Friday, December 30, 2005
Almost a month since the last update and we have lots of pictures to show you, but first a few words to keep you updated on everything we have been up to this month.
With it being christmas, I suppose the month of December has felt like it is running away and very quickly taking our time here in Florida with it. On Sunday 4th December I got the opportunity to go and see a Miami Dolphins football game and had a class time. They were playing the Buffalo Bills and the result was 24-23 for the Dolphins and it had plenty of excitement, well in the fourth quarter anyway. Buffalo had taken a huge lead in the first quarter of the game scoring three touchdowns and for most of the game they led 21-0. However, in the fourth quarter, the Dolphins came out a different team and they came back from 23-3 for the win. America quite often seems to be based on entertainment and I must say they completey know how to do it. Even their sports seem to be designed to make the big finish a reality and this game really highlighted that. The Dolphins scored their winner with literally 6 seconds on the clock and in their last play of the game and I must say it really got the heart pumping as they edged closer to the endzone for their touchdown. It was a thoroughly good day out and I would do it again in a heartbeat. After that my official holiday time was done and it was back to work to get ready for the fast approaching Christmas season which basically for me entails making sure that our youth party is arranged and is going to be fun, making sure I am ready for any music we have to play in services - which of course means dragging those Christmas songs out again, and finally helping Renee and Rich as they prepare for Christmas Eve which is a huge deal here - we have 5 services in total on Christmas Eve. Work wise, these three things basically took up the month and all three went well. Our Christmas Party fopr the youth was great, we went to Ron and Jen's and had a bonfire and a hay-ride and the usual gift exchange. This year I saw the coolest idea for a gift exchange at our youth party - someone brought a goldfish in a bag as their gift - it was fought over a lot until everyone realised that it would either need a lot of care and attention or that they would be burying it in a few days, a fish is for as long as it lasts you know, not just for Christmas!!!!! Christmas Eve was busy with us having all those services, but they all seemed to go well and relatively smoothly. In the band we had one extra event to do at church. It was our annual Winter Wonderland which is basically a small community event with a walk through nativity and free drinks and cookies. We had to play that night and basically it was a bit of a disaster. We were without anyone to run our sound board and hence were unable to get out mix right. To say we sounded awful is an understatement, and I have to say I came home in not the best of moods - not because of how bad we sounded, but because of the fact that we can do soooooo much better. Anywho, we reformed on Sunday morning for Oasis and things sounded okay again - I guess we all have our bad gigs right?
Musically, this has been abig month for me. I have dreamed and talked about for a long time how I would like to record some of the music that I have written over the last few years and recently that became a reality for me. Yesterday in fact. I met up with my buddy Asa who has just built himself a nice little studio for recording in and we started to process of laying down some tracks for my songs. The day went really well and I got 6/7 songs done and at the end of it all Asa said he wanted to play something for me that he had created. He had put together a piece of music and wondered if I could come up with some words for it. To cut a long story short I started singing some lyrics that I had written the night before and we decided to record some of it. I have been singing for a long time, but never have I let go and sung from my heart so much as I did when I was singing that song last night. Every note, and every word and every ounce of energy came from my heart when I was singing it and I have to confess I felt a closeness with God that I have not experience before. It was not that I was in worship - in fact the lyrics I was singing were not worship lyrics. It was more of a cry of the heart than anything else. I don't know if anyone other than Asa will ever hear it, but I know that if no-one ever does it's okay with me. Last night I sang that song to God and God alone and it was wonderful and just felt very pure within me.
The other highlight this month was the other half of Margaret's birthday surprise. On 21st December, I arranged for us to go to Discovery Cove in Orlando where Margaret would get to swim with dolphins. Our friend Pam graciously undertook to look after Eva and we had the most wonderful day to ourselves swimming around, snorkling in their lagoons and then getting to meet the dolphins. It was a class day and if you ever get the chance to do it, don't pass it up.
Christmas day was nice. For the last couple of years we have spent christmas with Lisa and Asa and it has always been fun. But, I have always come away from it all with a feeling that it just was not Christmas. I had issues with not getting a Christmas dinner if I am honest and so this year we decided to make our own dinner and invited Ron and jen and Kate over. It was wonderful and the food was great. To smell the turkey cooking just made me know it was Christmas day and I was happy.
