Before Christmas Day Happenings

It's the day after Christmas and I realized I had not given an update on what went on in December leading up to Christmas day!

Heather and I went to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional at the Conference Center on Dec 4th. It's so much to fun to be there live instead of watching it on TV! For one of our FHE's we got to sing Christmas carols in the lobby of Primary Children's hospital and see the lights at Temple Square (well I get to see the lights everyday after work... ).

One of the highlights of December was our cousin, Megan visited us for a few days. It was fun to get to know her better and we hope it won't be too long before we see her again! With Megan in SLC, it gave us a chance to see more of Katelyn, Kim and Aunt Merrie! We had a pizza and baked sugar cookies one night, had lunch at Charlie Chow's another day and then a dinner and played games on another night! Heather and I took Megan to an ugly sweater party a girl in our ward hosted on the 10th. Luckily Aunt Merrie had sweaters we could use!

On Dec 14, Heather and I had our Relief Society Christmas Party. Our RS Presidency went all out with wonderful decorations, dinner and program. Heather and I even participated in the program by performing a duet on the piano (Carol of the Bells).

On Dec 15, my office had our Christmas party aka Fat Day. The theme was the North Pole and my area was decorated as Mrs Claus' Kitchen and we were in charge of the sides for lunch. Basically we ate and talked all day so hardly any work got done besides answering phones! The first pic is me with the ladies I work with in my area with our awesome decorations on Fat Day. The second pic was taken in front of the tree in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We sent the picture to all the missions we work with!

A second highlight was when Dad and Whitney drove out to visit us! Dad stayed for a couple days and Whit stayed till Heather and I drove home for Christmas. While dad was here we showed them two awesome Christmas light displays. One was in Taylorsville where a whole neighborhood did 'Twas the night before Christmas and one in Murray where this house had the lights set to music. On Saturday the 17th the 4 of us went Christmas shopping for Mom. We found the perfect ring at J.C. Penny! We also got her a cute coat! We had lunch with Aunt Merrie and her family at Red Robin. That night we went to the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert! Jane Seymour was the narrator and Nathan Gunn was the singer... we really, really enjoyed it and so glad we got tickets this year! We also walked around temple square with the hundreds of other people after the Concert





















On Dec 20th my sisters and I went to see the Nutcracker performed by Ballet West at the Capitol Theater. It was soooo good! I loved seeing Whitney's excitement. She said it was the best performance of Nutcracker she has ever seen. I'm so glad Whitney was able to spend a week with me and Heather in Salt Lake!










The 3 of us drove home to La Jara Colorado on the 23rd and we had a wonderful Christmas with our family, but more on that later!

Thanksgiving 2011!!!

Heather and I spent our Thanksgiving break in Colorado! It was wonderful to be home and spend time with my family. We spent Thanksgiving day at Monte and Marsha's house. Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving day:












1)Thanksgiving dinner! There was 18 of us and our last names were all Miller! awesome!
2) Jay's son Knox took a liking to dad. :)











Our annual Sister Thanksgiving photos!

On Friday while mom was at work, we played in the snow! Dad, Whit and Heather had fun pulling each other on a sled using the ATV. I didn't feel like finding snow gear, but I eventually came out and helped Whitney build a snowman. We even had a snowball fight!





















On Saturday we got all the Christmas decorations down from the attic above the garage. We also visited Grandma at the nursing home and decorated her room. What happened after we got back from visiting grandma is probably what we'll remember most from this Thanksgiving. As soon as we got home dad went out on the ATV while the rest of us went inside. I happened to look outside while dad was coming back into the driveway and he decided to do a 360 in the small amount of snow that was still left... well the ground had hardened from Friday's snow and the ATV flipped onto it's side and dad fell hard to the ground. We ended up having to call 911 and an ambulance took him to Conejos Hospital. Mom went with him and my sisters and I had to wait at home. Mom finally called with the news... 3 broken ribs! He was so mad that we didn't just drive him to the hospital, but we didn't know the extent of his injuries. Luckily he only had to spend one night at the hospital. Heather and I had to say good-bye to him Saturday night in his hospital room. My sisters and I did enjoy that evening to ourselves though! We headed to Alamosa to have dinner at SLV pizza (we ordered The Alamosa pizza :)). Our original plan was to see the Muppets movie and have dinner together as a family... but plans change! Heather and I drove home on Sunday. 10 hours is sooo long in the car. Heather and I can't wait till we can go home again for Christmas!!!

BOSTON!!!! Nov 3- Nov7

I just got back from Boston! It was my first time on the East Coast. My friend Amber and I visited our friend Liz, whose husband is going to school at Harvard Law. We were glad to see her and visit the sites around Boston. We got there on a Thursday afternoon and were able to do a session at the Boston Temple. On Friday we walked the Freedom Trail... it was wonderful and exhausting! :) Friday night I got to have dinner with one of my BYU roommates who's going to Harvard (Laura Taylor!). On Saturday, we drove to Plymouth, MA and went to the Plimoth Plantation. The best part was getting in for free (a benefit of being a travel agent)! We also got to go on the Mayflower replica, see the "awesome" plymouth rock and have yummy New England clam chow-"dah". Oh and I got to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. yeah! On Sunday Amber and I attended a singles ward at the Longfellow chapel. That afternoon Amber and I rode the T (Boston's subway) by ourselves to take a tour of Fenway park. So cool!!!! When we got back Liz had a yummy dinner for us and the 3 of us stayed up late talking. On Monday Liz drove us to Mt. Auburn cemetery where we climbed this tower that had an awesome view of Cambridge and Boston. We enjoyed a nice walk in the cemetery too... that's right, old cemeteries are awesome!! :) We also walked to Harvard Square to have lunch, do some souvenir shopping and see Harvard Memorial Hall. We walked along the Charles River on the way back before Liz had to take us to the airport. The next time we see Liz she will be a mom!!

