YES...it's been a while...

I'm sitting at well....10,000+ feet and my brother, who is sitting next to me on this lovely 5 hour flight from Atlanta back home to San Jose, politely reminds me that I REALLY need to update my blog...it's been almost a year since my last post.  So since I paid the $4.95 for wifi, and Samantha is sleeping next to me and Daniel and Madison are in the row in front of me, I guess that now is as good a time as any, so here goes!

As mentioned above, the whole family (plus my brother) is on the way back from a BEAUTIFUL wedding in Atlanta, Georgia.  Madison was the flower girl, and she did an AMAZING job!  She was so beautiful, and of course mommy and daddy are so very proud!  The bride, my cousin Ashley, was STUNNING and it goes without saying that we had a wonderful time!  We were able to see my Aunt Lou, and my cousin Ashley and her wonderful new groom Justin (now referred to as Cousin Justin), cousin Lindsey and cousin Courtney (they were the maids of honor and they were stunning as well!).  I just miss them so much and wish that we didn't live across the country from one another!  Hopefully they will all be able to come to San Jose soon!  The cousins gave Madison a new nickname (baby bug) and she wears it proudly!  Of course, if that nickname would have come from mom or dad, it would have been refuted almost immediately.  Thankfully we love Aunt Lou, Ashley, Justin, Lindsey and Courtney SO MUCH, because the 90+ heat and the 65%+ humidity was about to kill us!  All in all we had a WONDERFUL time and were so glad to be apart of such a wonderful day.

The rest of our summer has been quite eventful.  We started off with a family trip to Las Vegas to celebrate Daniel's nephew Henry's graduation from Green Valley High School in Henderson Nevada.   We arrived on Tuesday to wonderful 110+ temperatures.  It was lovely (ahem ahem) to say the least.  However, there's nothing better than time spent with family (especially for a celebration) and no amount of high temperatures would put a damper on our fun!  Thankfully we were blessed to enjoy a wonderful hotel that had a pool and a man-made beach and also a lazy river, which definitely helped us beat the heat!  Henry graduated with high honors, and to show off the family's pride - Crazy Aunt Jess had to let the whole Thomas & Mack center know just how proud we are of him!  I think I was hoarse for the remainder of the 3 days after yelling so loud!  Hopefully I didn't embarrass him too much :)  The girls had a wonderful time with their cousins (Henry, Ben and Isabella), Auntie Inge, Uncle Cesar and of course Grandma and Papa.  The other highlight of the trip (at least for Daniel and I) was the lovely getaway that we had to Caesars Palace.  Daniel surprised me with a date night - Dinner out at an AMAZING sushi restaurant, and two tickets to my favorite performer - CELINE DION!  We saw her during her first engagement there, so I was absolutely floored when my wonderful husband made it possible for me to see her again.  We had a wonderful time - a night that I will definitely remember for the rest of my life!

We arrived home from our Vegas trip just in time to prepare for the 4th of July holiday.  However, I thought it would be fun to start the weekend off memorably!  It was Saturday night, and we had just gotten back from church and a quick little trip to Gilroy for some fireworks.  We had put the girls to bed and were about to open a bottle of wine to chill out and relax when I went into the VERY DARK dining room and bent down to pick up the power cord for my laptop computer.  I wasn't watching what I was doing, and on the way down, I rammed my head into the top of one of the dining room chairs.  can you say OUCH!  As I covered my head, I thought that I would have an ugly bruise, but then I took one step back and two steps into the hallway and fell to my knees.  My hands started to feel sticky and as I pulled them away from my head, I realized that I was bleeding.  LOVELY.   At this point, Daniel realized that I really did hurt myself and rushes over to me.  He takes one look at me and informs me that we will be going to the hospital.    Thankfully my parents are 5 minutes away so we called them and they came right over.  At the culmination of the evening, I had an ever so beautiful knot on my head that was tied together with 6 stitches and of course a RAGING headache, but thankfully the 4th of July celebrations could continue.  On Sunday, we had the wonderful Jones family over for a great BBQ,  water playtime and some sparklers.  We all had a fabulous time.  My girls didn't get to bed until almost 10pm!  Monday morning we awoke to participate in the 17th Annual Cambrian Park Parade.  We have enjoyed the last 6 parades and this year was no different.  We decided (partially due to my injury) that it would be best if we sat in the shade and cheered on the participants rather than walk or ride bikes.  The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves and waved their flags proudly!  After it was all over, we went into the house for some seriously good tri-tip and ALL the fixin's!  We ended the day by going over to the Jones' house and watching a really cool fireworks display!  All in all it was a memorable weekend to say the least!

We needed a little bit of time to recover from our Vegas trip and 4th of July, so we rested for the next few weeks and about midway through July, we decided that it was high time to go and visit the Tahoe house!  We ended up going on our trip all by ourselves, but we really had a fabulous time!  We went to the beach, relaxed at home and of course did some fishing.   We found a new fishing spot, but unfortunately all we caught was Samantha's craw fish! Go figure that the youngest and least experienced one would catch the only fish!  I guess it's "beginners luck".  Madison has really learned to love fishing and Samantha is following in her big sister's footsteps!  Who would have thought that this mommy would have to "fishergirls"!   I am proud to say that they won't go fishing without their hair done (headbands for Madison and bows for Samantha) and co-ordinating shoes!  Who says that you can't look good while fishing! 

In true Miller fashion, we arrived home just in time for the next adventure.  KIDZTOWN (aka VBS) for Madison.  This was the first year that she was able to participate in our churches VBS.  She had a BLAST!  Thankfully she was joined by her BFF, EmmaKate Balog, and another good friend from preschool - Naomi Miller.  The kids "traveled" to hometown Nazareth and learned all about life when Jesus was a boy!  I have to say that it tickled my heart to have my daughter come home every day singing a new praise song!  She proudly shows off the motions that she learned to each song all while singing at the top of her lungs!  There's not too much better than to have your child sing praise songs! 

And that my friends, brings me to today.  I can't believe that in two short weeks, my little girl will be a first grader!  You never truly believe it when friends tell you that "time flies" when your kids are little, but IT DOES!  I'm sure that the next few weeks will absolutely fly by and I will *hopefully* be blogging about my daughter's first day of school!