Let's All Come Together

Summer is for family reunions. Well, lots of summers have gone by without a Miller family reunion, like 20 summers since all the Miller boys have been in one place at one time. Houston has 4 brothers, no sisters. That's 5 boys. Yikes! I come from a family of 3 brothers, no sisters and just 2 male cousins. I also have 3 sons, no daughters, so I know about boys. But luckily the Miller clan has produced a number of girls, which outnumber the boys by just one. Not everyone could make it, but we did manage to have 21 of us show up. Four of the boys live on the east coast but Jim and Pam live on the west coast so getting all boys together doesn't happen often enough.


Chip, George, Chuck, Houston and James, frontsides


same order, backsides


all the girls (Audrey, Pam, Glynis, Lea, Shannon, Jenna, Debbie, Diana, Dalis)




the wives (Dalis, Debbie, Diana, Pam)


We rented a fabulous pavilion on Dan's Mountain State Park west of Cumberland. One of those sturdy stone and heavy wood beamed buildings that are so lovely.




There was enough room for another 50 of us in the pavilion, it was so large. It was totally private, set deep into the woods and the day was clear and fortunately the humidity had hightailed in out of there and it was so pleasant.


We played croquet in the clearing in the woods...


and sat around catching up with everyone's lives.


My beautiful niece, Jenna, who lives just two houses down from me. I get to see her often.


She is like my daughter though. My mom and three brothers all have very red hair, so she fits right in to my side of the family.


My son, Garrett. Because we lived so close to Jenna's dad, George, we had "double baby days" where George watched the two kids on Mondays and Tuesdays and I watched them Wednesdays and Thursdays. What a great arrangement! It worked out splendidly and Jenna and Garrett were basically raised as twins. They are still very close.


A large fire pit was nearby so the kids were entertained with fire. Drew kept the fire going for hours.


I brought my many hoops and we hooped it up. Lea took to it immediately.






Glynis was a natural too and wanted to give a choregraphed performance just 15 minuted into it.


We got all the girls into it. Diana showed her cool moves


and Debbie got it going first try.


The day before and the day after the main event, we rode bikes on the C&O Canal and the Allegany Trail. Cumberland is the end of the C&O Canal (which runs 186 miles from Georgetown to Cumberland) and the beginning of the Allegany Highland Trail (150 miles from Cumberland to Pittsburgh) so we sampled a bit of both trails.


We only had Trapper for a week so I wasn't sure how he would do with so many people at once. But he had a blast, running with the kids, digging for smelly stuff in the woods, eating scraps people 'accidentally' dropped, chasing balls, hooping with the girls, but at the end of the night, he laid down exhausted and was out for the entire night.


Yep, a good time was had by all. Thanks Millers!