The Rumour Mill Volume V (Our annual Christmas Newsletter)

by Rumour Miller on December 12, 2005

Pin It


Seasons Greetings to our Family and Friends!

This newsletter brings with it some particularly exciting news! We are so excited to announce that we are expecting our first baby in the spring! After almost two years of trying, some fertility medication and two trips to the Fertility Clinic in Winnipeg, we cannot describe the elation we are feeling. The most amazing part of it all, is that we ended up doing it all on our own. No medication and no further medical intervention, just the good old fashioned way! We figured that this was guaranteed after we bought a new hot tub. Nicole has not been able to spend much time in it since finding out about the baby. Craig thinks it was the fear of the $10,000.00 price tag attached to in-vitro fertilization, which would have been our next step. We are so blessed and we cannot wait to send you all pictures of Baby Pea Miller! We have created a website dedicated to Pea and you can all keep updated by visiting Pea’s page at the following link, http://www.babysites.com/sites/rumourmillers/. Nicole and baby are both doing well!

As you may remember from our last year’s letter, we went to Punta Cana Dominican Republic for a week in December ’04. We had a great trip and some fantastic weather! Craig caught a bug that made its way through the resort, but he managed to get over it and enjoy the week. We went parasailing and swimming with the dolphins. What a fabulous way to relax.

We spent the Christmas holidays with Nicole’s family. Santa was good to everyone again. The new year brought with it some sad news. Nicole’s cousin, Tim Perreault, passed away in January after a lengthy illness. The memorial services were held in Fort Frances in February and we went home to be with family. For those of you in attendance at our wedding, Tim gave the toast to the bride. Tim will be missed greatly by our family.

Craig is still employed here with Maple Leaf and works with a great group of colleagues. We both enjoyed the Dragon Boat races this past June with a team from Maple Leaf, “Bringing Home the Bacon”. We placed second on the “B” side which made us especially proud. We also enjoyed playing slo-pitch through the summer with the friends that we have made at Maple Leaf. We have made some wonderful friends here, that’s for sure. Nicole’s season was cut short with the news of the baby. She was told to take things very easy and not to do anything that she didn’t have to. Perhaps we were extra cautious, but we were not going to take any chances.

Nicole continues to practise law and is really enjoying it. She is very thankful to say that she works with an office full of wonderful staff. This area has a very congenial legal community and one that Nicole has fit right in with. There are many great opportunities for Nicole’s career at the firm and in fact this winter she will be the only lawyer in the office as the other lawyer will be enjoying some Southern weather.

For our summer holidays we spent 5 days in July camping at Rushing River Provincial Park. We absolutely loved it there and are already planning the trip next summer with our new baby in tow. We also attended the wedding of one of Nicole’s high school friends, Melissa. The wedding was an absolutely wonderful affair. Melissa was one of the emcees at our wedding.

We were also able to catch up with Lindsay, Nicole’s maid of honour, and her family. We had not seen them since our wedding day and it was wonderful to meet her son, Diarmid John.

In August, we took a week off and stayed close to home trying to complete some unfinished projects, which include Craig’s home theatre room. Craig has set up a pretty neat room in the basement complete with a 106” diagonal big screen with projector, 7 speakers and a subwoofer, DVD, and High definition satellite. Needless to say we have clocked many hours watching movies down there! We are looking forward to watching Baby Einstein and all of those other fun kids shows, over and over and over again!

You may all remember Sami, our hockey billet. Sami joined our family again this year and landed on Canadian soil on August 31, 2005. We drove to meet him at the airport. Nicole has been teasing him that he will be on diaper duty come spring. He has really been a fabulous addition to our family and is truly a joy to have around.

This year, we made a special trip for thanksgiving. We travelled North to Thompson to visit our friends, The Lang Family. It was a long drive but well worth the trip to be able to spend some quality time catching up with them.

Other very exciting news occurred for Craig on October 27th when he had a left hip replacement. This was an event that we were both very excited to have done as Craig has been living with significant pain in his hip for a few years now. The pain limited his ability to enjoy so many activities, even walking. We had one weeks notice of his surgery and Nicole’s mom was able to make arrangements to be with us in Winnipeg for five days. We were very glad to have her support. We must admit that our first few days at home alone were daunting. It took us a while to realize the magnitude of his surgery and his recovery process. We are very thankful that he was able to have the surgery completed months before our baby’s debut. Nicole was able to arrange her work schedule to have some extra time during the day to be at home with him. Craig’s parent’s came out to stay a few weeks after the surgery, much to our deep gratitude and pleasure. We love having our family around and it was great that they were able to help us out. Craig is doing fantastic and we have adapted to the changes that his recovery has required. It has been worth it, knowing that he is no longer restricted by the pain in his hip. Knowing that in a few short months he will be able to play with Pea without the worry or restrictions that the pain was causing him.

We look forward to sending you all birth announcements in the spring to introduce our newest family member. This time next year will truly be magical with a child to spoil.

Christmas this year will be spent at home with Craig’s parents, Max and Iva. We are also expecting Nicole’s parents and her sister to make a trip sometime over the holidays as well. We absolutely love this time of year and the magical feelings associated with it. We truly wish you and yours a fabulous holiday season! From our home to yours, a very merry Christmas. “The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.”–Burton Hillis

Love and Best Wishes for 2006,
Nicole & Craig, Baby Pea & Molson, Smokey & The Bandit & Sami, too!

Follow Me on Pinterest

Previous post:

Next post: