Where to Begin.......

Ina Lou Miller
August 29, 1928 - December 25, 2008
A true Proverbs 31 Woman.

A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, not harm,
all the days of her life.
She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
She gets up while it is still dark;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her servant girls.
She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
"Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

On Christmas evening we lost a dear person to our family. Ina Lou was B.J.'s grandfather's wife of 12 years. She has been a wonderful wife and caretaker to George and a blessing to all of the family. The passage above truly does describe her. She is a woman I aspire to be like. Lou will be deeply missed. We are so thankful we had a wonderful Christmas Eve spending time with George and Ina Lou before she was called home!

The last two weeks have been so crazy. I will do a little back tracking in an attempt to catch up on all the happenings.
December 13th BJ and I headed to Dallas to run the White Rock marathon. BJ. ran the full, I ran the half. The weather conditions were not optimal (windy, hot and humid) but we made it! Our dear friends, Fred and Blythe, win the award for the best spectators, toteing us around Dallas, and cheering us on!
BJ worked in Fort Worth the following week. Since I am out of school for a while, I stayed with him and had the opportunity to do some Christmas shoping and catch up with old friends from college. It was a much needed visit with some friends I hadn't seen in a while for me! I miss them so much! While we were there, despite some icy weather we made it over to Dallas to watch our Mavericks play some basketball. Vacations like this make us both miss living in the DFW area.
Zachary's (BJ's nephew) 8th birthday was December 20th. He had a Red Raider party at their house! It was a lot of fun.
Christmas eve lunch went to Post to celebrate with the Miller side of the family. We spent Christmas eve back in Lubbock at his mom's and then Christmas morning we went over to his sister's house to watch the kids open their presents from Santa.
We then jumped in the car and went to Amarillo. We had a very nice Christmas and meal with my family before we recieved news that we needed to come back to Lubbock to be with BJ's grandmother. My parents fixed lobster, shrimp and pork tenderloin! YUMMY!

We are reminded especially at times such as these, how blessed we are with great family and friends. To never take for granted shared meals and hugs from those we love!

Friends

I love when I am out of school and I get to spend good quality time with friends from out of town. BJ is working in Midland this week so Jasmine and I headed to Amarillo yesterday and had a great couple of days.

Ava woke up from her nap today to tell me good bye! I thought she looked too cute with her crooked pig tails, her passie, blankie and girafe! I had to take a pic!

My good friend, Haven, and her new precious little girl, Adelynn! 5wks old.
She is so sweet! I was excited to meet her!

Adelynn's proud big brother, Will!

Great Holiday Week!

We had an eventful, great Thanksgiving holiday week!

Tuesday evening we went to dinner with our friends from Sacramento, Luke, Stephanie and Leah! It was so good to see them! We hadn't seen them in about a year and this was our first time to meet little Leah. She is adorable!

My parents, Brother, Nephew, Sister and her boyfriend all came to our house for Thanksgiving this year. We enjoyed having everyone here!

My nephew, Tucker, is turning 12 this week so we thought it would be fun to set up a scavenger hunt for him to find all his presents. I think my mom and I had just as much fun making the clues as he did hunting.

Thursday evening we noticed Jasmine started favoring her right leg. Saturday morning we woke up early to get ready to go tailgate and I noticed her paw was really swollen and she had been licking it all night. I took her to the pet hospital to get checked out. We think she might have been bit by a spider or something. They drained her paw, gave her some shots and bandaged her up! Poor Jas!

After spending 2+ hours at the vet, I headed out to the stadium to meet up with BJ and our friends. We watched the Red Raiders finish off the season with a 11-1 record. We headed to Caprock Cafe to cheer on Oklahoma State, but they couldn't pull it off! Now we just wait and see which bowl game we will get to go to!

Red Raiders in Norman, Oklahoma!

