Miller Family Happenings

November Happenings! 2009

2009-11-28T14:38:00.004-07:00

Hi! I am finally getting this blog updated. It has been very busy around here the last few months. We had Mission's Conference at church that was very good, but very busy too. Plus our Fall Program was going on for five Sunday's. TJ won the program in his Kindergarten Sunday School class! Tim and I won a gift card to go out to eat too!

At TJ's school we had a Thanksgiving feast! It was very good! The kids got to thank all the people who give to the school and make it possible for some of the kids to attend. TJ had a very good report card! He is doing well in school and enjoys going.

We made it to the Pow Wow this year too. We missed it last year as we had the wrong weekend! LOL It was good to get some very good fry bread!! It was yummy!

We just had Thanksgiving, and had fun at Grandpa and Grandma's house even though they weren't there! They have been in Iowa and Missouri and are on their way home.

We have had a nice little break for Thanksgiving but it is back to school on Monday!

I have updated pics on picasa if you want to see all that has been going on.

We will be getting ready for Christmas soon and then right after that we will be moving!

Have a great rest of November and Have a very

Merry Christmas!

Tim and Deb

August 2009 Happenings

2009-09-06T13:16:00.008-07:00

What a very exciting month of August! TJ started Kindergarten! He was so excited marking the days off till school started. He got a haircut from Grandpa, some new clothes, and all the school supplies! He is doing a great job and having lots of fun too. Mom handled the first day very well, I might add! I am a teachers aide three days a week so I get to see TJ lots!

The second week of school TJ had an accident on the playground at recess. He fell off of a swing. Thankfully mom was on recess duty and saw the whole thing happen. He got a small cut on the back of his head. The school nurse goes in for the dramatic and had to put the bandage all the way around his head! Of course, TJ loved that as it got him more attention from all the others at school! He actually handled it pretty well since the cut was in the back and he couldn't see all the blood!

Have a great Labor Day weekend! We are grilling at Grandpa and Grandma's house! Yummy!

I am including the VBC Children's Choir on August Happenings, even though it really did happen in September. They all did a great job!

July 2009 Happenings

2009-08-03T19:28:00.011-07:00

July has been a good month other than the fact that we have had the hottest July ever! Plus we have only had just about 1 inch of rain for the whole year. Yes, this is the desert, but we are behind for the year in rainfall.

We had a nice wet 4th of July as we had lots of water activities! Water Balloons, swimming and squirt guns! We got to see some fireworks outside and on the tv. TJ was a little disappointed since he has had the privilege of having 'big' fireworks in his back yard before! We had a nice time of TJ and Grandpa playing the guitar! We need to teach TJ some of the old 'sing around the campfire' songs! And Grandpa needs to practice his guitar playing as he is kind of rusty! (hint, Dad!)

So far we have only had one Monsoon storm. We could really use some good rain. Here is a picture of the storm coming in over Superstition Mountain.

TJ had his first Vacation Bible School this year! He loved it as it was a 'Western' theme. The skits were great and included the following characters: The Heartrights, Tony the Kid and Mucho & the Bad Banditos, Sheriff Woody, The Magnificent Seven, and The Lone Ranger and Tonto! Quite exciting for all the kids. The boys lost to the girls in the penny contest. But they brought in 85,000 + pennies!! Videos are on picasa page.

It was a good week at VBS and we had a total of 400 kids attend and 69 kids got saved! How exciting!

We have spent most of the month inside in the A/C and can't wait to get out when the weather cools off. Enjoy the pictures and leave a comment to say Hi!

See you at the end of August!

June 2009 Happenings

2009-06-29T10:30:00.005-07:00

Hi everyone who is reading this! June was a busy month with lots of activities and work.

We celebrated T.J.'s 5 th Birthday!

What wonderful gifts from God all of our children are! We got T.J. his first bike this year! He has spent many hours riding it and so far has only had one major crash! That crash happened while he was trying to get off his bike and his shoe got caught and he fell, face first into one of the posts at Grandpa's house! Just a big bruise on the cheek for a while! He had a good birthday and increased his Lego count by lots! That keeps him pretty busy too.

We also celebrated Father's Day, first at church, the Children's Choir sang! I was going to add a video of that but it is too big. So just a picture. T.J. is third from the right in the front row! The little guy! We also had a B-B-Q at Grandpa and Grandma's. Oh, yummy ribs!!

Dad and Grandpa started on Grandpa's new roof. The old one leaked pretty bad and now they shouldn't have any leaks! Will have to wait for a good rain to make sure. We have only had some sprinkles here so far. But we are in Monsoon Season so should be getting some good rains soon.

