steps outside, he notices that there is police line caution tape tied to our front stoop and is strung across the street and tied to our neighbor's tree. There are police cars outside, a few detectives, and cops putting down cones, talking to people, and so forth. Matt asks one of the cops in our driveway what was going on and finds out that someone was stabbed and is at the hospital. Unable to get a whole lot of information from the police officer, we were left wondering who in the world was stabbed and hoping that the stabber wasn't our next door neighbor. A few days later, while Matt was outside, our neighbor comes outside too. Matt talked to our neighbor, and it turns out that his nephew, who lived with our neighbor a long time ago, was visiting and was hanging out on the busy street outside our neighborhood. He and his buddies were out at 5 am, and someone drove by, and the boys yelled at the car. The people in the car went and got their buddies, came back to the street outside our neighborhood, and proceeded to beat up and stab our neighbor's nephew. After being stabbed 8 times (yes, 8) the nephew ran back to our neighbor's house, bleeding all over the street. Our neighbor promptly drove the nephew to the hospital. So, stabbing = cops. It's never a dull moment here.

Trip to Idaho, but hold the fair

This last weekend, Matt and I had the opportunity to take a quick trip home. We flew to Salt Lake on Friday night and flew home on Sunday night. Thanks to Matt's mom and dad, we got to use their car to take to Idaho Falls. My grandma Shick passed away on September 3rd, and my life isn't going to be the same without her. I guess I always thought that grandmas were always grandmas, and they would always be there. My grandma Shick was the best lady I knew, and made the best cinnamon rolls. I know everyone says that about their grandma's Cinnamon rolls, but my grandma's were the best. Her funeral was beautiful, and the speakers were perfect. My cousin Eric gave a talk on the best gifts from my grandma--her french bread recipe and hand-made pajama bottoms for Christmas--and tied it into the best gifts from our Heavenly Father--the Plan of Salvation and the atonement. It was also good to see so much of my extended family that I don't see on a regular basis. This picture of my grandma was taken at our wedding reception in the summer of '06. Going to the funeral was much harder than I thought it would be. I cried a lot that day, but it was so good to see her looking quite beautiful. Everyone kept saying that the great people at Coltrin Mortuary made my grandma look 20 years younger. My grandma was a very simple lady, worked very hard to raise her 7 children on her own, and lived a life full of service. Although I am sad that she is gone, I know that she is so happy now, with her husband, her daughter, and her two grandchildren that passed away before she did. We're going to miss her a lot.

The weekend we were there was also the weekend of the Idaho State Fair, which I love. We weren't able to make it to the fair, but spent the time with my cousins and aunts and uncles I don't always see, instead. To make up for me not being able to go to the fair, or to rub in the fact that I couldn't go, my mom sent me this picture of my dad and my sister eating Tiger Ears, the reason to go the fair. Not fair. Maybe next year.

Which are worse? Scorpions or Mice

I believe one of mine and Brad's biggest fears of owning a home is what we will do when faced with infestation. Whether it is a large insect, mouse, or some other frightening creature, its only goal in life is to terrorize little children living in the basement (and getting great joy out of this for many years). My biggest nightmare came true, when I received a phone call from Stacy who frantically tells me that there a scorpion in our house. My initial response was to not return home, but later I conjured up enough courage to go home and face it. Stacy had bravely trapped the varmint underneath a glass bowl and left it there for the patriarch of the home to take care of it. I had little indication of what I was to expect upon arrival, but was terrified to see the size of this deadly insect. Below is a picture and it does not do justice for the utter terror that the scorpion inculcates into anyone that looks at it. Scorpions are creatures that kids take to school for show-and-tell-day and impresses all of his friends because he has a scorpion. Well, I left it there for a couple of hours and refused to have anything to do with it. Stacy and I finally decided to tag team it and we slipped cardboard under the glass bowl so that we could transport it to the toilet to flush it down. I don't remember what happened after that but next thing I knew Stacy grabbed the bowl and shook it over the toilet and I flushed it down several times. I don't know what drives me to take such chances. It was exciting and scary at the same time. I do need to admit that Stacy was the stronger of the two in our house, but she did not have the traumatic experiences that I had as a young boy with mice.

Baseball with the Bushmans

Before I start, I'd like to thank Brooke for letting me use these pictures. Our camera died, so if you visit Brooke and Troy's blog, you will see the very same pictures. And now to my story...

Since we live fairly close to all of the sports stadiums in Phoenix, we like to take advantage of any of the good teams that come to town (well, all 2 of them so far...). You can see the Cardinal Stadium from our house, and the baseball field isn't too far away either. Last Friday, we went with the Bushmans to see the Dodgers play, and to see Manny get booed. For a split second I felt bad that he was getting booed so much, but then I remembered why the people were booing and I didn't feel bad anymore.

After the game, they opened the top of the stadium and there was a fireworks show. This isn't our picture...I "borrowed" it from online, but this is what it looked like.

Dishwasher

For the first time since we've been married, we now have a dishwasher. It's the most amazing thing in the world. Despite it's wonderfulness, it was white. Note how I stress the word was. I was talking to Laurel one day and she was telling me about how on Design to Sell, they put stainless-steel contact paper on a dishwasher. Brilliant. She then told me about the wonderful world of spray paints and all the things they are made for now. Glorious. So, after a trip to home depot, and $17, we have a better dishwasher. You be the judge.

Before: (well, after I started dismantling it...)



During:


After: