Dad and Shirley visit the Bay!!!

We love you both so very much, thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the journey to the Bay. We miss you both!!!

Alisha and Dad after a very long golf game...tons of fun!!! I love you daddy!!!

Alisha and Dan with beer and golf, we are a happy couple!

A pretty little picture off of the club house patio. We played 18 holes at the Las Positas Golf Course in Livermore.

We chose this course because it is right next to the Livermore airport, dad loves the planes. A great way to distract his game!

A baby Red Fox plays along side us as we were putting. This creature was terribly cute to see in person. I got to enjoy seeing her play with a little stick just as Honey would do...she had many sweet puppy ways about her, it was adorable!

Bye Bye sweet fox!

And of course a visit to Dublin always entails a journey to the local historic sites just a block away from our home. And we got some exciting news about a park they are adding right next door which will include additional historic monuments and sites to share with all of our weary travelers. It was an extremely hot weekend in the Bay but beautiful as always!!!

Dad enjoying the journey!

Dad taking personal interest in this tree. It has an impressive trunk, smooth to the touch, a very unique tree.

Honey thought it was a rather warm day as well. She loved walking with the pack!

Shirley enjoying a shady tree in the Dublin Cemetery, next to the Dougherty lot. Yes my visitors are always brought to the special grave site...lol.

And for the first time ever in all of my trips to this grave site (there have been many), I found a stone shaped as a heart.

How could it be that I have not blogged since Christmas?!?! Life is going well, I hope all the goodness the world has to offer is presenting itself to you!

A couple of weekends ago, we went to the A's game for uncle Gary's Birthday. I am typically not a baseball fan (that comment probably just got me ousted from the Newell & Miller clan) but we had a great time. A game in person is so much cooler than on t.v. I knew the fans were really into this but man, its so great to see them in action.

Me, Dan and Uncle Gary. I really hate my arms in this photo, I still got a lot of work to do...

Cousin Aaron, looking smashing or smashed...LOL

Look how close we are...better to see the baseball butts from this distance! 10th row from third base...hello fly balls from south paw hitters.

The A's won!!! Shaking hands after the game.

Life is still grand in the Bay but many changes are taking place in 2008, we hope to see some silver linings soon. Dan and I are both in search of work, again. He was recently laid off and I will be let go sometime this summer. The company I work for is coming closer to the end of the merge and I.T. is the last to be let go! But this end is only a beginning to a new and fun journey for both of us...we look forward to pool side days this summer. Winchester Mystery house visit photos will be posted shortly!!! Love to you all!!!

A sleepy Honey wishes you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! With a face like this, it's no wonder she is spoiled.

The Meloy Family tradition continues in 2007 with two new ornaments purchased to represent "monumental moments" in the lives of us.

A Raiders helmet for Dan the Raiders fan. In 2007, he got to see the Raiders lose, giggles the 49'er fan.

And of course, we had to have Santa playing golf (pictured below) to represent one of our latest and greatest past times. See you on the Greens Tiger!

Alisha and Dan enjoying a swanky dinner at a swanky place in a swanky town with some swanky people. The drinks were swanky too! Seriously, this was by far the best meal of 2007, Forbes Mill Steakhouse is Fab!

From my blogs below, you can see I had a pretty good opening act for my 32nd Birthday. I knew it was going to be a good day because we had tickets to see a comedian we like named Dat Phan. He is the orginial winner of Last Comic Standing. When we arrived at the comedy club, we were full of champagne and pizza, so we were feeling pretty good. We were seated in the VIP section even though we did not have VIP tickets, SWEET!!!! I even won tickets for another performance by going on stage and shaking my ass with a bunch of other November Birthday party goers!!! Luckily Dan was having trouble snapping that photo!

I'm drunk, Dans not amused!

Some guys doing a strip tease for free tickets, they are kind of pricey so it was worth taking off your clothes and shaking your booty.

Comedians #1 and #2, sorry, I don't recall their names.

And Dat Phan himself, he was awesome!!!

But the best part, I got to talk to Dat Phan himself, tell him how proud I was of all of his success. Being a comedian is not easy work, it takes dedication and humiliation and lots of it, its great to see someone succeed!

And then we became best friends!!!

How we spent our Black Friday:

We live near a few Historic sites in Dublin. Its always fun to give visitors a local tour as I slowly increase my knowledge of the History that this great town has to offer. We live across the street to the left of the First General Store in Dublin. The Green store was built in 1860 by John Green. John Green came to Dublin from New York. Mr. Green purchased Michael Murray's farm and built a mercantile store and hotel. He became Dublin's first and leading businessman. By 1870 Dublin had two hotels, a store, a wagon and blacksmith shop, a shoemaker, a school, a church, a Sunday school and was the crossroads for Bay Area travelers. By 1878 the community was officially named Dublin, after Dublin, Ireland.

