Courtesy of Allison....a little Christmas fun!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? wrapping paper to open but gift bags to give out....selfish i know, but i still like to tear open the paper.

2. Real tree or Artificial? real but we don't have one this year cause aaron will be home all of five days

3. When do you put up the tree? couple days after thanksgiving

4. When do you take the tree down? whenever my laziness subsides and i'm ready to vaccuum needles up for days

5. Do you like egg nog? eewwwww...sick. i rather get the 2000 calories from lots of good food instead of one glass of nastiness

6. Favorite gift received as a child? hmmm, probably a lolly at some point :-)

7. Do you have a nativity scene? yup...a sweet willow tree one from the in-laws

8. Hardest person to buy for? the man that wants nothing...my husband

9. Easiest person to buy for? myself...since i apparently do more of that while i'm supposed to be shopping for everyon else. or jen.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? don't e-mail christmas cards...thats awful

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? something from an attic of someone i know...some of you will have a sweet memory of that! :-)

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? "Herbie doesn't like to make toys!"

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? whenever i see something i think they'll like...could be july for all i know

14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? mom's christmas cookies out of those tubs she "hides" behind the dining room table :-)

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? clear...no contest

17. Favorite Christmas song? mariah carey...jen, i'm doing the dance in my head!

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? we always travel...and this year we're going tropical!!!!!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? donner, blitzen, comet, cupid, dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen, rudolph...is that too many?

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? i would rather an angel but they're always so freaky looking that i go with a star

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? christmas morning... stockings first right jen?!?

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? dumb drivers out all over the place shopping

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? there's no need for a theme when you have the kermit ornament

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? good ole italian 7 course meals...salad, sauce and meatballs, many kinds of meat, lots of dessert, etc...

second hand african greetings!

just thought i'd pass on some news from africa for all of you. i've been fortunate enough to get two e-mails and a quick phone call!!! things there are good...he said the group of guys is really solid and they are hanging in there with any tough conditions. the african leaders they are working with are apparently amazing...soaking it all up and really bold in an oppresively muslim territory. he said those leaders have been so amazing to work beside and such an encouragement. really reminding him of how blessed we are here in our freedoms, no matter how "bad off" we think our country is spiritually.

not so much success in the soccer department though...two losses. but that's not really why they're there so its good to have that in perspective. he hasn't mentioned his face/head much...which is not surprising at all. but no news is good news in that department i guess.

they are up in the north now which seems to be a different environment the jos was. definately more spiritual heaviness so you can pray for walls to be broken down while they are there as well as safety bringing an unwelcome message.

on the homefront, i've been well taken care of! my parents were here for almost the whole first week and now jillian flew down from DC to be here this weekend. i've been so busy and have had lots of company. it's been a great distraction....not that i'm not ready to have him home...but it sure helps. all us girls are getting together and keeping each other company so we're hanging in!

African Farewell

well...just a request for prayer here...sent aaron off to africa this afternoon for the next few weeks...for those of you that receive our newsletter, there's a prayer calandar on the back for specifics. but if you could pray for safe travel there and back, safety driving through dangerous territory there, good health, and of course that the message will be heard and received by those there! on a personal side...he has the remnants of a concussion and a broken face so avoiding injry during the games is on my mind! thanks!

Pirate Incompetance

well, after more problems, i am officially an ECU Pirate for grad school. and i learned a valuable lesson of more incompetance. i sent the applcation off the end of october and asked when i would hear back. to which i received the reply..."there's no set time limit" ok, i took that as..."stop asking questions, we'll tell you when we're ready" and here is the lesson i learned...be annoying anyway because nobody does their job well enough to make sure everything happens correctly.

so i called yesterday (cause i was tired of waiting) to find out i was accepted on november 2nd (about a month ago)...that's 4 days after i sent it...very quick, i know. BUT NOBODY FELT THE NEED TO TELL ME! apparently the admissions office forgot to send the letter and in that time period, class registration came and went and all the health classes are full!!!!!

so now i'm accepted but have no classes to sign up for so i might as well have waited till next fall. so i'm gonna try to call and bring my "new york" out and get myself into some "full" classes since it was not my stupidity that made this happen. sheesh. sometimes i wonder why people are so dumb. why is it so hard to do your job? i hate to think i'm the only smart and capable person left in this world, but sometimes it feels like that.