So now that it is all over we are faced with the reality that we only have about 9 more weeks of time in USA. Behind me as I type this are the beginnings of our packing - all our books have been packed up and boxed and are ready to go. It is getting so close and in many ways it is exciting as well as frightening and extremely sad. I have to confess it is hard to imagine living life back home now. I know we will get used to it, but I really thought that having grown up there I would be able to see myself back there, but currently, I have no clue what it is going to be like at all. All told though, things with the move in general are going well. We have found a shipper that can move our stuff for us at a reasonable rate and we have found ways of getting the dogs back without having to quarantine them in Northern Ireland. They will not travel until July, but wshen they arrive they will get to come home to us that day.
Eva is just class. Like really, really class. The last month has seen her getting her 6 month shots, almost start crawling, start into that stage where she just smiles all the time and of course she has had her first Christmas. Renee bought her this very cool little Christmas outfit, which included a red dress with white, fluffy collar and trim, a little red santa hat and cool little white booties - she looked so cool in it all. She may never forgivre us when she gets older but it was worth that to kit her out for Christmas. I have many many pictures to show you of that stuff. She wore it on Christmas morning when we went to church. At the childrens time in the service, Renee came over and took Eva up front with her so that everyone could see her. Eva caught a glimpse of renee's glasses and of course decided that she wanted them. This started some laughter in the congregation and everyone was enjoying the whole scene. then Eva turned around and noticed everyone in front of her and that they were all laughing and then she started to giggle right back at them. It was the funniest thing in the world to watch as the harder everyone laughed the more Eva' seemed to lap it up and laugh right back at them - she seems to be a chip off the old block in more ways than just looking alike.
Anyway, I am sure you are sick of reading by now and are ready for photos.
Blessings
With it being christmas, I suppose the month of December has felt like it is running away and very quickly taking our time here in Florida with it. On Sunday 4th December I got the opportunity to go and see a Miami Dolphins football game and had a class time. They were playing the Buffalo Bills and the result was 24-23 for the Dolphins and it had plenty of excitement, well in the fourth quarter anyway. Buffalo had taken a huge lead in the first quarter of the game scoring three touchdowns and for most of the game they led 21-0. However, in the fourth quarter, the Dolphins came out a different team and they came back from 23-3 for the win. America quite often seems to be based on entertainment and I must say they completey know how to do it. Even their sports seem to be designed to make the big finish a reality and this game really highlighted that. The Dolphins scored their winner with literally 6 seconds on the clock and in their last play of the game and I must say it really got the heart pumping as they edged closer to the endzone for their touchdown. It was a thoroughly good day out and I would do it again in a heartbeat. After that my official holiday time was done and it was back to work to get ready for the fast approaching Christmas season which basically for me entails making sure that our youth party is arranged and is going to be fun, making sure I am ready for any music we have to play in services - which of course means dragging those Christmas songs out again, and finally helping Renee and Rich as they prepare for Christmas Eve which is a huge deal here - we have 5 services in total on Christmas Eve. Work wise, these three things basically took up the month and all three went well. Our Christmas Party fopr the youth was great, we went to Ron and Jen's and had a bonfire and a hay-ride and the usual gift exchange. This year I saw the coolest idea for a gift exchange at our youth party - someone brought a goldfish in a bag as their gift - it was fought over a lot until everyone realised that it would either need a lot of care and attention or that they would be burying it in a few days, a fish is for as long as it lasts you know, not just for Christmas!!!!! Christmas Eve was busy with us having all those services, but they all seemed to go well and relatively smoothly. In the band we had one extra event to do at church. It was our annual Winter Wonderland which is basically a small community event with a walk through nativity and free drinks and cookies. We had to play that night and basically it was a bit of a disaster. We were without anyone to run our sound board and hence were unable to get out mix right. To say we sounded awful is an understatement, and I have to say I came home in not the best of moods - not because of how bad we sounded, but because of the fact that we can do soooooo much better. Anywho, we reformed on Sunday morning for Oasis and things sounded okay again - I guess we all have our bad gigs right?
