playing catch-up

FIRST OFF.....I'M 27 NOW! :-)

once again, its been a while since i've updated the blog. that should give you a clue as to how much homeowrk i've been doing :-( too much. but its been a good few weeks. my parents were here in february and we got the tile floor down in the kitchen! good times. i love it!





we celebrated our birthdays a little early while they were here too. went to maggiano's for dinner and then back to their house for presents. i got some clothes and movies and aaron got socks (of course) and an odometer for his bike.

then on my actual birthday aaron and i went out for dinner and then he had friends show up at our house for dessert. the harveys, the koontzs, the caseys, and mitch. we seriously celebrated my birthday for days. with my parents being here early and then celebrating late with the ross', i've been eating "birthday dessert" for an entire week. i'll be paying for that in the gym for a while. but its worth it i think.

we also had a bridal shower for molly at our house last weekend. molly and ross are moving back to dallas this week and are getting married in may. we're sad but it was a really nice way to say goodbye and get her "ready" for married life. we had a lot of good discussion and encouragement for her and it was a really nice time. of course we played some scandalous games...the pictures from which are not blog safe so they will not appear here. but it was good to have a girls night like that.

then the ross' were nice enough to take us out to dinner for our birthdays saturday. we went to a nice place called brio (thanks to charlotte christian coaching) :-) and as you can see below....i ordered a whole chicken, thats right a whole one. didn't really know what i was getting myself into. i've already eaten three full meals out of it and i'm not done.



and then on the flip side for dessert the ross' shared something so small they couldn't even get both their spoons in it at once. who was the pig at the table??? yup, the birthday girl! :-)


and on another surpise note...T-Money came into town saturday morning! josh had a game down here and they were staying close to the mall so i drove out and got to see her for breakfast. what a sweet surpirse visit that was!!! the only problem was that it didn't seem long enough...gotta plan some longer visits soon!

aaron had another race last weekend too. this was a duathlon. run 5 miles, bike 33 miles, run another 5 miles. this was the longest bike race he's done yet. he did pretty well of course. he came in fifth overall and won his age group! (and got the cheesiest medal i've ever seen)


then on sunday we went on a little hike with mitch and sarah. sarah's up from atlanta since her school is out for spring break. its been so fun to have her here! imagine how much fun mitch thinks it is :-) sunday was a gorgeous day so we took advantage and got some outdoor activity.




well, i think that about covers it for now! next on the agenda is our trip to california later this month and then the leadership weekend in chicago right after, and then a visit from the kellers after that! more good times to come!

School Woes

so i'm in full swing with school these days....let me give you more of a mental picture of what that means. i get up and go to work at 7:30 and get out about 1:00 each day. at that point, i work out and then come home and sit on the couch doing homework until i go back for more clients at dinner time. thats basically every day except friday which has more time devoted to homework.

doesn't sounds that bad does it? well, some days it is. i'm taking three classes and two of the three are very manageable. i would really only have to devote one full day to get it all done for those two. but my third class is a nightmare. its about managing non-profit organizations...i know, you can imagine how boring that is because it sounds insanely boring. well, it is.

i do not have a business or corporate background at all and thats making this class harder. i'm acting as a consultant for the YMCA for our project, doing all this analysis. well, i don't even know what all the business terms are and i definately don't know how to do anything with them. this is the first time i'm hearing things like swot anlysis, internal and external environmental scans, strategic planning, capacity building, etc. and i don't care. i'm not interested in managing a non-profit organization...i don't want to manage anyone or anything. i rather be the one doing the hands on work.

all that to say...i'm spending hours a day trying to figure all this out...post 3 page papers about it on our discussion boards, and then write 8 page papers about it each week. ugh. not to worry though...if you even have questions about managing non-profit organization, oh, i'm your girl!

if it wasn't for this class, i'd think getting your masters was easy!

Heck Yeah!

this post is purely to express my joy on the giants underdog extravaganza! there's some sweet satisfaction in the upset and sweet justice that the team caught cheating did not win it all in the end. love my giants :-)

Cococay, Bahamas

Our last day was spent at this paradise. It was basically a small island, owned by Royal Carribbean. There was nothing there except our cruise ship and the people tha run the fun there. You walked off the boat and all you saw was endless beach chairs, ocean, and the best yet...hammock's between palm trees. Amazing. We didn't do much but that was the point I guess. We all camped in this little hacienda with padded chairs, and sheers for privacy. Why would you shut those though...I mean really, you're overlooking a very blue ocean!

Anyway, Aaron and I rented snorkel gear and went out pretty early. We saw some pretty sweet fish of course along with some sting ray. Aaron really loved the snorkeling...and proceeded to pass around the other set of snorkel gear providing guided tours for the rest of the family. When he finally came in I think his body temperature was a few degrees colder. So I took Ben out after that and then Brett and John went out together. Unfortunately for them, John planted his hand on a sea urchin and had to seek a little medical advice. Looked pretty nasty. Had me reminiscing back to my jellyfsh debacle last fall. Other than the snorkeling, we read, laid around in the hammocks, and bought cocoloco's from the guys walking around selling this tasty frozen drink. Oh Sweet Paradise!