Thanksgiving in Disney

well...the group shot above is the latest faro sibling pic from the final four thanksgiving weekend. messiah once again made it to the final four so of course, the whole faro clan packed it up and followed them there! we had thanksgiving at our house early in the day and then we drove part of the way down that night. we did the last few hours friday morning and made it in time to see the girls beat tcnj in the semi's. had some time to check into the hotel beore the next game...unfortunately, the boys lost in the semi's that night to trinity. it was a good close game but couldn't quite seal the deal. i don't think any of us considered what we would do if that happened...but we made the best of it and had a good time anyway.

regardless of the outcome, we were there to be with family and support brett. and thats what we did. friday night we tried to hit the hot tub but it closed so we played games instead. during that time we learned some important things like ben's lack of geographical genius, and aaron's unappreciative nature. the conversation started by talking about collecting bottles or caps or something at the rhino's stadium to earn pepsi gear. we brought our dvd's down in a travel case that apparently came from that history. and the following convo came out...

aaron: "yeah all that time there and you get crap like that" (referring to the case)

ben: "hey! i stood out there for hours collecting those to get you that. and i got amy a towel and got nothing for myself!"

aaron: right, yeah and its awesome"

open mouth, insert foot.

anyway, we took some time on saturday so hang out at bretts hotel with him and took part in the fairytale called disney. the pool was pretty incredible and the boys had a good time there.

we then went to the girls game. they lost in the finals. and we hit the road from there...all the way back to charlotte by 1:30 am. it's lots of driving but its also lots of quaility family time...and we're looking forward to the next few years of thanksgiving trips to continue the tradition. we don't know what we'd do on thanksgiving without it!

Battle Wounds

so aaron played in a 6v6 soccer tournment yesterday. i get a call on his drive home that went something like this...

me: "hey! how'd it go?"
aaron: "well, pretty good...we lost in the finals but...blah blah blah...soccer"

me: "oh man...oh well"

aaron: "well i just want to warn you, i got hit in the face pretty good"

me: "seriously? how bad?"

aaron: "pretty bad. i have a concussion"

it went on a bit from there but i'd like to draw attention to the fact that he went on for a while about the soccer like it was the main agenda. look at the pictures of his face again please...how did that not make the top of the list of things to tell me?!!? the pictures don't really even show how bad the swelling is...i couldn't get a good camera angle. as far as the signs of concussion, he was rough last night but its feeling a little better today. good thing he's tough. but he did cough up blood today so thats probably not a good sign. feel free to shout up a little prayer about that.

so we're gonna try to convince people that his face is the result of the pita slaps from the night before (if you don't know what i'm talking about see the previous post)

Left-Right-Center!

well...we had some good times friday night here at the Faro house! we had the casey's, the koontz's, and the ross's over for a night of games. we love games. we started out the night with krokinol...i have no idea how to spell it. and that was fun but then we pulled out the left-right-center dice....always ready for a good time. in the pictures below are the consequences for being the one left with a chip. let me just say, if you haven't played this game...you need to. it is so much fun if you play with good sports and people that know how to have a good time. so for your viewing pleasure...

the first consequence went to lani downing a tablespoon of texas pete without anything else allowed to subdue it for the next three minutes.

and the next...heidi getting sprayed at close range with the cold hose for five seconds

andy having lauren rub peanut butter all up in his hair


me having to give every player a free shot with the ping pong ball at my bare stomach (luckily i didn't get hit much)

aaron had to let everyone hit him across the face with a pita..yes a pita (apparently one of the more humiliating ones of the evening)

then aaron again got an egg broken on his head (which dries similar to cement if you didn't know)

then andy comes up short again and had to get his bare feet soaked with the hose and then run to the front of the neighborhood sign and back with no shoes (i still would have hypothermia if i lost that one) no picture though :-(


and then lani again...had to brush her teeth with the electric toothbrush with dishsoap on it...for a whole 2 minutes!

well, notice you didn't see sam, lauren, or brian getting the brunt of the consequences...they lucked out this time but their turn will come!

blog-stalking

so once again, i've been scolded for not blogging since my puking incident. i'm not complaining...i'm glad that there are a bunch of people that look forward to the updates...i just unfortunately don't have much to write about these days.

