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!