Musically, this has been abig month for me. I have dreamed and talked about for a long time how I would like to record some of the music that I have written over the last few years and recently that became a reality for me. Yesterday in fact. I met up with my buddy Asa who has just built himself a nice little studio for recording in and we started to process of laying down some tracks for my songs. The day went really well and I got 6/7 songs done and at the end of it all Asa said he wanted to play something for me that he had created. He had put together a piece of music and wondered if I could come up with some words for it. To cut a long story short I started singing some lyrics that I had written the night before and we decided to record some of it. I have been singing for a long time, but never have I let go and sung from my heart so much as I did when I was singing that song last night. Every note, and every word and every ounce of energy came from my heart when I was singing it and I have to confess I felt a closeness with God that I have not experience before. It was not that I was in worship - in fact the lyrics I was singing were not worship lyrics. It was more of a cry of the heart than anything else. I don't know if anyone other than Asa will ever hear it, but I know that if no-one ever does it's okay with me. Last night I sang that song to God and God alone and it was wonderful and just felt very pure within me.
The other highlight this month was the other half of Margaret's birthday surprise. On 21st December, I arranged for us to go to Discovery Cove in Orlando where Margaret would get to swim with dolphins. Our friend Pam graciously undertook to look after Eva and we had the most wonderful day to ourselves swimming around, snorkling in their lagoons and then getting to meet the dolphins. It was a class day and if you ever get the chance to do it, don't pass it up.
Christmas day was nice. For the last couple of years we have spent christmas with Lisa and Asa and it has always been fun. But, I have always come away from it all with a feeling that it just was not Christmas. I had issues with not getting a Christmas dinner if I am honest and so this year we decided to make our own dinner and invited Ron and jen and Kate over. It was wonderful and the food was great. To smell the turkey cooking just made me know it was Christmas day and I was happy.
So now that it is all over we are faced with the reality that we only have about 9 more weeks of time in USA. Behind me as I type this are the beginnings of our packing - all our books have been packed up and boxed and are ready to go. It is getting so close and in many ways it is exciting as well as frightening and extremely sad. I have to confess it is hard to imagine living life back home now. I know we will get used to it, but I really thought that having grown up there I would be able to see myself back there, but currently, I have no clue what it is going to be like at all. All told though, things with the move in general are going well. We have found a shipper that can move our stuff for us at a reasonable rate and we have found ways of getting the dogs back without having to quarantine them in Northern Ireland. They will not travel until July, but wshen they arrive they will get to come home to us that day.
Eva is just class. Like really, really class. The last month has seen her getting her 6 month shots, almost start crawling, start into that stage where she just smiles all the time and of course she has had her first Christmas. Renee bought her this very cool little Christmas outfit, which included a red dress with white, fluffy collar and trim, a little red santa hat and cool little white booties - she looked so cool in it all. She may never forgivre us when she gets older but it was worth that to kit her out for Christmas. I have many many pictures to show you of that stuff. She wore it on Christmas morning when we went to church. At the childrens time in the service, Renee came over and took Eva up front with her so that everyone could see her. Eva caught a glimpse of renee's glasses and of course decided that she wanted them. This started some laughter in the congregation and everyone was enjoying the whole scene. then Eva turned around and noticed everyone in front of her and that they were all laughing and then she started to giggle right back at them. It was the funniest thing in the world to watch as the harder everyone laughed the more Eva' seemed to lap it up and laugh right back at them - she seems to be a chip off the old block in more ways than just looking alike.
Anyway, I am sure you are sick of reading by now and are ready for photos.
Blessings
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Margaret, Eva and I at the top of the tower.
In the background over my left shoulder you can see, in the distance, the lights and hotels of the Las Vegas Strip
Family pose
This was a great shot except for the fact that I forgot to lose my second chin for it!!!!!!!!!
Marge and Eva and the Stratosphere Tower
This is the hotel we stayed in. Well the tower of the hotel we stayed in. We had dinner at the top of it in their revolving dining room on Thursday night - it was an amazing experience.
Life has been manic in the last number of weeks since I updated and this solely is my reason for not getting to it until now. If I had been wise I would have updated as I went along but I wasn't so now you are going to get it all at once.