i'm still waiting to hear back from ecu admissions. i was trying to get ready ahead of time if i get accepted...so i've been researching a bunch of scholarship opportunities through the school. in doing so, i've encountered lots of imcompetance and that is probably my biggest pet peeve. (p.s.- i don't know how to spell that and its probably wrong) the website lists a bunch of scholarships but doesn't say ANYTHING about them other than the name of it and the amount. So i e-mailed them asking quite a few questions so i knew which ones were still available, i was eligible for, blah blah blah...so three weeks later, (and more phone calls and e-mails) someone finaly e-mailed me back and says, and i quote "i can't help you with this" and thats it. mind you, that was the scholarship contact person listed on the website. you can't help me, or you won't help me...that was my question. so i ask someone else...and he e-mails me back a week later with the link to the scholarship page that started this whole debacle. so now, about a month later, i still don't know if i'm accepted or if i can even apply for a scholarship. there's probably nothing more annoying to me than people who either can't or won't do their job well. ugh.

but other than that, there's not too much going on. aaron and i are just trying to log a lot of working hours to get ready for later when he'll be in africa and then we'll both be gone for the holidays. makes for some long days, but thats life, right. on a good note, my parents will be down here for the beginning when aaron's in africa and the jillian is going to spend the last weekend down with me! its gonna make those three weeks way easier to handle! gotta love being loved!

on another side note...joe torre has gone to manage the dodgers...and he took don mattingly with him. as sad as i am that he's gone, there are way worse teams he could have gone to. i might have to become a secondary dodgers fan. so joe girardi is the new yankee manager and i was a fan of his when he was a player so it could be way worse. and in recent yankee news...more confirmation on why i hated rodriquez as a yankee. is a recent interview he names the red sox as his prime option for after the yankees. if there are any true yankee fans that like a-rod, they have now been set straight. no true yankee wants to go play for the red sox. i hope he goes...they deserve eachother. sorry john.

well hope this satisfies you blog stalkers until we have more news worthy things to write about!

not my favorite part of the day!

let me just preface this by saying...if you're squimish, stop reading. for the iron stomachs, get this! so i had a meeting uptown this morning for the Y. we got out around 12:30 so i met a friend that works up there for lunch. mind you, i was feeling fine before lunch. so we get lunch and sit and chat for a bit and i still feel fine. i had nothing weird...just a chicken wrap and a fruit cup.

so as i'm walking out to my car my stomach starts to feel weird. (which, for any of you that know me well...this is no new phenomenon. i'm very accustomed to feeling sick to my stomach) so i start to drive home and it gets worse. i start to realize that i'm gonna throw up at some point. i'm just hoping it can wait until i get to my house. keep in mind, i live about 25 minutes away. about 2 minutes later i realize there's no way i'm gonna make it...

i get the sweats that inevitably come with throwing up so i'm taking off my layers while i drive, hoping that will stop the sweats and lessen the nausea. nope. the mouth starts to water. then you know you're in trouble cause its on the way up. so i quickly have to pull across two lanes and turn down a side street to get off the main road...

i round the corner into a driveway (i feel real bad about this by the way) and open my door just in time to puke out the car door instead of in the seat next to me. sheesh. talk about awful. after more heaving than i would have thought possible for the amount of food i'd eaten, i actually look up and people are giving me all sorts of looks...but they keep driving of course. i feel so much better almost immediately...still nauseous, but not in dire need of throwing up anymore....

so the poor people that live in that house! there were no cars home so i couldn't go up to the door to ask where a hose was, i couldn't find one on my own, and i didn't know what to do...so i left. i still don't know if there was a better plan than that, but thats what i did. i wanted to get home before the next wave hit.

moral of the story...throwing up is bad enough...forget about doing it while driving alone on a main road and thowing up out your door in a stranger's driveway. yikes. and for those that will inevitably ask this question...no i'm not pregnant.

em's wedding

well we made the trek up to jersey a litte over a week ago to em and nick's wedding. its a day us roomies have been excited about for a while now! emily benson...let a man take her heart. notable news. but when you see them together you know why she was so picky all those years. God had something better! they seem wonderful! its so good to see! i still don't feel like i know him well enough but he seems great and i'm pumped for them.

