It's here! It's here!

My provisional Arizona Teaching Credential arrived in the mail this past weekend! With this I can officially start teaching in our new state! To clear the credential there are a series of requirements I still need to fulfill (including taking an Arizona Constitution class), but for now I'm excited about going back into the classroom as a substitute teacher and getting to know our local schools!

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Is it Fall?

Fall always brings football and baseball at the same time (yay!), Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks, Candy Corn on store shelves and Pumpkin Patches that just spring up from place to place. We have been enjoying all of those goodies during our first autumn here in Arizona, however, there's just one thing out here that's decidedly not Fall...

...yes, it's the weather. That was yesterday's weatherunderground.com report from around 2:30pm. Hmmm, not quite the temperature calling for cozy sweaters and knit tights. I'm adapting: in this triple digit October weather, I'm ordering my Pumpkin Spice Lattes on ice ; )

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My Do-It-Yourselfer

Over the past few weeks, Max has been noticing a rattling sound coming from the door of his Toyota Four Runner. He finally determined that a screw holding the driver side mirror must be loose. He told me that it needed to be tightened, to which I replied: You should take it into the shop. This is what Max did instead:


Yes, he took the panel off the door, all by himself. No, he had never done this before. This is when I had to tell myself that he is an engineer, he is a Ph.D., and he has been taking things apart and putting them back together since he was a toddler.

Max pointing to the offending screw:


Max finishing up before putting the panel back on. Now it's good as new! Once again, I don't think there's anything he can't do : )

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Just another reason to visit Scottsdale, everyone...

We have a Sprinkles!

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Opposites Attract ; )

For all that we share in common, the similar values we hold, and activities we enjoy together, it never ceases to amaze me how very different Max and I can be. Take for instance our latest projects...

Me: Working on a painting of the Tiare flowers from Tahiti...




Max: Designing, building and now soldering a new circuit board. Yes, that's his home "office" : )

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This Old House

Tony, Max's good friend from Texas, was one of the lucky few who was able to purchase the unlimited flight ticket from Jet Blue letting him jet all around the country in September. Lucky for us, Jet Blue is one of the carriers at Phoenix Sky Harbor! Tony stayed with us for a couple days, and most of the time I felt like I was in a rerun of This Old House, the show that featured Bob Vila fixing and installing things...

Here, Tony and Max are preparing to run the new Satellite and network wiring through the attic and out a new face plate Max put in the wall (yes, a power drill was involved!).

Tony also helped install our new pool light! Max found a really neat color changing LED pool light on E-Bay, but before it could be put in, the old, broken light had to come out. That meant the boys had to hook fish tape onto the old pool light wiring at the electrical box opening, then pull it out through the pool.



My hubby, still pulling...

This is the reason the GFI was tripping (and why the light stopped turning on). Max is pointing to the spot on the old light where a crack had formed in the insulation that protects the wiring (there's even some rust). This meant that the power was exposed to the water!

Next, the new pool light wire was hooked to the fish tape (still hanging out the opening in the pool) so it could be pulled all the way back up through to the electrical box.

The boys even put it on a timer so it will turn on every night at six! So pretty!

We did have a bit of Food Network time (Tony called it "Cooking With Max and Mande") when we opened Tony's wedding gift for us, a deep fryer, which we had to use right away! I whipped up some funnel cake batter and Max perfected his funnel cake drizzling skills, yum!

The boys didn't want to stop there, though. We raided the refrigerator for normal things to deep fry (mozzarella cheese sticks, bananas), and even some not-so-normal items (sausage, apples, pistachios) but stopped short of cookie dough and ice cream. Maybe next time. Thank you, Tony, for our most fattening wedding present, and for all your help with the house : )

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