Well the first thing I need to tell you about was getting to see U2. To put it mildly, they were amazing. I have never experienced such a show of complete audio and visual pleasure. Not only were U2 completely musically tight, but their light and visual show was simply stunning. ouor evening was not without drama though. Margaret, Alan, Roy and I left in good time from Roy's house to get down and have a bit of fun before the gig. Unfortunately we came upon a bad accident on the Turnpike and moved about 4 miles in one of hour. Sure the craic was great, but we started to get anxious as we began to realise that we could miss the 7.30pm starting time for the gig. Right in the middle of all this traffic, a large 18 wheeler truck attemtped to bully his way in front of me. He picked the wrong day to try that...I stuck to my guns as he edged closer and closer into my space and towards my vehicle. I am not joking when I say that just at the point of the trucker giving up and letting me win, the front of his truck must have been about half an inch from the bodywork of my car on the passenger side. Margaret and Roy did seem a little alarmed that I appeared willing to sacrifice them in the name of traffic victory, but all of us were glad not to be sitting behind the big guy when all was said and done. A few more incidents later we arrive and were walking into the arena at 7.26pm. U2 played everything I wanted to hear from them, except Yahweh from the new album. I left feeling that I had done one of things on my list to do before my life ends. It's always good to accomplish those things.
Later on that week, I departed from Port St Lucie to take a group of youth to Alabama for a mission/aid work trip to help some of the victims of hurricane Katrina. Little did I know what we would achieve and what a great work God would do in my heart and the hearts of those that I took with me. This was a unique mission experience for our church. it was the first time that a group of adults and youth have travelled together,on mission to work on the same projects as part of the same team. After my summer mission trip to Mississppi this year, it became a real hearts desire of mine to see something like this happen - adults and youth changing lives and having their lives changed by simply showing up and serving those in need in the name of Christ. It was an outstanding success on a number of levels.
We worked for one family in Bayou Le Batre. This small fishing town sits right on the gulf and the people of this area experienced major storm surge as Katrina made landfall at the end of August and the house we worked in was flooded to about 5/6' above the ground around it. This water left damp and mould everywhere and so our mission was to mud the house out. To mud a house out is basically to gutt it and that was what we did. We completely took it apart and left nothing inside but the 2x2 framing. i was encouraging the team to not look at what we were doing as tearing down, but rather to consider what they were doing to be part of the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. We had a lot of fun and in just about 2 days of work, our wee team completed the work.
Another part of our work in Bayou Le Batre was to go to a warehouse in the town where supplies where being stored and to sort them out and pack them and make them ready for delivery to the people in Mississippi who had it much worse than those in Alabama. Again our team was magnificent and we knocked this job out in an afternoon and had a truck ready to go with supplies the next day. We would accompany the truck.
Where we were headed was a liyttle town called Pass Christian in Mississippi. It lies about 10 miles west of Gulfport and about 60 miles east of New Orleans. If you have any geography at all of the Gulf coastal region, you will know that this was going to be a majorly affected area. And you would be correct. Out of 2800 home in the town, 2600 were wiped out - and I mean wiped out. As we drove through the town on our way out it was like something you would expect to see in Baghdad rather than the continental USA. Whole houses knocked to the ground and now nothing but piles of rubble; vehicles over turned and left to rot on the side of the road; a church graveyard where the water had softened the ground so much that the caskets and bodies within them had risen to the top and now lay there for all who drove past to see. The was easily one of the most horrific sights I have seen in my life. The place we were working was a small distribution centre in the town. It was basically an area of open land where makeshift tents had been erected with massive advertising tarps where people could ome and get the supplies they needed to continue their survival. The guy that ran the operation was called randy. He was apparently an extremely wealthy man who had lost everything in Hurricane Rita and was so moved to get of his ass and do something to help the victims of Katrina. He was a cool guy and we became just a few of his growing army of rangers (www.randysrangers.com) Our work was to unfold and reroll these massive tarpaulines so that randy could set up another, bigger distribution center for the area. To be honest we wondered what we were doing as we worked away at the stuff, but it turns out that another centre will cater for thousands in the recovery process and I am proud to say that our team played its roll in helping those thousands.
The impact of seeing these things and doing something about it was amazing. The whole team experienced something special within us as we answered the call to be the hands and feet of Christ. Not only did we do something practical to help these people in need, but we also took every opportunity to minister to everyone we could by praying for them or simply listening to them. It was a fantastic trip and the team was one I was proud to lead.
