A few weeks since my last update. I used to be so good at getting to write every week but the last 8/9 weeks have been so bloody busy with family/work and visitors that I have hardly had a chance to get any writing done at all.

Since Mum and Dad left we have had another few visitors. Margaret's sister Janice came the day before Mum and Dad left and spent ten days in our company. She is the first person after Glenn from Margaret's family to meet Eva and get to spend time with her. They got on famously as Janice held her and talked with her and sang to her - Margaret and I also got to spend some time out with just each other for the first time since Eva was born. It was nice but we did not stay out too long as we did not want to leave her for longer or have Janice put under the pressure of keeping her for too long. While Janice was here I took her to every boys favourite store - Best Buy. Best Buy is the place you go to check out all the latest in gadgetry - you name it they have it in terms of personal electronics and they have a class selection of DVD's with everything you could ever want to buy. The shop really is simply a building of pure temptation to spend money on stuff you don't really need!!!!!! Anywho, I took Janice there because she arrived in Florida with a desire to catch up with the 21st century and purchase both a digital camera and an MP3 - we went, we saw and she bought. I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with her as she did not dilly dally around with the purchasing of things - she saw what she wanted and she bought - we were in and out in about 15 mins. Admittedly - as a guys who loves perusing gadgets I would have liked more time in there but to have a woman go in and get the stuff and come out was just a dream come true. Well done Janice and I hope you are using and enjoying your purchases.

I was noticing the other day as I looked through some the comments from my readers that people have been amazed that there has been nothing about rugby recently. Well I am about to break that one. Last Saturday I made my first rugby outing of the season. Things have been so busy here that I have not had the chance to engage with the rugby club as much as I would have wanted to. However, the Pirates (www.piratesrugby.com) had a home game on Saturday and I was able to play as it was a late afternoon kick off. So I made it out to practice on the Thursday before and then turned up for the game on Saturday. I have now been playing for the Pirates for a couple of years and have only won one game with them until last Saturday when we won again. We were playing the students of FAU and I have tio say I just really enjoyed the whole thing. Recovery from the games and practice takes a lot longer these days (especially when I play in the front row!!!) but it is still worth it. I am excited to come home in March and start with the Hinch again next season - social rugby at its best!!!!! We scored three tries against the students and I got all of them - a feat of which I am quite proud. All three tries where extremely satisfying as they were the type of tries where I got to run at and through the opposition. As a coach, I teach kids that rugby is a game were we try to evade the opposition and not run into them, but as a player (a 6'5 300lbs player!!!) it is still extremely cool to steamroller your way through people!!!! The Pirates are a struggling wee club here in Florida and it was a good day for us. There are not a huge number of us but we love to play the game and last Saturday proved that.

The other main part of life this month has been the pumpkin patch at church. I had forgotten how much it really takes over your life for a month. Sales have been extremely good for us and we have sold over $9000 dollars worth of pumkins in three weeks. It takes a lot of work and effort but it really is worth it in the end. The end though has come prematurely as the threat of hurricane Wilma looms over us. It is felt that our pumpkins will make excellent hurricane missiles if we leave them out in the open and so this weekend we are doing the great hurricane give away where people can come and take a pumpkin and drop off a donation to us in the coming days. It is a bit of an anti climax to it all but makes our life a lot easier when there are less pumpkins for us to clean up tomorrow morning before the storm arrives.

Wilma should arrive tomorrow night or Monday morning. To be honest the threat of anything severe does not seem to be too major. She has hovered over Cancun, Mexico for a long time and really devastated that area and now she should be on her way over Cuba to Florida. We are on the East coast of Florida and so should not get anything too rough - but, as always with these things, we have to be prepared. The over-riding theme of this years hurricanes has been unpredictability. Weather watchers have been okay at tracking them but would even say themselves that they have never seen storms like these in terms of how they have moved and turned as they make their journey to land. And so, with Wilma, we have an idea what it might be like but really don't know. This morning I put up our hurricane shutters and we have stocked up on baby food and water and some other food items. We have enough to get us through anything tough that comes our way.

Eva continues to grow and is currently somewhere between 22 and 23lbs. I saw an 18 month old wee girl the other day and I could not believe that she was only just a bit bigger than what Eva is. It really is unbelievable how she is growing. Now she responds when we call her name and she is all biz everywhere we go. She love interacting with people and always gives them a smile as they chat with her. She is also working out that her hands are for grabbing things like my glasses. I stupidly have this belief that when I say she should not touch them that she will miraculously understand me and leave them alone - you know me, ever the optimist. But alas, she has not yet come to understand what I am saying.

Eva's new BFF was born two days ago. Ron and Jen had a wee baby girl called Katherine (Kate) Lynn Buchmeyer and she weighed in at 6lbs 13ozs. You can imagine the comments we have made about Eva looking more like her big sister than her five month old friend. She is a healthy wee baby girl with a huge head of black hair. She was born by cesarian and Mum is in pain but doing well. I will post some pics of Kate soon.

Thats about it for now. We have Margaret's sister and brother in law Frances and Wilson arriving tomorrow to sit out the hurricane with us which will be fun for us and I am sure different for them. I am sure we will all make the best of it.

Check out our pictures!!!!

Blessings