mitch, aaron and i all drove up together. we went up to virginia thursday night and stayed at jillians nice new house. that was about a 6 hour drive. then we went the rest of the way up friday morning. another 4 and a half hours i think. lots of driving...but i'm glad we got to go. and luckily for me, with two boys in the car, i don't have to drive! cause i hate driving long distances. (john, you'll be glad that there was one less dangerous female on the road)

anyway, we gathered at em's and had lunch before we went to decorate the church. then we all got ready for the rehersal and dinner. the dinner was at the church and was a real nice time of memories and such. a lot of people had the opportunity to say some things about them. good times. then it was back home for a restful night before the big day! aaron and mitch split a hotel room so i could crash at em's and knock out another hotel room purchase. they opened a few presents that night and then it was time for girl talk. me, em, carrie and allie (her sisters) had some time chatting about marriage, helping her pack for the honeymoon, and getting excited for the next day.

wedding was at 10 so it was an early morning! hair apointments at 7 for some while the rest of us wrestled with our own at home. pictures at the house by nine and then off to the church! ceremony was great and then we got on to the reception. it was at a place just a few miles away. there were quite a few messiah people there. three tables at least. it was so good to see everyone and have some time to catch up. we needed to hit the road pretty quick after so we drove back down to jillians after the reception at 5. got there in time to spend some time with her and chuck which was nice. played some Wii tennis, ate, chatted, etc. Nothing crazy, just good relaxing time together. We went to church with them in the morning, grabbed lunch and then started the rest of the drive back! so much driving in just 4 days. but it was great to see so many college friends and others on the road. i unfortunately don't have many pictures but i'll post some when i get them from others.

other life updates...

1. i'm done with the GRE!!!! that is a nice feeling. now i'll finish the application this week and hopefully be ready to go come januray!

2. my jellyfish wound is making some great headway...fading by the day

3. it's official...we'll be spending about 10 weeks in chicago for this coming summer, helping out MAI with the chicago academy. we're pumped!

4. aaron's next triathlon is this saturday...up in the tenessee mountains

5. we're about to make a trip up north to see some people from school and home as well as see the boys play soccer. can't wait!

i'm sure there will be more on those things to come!

kiawah island triathlon

well...its a week late but i got the pictures to help tell the story of aaron's dominance :-) so we (us and the casey's) got down there late friday night and had a lazy saturday morning. once we finally got our act together we hit the beach on saturday. unfortunately, we forgot the camera because the whole day was like a scene from animal planet! when we first got there we saw a bunch of dolphins jumping out of the water. it was prett sweet...there were a lot of them and they were just frolicking, having a great time. so we hang, play some beach bocce, etc before we go in the water. standard beach agenda.

then we went in the water. and it all got a little crazy. this is going to sound a little dramatic...but i don't care. it was both dramatic and traumatic at the time. so we're swimming and all of a sudden i feel some serious pain in my wrist. it felt like something was biting me and i needed to shake it off my arm. yeah, it hurt that much. so i whip it out of the water and start yelling and shaking it around. great visual i'm sure. i never saw the beast but i imagine it was a very hungry jellyfish/man-of-war thing. i've been stung before but this was pretty different so i think it was something else. so it immediately gets huge, red and swollen. so right now you're probably thinking..."i saw an episode of friends once...i wonder if that works"...well we thought the same thing cause at that moment, you don't care how gross that is, you just want the pain to stop. let me educate you for the future if this should ever happen to you...it doesn't work. so the rest of the day we watched my injury spread and morph. i had swelling, redness, strange spots, lost feeling in my arm, the whole deal. at one point, i got nervous because pain was moving from my wrist, up my whole arm, down the armpit, and all the way down my side till my waist. i'm thinking, ok, i think traveling pain is probably a bad sign. but that went away in a couple hours. and since then, it has morphed more times. the picture below in on the day it happened but it kind of hard to see so its not a very good representation. but it gives you an idea i guess. a few days later, the swelling had gone down and it started to itch instead so i'm thinking it'll be gone in a few days. but no...just a few more days later the thing flares up! now i have hive-like things spreading further than the actual sting, dark red spots where i'm guessing the tentacles hit, and the swelling it worse than at the beginning! sheesh! so everyone keeps telling me to go to the doctor, probably as some of you are thinking....but i have a physical on thursday so i'm waiting till then. and please don't try to convice me otherwise cause i won't listen.