Upon returning, I fell straight into Thanksgiving. Over the course of the holiday weekend Margaret and I managed to be present for and eat three turkey dinners - all of which were scrumptuous. We ate at church early on the Thursday at the community meal we have been a aprt of every Thanksgiving since we moved here. Then we went to have dinner with our friends the Skinner's and we had a wonderful time. That was enough for Thursday and then on Friday we had Thanksgiving with John, Renee and Megan at their house (John and Renee celebrate on the Friday as they sponsor the church meal on Thursday)
After all the eating we travelled to Gainseville, Florida to see the University of Florida take on the Florida State University in the big American Football game. Ron and jen are avid and passionate fans of the UF gators and so they have been on at us for ever to try and get to a game with them. I am so glad it worked out because it was a completely fun experience. The Americans simply know how to put on a day out for everyone. We got to the arena at 9am to set up the Tailgate Party. Simply put, this is where you set up house for the few hours before a game to get yourself and your friends in the mood. Back home on big game day in Dublin, we go to the Horseshow House to do this. in America they have the weather to bring the bar and snacks with them in the back of their car. nopt only this though, but we also had with us a TV sattelite system so we could watch the prematch stuff on ESPN. The whole reason we get there so early is so that we get the space with the power outlet in the car park. It was a lot of fun anbd the game was even better with the Gator's running out an impressive victory over their rivals. I enjoyed it a lot and will post some pics for you.
Tuesday after the Holiday weekend, Margaret, Eva, Ron, jen and I headed out to Las Vegas for a few days. I had been planning a surprise for Margaret's birthday and as I was talking with jen about my thoughts, she said "Why don't we go to Vegas?" To cut a long story short, this is what we did and from Tuesday of this week until Friday, we spent time in Sin City. now in America they have a saying; "What happens in vegas, stays in Vegas." I think it is fairly safe to share our experience with you and show you somoe pictures. Firstly it should be said that visually, the city is amazing. Full of lights and sounds like you will never see anywhere else and the most vast and ornate hotels in the world. We really had a lot of fun just walking in and out of the hotels and seeing what they were like. We saw Caesar's Palace, the Venetian, Treasure Island, The Mirage and the Bellagio. there were so many more to see and experience but we ran out of time. They were all stunning in their own right. The casino's were good entertainment for a while but Margaret and I were having no luck in them at all and soon gave up hope of returning to Florida as millionaires. The highlight of my experience was sitting down and getting to play texas hold'em in the hotels poker room. I love to play poker and love watching it on TV also and so to get the chance to play at a casino table in Las vegas was something special. Even more special was that I was getting good cards and I did okay out of it. He he he!!! We also got to see a spectacular light and laser show on Fremont Street which is Old Town Vegas. Te funniest thing happened here. We were standing there enjoying each others company when a group walked towards us and stopped about 10 feet in front of where we were. They huddled together as if to pose for a group picture. Upon seeing this the juvenile in me came out and I quickly told Margaret, Ron and Jen to turn around and get ourselves in the picture, and there we were standing on our tip toes grinning like Cheshire cats for some random victims picture. The best thing though was that some other bloke on the street said he would take the picture for the group and so the group all had their backs to us and had no idea we were in their picture. It may not seem as funny to you now as it was to us then but it was absolutely hilarious. They will not know what we were doing until they get their film developed and we will never see the pic - but it gave us a huge laugh.
One more thing I should mention is my amazing daughter. you would think that travelling with a six month old to las vegas was nuts, and normally you might be correct but not in the case of my wee girl. Eva was so well behaved through four flights and though all our carting her around. In fact, everytime we were on a plane or eating somewhere, the people who were sitting around us all commented as they were leaving on how well she was behaved. We were both so proud of her everywhere we went. Funny story though - on fremont sttreet we met this young family with a 2 1/2yr old and 9month old twins. we got talking and were having a laugh about how small their babies were born and how huge Eva was born. It turned out that my 6 month old daughter weighs the same amount as their 2 1/2yr old - we could not believe that when we said it.
So now we are home and my vacation is almost over. I am left with amazing memories from the past weeks and I am thankful for all of them. Today in particular, I am also thankful for my family.
Enjoy the pics.
