The Miller Family: Thanksgiving & Costa Rica

Let me start this post off with my favorite recent picture of Ella showing her toothless smile! She actually does have one bottom toofy coming in which is about half way up now.

This was right before we went to church for her Baptism/Dedication
Service @ Jersey Village Baptist which was absolutely perfect! Ed did an amazing job and it was everything we imagined it was going to be and more! I can't wait to get the DVD of it. Ella looked up at Ed while he was holding her on the Stage and gave him a big ole smile! It was great! The sermon that day was very powerful too! Anyways, since Chris and I were both up on stage with Ella during the dedication, we didn't get to take pictures. My dad took some with my mom's camera but it'll be a while before I get those, I'm sure :-)

Here are a couple from Thanksgiving in Navasota at Chris' grandparent's home. Ella loves her Pappy (Great Grandfather)

Ella with Gmaw Glenda (Nana - Great Grandmother)...love this picture!

This is a framed picture of Ella's Great Great Great Grandmother sitting on top of the piano with Nana and Ella in the background.

Ella and I made our way outside to watch Pappy and Chris play a game of discs and I couldn't help but take pictures of her in the beautiful light of the setting sun!

These next couple are more favorites!

Pappy & Chris

Ella showing me her leaf.

Me & my baby bear

Marsha asked me to snap a couple shots of Sofia and Roman for their Christmas card and these next few are the end result...I love my little Sofia and Roman!

IT was pretty tough getting a shot of Roman because he doesn't sit still for not even a second. Marsha, Despina and I were worn out after just a couple minutes of running around after him...LOL

I finally got a picture of Ella and her Pawpaw!

I love this picture!

We had Thanksgiving with my family on Friday at our house. This is the picture that my mom sent out with all her Christmas cards...showing off her beautiful family...LOL She really just wanted to show off her two sweet grandbabies! :-)

I knew that Chris could cook and I LOVE his creations but I didn't know that he could bake too! Chris made the green bean casserole, a whipped sweet potato casserole with a pecan crusted topping (YUM!) and bourbon & chocolate pecan pie. The pie was amazing and I don't even like pies very much. Needless to say, I gained 5lbs. just from Thanksgiving! Blake wanted to dig into the pie before dinner! LOL

Poppa being cool.

Now on to our trip to Costa Rica...I'll start these pictures off with the incredible view I woke up to find outside my hotel roompatio door...

We stayed at a very small and gorgeous place named Hotel Club Del Mar which in Jaco, Costa Rica which was about a 2 hour drive from San Jose, Costa Rica where the airport was. The bride's family frequents this place quite often so the whole place was filled with guests for the wedding. There were maybe 5 other guests that weren't there for the wedding.

Chris and I and a couple other girls got there at 12:30am in the morning and were welcomed by Nick & Kate (the bride and groom) and a couple other people who were waiting up for all of us to arrive. The next day, Chris and all the guys woke up early and went deep sea fishing. All the girls were supposed to go out on a boat and go snorkeling and have lunch on an island. Well, Kate came down for breakfast and said she was so tired since they had been there for a couple days prior to us getting there and their days had been really full! So, she decided not to go and to hang around the hotel and take it easy. At that time, Kate was the only girl I knew so I decided not to go too. We went back to our rooms and were going to meet downstairs again to hang out by the pool after a while. Turned out that Kate needed some major sleep and slept until about 3pm that day so I just walked around the property and the beach and hung out by the pool until Chris got back. They got back around 4:30 or so and Chris had caught the biggest fish on the boat! I was so proud! He caught a Yellow fin tuna and a Mahi Mahi. The Mahi was more than 40lbs. and was almost as tall as he was. They cleaned it and cut it up and served the guys sushi right there on the boat. Chris was loving this! That night the staff at Club Del Mar prepared the fish that all the guys had caught from the day and served us a buffet for dinner. They prepared it 3 or 4 different way...fried, grilled, blackened and another type of breaded. It was by far the best tasting fish I'd ever had and to top it all off it was caught by my baby! Chris and I thought it was so cool that he caught us dinner...he was my hero for the day!

This is a bad photo but I had to mention Christian (Smiley) who was our favorite staff member there. I don't think I ever saw him not smiling!

There was this guitar which sat up by the bar there that several famous people like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Buffet & Santana and many more had played. They let their guest play it if they can in fact play the guitar.

These pictures are pretty blurry but I had to take pics of the fish...this was the grilled mahi

fried mahi...my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

the buffet...

This night was really fun because we met all the other guest that were there for the wedding and just hung out for a good 3 to 4 hours just visiting. That was my favortie night (maybe because it had a lot to do with eating LOL)

This was the first sunset...it was absolutely beautiful! You'll see that I took tons of sunset pics but I couldn't help it...the sunsets there were amazing!

The beach in front of the hotel...

The huge palms

That's Club Del Mar behind the Palms with mountains of rainforest behind it.

Another picture of the gorgeous sunset our first evening

Chris enjoying the view drinking a carona.

This was his view

Nick & Kate had a sweet little rattan bag full of favors and welcome gifts when we got to the resort. This koozie was one of them.

Chris was one of the groomsmen and Warren was the best man. Warren was Nick & Chris' boss at the San Luis Hotel in Galveston and that's where they all met.

Hotel Club Del Mar

Another sunset and people walking on the beach

This was the cove next to our resort.

I told you there would be lots of sunset pics. :-)

Nick (The Groom) & Chris toasting...

Nick and his groomsmen at the Rehearsal Dinner in town at El Hicacco Restaurant. It was beautiful and right on the beach.

The seond day we walked around in town for a little while.

yet another sunset

Chris, Warren and I stopped off at a bar to have a couple cervezas before heading back to the resort to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. (I know...these pictures are all kinds of out of order)