Saturday, October 22, 2005
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
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
Monday, October 10, 2005
Friday, October 07, 2005
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Wow! Almost a month since I last blogged - I took the various comments and e-mails from some readers as a hint that it was time to write again. This will be long as I have had my parents here and we have done heaps. I also have some extremely cool pictures to add - well truth be told, lots of cool pictures.
It is hard for me to cast my memory all the way back over the last month. Just after my last entry, I was invloved in a Men's retreat called the Walk to Emmaus (www.upperroom.org) where I was one of the music team co-ordinating worship for the weekend. I was playing with another guy frfom the Emmaus movement called Ray and he could play. We clicked from the first team meeting and since that moment I did nothing but learn from him. The weekend itself was amazing and all the men participating got right into it. I came back from it with a real hunger to see the Walk To Emmaus birthed in Ireland somehow. You can imagine how blessed I was to find the Dublin Emmaus Community's website shortly after my return from the weekend. They had just completed their first retreat in February 2005. Now my dream is to see a community born in the North. We'll see what happens after next March.
That's probably the next thing I should write about actually. As I said in one of my last updates, Margaret and I have made a huge decision to return home next March. Telling people here has been extremely hard on both us and them. All along Margaret and I have planned to be here longer and so you can imagine the shock it has been to our church. However, though they are shocked and saddened, they have been nothing short of encouraging and loving. First UMC, Port St Lucie, is simply the most loving and affectionate community of faith I have ever been a part of and I don't know how we are going to have the void filled in our lives that will be created when we leave. It is a trust thing though isn't it. God has not ever let Margaret or myself down this far and we are sure that he is not intent on starting that now so in faith we move on. The plans for the move are starting to come together and I have to say that we are starting to be reminded of the huge undertaking that a trans-Atlantic move is. It is not that we had forgotten, we just really were helped so much by our families three years ago that we never really got to know the ammount of work it is to make this all happen. We have dogs to get imported, books and belongings to ship, university places to sort out and on top of all that we have to get all this done as a family of two adults and a young baby. No doubt it will all work out, we are just conscious of the amount that needs to be done and the cost of it all, so keep us in your prayers as we climb this little mountain to begin the next chapter of our story.
Having Mum and Dad here over the last two weeks was an amazing time. it was the first time they had got to meet Eva and to hold her and kiss her and hug herand all that good stuff. She loved them both from the minute she met them and for the two weeks they were here Eva always had a smile and a laugh for them everytime she looked at them. Together we all made a long, long trip to North Carolina into the beautiful mountains there in the west of the state. The weather and the scenary were simply breath-taking. We were extremely blessed to have the use of John and Renee's house there for the couple of days. I will let the photo's speak for themselves so you can understand what I mean when I say that the views and the beauty of it all were quite remarkable. We visited Grandfather Mountain and walked across a rope bridge that is a full mile above sea level. Margaret was nearly sick as we drove up the bendy little mountian road to get there(she was also in much prayer!!!!!!!!) but we made it and loved it. When we returned from North Carolina, we just drove around South east Florida and finished off bits and pieces of shopping. Of course we made it to the beach and I got to swim with my Dad in the Atlantic Ocean - which for him is a big deal given that the equivilent in Northern Ireland means swimming in the water off the Strand in Portstewart (f-f-f-f-f-f-f-freeeeeezing). Swimming there made me realise how much I take it for granted and definitely gave me a hunger to swim a lot more in the sea here before returning home in March.
Last Sunday at church we took delivery of between 4000 and 5000 pumpkins for our annual pumpkin sale. This is a major fundraiser for our youth mission trips each year. We had over 60 volunteers show up to help us with the unload and I am sure we set a record in getting them all off the truck and onto the patch in around 2 1/2 hours. For the next month now our youth group is charged with selling these pumpkins and being the farmers that look after them. It is a lot of fun until we have to take out the rotten pumpkins. I would rather clean up pig crap than clear rotten pumpkins of the patch, they are disgusting!!!!! But it is all a part of the work Lots of piccies were taken and I will share them with you.
Eva has grown a lot since I last blogged. She is now oer 20lbs in weight and is a handful to lift - definitely a chip off the old block eh??? She continues to smile a lot and learn what her lungs and voice box can actually do. She does not cry a lot, in fact she is an amazing baby - but when she does let out a gulder it is immense. I don't think she will have any problem making herself heard in the future!!! I have lots of pictures to share of her with her Granny and Granda Charles as well as a really cool one wee took of her with Fred. Jen took some cool ones at the Pumpkin patch and I will share them with you when she shares them with me.