Well the first thing I need to tell you about was getting to see U2. To put it mildly, they were amazing. I have never experienced such a show of complete audio and visual pleasure. Not only were U2 completely musically tight, but their light and visual show was simply stunning. ouor evening was not without drama though. Margaret, Alan, Roy and I left in good time from Roy's house to get down and have a bit of fun before the gig. Unfortunately we came upon a bad accident on the Turnpike and moved about 4 miles in one of hour. Sure the craic was great, but we started to get anxious as we began to realise that we could miss the 7.30pm starting time for the gig. Right in the middle of all this traffic, a large 18 wheeler truck attemtped to bully his way in front of me. He picked the wrong day to try that...I stuck to my guns as he edged closer and closer into my space and towards my vehicle. I am not joking when I say that just at the point of the trucker giving up and letting me win, the front of his truck must have been about half an inch from the bodywork of my car on the passenger side. Margaret and Roy did seem a little alarmed that I appeared willing to sacrifice them in the name of traffic victory, but all of us were glad not to be sitting behind the big guy when all was said and done. A few more incidents later we arrive and were walking into the arena at 7.26pm. U2 played everything I wanted to hear from them, except Yahweh from the new album. I left feeling that I had done one of things on my list to do before my life ends. It's always good to accomplish those things.
Later on that week, I departed from Port St Lucie to take a group of youth to Alabama for a mission/aid work trip to help some of the victims of hurricane Katrina. Little did I know what we would achieve and what a great work God would do in my heart and the hearts of those that I took with me. This was a unique mission experience for our church. it was the first time that a group of adults and youth have travelled together,on mission to work on the same projects as part of the same team. After my summer mission trip to Mississppi this year, it became a real hearts desire of mine to see something like this happen - adults and youth changing lives and having their lives changed by simply showing up and serving those in need in the name of Christ. It was an outstanding success on a number of levels.
We worked for one family in Bayou Le Batre. This small fishing town sits right on the gulf and the people of this area experienced major storm surge as Katrina made landfall at the end of August and the house we worked in was flooded to about 5/6' above the ground around it. This water left damp and mould everywhere and so our mission was to mud the house out. To mud a house out is basically to gutt it and that was what we did. We completely took it apart and left nothing inside but the 2x2 framing. i was encouraging the team to not look at what we were doing as tearing down, but rather to consider what they were doing to be part of the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. We had a lot of fun and in just about 2 days of work, our wee team completed the work.
Another part of our work in Bayou Le Batre was to go to a warehouse in the town where supplies where being stored and to sort them out and pack them and make them ready for delivery to the people in Mississippi who had it much worse than those in Alabama. Again our team was magnificent and we knocked this job out in an afternoon and had a truck ready to go with supplies the next day. We would accompany the truck.
Where we were headed was a liyttle town called Pass Christian in Mississippi. It lies about 10 miles west of Gulfport and about 60 miles east of New Orleans. If you have any geography at all of the Gulf coastal region, you will know that this was going to be a majorly affected area. And you would be correct. Out of 2800 home in the town, 2600 were wiped out - and I mean wiped out. As we drove through the town on our way out it was like something you would expect to see in Baghdad rather than the continental USA. Whole houses knocked to the ground and now nothing but piles of rubble; vehicles over turned and left to rot on the side of the road; a church graveyard where the water had softened the ground so much that the caskets and bodies within them had risen to the top and now lay there for all who drove past to see. The was easily one of the most horrific sights I have seen in my life. The place we were working was a small distribution centre in the town. It was basically an area of open land where makeshift tents had been erected with massive advertising tarps where people could ome and get the supplies they needed to continue their survival. The guy that ran the operation was called randy. He was apparently an extremely wealthy man who had lost everything in Hurricane Rita and was so moved to get of his ass and do something to help the victims of Katrina. He was a cool guy and we became just a few of his growing army of rangers (www.randysrangers.com) Our work was to unfold and reroll these massive tarpaulines so that randy could set up another, bigger distribution center for the area. To be honest we wondered what we were doing as we worked away at the stuff, but it turns out that another centre will cater for thousands in the recovery process and I am proud to say that our team played its roll in helping those thousands.
The impact of seeing these things and doing something about it was amazing. The whole team experienced something special within us as we answered the call to be the hands and feet of Christ. Not only did we do something practical to help these people in need, but we also took every opportunity to minister to everyone we could by praying for them or simply listening to them. It was a fantastic trip and the team was one I was proud to lead.