so after that whole experience some people near us (who had their fishing lines in the water all day) started to make a commotion. we think its a huge fish so a crowd starts to gather...and it was a huge fish...and then it rolled over on the sand and we saw the fin...the fin of a shark that is! yup...they caught a 3.5-4 foot shark! oh my goodness...at this point we're all looking at eachother thinking...great, this is the water we're swimming in for the traithlon tomorrow morning. at that moment i was so glad sam was our swimmer and not me. and then, they let the thing go! so we're watching the water and we see this shark swim back out and see the fin getting smaller and smaller. not a very comfortable feeling so needless to say, we didn't exactly spend lots more time in the water.

so after brief stint on national geographic, we showered and went into charleston for the evening. got dinner, hit the market, hung out at the pier. good times. and got to bed to get some good rest before the race! it was at this point that i realized that i forgot an important item. yeah, who goes away for the weekend...to run in a race...and forgets underwear! that's such an important item when you run! i'm an idiot. so after a quick k-mart run, i'm back on track...but pretty mad at myself cause i'm picky about what kind i run in...and k-mart didn't exactly have any good options.

so we get up real early and drive to kiawah for the race. its an eerie feeling cause its early and still dark, you're nervous, and so is everyone else. so we get there, check in, get your number, set up the transition area, etc. time to get going!!! we walk a mile down the beach to start the swim. the swimmers swim out and them swim across back the way we came for a mile. it was pretty choppy so i'm sure it was tough. (sidenote: as one guys gets out he's telling his friend that a jellyfish "lit him up") i wasn't the only one! but aaron was third out of the water! off to a good start!

then comes the bike. heidi was awesome and aaron was good too. except that he coudn't clip out of his bike pedals when he got back. he's still got a little learning to do on the bike :-) then the run. now i have the unfortunate position of the last leg so i've been up since 5, and waiting at the race for a least two hours since it started just letting the nerves build. when heidi came in and finally passsed me the timing chip i was so ready to go that i took off. and quickly realized that was not smart. the first mile of the run was through sand. tough. not a good idea to wear yourself out running on sand when you still have 5 miles left. but i made it to the road and passed aaron on my way (yeah, he was already on his way back).

so you wait and eat after you're done until they announce the results. aaron won his age group! there's a picture of his sweet plaque below :-) he came in sixth overall. so good. team rodrigo (me sam and heidi) got third in the mixed relay category. don't get too excited, there weren't very many in our category. but it was a ton of fun!

and this is for your viewing pleasure...yes, someone actually wore this to do the swim. and we had to capture it!

and i will leave you for now on that note. next on the agenda...updates on emmy's wedding!

back blogging!

well, enough people have called me out on being a blogging slacker...so i'll get on it and start where we left off. we spent labor day weekend day with allison and mike. they treated us to a wonderful weekend of fun! we got down to atlanta on friday night and then continued the trip over the Auburn. Allison and Mike are both Auburn alumns and now Mike's sister goes there too...so we met up with her and went out to a nice dinner down there.

So the special thing about this weekend was that it was opening weekend for Auburn football. And if we learned one thing from that weekend, its that Auburn students are OBSESSED with Auburn football. people tape off tailgate spots the night before the game and there's an unspoken rank system within that too...as far as where you're allowed to tape off. and people obey it too! weird. so saturday morning, the tailgating begins. i've never seen such elaborate tailgating...far cry from messiah chessy dogs i'm sad to say. they have entire entertainment systems set up with satellites to watch all the other college games that are going on all day. serioulsy, i walked around with my mouth hanging open the entire day. the entire campus is busting with people (who had driven in as early as tuesday to get spots)...wearing a sea of orange and navy. it was a really amazing atmosphere...really opened my eyes to what a different college experience people have. not that i'd trade my messiah days for anything...but it would've fun to be a part of something like that.

so the game starts at about 7 and they have a huge spectacle going on... armored cars ushering in the refs and the real live eagle that flies in to start the game... a "tiger march" of the players marching campus into the stadium, etc. nuts. also, the game experience is just soooo different in the south. i couldn't get over it. i was probably one of the only females not wearing a sun dress (and an innapropriate one at that) who gets dressed up to go to a game?!?! what happened to painting your face or chest or something??? no, we have to put on as much makeup as we can, and get dressed for a summer party in our best little dress. and the guys...polo's and khacki's at the very least. really strange. but all in all...it was a rediculously fun day...so much energy and excitement. aaron and i came out yelling auburn cheers as if we'd gone there too...allison and mike were glad to claim us as honorary alumns :-) so here are a few pics of the 87,000+ people in the stadium...

