A bouquet of newly sharpened pencils.

We've been slacking on this blog thing lately. Fall has turned out to be a busy time which is interesting since neither of us are in school this year (I'm pretty sad about that actually). Bret just graduated in August which begs the question, now what? Well, we're trying to figure that out. We've been looking into and debating several options that will hopefully lead to a conclusion soon. In the mean time we're still in Provo, working, and enjoying our time with friends and family. Here's a little taste of what we've been up to lately:

A camping trip was the last big thing we needed to accomplish this summer and we finally made it up a couple weeks ago with the Scotts and the Wilsons. We love having the Wilsons near by again.


It was a little cozy fitting six people in a four man tent so spooning was unavoidable. Luckily it was only awkward for Bret and Matt.
Breakfast turned into a great experiment. Some methods of making breakfast burritos were not as successful as others (ask Bret about his egg-cooker 2000).



It feels like there were more weddings in the last month alone than throughout the entire summer... and I've dragged poor Bret to most of them. Melissa was a particularly gorgeous Bride.

This last weekend my mom and my sisters had a fun weekend away from it all. We stayed up at a condo in Midway and had some quality girl time with no husbands and no kids over 7 months allowed. We had lots of fun going out to dinner, sewing, going on walks, organizing our family pictures, watching "bonnet movies", hitting up the outlets and being able to talk without being interrupted.

Wives and daughters watching Wives and Daughters. Quite fitting.
Yes, my mom knits all our stockings.

Only Lily and Norah were invited of the kids. They're pretty cute.

The boys likewise had their own male-bonding activities while we were away that mostly involved Rock Band (shirts, I am told, were optional).
Bret and I also spent the last week watching my sister Amy's four kids while they were in England. It's a good thing they're pretty cute too!

Ps. I will reward anyone who can reference the title of this post.

Washington Adventures

As cool as they are, it's about time we blog about something other than our birds, so here it goes: A couple of weeks ago, Bret and I finally had some free time to visit our family up in beautiful Liberty Lake, WA (just outside of Spokane). We had a great time hanging with the fam, celebrating birthdays, playing at the cabin and getting to know our cute little nephew Ty better.

Here's some highlights from our trip:
Family picture taken at Bret's parent's home overlooking Liberty Lake.


Some acrobatics.

Get a look at that face.
Best buds at the Deer Lake cabin. (Bret loves this one).

The Hudsons at the cabin.

A rainy day at Silverwood amusement park.This one's good.

For the birds

Here are some more pictures of the birds. They are exciting and fantastic. enjoy.

Here is a picture of their home, given to us as a
gift from Grandmother Naomi.

Family Picture 2008

The two love birds standing on their poopstick.

This is great. I stole it from Jordan and Candice. If you want to hear
the full story visit their blog.

Thanks for looking at our blog. We are so pleased by your visit.

Fine-feathered Friends

You may have noticed the silhouettes of two birds in the heading of our blog. These birds aren't just hip, retro decorations, but actual representations of two parakeets found in the Miller home. We started with the yellow one: Scooter. I found her over a year and a half ago - clinging to the side of a pick-up truck outside my work. The yellow bird didn't hesitate to step up onto our hands. I decided to save the poor thing, and our lives have never been the same. After almost a year of watching Scooter suffer alone in her cage, we decided to acquire a boyfriend for her. We purchased him from Animal Arc for $17. After a few days of absolute terror, Gilbert, as Laura named him, finally began moving and eating in the cage. Today, they are fine-feathered friends, and very noisy friends at that. (I feel terrible for the couple that lives in the apartment below us.) Fortunately for us, there is a strange mechanism in their brains that tells them to shut up when we cover their cage. We love them, they're great things, we recommend parakeets to anybody wanting to spice up their life.

Scooter in her first months

Helping me give a haircut to Harold

The two women in my life

B.F.F's

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of Gilbert- I promise we don't play favorites. I need to get them from Laura, I will post them.