Okay, I think you have read enough - it is time for pictures.
Blessings
It is hard for me to cast my memory all the way back over the last month. Just after my last entry, I was invloved in a Men's retreat called the Walk to Emmaus (www.upperroom.org) where I was one of the music team co-ordinating worship for the weekend. I was playing with another guy frfom the Emmaus movement called Ray and he could play. We clicked from the first team meeting and since that moment I did nothing but learn from him. The weekend itself was amazing and all the men participating got right into it. I came back from it with a real hunger to see the Walk To Emmaus birthed in Ireland somehow. You can imagine how blessed I was to find the Dublin Emmaus Community's website shortly after my return from the weekend. They had just completed their first retreat in February 2005. Now my dream is to see a community born in the North. We'll see what happens after next March.
That's probably the next thing I should write about actually. As I said in one of my last updates, Margaret and I have made a huge decision to return home next March. Telling people here has been extremely hard on both us and them. All along Margaret and I have planned to be here longer and so you can imagine the shock it has been to our church. However, though they are shocked and saddened, they have been nothing short of encouraging and loving. First UMC, Port St Lucie, is simply the most loving and affectionate community of faith I have ever been a part of and I don't know how we are going to have the void filled in our lives that will be created when we leave. It is a trust thing though isn't it. God has not ever let Margaret or myself down this far and we are sure that he is not intent on starting that now so in faith we move on. The plans for the move are starting to come together and I have to say that we are starting to be reminded of the huge undertaking that a trans-Atlantic move is. It is not that we had forgotten, we just really were helped so much by our families three years ago that we never really got to know the ammount of work it is to make this all happen. We have dogs to get imported, books and belongings to ship, university places to sort out and on top of all that we have to get all this done as a family of two adults and a young baby. No doubt it will all work out, we are just conscious of the amount that needs to be done and the cost of it all, so keep us in your prayers as we climb this little mountain to begin the next chapter of our story.
Having Mum and Dad here over the last two weeks was an amazing time. it was the first time they had got to meet Eva and to hold her and kiss her and hug herand all that good stuff. She loved them both from the minute she met them and for the two weeks they were here Eva always had a smile and a laugh for them everytime she looked at them. Together we all made a long, long trip to North Carolina into the beautiful mountains there in the west of the state. The weather and the scenary were simply breath-taking. We were extremely blessed to have the use of John and Renee's house there for the couple of days. I will let the photo's speak for themselves so you can understand what I mean when I say that the views and the beauty of it all were quite remarkable. We visited Grandfather Mountain and walked across a rope bridge that is a full mile above sea level. Margaret was nearly sick as we drove up the bendy little mountian road to get there(she was also in much prayer!!!!!!!!) but we made it and loved it. When we returned from North Carolina, we just drove around South east Florida and finished off bits and pieces of shopping. Of course we made it to the beach and I got to swim with my Dad in the Atlantic Ocean - which for him is a big deal given that the equivilent in Northern Ireland means swimming in the water off the Strand in Portstewart (f-f-f-f-f-f-f-freeeeeezing). Swimming there made me realise how much I take it for granted and definitely gave me a hunger to swim a lot more in the sea here before returning home in March.
Last Sunday at church we took delivery of between 4000 and 5000 pumpkins for our annual pumpkin sale. This is a major fundraiser for our youth mission trips each year. We had over 60 volunteers show up to help us with the unload and I am sure we set a record in getting them all off the truck and onto the patch in around 2 1/2 hours. For the next month now our youth group is charged with selling these pumpkins and being the farmers that look after them. It is a lot of fun until we have to take out the rotten pumpkins. I would rather clean up pig crap than clear rotten pumpkins of the patch, they are disgusting!!!!! But it is all a part of the work Lots of piccies were taken and I will share them with you.
Eva has grown a lot since I last blogged. She is now oer 20lbs in weight and is a handful to lift - definitely a chip off the old block eh??? She continues to smile a lot and learn what her lungs and voice box can actually do. She does not cry a lot, in fact she is an amazing baby - but when she does let out a gulder it is immense. I don't think she will have any problem making herself heard in the future!!! I have lots of pictures to share of her with her Granny and Granda Charles as well as a really cool one wee took of her with Fred. Jen took some cool ones at the Pumpkin patch and I will share them with you when she shares them with me.
Okay, I think you have read enough - it is time for pictures.
Blessings
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