Here are some pictures from my trip!:


1)The Boston Temple
2)our feet on The Freedom Trail! :)



1)Amber and I in front of the Paul Revere Statue
2)with our Mike's Pastries box at the Old North Church



1)On the U.S.S. Constitution aka "Old Ironsides"
2)Bunker Hill!


1)walking around Plimoth Plantation
2)Liz and I



1)on the Mayflower with a real life pilgrim! :)
2)the Atlantic ocean is behind me! (at Duxbury Beach, MA)


1)at Fenway Park! (obviously)
2)on the Green Monster!!!


1)view of downtown Boston and Harvard on the tower at Mt. Auburn Cemetery
2)I love this pic Liz took at the cemetery!!!

Halloween!

Here are some of my Halloween 2011 highlights!



*Going on the Heber Creeper and carving pumpkins with the Chambers: Heather and I had lots of fun. It was our first time on the Haunted Canyon train. The highlight was Paul howling like a werewolf when the lights went out on the train and scaring the kids half to death! They also had the scary people that we saw outside come on the train on the way back... and of course I was sitting in the aisle. Luckily I didn't get too scared! After the Heber Creeper we went back to their condo in Park City to carve pumpkins. That's a Halloween must! It was also good see Uncle Roy, Krystle and to see her baby Aiden for the first time! He's a cutie! Here are some pictures:

*We went to our Ward Halloween party on Halloween night. Heather dressed up as a blind ref and I went as a witch for the 3rd year in a row! I need to be creative or more into the Halloween spirit next year! :)

*Dancing to "This is Halloween" on Just Dance 3. That's right! Heather and I just bought a Wii. We looove it. So if anybody want to play games on our wii, come on over!

Oh and just FYI... I'm sooo excited to be going to Boston on Thursday!!!!

5 days by myself

So Heather ditched me for 5 days to go to Disneyland with some friends. Lucky girl! However, I'll be ditching her for 5 days when I go to Boston in a couple weeks! hehe! Anyway, I survived! I was able to find things to keep me busy during the evenings and the weekend, like decorating Halloween sugar cookies with my Relief Soceity on Wed, doing a session at the temple with Amber on Thurs, dinner and a movie with friends on Friday and Stake Conference stuff over the weekend.

Stake Conference weekend was amaaazing. Saturday morning we had our Stake Service Activity called the Widow's Mite. We meet early at the institute to have breakfast. Before we left, the Stake President had us kneel down and pray. Amanda and Sarah were in my group. The first widow we helped was Amanda's grandma! :) We washed her windows and blinds and then visited with her. She was soo grateful! The next widow didn't have anything for us to do so we just visited with her for an hour and left her with a word of prayer. We loved visiting Thelma and we might go see her again! She gave each of us a hug and kiss when we left. It would be a good idea for our stake do this service every October! That evening we had our stake conference. The speakers were awesome and I left with a stronger testimony. They even had a video presentation of the service activity. This morning was our regional stake conference at the Conference Center downtown and we got to hear Elder Bednar speak. I always love hearing from an apostle!

My 26th Birthday

I turned 26 on October 13th. It was a great day and I have the best family and friends a girl could ask for! I can't believe how fast year 25 went! I ended up having a birthday week. The weekend before my birthday my parents came up and visited. It was great to have them here. We went to Garnder Village and the BYU homecoming game. Here a few pics :

On Sunday they attended our ward. Mom loved going to a single ward's relief society! We spent the afternoon visiting family and they took off Monday morning. It was sad to say good-bye!

Here's what happened on my actual birthday: As I was getting ready for work... yes I actually went to work on my birthday. Heather suprised me with a birthday sign she made:

I was glad she did this because I had balloons and streamers waiting for her when she woke up for her birthday

Work went well. I loved watching my happy birthday facebook posts pop up and getting emails from my family. My area decorated my cubicle and we had smoothies for breakfast!

My lunch bunch took me out to lunch at Braza Grill Express. Yummy!!!

When I got home from work dad called, but when I answered it was Grandma Miller singing Happy Birthday to me! so cute! Heather took me to dinner at my favorite place to eat... Rumbi's! Then we came back for blowing out candles, opening presents and to watch Hocus Pocus! Oh and I skyped with my parents. They love to skype!

On Friday night I went to Texas Roadhouse with my friends Emily and Jessame. Heather came too of course! Oh and Jessame brough her 8 year old cousin Liam that she was baby-sitting. We came back to the apt to watch Casper. Love that movie

On Saturday the 15th Heather and I drove around Midway, UT to see the fall colors and to do some shopping at the Park City outlets.

Our main goal was to find these trees again and we did! though last year they looked better:

This year not as great:

And as tradition I took this picture! Liz Geiger and I took a pic jumping off this same bridge 2 years ago and Heather and I did last year too!

Saturday night Heather took me to see Thriller. It was her birthday present to me! It was an amaaaaazing show! So glad I went!

Sunday, my aunt Nel made dinner (yummy potato soup) and to celebrate grandpa's and my belated birthday. That's right we both have our birthdays on October 13th!!!! Oh and she made me a yummy chocolate cheesecake!!!

After that week life went back to normal I swear! :)