so we stayed over that night and then drove home sunday. we took sunday to relax and lay around all day cause the big race was monday morning! it was a nice day to relax. aaron and mike went and drove the 10K course while allison and i shopped fo some carbo loading dinner materials. i was soooo nervous about this race. i don't really know why...maybe cause i heard it was really hilly. so they came home and didn't calm my fears at all...saying that it was the hilliest course they've ever seen and whatnot...nice of them huh? the race was great though. they weren't lying...it was all hills...and mostly uphill too. but it went well (mostly for aaron). there were 12,000 people in it. i've never run in an environment like that...its great cause it distracts you a bit when you really don't want to be running anymore. also annoying cause they didn't take waves of people to start the clock. they said go and we were at least a few minutes back from the starting line, walking with the 12,000 people to get there and start but the clock had already started!!! so annoying. so i think our times aren't right. but either way, we did all right. i finished in about an hour and aaron finished in way less :-) he ran the whole thing in a 6:20/mile pace. which i think was actually faster cause of the starting issue. but he did well and won a lttle medal....i think he finished 48 out of the 12,000. no doubt beat by all the kenyans there...all three top finishers for the men and women were kenyan or ethiopian. such a monopoly on this sport! so after the race we went to the water park (the race finished there and we got free admission for running in it) hit a bunch of rides and then head out. it rounded out a great weekend! here are the three racers after it was all over....allison didn't run cause she doesn't like heat or hills...and now i totally understand :-)

so, next on our calandar was the kiawah island triathlon with the casey's... i have to get pictures from sam and heidi because i disgraced all females by forgetting to bring my camera to this adventure...but once i do i will continue this life update! lets just say it was an awesome weekend again and i'm married to a freak of fitness nature :-)

aahhh transitions

so there have been some recent developments in our lives in the past few weeks. for one, i have applied to some online grad programs. i think we've come to the conclusion that its a good time to get on with that plan considering the lack of full time job. i have to take the gre to apply to the one i really want to go to though. so back to the books! its been a long time since i've taken any test, let alone a standardized one. i've realized that all my reading has not helped my vocab in the gre book. and i've been reading a lot since i've had some annoying time on my hands. at one point (yes, a low point) i think i read three books in 2 days. that should tell you how productive i've been with my life the past two weeks. i did manage to paint the bathroom though. amy, pictures are not far off but i need to finish putting it back together first. the cabinets are now espresso brown, the floor is like slate looking ceramic tile, the walls are now a greenish-blueish-gray i guess. looking good. but i hope to be able to start school stuff in january. we'll see if i can take the gre and get it all reported and applied in time. as long as i know this down time is short, i ca handle it i think.

on another note, aaron and i had a meeting with pat and got some things out in the open about camp. things are going to change! the meeting went pretty well and we have some more decisions to make but we're pretty excited. now that camp all summer is not going to happen for us, some doors are now open for some other things. exciting stuff. so in the mean time, our fall is shaping up to be busier than ever. 10K races, triathalons, soccer game travel, a trip home perhaps, emmy's wedding in jersey, etc. i'm not sure why we seem to think the fall is down time for us...its just as busy but we do it to ourselves! on that note, i'm off to hit the gre books once again!

Ceramic Tile

so we've had a lot going on here for the past week....family in town and whatnot. my dad is here and i wanted to put ceramic tile in the bathrooms so we decided to do it this week too. makes for a messy house...lots of guests in and out plus the remodeling. i wouldn't suggest it for others...so the first bathroom goes down without issue....but the masterbath is another story. so i've had a few million sample tiles in and out of this house planning for this. i finally pick one for our bathroom that looks like of like slate...a little different, i know. but i really liked it. so i go back to lowes to buy it all and tell the guy what i want. he comes back with the boxes and loads them in the car. that was two weeks ago. they have been on the floor of the garage since then. unlooked at. (you might be able to see where i'm going with this now)

so the first bathroom is done so i go to bring that stack of boxes in the house. and while i'm carrying them, i think...wow, these look a little different. open up the boxes and realize....they are different!!! they're not the same tile!!! so dad's ready to start putting it down...slaving (and sweating) like and animal and i tell him that i have the wrong tile. talk about feeling like an idiot. so back to lowes i go to fix it...

