THANKSGIVING: Great week to be Grateful

Well, it is about 12 am here in Le Havre, France. I am wide awake and eager to share my week with everybody. Why? Well because it was a great week for myself, my family, and my team! Thanksgiving is a pretty big holiday in the USA and it is something that the Miller family celebrates pretty seriously. Being in France makes it a hard to celebrate with our family, so if we couldn't go to Thanksgiving in the states we thought we would bring Thanksgiving to us. I invited the entire team to my apartment for a huge feast to be prepared by my lovely wife, Monica! She did an awesome job! She stayed up all night on Wednesday preparing turkey, rice, potatoes, pies, cakes, yams, macaroni and cheese, and more. I have to admit that I was unsure about being able to feed a group of 14 guys who were and average size of 6'5 , 200+lbs but Monica pulled it off! She got some great help from Natasha Jackson. She is the girlfriend of Joseph Jones and she knows her way around the kitchen as well. Together the ladies really hooked us up. We all had a blast and I think that it really helped the team get a little closer. Things like these are necessary if we are going to be there for each other on the court! I have to say for those of you who do not know that Monica could be on Top Chef or something! This was one of the qualities that I noticed before I jumped the broom with her(forward thinking fellas, lol).

Thanksgiving also did a great thing for Monica and I. You see during the holidays you have a tendency to miss home a little more than normal. Being able to enjoy this day with close friends and family made being away from home a little easier. We even got a chance to do the family tradition of letting everyone tell what they were thankful for. My french teammates got in on it and it was awesome to see the guys take time to acknowledge how blessed we all were to be able to do the things that we do. Obviously, I am grateful to God for blessing me with such a wonderful woman to be by my side, an awesome family, and this special gift to play basketball.

Speaking of basketball, we had a tough match this week against Chalon. They were at our place and we knew that we had to leave it all on the court to get a win! We couldn't let another team come into our house and get a victory. We battled for 40 minutes and although it wasn't pretty we came away with the win! So for this week MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Hopefully our team has learned something from the way we played this week. I mean, the game was ugly and we did not play well, but we stayed together and that is what got us the win!

Well it is getting late over here, and I have an early practice tomorrow. I want to thank you guys for tuning in to another week in the life of JJ Miller. Before I go I have something that I would like to share with you that I thought was very inspirational. I am beginning to realize that "If I've got correct goals, and if I keep pursuing them the best way I know how, everything else falls into line. If I do the right thing right, I'm going to succeed." I want to challenge everyone to strive to do the right thing, not to receive anything, but just because it is what should be done. Have a great week and as always remember to EXCEED EXPECTATIONS!