We have actually had a very cool month of June, so much so, that my electric bill actually went down! Yea!!

This June we celebrated our 30th Anniversary! We went to a very nice Italian restaurant in Scottsdale! It was sooo good! Then we went for a drive up on Camelback Mountain! It was nice to see the city lights just coming on! Hard to believe it has been 30 years since we got married. The good news is we are still in love and Lord willing we will make it to our 50th just like our parents and grandparents have done! What a legacy to have and to be able to pass that on to our children and grandchildren! Praise the Lord for his wonderful grace!

Have a great 4th of July!

May 2009 Happenings

2009-06-01T11:33:00.004-07:00

The month of May was a busy one and unfortunately I seemed to forget the camera at several happenings. I will just tell you a little bit of what we did this month and I have a couple videos for you too.
The month started off with Great Commission Sunday at church. Several of the men went to various locations around the valley. They ended up preaching to over 23oo people! And saw over 500 saved! Praise the Lord!
Then we had a Mother's Day B-B-Q and Aunt Julie's Birthday!
T.J. had his last two baseball games. It was a fun learning experience for him and he really enjoyed it. His team, the Yankees, came in second in the Minor League. There were only two minor league teams!! LOL
We have had some great times at some new friends that we have met and we are hoping they get to stay here in the Valley.
We had a great Memorial Day Picnic at Prospector Park! Tim got to play a few games of softball and then some volleyball! It was a beautiful day and we had lots of fun! We also went to Grandpa and Grandma's for more fun and games!
Grandma had a birthday too!
At the end of the month, Pastor had a Billiard's Tournament for his guys who are on the Prayer Team. Tim won first place in the singles! They had a doubles round too but I don't know who won that.
Well that pretty much sums up our month of May! Have a great summer and check back for new pics and news at the end of June!

April Happenings

2009-05-02T20:50:00.008-07:00

April has been a fun month! We had lots of church activities that kept us busy and having lots of fun. We had several contest going on with the Sunday School classes and with the church as a whole. Tim and I actually won our SS class contest!!

Easter Sunday was fun for the kids as we had a huge Easter Egg Hunt!!

Then it was hunting at Grandpa and Grandma's house too!

T.J. had a couple of baseball games. His team lost both games. But it was still lots of fun!

We had Hawiian Sunday, and it was very flowery that day! Had a great Volleyball tournement going on after church. The Sunday School Teachers won!

Grandpa Smith also had his 69th Birthday!

The Beginner Choir sang on the last Sunday! Enjoy the video!

Best news of all for the month is Josh and Tyana are expecting baby #2!! Yea!! Due Christmas Day!
Have a great month of May!

Love, Tim, Deb and T.J.

March Happenings!

2009-04-04T14:32:00.005-07:00

Finally updating our blog! Here are some pics from March. TJ got to start in choir at church and they performed singing 'I want to be Faithful'!
The Beginner's Choir at church! Watch for TJ to wave!

It is baseball season now! TJ is playing T-ball and is on the Yankee's team! This video is of his first time to run the bases. Watch as he takes off for second base, then runs to first, goes past first and then comes back and is still safe!! Too funny!

We have been busy with church happenings. Our spring program has started and was kicked off with Old Fashioned Days! Potluck, games and a performance by the Backwoods Boys! (church staff!)

Hope you enjoy the videos. Have a Happy Easter!

Love,

Tim, Deb and T.J.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-23T13:02:00.008-07:00

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

November Happenings!

2008-11-22T14:30:00.014-07:00

November has been a busy month and isn't over yet!

We have had our fall program going on at church and T.J. got to see the DPS Helicoptor come in and land, and get to see a 'real' fire truck, for our Local Heros Sunday!

We finally got to make our trip to Missouri! (after getting postponed twice) Tim was able to get the work done for our former church there after waiting all year for no rain. They actually finished up in freezing rain and sleet. But the job is done. Praise the Lord!

T.J. got his first airplane trip!

He was so excited and loved the flight!

And we finally got to see our newest grandbaby!! Eilis Rose Burks, what a sweetheart she is!

We also celebrated Little Joel's first birthday, Joy's second birthday and Tonya's 29th birthday!!

We had a wonderful, but short time to spend with family and friends!

And when we got back to sunny Arizona, we had free tickets to a ballgame at HoHoKam Ballpark! T.J. was very fortunate to get a baseball from a fan who brings extras to get signed! He actually almost got a foul ball that hit the stands above us and bounced back down right over the top of us!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Day at the Park!