This is Old St. Raymond's Church, built in 1859, is the oldest Catholic Church in the valley. Old St. Raymond's Church is the oldest Catholic Church building in Alameda and Contra Coata Counties. The land was donated as a church site by Michael Murray and Jeremiah Fallon who was one of the recuers of the ill-fated Donner Party in the Sierra.

Mom and Val between the church and school

Alisha and Val looking rather festive!

In 1856 the Murray School District was formed and Murray School was built on Flanagan Way. It was soon apparent to the settlers that the ground it was on (which is where the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton is today) was subject to flooding. Soon thereafter, horses and oxen moved the schoolhouse to Dublin Canyon Road. Here it stood for 100 years. Eventually there were too many children for the one-room schoolhouse so more schools were built. With the widening of I-580 in the 1970's the schoolhouse was moved to a third and final destination in what is now the Dublin Heritage Center. It now serves as a museum.

Typically I don't take pictures at Grave sites but I do want to share this place with others as I found it to be very peaceful, simply Historic, so I snapped a quick picture. I journey to this place ever so often and I even wrote a poem about my first day embarking on all of this history just a few steps from my front door. Its the only time living so close to a grave site actually felt good. There are over 50 grave sites full of men, women and more children than you can imagine. These people survived conditions we only read about. My Poem:

I took a special walk today

A corner of the town seemed so far away

But something lurked along the way

The pull was a feeling I could not free

So I took a special walk today

The path presented history

stones with moments inscribed

I learned along the way

This corner of town was all for me in a special way

Old structures at first it seemed and then

Stoned crosses, marbled tomb stones became visible

I smiled as I knew I was embarking on a peaceful place

Where lives once lived now lay at rest

This was no place for the common man

This was a place for those who made this place

I faced each tomb realizing I was greeting those

Who simply paved this place

I took a special walk today

To a place where others forever rest

I never felt more alive as I did today

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Just a few pictures to share yet another lovely Holiday at the Millers.

Mom and Alisha - Peace Out!

Someones eating early, o.k., we all were.

Everyone was pitching in!

Can you tell Football was on?

Yum, its pie time! We had lots and lots of pies!!!

Ending the evening with a serious game of Uno!

Happy Fall!!!

You can pull the girl from her garden like an unwanted weed, but where ever you drop her she will grow like a seed ~ Alisha N.

Dan and Lish, Lake Tahoe in the Background. Another fun Labor Day weekend in Genoa, Nevada. Thanks cousin Aaron...we love crashing at your place!!!!

Heavenly at Lake Tahoe in the Summer...its very quite in the summer, not a lot of action...I like it here in the summer. Its amazing to think of how packed it gets in the winter time.

Beautiful Lake Tahoe, it's a good thing they decided to keep this thing blue...I see all those bumper stickers that say, "keep tahoe blue" really paid off. Seriously, its beautiful!

Cousin Aaron lives down there, his house is the one with the light on...ha!

Peace from Genoa, Nevada...Nevada's first Settlement. I was in Genoa Labor Day of 2006, now I'm in Genoa on Labor Day of 2007...two differences, one year older, 30 lbs. lighter...no kidding!!!!!

Alisha and Aaron...I love this picture although I wish my right arm were a little more relaxed and I wish Dan would have gotten Lake Tahoe in the background as I had hoped for...picky picky. Hella cute picture though...for those who don't know, that's our cousin Aaron.

Alisha and Dan in Heaven, I mean Heavenly Lake Tahoe...LOL

Alisha with her "baby" cousins, they grow up so quickly. Sweet cudly Trevor to the left and growing way to quickly for me to handle, Bryson on the right. I cannot believe I held Bryson in my arms when he was just a baby and named him Bry Bry Pat Pat Tay Tay, and he remembered...aaahhhh. Its short for Bryson Patrick Taylor.

My mom, me and Grandma in Quincy...Grandma must be laughing...she did a lot of laughing and a lot of crying, we all did.

Mommy and Alisha - look, we have a matching saggy boob...LOL

O.K., this picture might trip out a few people, this is my aunt Roo Roo, I mean Laurinda. Yes, again, this is Aunt Laurinda. I cried hysterically when I saw her...she looks so healthy, so happy, so tiny, it is truly amazing. I love my aunt Roo Roo!!!

And here we are again...the Millers are looking good!!!!

Grandma Miller, Mary Louise Miller and I. What a special time this was. My Grandma is nearly blind, she can see shapes and some shades, but she does not have full vision like you and I. She resides in an elderly home, the one my Grandma Marge lived her last days in. My Grandma Miller is blessed in that she has loving family members who visit her on a regular basis and she is in Quincy, she is home. My visit with Grandma revealed some special things. I have my Grandma's hands, from every line, every crease, each finger is exactly the same, age being the only difference. We held hands for several hours, she felt each finger over and over as if to feel what I saw. She called me wee wee, that sound was sweet. I love you Grandma.