Miller Time!

OK, so I'm a little embarrassed to blog about this after it's been so long. I mean, it has almost been a month, but I have to. I have to because it's about the Millers. And they drove a LONG way to come see us. And we LOVE them. Unconditionally. And they complete us. (I think I might have buttered Rachel enough now to go on with my post, so moving on,...)

The Millers are quite the traveling family. They think nothing of getting in their car and just going. And they spent a big part of this summer on the road visiting friends and family. Lucky for us, we were on their "road trip" list, and we were thrilled to have them come visit for a few days. 

If you follow this blog, then you're no stranger to the Millers and my love affair with this family. In fact, we love them SO much, that we visited them in Iowa last December. Right smack in the middle of winter. With -11°F temperatures. And four feet of snow on the ground. Awesome!

So being that we love them so, we decided to return the favor and ordered up nice scorching temps in the 98°-100°F+ during their visit. In the month of July. In Memphis. With LOTS of humidity. Yeah, that's the kind of love we've got!

And yes, we are currently trying to figure out how we can reverse our visits so as to reduce the amount of frostbite/dehydration we all experienced this past year.

However, hot temperatures have not prevented us from having ourselves a big ol' time in the past. And this visit was no exception. We decided to go to Mud Island and have the kids do the River Walk. For those of you who are not familiar with what I am referring to, the River Walk is an exact scale model of the Lower Mississippi River flowing from Illinois, 954 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico.

The best part of our fun adventure however, was actually riding the monorail over to Mud Island. The kids were in total awe!

 

 

Don't get me wrong, the kids had a great time walking along "the Mississippi". You gotta love how something as "inconsequential" as the sweltering heat does so little to slow them down.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for us adults. It was HOT. And we were definitely feeling it.

While they were here, we were able to secure Miss Jessica, babysitter extraordinaire, to keep our children for a while so that we could get away for a nice fun adult-only dinner. Scott and I wanted to take them to a quaint little restaurant called Le Chardonnay, which we stumbled across a few years ago. It had the most magnificent wine list you could ever imagine. But when we got there, we found a sign on the door stating that they had moved to a new location a block or so away. So off we go to find our quaint little Le Chardonnay restaurant, and its amazing wine list. 

Apparently, what they neglected to state on the sign, is that not only did they move, but they also changed their name. So after spending oh I don't know, ten minutes looking for a restaurant that no longer exists, I finally stopped and asked someone. She kindly pointed next door to The Villa Restaurant.

Needless to day, it was not the same restaurant, menu, or atmosphere that we remember from Le Chardonnay. AT ALL! But we stuck with it and had a great time regardless.

One of the highlights of the evening for me was when I said I wanted to order a Caprese Salad before my meal. After telling Rob what all is in the salad (fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced tomatoes, basil, and salt), he decided he wanted to order one for his entree. 

That is, until they brought mine out and he actually saw it:

Yep, that's it! 
His reaction was priceless!

Go ahead, you can laugh.

I sure did!

I laughed so hard my cheeks actually hurt.

And that, my dear friends, is why we love this family so much. Because whenever we are together, you can put your money on the fact that there will be some serious laughter. Uncontrollable, side-splitting, tear-inducing, cheeks-hurting type laughter. And a whole lot of it. And how can you NOT love people who bring such joy into your life.

Until next time, Millers!

(BTW ~ you can read Rachel's post about their Memphis visit here.)