Good News

Last Friday Jamie and I headed up to the Twin Cities for an adoption meeting. We found out about 10 days ago that we were among 2 families selected by a birth mother as potential parents for adoption. For whatever reason, we stood out just slightly more than this other family so she wanted to meet with us.

The birth mom is just 18 years old so she came to the meeting with her parents. We weren't nervous at all, but that was probably because we didn't know what to expect. The meeting really turned out great. Jamie and I were very excited after the meeting and we felt a really good connection with the birth mom and her parents. Now we just had to wait to see if we would be officially chosen.

Yesterday we got a call from our social worker with the good news. The birth mom had selected us!!! She is do on January 10th, so in about 2 1/2 weeks Jamie and I will hopefully be proud parents of a new baby girl. The birth mother had asked us if we would allow her to give the baby a middle name. Jamie and I had two names already picked for a baby girl, but we were also aware that the birth mother may make this request and we were happy to ablige her. The name she requested was Nora. We tried what seemed like a hundred different names and nothing "worked" with Nora as the middle name. So then we thought maybe it would be easier to put Nora as the first name and come up with a new middle name. After much trial and error we (and by we I mean "me") came up with a name that we both liked... Nora Noelle. We liked it for 2 reasons. One, it honored the birth mom by naming the child Nora. And two, we thought the name Noelle was appropriate since we found out this great news 3 days before Christmas.

Walk On

OK, I know this has nothing to do with me, but I saw this the other day and thought it was too good not to add to the blog. FYI, some of you may want to get a few Kleenex's handy. There was another video from E:60 as well that I wanted to add, but since it just aired yesterday I don't think its on the website yet. I'll add it when its available.

Miller and Evans - For a Brighter Tomorrow

I would like to thank Russ Phillips for his bravery and his desire to stand up for what is right. He emailed me this photo this morning. If 60 million more Americans can stand with him in 4 years we might see "Real Hope" and "Real Change".

The first vote ever cast for me, courtesy of Russ

2.09, What a Nice Number

Its been a long time since I've written anything, but I'm back. And I come bringing you tidings of joy. I would like to share a little story that brought a little joy into my life. The story begins, and ends, at our local gas station. This past week I pulled my little gas guzzling pickup into the local Kwik Trip with the gas gauge just a hair above the 'E'. As little as four months ago I could feel my savings account shrinking everytime I filled up. But not this time. Roughly 12 glorious gallons of dinosaur juice later and my bill was....... $24.44!!!! I would have paid about $50 for that fill-up in June.

Life as a Bachelor

Jamie left for Salt Lake City to visit her sister and her sister's family last Tuesday. She's coming back on Wednesday, so that means I'm just over halfway through my time alone. Its definitely weird, even after only being married 4 1/2 years I'm finding this newfound freedom strange to say the least. But being a bachelor again, I've reverted back to my pre-marriage diet:

• Pizza
• Ramen noodles
• Frosted Flakes
• Chips and salsa
• Chef Boyardee

All staples of a good, healthy meal plan I know. And its not just my diet that reverted back, but my activities. With the exception of my "Honey Do List" that was left behind, my typical day consists of:

• watching sports
• watching movies
• surfing the internet
• playing xbox

I also went down and spent a few hours reading at the Barnes & Noble. I know that's not a typical guy thing to do, but I'm also a certified nerd, which explains why I find enjoyment in sitting with a bunch of strangers and reading a book.

The Third Option

Well, this started out as a joke but it appears to be a joke no longer. The people have spoken and it appears that they want "real hope" and "real change". As such, I am officially entering the following as a valid option for Tuesday, Nov 4th.

T-shirts and bumper stickers will be coming soon!

Git 'er done

Jamie has put together quite a list of "to-do's" for the summer.  Last weekend my dad came to town, and unbeknownst to him, he got to help me make Jamie happy!  The first project was finishing our new kitchen floor.  Well, the floor has been down for about a month, but it took me awhile to get the threshold finished that went between the kitchen and the living room.  The problem is that the reducers you buy at Home Depot only come in 4ft pieces, and we needed 12ft.  So I had to improvise and make one out a 12ft 1"x2" with my router.  But my dad got to do the fun part of helping me put it down and then stretch the carpet back to fit.  All in all, it looks like some good Amish work.