After our relaxing day at the beach, we got back on the boat to enjoy our last formal dinner, shows, and music.

This vacation was amazing...I mean at this point after all you've read I'm sure that's not a surprise to you. It was just non-stop fun. We came home pretty high on cruises, telling everyone we know that they have to go on one in their lifetime. After some reflection we decided that the vacation was fantastic but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun if we weren't there all together. The company makes the experience.

Cruisin' Key West Style

well, its taken a few days for me to get back to blogging but i'm back...with more stories to tell!

so our first full day was "cruising" as they call it. we spent the day out at sea and took advantage of the fun the boat had to offer. hit the trampolines, took a salsa class, hung out at the pool, hit the casino (with only the change in the bottom of my purse for the slots), and had our "formal night" for dinner. the boat had more than enough options to keep us busy.

So after a full day out at sea waiting out the weather, we port at Key West the next morning. aaron and i had signed up for an excursion called "snuba" in the afternoon so we went walking through key west in the morning. we had fun just the two of us walking to find the beach. the town's pretty cool looking. lots of beach-town-looking shops and boutiques and stuff. i mean, don't get me wrong, i'm not gonna go to key west and waste my time shopping, but it was a cool atmosphere to walk through.

after about an hour of walking, aaron and i got to a beach. it was fairly sketch though. a bunch of homeless people loitering around and such. but we walked past this guy who gave us a coconut that he had peeled and stuff. apparently he was a chef in new orleans until katrina hit. now he sleeps on the beach in key west. as he put it, "i guess i traded up". quite the outlook after losing everything. we tried to take it back on board with us but they wouldn't let us so we had to have some fun with it before we got back on for lunch.

after lunch we found our excursion spot...only to have it cancelled!!! such a bummer. but it was nice of them to cancel it cause they had taken people out in the morning and i guess they couldn't see anything so it would've been a lot of money and time to not see any cool sea life. i was pretty impressed that instead of taking our money and saying "oh well, sorry we couldn't see anything", they just told us not to waste our money. so we ended up hitting the beach (a not so sketchy one) for the rest of the day it was a nice afternoon on a pretty beach!

random side note for you...and on our walk back to the boat we saw these dogs that had legit dreads. weird.

so back on the boat. ben, aaron and i hit the rock climbing wall before we got ready for dinner again. i'm sure many of you will not balk at this story but i'm telling it anyway. i forgot socks for the climbing wall. picture going bowling, getting the shoes that the rest of the world does, and having to put bare feet in those publicly used shoes. i'm still hoping i didn't catch some gross fungus from it. i still have a hard time believeing i actually did that. i mean, my mom did raise me to fear all germs, especially in public places. i wish i had pictures of this cause it was cool but along with my socks i forgot my camera.

and the next and last update to come...cococay, bahamas. let me just warn you, i just let out a whimsical sigh just thinking back about it :-)

BING-BONG! Faro Family Christmas Cruise!

"bing-bong" is what the cruise director, mark, said everytime he concluded hosting something or making an announcement on this cruise this past week. sounds like it might be annoying, yet it wasn't...i grew quite fond of it by the end of the trip. for those that don't know wha i'm talking about, we just got back from the faro family christmas vacation today. they took the family on a royal carribbean cruise to key west and the bahamas for christmas...and it was amazing!!! we had such a good time!!!!

this post would be redicuously long if i talk about everything tha was amazing about it so i'll go in stages in the next few days so keep tuning in! :-)

we flew down to florida on tuesday (yup, the day they had that cold snap and freeze warning) it was cold and we were wondering if we would be that cold on the cruise too. regardless, we were still too excited to be let a little cool weather stop us....i mean really, we're new yorkers. so wednesday we board the boat and waste no time getting in the hot tub. we were one of the first ones on and the whole rest of the day people were boarding the boat with their sweats and coats on while we're outside in bathing suits in the hot tub. we got lots of "you're not from florida, are you?" comments. obviously not. we were glad we flew in the day before and got on early cause we basically got a whole other day on the boat.

we spent the rest of that day scoping out all the boat had to offer. 11 decks, climbing wall, bungee trampoline, pools/hot tubs indoor and out, lots of different lounges and bars, a sweet fitness center, and of course lot of places to eat...whenever you want. so it was pretty cold and cloudy but we didn't care because we were excited to get started on all this fun!at night we all got dressed up nice for our fancy dinner. our waitress for the week was from lithuania. her name was inga. we learned lots of stuff from inga...like they work six straight months without ONE day off! how crazy is that!?!? and they work all day long. they must have crazy standards for service because all the people working there (and there was over 800 of them) were so helpful. you could tell they weren't american as sad as that is for us to say. the international feel with all the people from all over was really sweet. it made you feel like you were far away even when we were still docked in fort lauderdale.after dinner we went to the orpheum theater for the opening night dancing/singing show. they were really good! just like sitting in on a broadway show. and then it was on to karaoke. good times. we were supposed to head down to key west the next day but weather changed our plans so we spent thursday "cruising" as they call it...just out at sea on the boat all day. i'll write about that another day!

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...