May Update

- School is out Friday, May 27th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- All my grades are in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- We are going to a Braves game with friends on Friday and with our college students on Tuesday!
- Counting down the days until our July mission trip to Thailand with our college students!
- Spending time with family on Monday!
- Making progress with our adoption process (project180degrees.blogspot.com)
- Still loving our new dog!

Received

We received a confirmation email today from Covenant Care Services. They have received our pre-application. We should be receiving another email within three weeks letting us know when our pre-application is processed.

Miller Updates: February - May

Hello, Friends and Family!

What an eventful past several months! Here's the short version:

February
- Got back into our normal routine after the hosting girls left
- Began and completed our home study to adopt our hosting girls
- Stayed busy with church and work
- started singing in the church choir again
- Eric had trips for church

March
- Had medical visits for adoption
- Received our home study approval
- worked on adoption fundraising
- found out the girls no longer wanted to be adopted - back to square one
- big church event - launched a program to begin fundraising for upcoming church construction
- Eric had trips for church (conferences and a mission trip with our college students)
- Eric went to North Carolina for class

April
- got a dog (Frenchton - half boston terrier and half french bulldog - her name is Chara - Greek for joy - we pronounce her name "car-ah" or "car-uh")
- spring break - went camping with my family
- adjustments to the dog
- decision made to go back to Thailand for the month of July on a mission trip (God provided the money for the trip!)
- continuing to seek what we should do regarding adoption - looked into some different international and domestic agencies
- BUSY month at church - events every Saturday, but well worth the opportunity to reach out to the community
- renewed my teaching contract for next year!
- Eric had class in North Carolina

May
- continuing to stay busy with church and work
- getting used to having a dog around
- re-decorated the bedrooms in our house (no more girls room - part of the starting over process; new decorations in our room; moved decorations around in the rest of the house)
- got connected with the adoption agency we plan to use - hopefully we will be able to send our paperwork to the agency this week to begin the waiting process for a domestic infant (we are waiting on a home study addendum from our current case worker)
- getting ready to wrap up the school year . . . yea! summer break!

Want more adoption details and updates? Visit our adoption blog: project180degrees.blogspot.com.

A Melody of Memories Part 2: Pretty Princesses

A Melody of Memories Part 2: At Home

The girls enjoyed art projects, whether it was making an edible design or a decorative design.






The girls had a surprise waiting for Eric when he came home from a few days at school. They gave him a candle-lit room topped off with rose petals on the floor! I had no part of it either . . . so creative! It was beautiful. To finish the welcome-home surprise, the girls had a slumber party planned for all of us, including fun games and surprise desserts!
Bible story time at night was our favorite - that's what the hosting was all about: teaching the girls about God's love!

A Melody of Memories Part 2: Cooking, Animals, and Snow

A Melody of Memories Part 2: New Year's Eve and Family

New Year's Eve was absolutely beautiful! We spent much of the day outside playing.
It wouldn't be New Year's at the Miller's house without a little football! Although the girls hated football, they did endure it for a little while before playing the wii and some other games. Check out the hair-do . . . Dasha did a beautiful job fixing Erin's hair, right? :)

The girls got to meet Eric's extended family for the first time! They also got eat their favorite food: crab legs! Thanks, Papa and Nana for the Christmas dinner!

Spending time with host "Grandparents" was tons of fun! The Christmas girls LOVED spending time with them! Thanks Mom and Dad M and Mom and Dad E for investing in our Christmas girls!

A Melody of Memories Part 2: Christmas

A Melody of Memories finally continues! . . . The pictures below capture the events of Christmas decorating, Christmas Eve with Erin's family, and Christmas Day with Eric and Erin's families. A baby doll was the favorite gift of both girls. This visit we were able to ask the girls what they wanted for Christmas, and with no hesitation they told us a big baby doll. We were able to find one for each of them! Thank you to those who made this past Christmas extra special for these girls!

What's Up?

Besides Christmas girls, what's up?

I promise - more hosting pictures are coming soon!