And speaking of good Amish work, we got started on some shelves in the garage.  As continue to accumulate, ahem, stuff, we need a place to store it.  So I was directed to build some shelves for the garage.  So dad and I got started on that project on Saturday.  Here's the final product:

And while I'm loading pictures I thought you would all (the 2 of you that read this that is) would like this.  This poor critter must have been a little thirsty and didn't bother thinking about an escape plan before he went in for a drink. As you might have guessed, my wife was none to pleased to walk up on this sight!!!

Kawika's Da Bomb

As many of you know Jamie has been a nanny for the Asuncion kids for the better part of the past 7 years. But they are slowly getting all grown up on us, so we don't get to watch them that much anymore. But now that they are older, we get to go and watch them play in there various sports. We just went and watched Kawika's baseball game this past weekend. He's getting to that age that he's really fun to watch because all the guys he plays with and against actually have some hittin' and pitchin' skillz. Well, it came to our attention that Kiwi is now a Rochester legend. I wanted to embed the video right into our blog, but alas, Blogger doesn't allow the embedded javascript. So I guess we'll have to settle for the link to the TV stations website.


http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S487650.shtml

She Looks Cute, We'll Take One of Those

Well, since we do not have kids of our own, I'll continue to dote on my nieces. Emily, this means its time to send us more cute pictures of Ellie :-) My sister directed me to these on their photographers website. Its kind of weird, but I think the photographer is more in love with Lydia than we are.

Almost Famous

Today we got a travel brochure from Insight Vacations. Jamie and I went on an 8-day tour of Eastern Europe for our 1 year anniversary with Insight and had a blast, but the trips aren't exactly cheap. It was, at the time, suppose to be our last hurrah before having kids. Well, here we are 3 years later with no kids so I wanted to tear into the brochure to see where we were going to next :-) Jamie just wanted to throw it in the trash because she didn't want to tease herself.

So I ripped off the plastic and started scouring the pages. Wouldn't you know, I wasn't more than a few pages in before Jamie had taken the book away from me and was looking at it herself. Well, we worked our way to pg 26, the Vienna, Prague, and Budapest trip which was the one we went on. Much to our surprise, this was on pg 27.

Who's that hot looking couple?

That's right folks, we are now celebrities in the world of traveling aficionados. If you would like to see us now, you'll need to have your people contact our people. Also, we will be signing autographs for a small fee.

Miller Updates

The Millers have been spending the month doing updates for our adoption process. Yes we have almost reached our one year mark for waiting. Its been a long and fast year all at the same time.  June 14th is our official year mark. There are a few babies due this summer so we continue to be hopeful. We have been enjoying our life together and look forward to a new addition God willing this year. We know that He has a perfect plan for our lives.  We thank all of you who have and continue to pray for us during our waiting period. Ryan and I feel so very blessed to have so many beloved friends and family praying for us. 

Summer has arrived and this is my favorite season of the year. I finally can unthaw, enjoy the beauty of the colors again and most important Friday and Saturday morning rummage sales. It will be four years this summer when Ryan and I decided we would start trying to start a family. Well since that hasn't happened I have much opportunity to find many many great deals for the future baby. One mans junk is another's treasure....well maybe not Ryan 's but it is for Jamie. Also for both of my neices and friends....I just can't help myself.

Hope you all are enjoying spring. much love the millers

Being an Uncle Is Really Tough

Since Jamie and I are not parents yet, we get to spend all of our time doting on our two nieces.  So last week we got a picture sent to us from Ellie that was soooooo sweet.  It instantly became my new favorite.  Obviously our other niece Lydia must have been feeling the pressure, because she stepped up her game and sent us a great picture also.  So I'll let you all decide who you think is the sweetest...

Ellie

or.......

Lydia

And the winner is.... both.  

Now We're Talking!!!

Not only has the weather actually warmed up here in Minnesota, but now the news has just gotten better. Jamie has been taking a cake decorating class for the last several weeks and tonight she came home with this:






You know it baby, I'm in for some good eating over the next few weeks.

Bust Out the Speedo

That's right, its Speedo time. Why you ask? Because we are experiencing a little "global warming" here in Rochester. It cracked past the freezing mark yesterday. I'm not exactly sure where to go to check this out for sure, but I believe today will be only the 3rd day since Thanksgiving that the temperature has been above 32 degrees. Rumor has it it supposed to get up to 42 today. I know, its like heaven on earth hearing news like that.