About a month ago we decided we wanted to look for tickets to the Tech/ OU game and stumbled upon a great deal on ebay. BJ got home from Minnesota on Friday afternoon about 2pm and we headed out around 5. We stopped in Monday at his Dad's house to spend the night Friday night. We had a god visit with his Dad and Step-mom. We don't get to see them that often. Sat morning we got up and headed to OK city. Ate at a restaurant in Bricktown and then made our way to Norman!!

All of our tailgating friends met up at Colby Whitlock's (one of the Tech defensive linemen) uncle's house which was just a few blocks away from the stadium. They were so nice to us and welcomed all the Tech fans even though they were Sooners. I was impressed with the OU stadium/crowd.......I have been to College Station and Nebraska and never witnessed such a crazy loud crowd!! It was overwhelming for me in the stands. I cannot imagine how the guys down on the field felt.

The outcome of the game was not as we would have liked but it was a nice weekend get-a-way.

We are still so proud of the Red Raiders. 10 -1 and the season is far from over! We will be at the Baylor game, cheering loud and then rooting for the Okie State Pokes on Sat. evening! We can hope for the best!

Halloween and Texas Tech beating Texas!

We had a great but exhausting weekend. We were a little worried when BJ came down with a stomach bug on Wed. But gratefully it was just a 24 hr something and he was feeling better after almost a full 24 hrs of sleeping! We started off with a Halloween get together over at our friend, Allison's house. There were some interesting costumes.
We headed out to set up the tailgate at 8:30a.m. on Sat. I know......Crazy! After setting up we went over to the Game Day set-up to take all the excitement in. So fun! We had several friends in from out of town so our tailgate was lots of fun!
After the AWESOME game BJ and I just sat in the stands, watching the students, taking it all in! Good times! We are looking forward to another exciting weekend of football this weekend!

Babies!!!!!

We have two couples in my OT class that are expecting babies soon. We decided to throw a joint baby shower for both of them at lunch today. It was a blast!

Jon and Kaylene are both in my class. They are having a little girl, due in Dec.

Brian is in my class also. He and his wife Casey are adopting and are expecting a baby any day now!

Our class is so generous. Both couples got lots of good stuff.

You can't tell in this picture, but Jon was especially excited about EVERY gift! He was cheering about the socks in the background!

Kaylene is always grabing our hands and letting us touch her belly. Kailey took it to a whole new level!

We have such a great group! Like a second family!

Fall Traditions

We have made it a yearly tradition to have BJ's niece and nephew, Zachary and Emily, over to carve pumpkins and spend the night in the fall. This year Emily and I made pumpkin cookies also. We started the evening off with a trip to the pumpkin patch.

Emily was more excited than Zachary about digging out the insides. We sorted the seeds so we could roast them. YUMMY!

Emily and I making cookies from scratch. She was such a big helper!

I think their favorite part of the evening was licking the batter.....

BJ is the Master Carver. Zachary picked which pattern he wanted BJ to do and of course it was the most difficult one! Zachary went back and forth between helping BJ and I, notice he had to get in on eating some batter as well. We didn't get a pic of the finished product but is was prety cool.

They frosted the cookies and added sprinkles on top!

Weekend of Fun!

The past week was pretty eventful. Starting off, Thurdsay, I went in to get braces....YIKES! I am excited about the end outcome, but it might be a long two years. They placed the bottom braces on and put some TAD's (temporty anchorage device) in the top of my mouth. The TADs are like little screws that go directly into the bone. I have a splint to wear on my upper teeth. Some springs attach the splint to the TADs. The actual procedure wasn't that painful but it has been a long week of swollen, sore cheeks and adjusting to this splint that inhibits my speech. I am starting to see the light, as this morning is the first morning I have not woken up with pain.

This is an X-ray of all the gear in my mouth. You can see the TADS on top. Sorry if this grosses anyone out. I find it kind of facinating. Crazy what they can do!

On a much happier note, our friends, Justin, Melissa and Ava came and stayed with us for the weekend. Melissa and I ran the Race for the Cure on Sat morning. We had a great time with them despite my not quite feeling up to par.
Ava Loves Jasmine. Although I think she thought she was her own personal baby doll. Too cute, she was so sweet with her.