2008-10-13T21:14:00.007-07:00

What to do on a holiday?

Go to the park?

What is that?

R & R, wow, it was so nice!

Diamondbacks Win!

2008-09-13T10:11:00.010-07:00

We had a great time at the Diamondbacks ballgame last night! And they won!!! Yea!

We were in the top deck and had to go up the escalator!
I also got a grandma fix by getting to hold a 7 month old baby! She belongs to some friends at church.

This was our first professional game to see live and we were very fortunate to be able to go with our church family. There were over 29,000 people there last night.

What a blessing!

T.J. was so excited all day long and then Tim ended up working late so we missed the beginning but were able to enjoy the rest of the game. !! Tim had to help with three different routes yesterday.

Chase Field has the retractable roof and it was closed for the game but after they won, they opened the roof and had a fireworks display!

Boy, T.J.'s eyes got real big when he watched the roof open
A very big evening for all of us! Can't wait to go again!

Moving in to our apartment!

2008-08-14T08:54:00.008-07:00

Some pictures from our move-in day. I am finally getting this blog updated! We are still settling in and still need to get more things out of storage. It will feel more like home once we get some pictures on the walls and when I can find my pots and pans to make pasta!!

Tim has been getting plenty of work and learning lots of mail routes. He is working out of 3 different Mesa PO, which is what is helping to stay busy.

T.J. is learning his numbers and letters and he can't wait for Dad to get home so he can go swimminig! He is doing really good and Mom just doesn't watch him and Dad so she doesn't have a panic attack when she thinks he is under the water too long!

T.J. and I go for walks in the morning and we all go for a walk in the evening, when we can.

And since I just realized that there haven't been any pictures of me taken. And I have been lecturing Tonya and Tyana about not getting enough pictures of them, we will try to get some of me on here in the future!

2008-07-23T10:19:00.004-07:00

Here are two video clips of T.J. learning to swim! His last lesson is Thursday.

Microburst!

2008-07-22T12:28:00.004-07:00

Well, we experienced our 2nd microburst on Monday night! The first one was in 1998. Thankfully, for us, the core of this one hit about 1 mile north of us. There is damage to homes around the Southern/Power area. Power lines came down and landed on peoples cars and a city bus. There were 60 mile an hour straight line winds. No one was hurt. I have a little video of what it was like by Aunt Julies and Grandpa and Grandma's places. Ok, my video is to big and my connection to slow. Will try on that one later. So here are a couple of pictures. These pictures were taken about 10 min. apart.

2008-07-18T15:12:00.002-07:00

T.J.'s swim lessons started this week! He is in the Sea Sprites class. His teacher is Mr. Skyler and has done a good job with getting T.J. to try new things! He has another week of lessons and then will have to wait till next year for more. He has enjoyed the class and is getting better each day!

New Pictures!

2008-06-25T18:38:00.002-07:00

We are finally adding some new pictures here!

Hope you all enjoy them.

T.J. is adjusting well to his new surroundings. He has completed the reading program through the Mesa Public Library! He is waiting for Dad to find a needle to pump up his new Phoenix Suns basketball! (One of the prizes)

We had a dust storm, rain with thunder and lightning! I know our Missouri family and friends will think 'whatever'! But for here, it is really nice! It only lasted for 1/2 an hour and it was done. The temperature went from 108 to 93 degrees! I don't think we even got 1/2 an inch of rain. The rainbow at the end was beautiful! Very refreshing!

Enjoy the pictures!

Grandpa and T.J. make a swing!

2008-06-10T14:48:00.004-07:00

Tonya and Tyana, do you remember the rope in Aunt Julie's tree? It used to not be so high in the air!
T.J. and Grandpa decide to make a swing and added T.J.'s rope on to the already existing rope that is in the tree.
Even though the pictures show T.J. doing the work, you can be sure that Grandpa did most of it!

Arizona

2008-06-09T09:36:00.002-07:00

We are temporaily settled in in Arizona! The sun is shining and it is dry here! We miss everyone in Missouri, but are glad to be here where it is dry! And we know that we are supposed to be here too.
Tim has started working at the Post Office today with training for two and a half days. Then he will either have a refresher course or go straight to work at the Four Peaks Station. He should find that out later this week.
T.J. is getting lots of attention from Grandma and Grandpa! And he is keeping them hopping! Grandma already has a kiddie pool out for him and has made cookies for him, boy, he will get spoiled real fast! But it is great to be close to them.
That's all for now, will post more when I learn more about our schedule.

Miller Family Happenings

2008-06-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Tim, Deb & T.J