Back from Pennsylvania

We made it back safely and believe it or not, on time! We had a great time out in Pennsylvania spending time with Melanie and Shawn. And of course our beautiful niece. We got to attend her dedication service on Sunday morning which was a lot of fun. The women from their church even quilted Lydia a baby blanket. Maybe its time to head back to the Mennonite church!!!

Jamie spent her first full day there at the outlet malls with my sister. I will never understand a woman's need to buy more stuff than we have room for in our suitcases (but that's a whole different story.) Meanwhile, Shawn introduced me to NHL07 for the PS3. Basically what I learned is that I'm horrible. I'll stick to Halo3. We also went and visited the indoor market in downtown Lancaster. It was really cool, I just wish they had something like that around here.

We took a ton of photos, so I tried to capture a few good one's for you all to enjoy.

NWA stands for No Workers Around

So its Thursday morning and Jamie and I are now recovering at my sister's place after an interesting day yesterday. There was both good news and bad news from our trip, so lets start with the bad.

The original plan had us leaving Rochester at 10:05am and getting into Harrisburg at 3:25pm. So Jamie and I arrived at the airport at 9am and got ourselves checked in. Right away we were told that the plane we were going to get on was going to be late. It had some mechanical problems causing it to take off late. So it wouldn't arrive and then leave Rochester until 12:00pm. Due to the two hour delay we were going to miss our connection in Detroit, forcing us to reschedule to a 6pm flight out of Detroit that wouldn't get us into Harrisburg until around 7:30pm.

Fast forward to 12pm.

The plane is on the ground in Rochester, but needs maintenance. They tell us it will take 15 mins and then we can board. Ninety minutes later we are still sitting in the terminal and no one is showing their face to tell us what is going on. I went back to the ticketing counter to see if I could figure out what the problem was, where I was informed that the maintenance guys were not answering their phone. They promise us that by 2pm we will be on our plane to Detroit.

Fast forward to 2pm.

Guess who's not on a plane? That's right, Jamie and Ryan. Finally someone comes out (4 hours after we were supposed to leave) and tells us the plane is not leaving... ever. So they are arranging to have a bus take everyone up to the Twin Cities airport. The bus doesn't leave Rochester until 5pm. So let me quickly recap. We were supposed to be on the ground in Harrisburg by 3:30pm, but instead we weren't boarding a bus IN ROCHESTER until 5pm to take us to Minneapolis. Just making sure you were all aware how much NWA sucks. So the only flight option was a direct flight from Minneapolis to Harrisburg leaving at 8pm.

Fast forward to 5:55pm.

Massive accident on highway 52. Both sides of the road are stopped and we have no idea how long we will be jammed up.

Fast forward to 7:15pm.

We get to the Minneapolis airport and get dropped off a half-mile from the ticketing counter (I'm not kidding). Here's the map of MSP just so you know, you'll need it to understand the rest of this paragraph. They dropped us off at the star marked "Hiawatha Light Rail Station". We then have to walk underground all the way over ticketing area on the far right of the map. I joke to Jamie, now watch, they'll stick us in the last gate of the A concourse. Folks, I can't make this stuff up, but our flight left out of gate A14. Nearly a full mile walk from the ticketing counter. Jamie and I rushed down to our gate to make sure we can make the flight. Turns out its not going to be a problem, since the plane is late coming in and we now aren't going to leave until 9:35pm.

Fast forward to 10:35pm.

We are actually sitting in a plane believe it or not. However, we have been sitting on the tarmac for 35 mins because our plane is overweight. The pilot is reworking the flight plan and if that doesn't work we have to head back to the gate to drop off several fat people from the plane. Luckily, we didn't go back to the gate. So, we were supposed to leave at 10:05 and we left at 10:35. Not bad, if it wasn't a mere 12 hours and 30 mins after we were supposed to leave Rochester!!!

Fast forward to 2:47am.

We finally pull into my sister's place. We felt horrible because my sister had to come and get us at the airport with our 7 week old niece. So not only did they ruin our day, but my sister's and my little niece's as well. Shame on them.

I do have some good news though... I can save a bunch of money by switching my car insurance to Geico.

PS - I did my best to clean up all words/actions/thoughts that were used throughout the day in this dramatic retelling from our trip which was put together by Hades Travel Inc.