Melissa, Ava and I went shopping for a little while before the Tech football game. We took Ava to get her ears pierced!
Before picture.

A little curious about why this lady was marking on her ears.
The only part she really hated was having to be held down. We were not sure that Ava even realized that she had these new things in her ears. She never pulled at them or even reached up to grab them after it was all over.

And of course, you deserve a COOKIE!

BJ and Ava deep in some reading!

Wisdom from Mama Lynn

"The world is one big birthin' room and no one is exempt from the struggle of labor." L.K.S. 9/20/08

My Aunt Wynette has liver cancer after a long battle with Breast Cancer......

TRI to Make a Difference 2008

BJ and I competed in a triathlon this weekend in Amarillo. The Race Director is BJ's co-worker, Barry Lynch. Many of you have probably have heard us talk about his family. The race was inspired by their son Thomas. He was born with a rare neurological disorder. Thomas is the reason why we have become so interested in triathlons. The TRI to Make A Difference race was the 1st triathlon we participated in last year. It has been amazing to see how many people, like us, have become interested in these races on account of Thomas. This triathlon has become the biggest fundraiser for the Children's Miracle Network of Amarillo, Tx.

This year was especially fun because we both finished 1st in our age group divisions! BJ is in the most competitive age group right now! I am very proud of him. My parents, sister, and some good friends came out to watch and cheer us on. My super creative mom put together this video of clips from the race with music to back it up! It's pretty cute. At the beginning you will see the wave runner clearing out the dead fish. No joke! The lake "turned over" a couple of days before the race, depriving the fish of oxygen. It was pretty stinky.

We realize we are kind of dorky........not everyone can pull off spandex! But we had fun!

Happy Anniversary!!

Our 2 year anniversary is on Tuesday, August 26th, but BJ will be out of town for work so we celebrated over the weekend. We went out for a nice dinner at Ohana Japanese Steakhouse on Sat. evening. Sunday night we cooked out on the grill and ate on the back patio. It was really nice ouside.

They say (whoever "they" is) that if you save your wedding cake and eat it on your 1st anniversary, it is good luck! Ours was so good last year we decided to freeze it and try it again this year. Well...it made it two years, but we thought we shouldn't stretch it another year! It was actually still pretty good! That's me feeding BJ cake! As you can see, we are not that good at taking pictures of ourselves!

Can't wait for Football Season! Go Red Raiders!

I searched all my friends and family to see if I could find another football fan as big as me....

Tierney came through. She was a trooper and went with me to the Texas Tech Women't football clinic. We had a blast. They let us tour the facilities, meet the coaches and players, and do some football drills!

Notice the guys aren't wearing much clothing...... They had a "fashin show" for us and showed us their pre-game routines! Don't worry, it was pretty G-rated!

Rylan Reed just broke the bench press record. 625 pounds! He's huge.

Coach Leach was generous and let us steal a picture with him.

Wedding and Family

My cousin Dayme got married this weekend here in Lubbock. We were able to see lots of family we hadn't seen in a while. The wedding was beautiful!!! The reception was covered in crystals and chandeliers along with tall white floral arrangements.

My Aunt Wynette, Cousin, Terrie and Sister, Nisha

BJ and I dancing. Check out the band in the background. Snoop was on stage........ Not really but he looked like him. They were really good.

My awesome parents!

My sister and Me.


Classic wedding picture of BJ and I.

Happy 4th of July!!

We had some friend's over to cook-out and celebrate the forth.

Russ and Colton were chillin on the hammock! Colton is 6 months old and so Precious. We were so glad to get to spend some time with him ( and his parent's too) this weekend!

Jasmine got the remenants of the homemade ice cream! Emily found a resting place in the tree. She thought it was so funny, she didn't want to get down.
The girl's LOVED Jasmine. They were feeding her food, one piece at a time here. Jasmine was stuffed and pooped by the end of the evening.