i bring home boxes of the right tile this time and take it out of the box.....and again, it doesn't look the same! its the same tile name now, but the coloring is really different from my sample tile. so i go through the whole set of four boxes and take out the tile that look more like the sample. this new dye lot of tile has WAY more orange-ish color swirling in the slate look. the orange cannot happen in my blue bathroom so now i'm picking tiles out of the boxes to keep and have to go back to lowes to buy more boxes to pick and choose out of!

needless to say, this better look good when its all over cause i feel like its been more hassle than its worth. and my poor dad continues to slave! the moral of the story goes back to a line from my dear friend bryan regan..."its just gonna be a big hassle, thats our policy"

Winding Down and Getting Ready for Change

so i get back from vermont, work for two days, and then head up to join aaron at high school team camp. he'd been there since saturday. i wanted to join them for a few reasons....i hadn't seen him since friday and now it was monday. he would be there till wednesday and i work wednesday night. and he leaves for the ohio road trip from thursday to sunday...so basically if i wanted to see him here and there i needed to be there at camp when he had a few minutes of down time.

it was actually really relaxing to be there. the camp ground was about 45 minutes north of us and they had 5 high school boys soccer teams staying there. they'd have training sessions and devo's in the morning, team building activities in the afternoon, scrimmage in the evening, and have bible time speaking and small groups at night before bed. this is really something aaron has a passion for so i wanted to see him in action. it seemed to go well so thats good considering it was the first time he tried to pull it off!

team building activities were paintball, low ropes, high ropes, and lake time. i wish i could've done it all but that would have required me jumping in with a team of boys...yeah, don't think so. so that leaves one week of local camps left and then the college pre-season event (aaron's other baby). then, the camp program goes into wrap-up mode. when its all said and done, it went pretty smoothly this year...

now on to some interesting news...the night before i left for vermont i received an e-mail from school that my classes were probably not going to be offered again this coming school year. they kind of gave a reason, and i have some more of my own that i believe are probably part of it too....but either way, it looks like some changes will need to be made. john, i'm in your boat now, and yes, its annoying for sure. so if you guys remember it in your prayers, please keep us in mind. there might be some big changes coming soon. we'll just keep trusting god to open doors and lead us...thats what he does best so i look forward to when he decides to let us in on his plan. until then, i'll be spending a little more time on my knees :-)

Vermont!

Oh man! T's wedding was on Lake Champlaign in Vermont. It was gorgeous! Really makes you want to consider taking a vacation to the New England coast in the summer. Great temperature and very pretty scenery. It was a real quick trip so I wish i coulda been there longer but no such luck. Got in friday night and left at 4am sunday morning. I bunked in with the bridesmaids in the next door neighbors house. sweet view overlooking the lake, with a screened in porch with rocking chairs. it was good to have some time to catch up with em and jess being with the girls. i've been the classic "plus one" this summer for weddings. not in it, but there early for various reasons. makes for some awkward situations like...do you ride to the church with the wedding party? no, but how do you get there? do you join the hair dresser party? no, but what do you do instead?....and other random things like that. so i helped out when i could with placecard stuff, cleaning up, marriage licence, etc. not a bad role...keeps you busy.



the wedding was nice at a nearby church and the reception was back at the house overlooking the lake. really nice setting. very t as well. she's still the same...good to see. this was the first time all five from mellingber B103 were all together since graduation...we've seen eachother but not all at once. and we'll get to do it again for em's wedding in september! good times.

new york trip

i had a great time up in new york this last time. got up there thursday morning. drove out to jersey friday to hang out with emily. she thought i was here for my grandpa's party, and had no idea that saturday morning was here bridal shower! so we caught up and i slept over friday night and then left for the shower in the morning. she was really surprised which is fun. there were lots of people there and most of the roomies too! so good to see everyone even though it was quick. i had to leave early to get home in time for grandpa's party so i didn't ruin that surprise. it was supposed to take me and hour and half....it didn't. good ole fourth of july traffic i guess. it too me 2 and a half hours to get home!!! i almost missed grandpa's surprise! but that party was fun too. lots of extended family on the faraci side that i just never see. lots of good times. he was surprised too and so cute when he realized. :-) well i'm home now and leave again for vermont in a week and a half. that concludes my flights for a while i believe. i hope so anyway...i'm sick of airports!

more denver pics

i just got the camping night pictures online so here they are! beautiful!