Rediscovering photobooth

It has been over two years since the purchase of my Apple Macbook. Anyone familiar with Apple products understands both the joy and shear pleasure that the photobooth application provides. After having neglected the application for over a year, I "rediscovered" it during our sunday afternoon nap. Here are a few pictures taken during our nap. Enjoy!

This one is my favorite.

Very silly.

No. I change my mind, this is the best.

I hope these pictures make your day as fun as my afternoon was!

I want one.

Since I've joined the world of blogging I've discovered that there are a bazillion blogs that basically show off all the cool things people have found via the internet. These kind of blogs overwhelm me. They only bring to my attention what I already know: that there are far too many neat/cute/fun things out there that I want. It's probably better for me to just stop looking; ignorance is bliss, right?

I'm not trying to be one of those blogs, however I happened upon this item and for some reason, felt compelled to show it. It's by a small company run by two women called Band.do. I want one. I think they're super cute, and although I have no idea when and under what circumstances I'd wear one, I wish I had it anyway. Too bad they're all hand made and over a hundred dollars. Sometimes I just really wish I could time travel; I think I'd look great in this at one of Gatsby's parties : ) But since that's not happening anytime soon, I think a more realistic idea would be to just not look anymore.


I think this one is my favorite.

Chicago

A couple weeks ago I was able to go to Chicago for the first time on a business trip (also the first time without Bret since we've been married. Not fun). The company that I work for in Orem, QuicKutz, is fairly big in the world of crafting so we attended the Craft and Hobby Expo (or CHA). Most of the people that went had been to these expos many times already, but for me and a couple other girls, this was our first experience. I knew it was going to be big because we'd been preparing for it for months, but I still couldn't help but be overwhelmed by it all.

I'm continually amazed at how passionate these men and women (let's face it, mostly women) are about their hobbies and the craft industry in general; you can only imagine how great the people-watching was too. Just as an example, I think I read on a T-shirt something like, "Because scrapbooking is cheaper than therapy."

I don't mean to make fun because I sincerely respect people who are passionate about something. I think it's healthy... to a certain extent anyway. And I must admit that I really enjoy working in an industry that people live for, even if I necessarily don't.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

the demo area

the girls



Because I had never been to Chicago before, I was really eager to see the city. On our first night a few of the girls went downtown. Before we even left, Laura Giddens, another girl from work, and I made a goal to visit the Art Institute of Chicago if at all possible. Luckily it's open late and even free on Thursday nights. We had a great time and we saw a lot of great art. I love being in museums, especially with someone else who appreciates it the way I do.

One of my favorites

Laura's favorite

I had no idea this was even there. Funny.

Laura and I outside the museum

girls about town

Special thanks to Andrea and Amy for some of these great pictures.

Summer of a thousand dreams

Yep, after much debate and even further procrastination, the Millers have finally started a blog. We hope you'll enjoy what you find here... or at least never hold it against us. Bret and I have been married 9 months now (from tomorrow actually), and it's been great. Here's a peek of what we've been up to lately.

Graduation time. Both Bret and I graduated the same week this spring only from different schools. Technically I was done in December and he'll be done in August, but we met in the middle to celebrate it. We miss these friends.


To celebrate our graduations, we took a trip to New York to visit my sister and her husband (niece Norah wasn't born yet) and our good friends the Wheelers.




At the beginning of the summer, we made a list with Matt and Megan Scott of goals we wanted to achieve together this summer. We call it our Summer of a Thousand Dreams! We've checked off a number of activities on our list with a few more to go.

One of the highlights so far was our road trip to Cali and Disneyland.

We ran into our friends Rob and Marisa while we were there. Just one of the many magical things that happened that day.
Santa Monica Beach. Probably the whitest people there, no excuse me, person. Bret looks fine.

Wow, blogging takes forever. P.S. This is Laura not Bret.