Upon returning, I fell straight into Thanksgiving. Over the course of the holiday weekend Margaret and I managed to be present for and eat three turkey dinners - all of which were scrumptuous. We ate at church early on the Thursday at the community meal we have been a aprt of every Thanksgiving since we moved here. Then we went to have dinner with our friends the Skinner's and we had a wonderful time. That was enough for Thursday and then on Friday we had Thanksgiving with John, Renee and Megan at their house (John and Renee celebrate on the Friday as they sponsor the church meal on Thursday)
After all the eating we travelled to Gainseville, Florida to see the University of Florida take on the Florida State University in the big American Football game. Ron and jen are avid and passionate fans of the UF gators and so they have been on at us for ever to try and get to a game with them. I am so glad it worked out because it was a completely fun experience. The Americans simply know how to put on a day out for everyone. We got to the arena at 9am to set up the Tailgate Party. Simply put, this is where you set up house for the few hours before a game to get yourself and your friends in the mood. Back home on big game day in Dublin, we go to the Horseshow House to do this. in America they have the weather to bring the bar and snacks with them in the back of their car. nopt only this though, but we also had with us a TV sattelite system so we could watch the prematch stuff on ESPN. The whole reason we get there so early is so that we get the space with the power outlet in the car park. It was a lot of fun anbd the game was even better with the Gator's running out an impressive victory over their rivals. I enjoyed it a lot and will post some pics for you.
Tuesday after the Holiday weekend, Margaret, Eva, Ron, jen and I headed out to Las Vegas for a few days. I had been planning a surprise for Margaret's birthday and as I was talking with jen about my thoughts, she said "Why don't we go to Vegas?" To cut a long story short, this is what we did and from Tuesday of this week until Friday, we spent time in Sin City. now in America they have a saying; "What happens in vegas, stays in Vegas." I think it is fairly safe to share our experience with you and show you somoe pictures. Firstly it should be said that visually, the city is amazing. Full of lights and sounds like you will never see anywhere else and the most vast and ornate hotels in the world. We really had a lot of fun just walking in and out of the hotels and seeing what they were like. We saw Caesar's Palace, the Venetian, Treasure Island, The Mirage and the Bellagio. there were so many more to see and experience but we ran out of time. They were all stunning in their own right. The casino's were good entertainment for a while but Margaret and I were having no luck in them at all and soon gave up hope of returning to Florida as millionaires. The highlight of my experience was sitting down and getting to play texas hold'em in the hotels poker room. I love to play poker and love watching it on TV also and so to get the chance to play at a casino table in Las vegas was something special. Even more special was that I was getting good cards and I did okay out of it. He he he!!! We also got to see a spectacular light and laser show on Fremont Street which is Old Town Vegas. Te funniest thing happened here. We were standing there enjoying each others company when a group walked towards us and stopped about 10 feet in front of where we were. They huddled together as if to pose for a group picture. Upon seeing this the juvenile in me came out and I quickly told Margaret, Ron and Jen to turn around and get ourselves in the picture, and there we were standing on our tip toes grinning like Cheshire cats for some random victims picture. The best thing though was that some other bloke on the street said he would take the picture for the group and so the group all had their backs to us and had no idea we were in their picture. It may not seem as funny to you now as it was to us then but it was absolutely hilarious. They will not know what we were doing until they get their film developed and we will never see the pic - but it gave us a huge laugh.
One more thing I should mention is my amazing daughter. you would think that travelling with a six month old to las vegas was nuts, and normally you might be correct but not in the case of my wee girl. Eva was so well behaved through four flights and though all our carting her around. In fact, everytime we were on a plane or eating somewhere, the people who were sitting around us all commented as they were leaving on how well she was behaved. We were both so proud of her everywhere we went. Funny story though - on fremont sttreet we met this young family with a 2 1/2yr old and 9month old twins. we got talking and were having a laugh about how small their babies were born and how huge Eva was born. It turned out that my 6 month old daughter weighs the same amount as their 2 1/2yr old - we could not believe that when we said it.
So now we are home and my vacation is almost over. I am left with amazing memories from the past weeks and I am thankful for all of them. Today in particular, I am also thankful for my family.
Enjoy the pics.
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