Chris Millard's World

I am in Washington DC on business, but with Spencer that always turns out to be a party.

I am staying at the Hotel George, but my flight was late and they gave away my room, so they put me at the Hotel Rouge. I wish I would have taken pictures, but I didn't. Let's just say it isn't my style. There was red carpeting and orange wallpaper in the room. The hallway carpeting was leopard. Get the picture? There was a huge mural in my room of a guy playing a piano. There are statues of naked people at the front door. There was something just not right there. No matter. Now I am at the Hotel George that I picked for the very cheap government rate, and for the excellent location.

You can see the Hotel Rouge website by clicking here, but the photos do not show the real picture.

Friday night Spencer and I went to the Marine Barracks built in 1806, to see the "Evening Parade."

There was a downpour and the bleachers were very wet. Spencer slid across the seat on his bum so that I could have a dry seat. Then he did the same for all the other old ladies who came along. By the the time it started he was soaking wet.

Meanwhile, I moved to the Hotel George. When I got back to my room, look what I found.

Here was a nice gift and a letter from the manager apologizing for sending me to the Hotel Rouge (hope to never go there again). Very nice indeed.

We are doing business, which on Saturday consisted of a boat ride down the Potomac River. Spencer went very fast and hit some underwater land mass and trashed the prop. We decided that the thing we learned most was that we should never really own the boat. The boat club owns the boat with the chopped up prop. Tomorrow we are getting a better boat.

This has to make you wonder, doesn't it? I am boating down the Potomac, but I won't even go boating with Grandpa and the darling grandchildren at Pineview. Well, there is a reason that I am doing this!

Captain Spencer at the helm. There were life jackets somewhere but I didn't see them. Captain Spencer had a very fancy inflatable life vest with a little yellow tab at the bottom which he was supposed to pull if he found himself in the water. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do to resist yanking on that yellow tab and watching him blow up! If we do much more boating (and we plan to) I might lose control and have to pull the yellow tab to see what happens. Sometimes I just can't help myself and I do stuff.

Spencer loved going under the planes taking off from National Airport. Made me think of Captain Sully. This picture was taken just about where he put that plane down.

There are many important dudes in Washington DC, and there are also the ones who make things happen. Here are some of them.

Tonight Grandpa (with Jeff and Kristin) took Sophie, her sisters, and her friends boating on Willard Bay for Sophie's tenth birthday party (this is the birthday that goes on and on). He just emailed a photo of them on the water weenie! Awesome!

Our Sophie is now 10 years old!

Here we are singing Happy Birthday to Sophie. Cousin Emily joins us by cell phone from Maryland.

Sophie is the first Millard baby born in her generation, making her a special girl, indeed. We think she is perfect.

Reed screamed until we let him wear the birthday hat. Never mind that it is the princess hat. He just didn't care. He was going to wear that hat or else!

Reed also seems to have a permanent chocolate cookie face. His favorite word of the day was, "Cake????" He asked and I gave.

Reed and Max, the two littlest Millard boys, were lounging on the Thomas the Train blanket. Cute or what?

Jill, Megan, and Ellie

Here are the backward girls. Their ponytails are on the front of their heads and their clothes are on backwards. I cannot explain this.

Last night we had 4 grandchildren. Whew! The challenge was getting everyone to church in the morning. Here is Reed on the floor during Sunday School.

The little girls went right into Primary, but Reed wanted nothing to do with Nursery.

Kristin was running with a team doing the Wasatch Back Relay (click here and here) which goes from Logan to Park City. Take a look at that on a map!

All this running mystifies me. Why kill yourself running when God helped us invent perfectly good cars to get wherever we want to go? And, running around the block is one thing. This Wasatch Back is quite another.

Megan came to spend the night. You know where we had to go first.

This morning I awoke with a stomach ache. I was absolutely convinced that I have the Swine Flu. I got the paper from the front porch, and found that 8 people have died from the Swine Flu in Utah at this point.

I've become a little paranoid. Turns out I only have the Whine Flu!

Usually outdoor sculptures leave me wondering. However, this magnificent work of art truly speaks to me. It is musical!

We went to a party at Brad and Linda's house. They have several pets. We took Connor.

This is the best picture, but there was one with the dog, the bunny, and the chicken!

Connor had a wonderful time in the hot tub. We loved seeing the Stringer's house, which was gorgeous.

I've been in Savannah for a couple of days teaching a seminar for faculty at Armstrong Atlantic State University, and visiting my friends, Shelley and Rich Conroy. The seminar went very well and we were all happy with what was accomplished. I made lots of new friends, which was fun.

We are going out on the river on a boat ride today. I'll head home tonmorrow.

Here I am in front of Paula Deen's restaurant. We never had dinner there because the wait was too long, and Shelly says the food isn't that great anyway.

Shelley took me to dinner at the Chart House, which was absolutely amazing. The food was spectacular.

I had coconut shrimp and rice.

Shelley's friends, Helen and Tom took us out on their boat.

We went down the intercoastal waterway.

We went on a trolley tour of downtown Savannah and stopped at this famous cathedral, the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

Connor came to visit today. It is our favorite thing when one of the grandchildren come to our house. It is only better if two grandchildren come to the house! It's only better than that if 3 come to our house. It gets pretty wild when 11 come to our house!

We decided to do our Saturday chores, but that becomes difficult with a 4 year old who sees every McDonalds in town.

We decided that we needed a table and chairs for the back porch. After shopping and discovering how dang expensive these things are, we decided to be really cheap and go to Shopko. We let Connor pick his favorite and we brought it home.

Sophie and Ellie are playing softball this year.

Here is Sophie on the pitcher's mound. She was awesome!

Here is Ellie playing center field. She looks amazing!

Jeff and Ellie

Reed