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