I'm on jury duty this week! That's pretty exciting! Well, I basically sit in the juror waiting room and do school work. It's been a nice catch-up time because I got way behind on work when the girls were with us. Now I just need to get ahead. :) Jury duty has been interesting so far. I have learned more about the justice system and have had opportunities to talk to a few people about spiritual matters such as forgiveness.

Church update:
Church is pretty busy, but it's good busy. God is really at work among the people in Kennesaw. Here are some highlights of what God's been up to at KFBC (specifically college):
- college students over for dinner and games
- new technology in the college building
- lots of visitors
- college students starting to come to the Sunday night service
- still going to Moe's on Sunday nights to build relationships with each other and the Moe's staff
- concluding a series about loving the unloved

Family update:
- We completed our FBI background checks last year, but now we are officially starting paperwork to adopt our future daughters! Our first home study visit is February 12th. Please be praying for us as we go through the adoption and fund raising process.

Time with Jesus:
- I used to journal A LOT about my life and about what God was teaching me during my daily time in His Word. In January I started journaling again, and I have loved it! Writing down observations of the passage I am reading keeps me focused and brings to my attention important truths that I may have overlooked before. I'm reading through the book of Joshua right now.

Stay tuned for a funny story about my birthday dinner last Friday night!

A Melody of Memories Part 2: Church and Church Friends

Taking the girls to church was just as difficult at first as it was last year. Eric and I look forward to going to church because of the impact Jesus has made in our lives, but Masha and Dasha dread church. When the girls first arrived this year they "put up a fight" about going to church. This year we were able to get them Russian Bibles from an organization in Texas, so that helped tremendously. Having a Bible in their own language allowed them to better understand what is going on. Once the girls reunited with some friends from last year and met some new ones, they slowly began to look forward to attending church. Since Eric "works" at church, we often wondered if they did not like church because that is where Eric had to go every day. Of course, by the last Sunday the girls willingly got up, got ready, got to church early, and seemed to enjoy themselves. One of the highlights for me was the girls having the opportunity to see Eric preach one Sunday while our pastor was away. Church is important to us, so I wanted them to have a clear picture of what we are involved in on a regular basis. A mixture of church, nightly Bible reading, and God at work seemed to spark an interest in Dasha to read more of the Bible. Before they left, we gave Dasha the full Bible (the other Bibles were childrens Bibles and teen Bibles). The girls told us that their "teachers" would not like them taking back a Bible, but we sent one with them anyways. At least they hopefully had time on the long plane ride to read some more of God's Word! Please pray that God will increase their hunger for God and the Bible. It changed my life, I know it will change theirs!
In the pictures above you can see Masha helping Eric in his office. The girls liked going to see Eric at church. On Wednesday nights we would arrive at church early to see Eric, because he stays at church all day on Wednesdays. Masha loved helping Eric with his college Bible study slide show. The top right picture was taken at Moe's. Almost every Sunday night, Eric and I eat at Moe's with our college students after church. The girls were able to go with us while they were here. They loved spending time with George! The water fountain picture is cute because Dasha was amazed with it. She said that she does not have a water fountain where she lives. The bottom left picture is of the girls and some church friends playing the wii. Thank you Whisonants for having us over to play and for being friends to the girls!
The pictures above were taken at the Frix house. Masha and Dasha had so much fun playing with the Frix girls! They decorated cookies and played for hours. That visit was fun for us, too, because we got to spend time with some of our church friends while the girls played. Masha, Dasha, and the Frix girls had so much fun together, that we had to meet up again. Below are pictures taken at our Chuck-e-cheese visit with them. We are so thankful that the girls were able to bond with church friends! Thank you to the Frix family for sharing the love of Christ with these girls and helping them like church.
Below are pictures from when some other church friends came over to our house. We had dinner together, and then the girls played while the adults had some hang-out time of our own. At the end of the visit, the girls performed a dance for us - it was too cute!!! Thank you, Dyals, for loving on our Christmas girls and for being such good friends!
***More pictures coming soon!***