Happiness

via Pioneer Woman Josh and I have been going things together so much lately and I have LOVED it! We went to the gym together- for the first time ever- this morning and I learned that he likes to take his time and stretch whereas I like to do my set of 5 or so stretches and get outta there! We went shopping together at the Mall and bought a weed whacker and some clothes. He let me buy Sees chocolates and we had to eat them fast before they melted in the crazy heat! I learned that I like creams and he likes nuts and chews. We also visited one of our favorite places- the animal store: that mostly has very expensive, cute puppies and then we drooled over their cute little faces. My favorite is a mix between a pug and a dachshund. He is sooo adorable! Then We passed by the photo booth since it was too pricey and set a goal to do it next time! I have loved spending this time with Josh. 1/2 of me hopes he never finds a job. The other 1/2 hopes he finds a job pretty quickly. Life. ...

My Parents were married in the Mesa, AZ Temple 35 years ago and Josh and I went for the first time last Friday. We went while the kids were in school and I was just thrilled to go! What a special day! I think May was a lot better time to get married than August! Phew! I've been a little hesitant to write this blog post today. Somehow I think that if I write it, I will break my streak and never post again. Hopefully that won't happen. Even if we never replace our computer table that we left in Maryland! The winner of my 1,000 post give away is Michelle !! Congratulations! Michelle, e-mail me your address at joshmeganabbott at hotmail dot com and I'll get it out to you! Thank you to all who read my blog. The comments that people have left me when times have been hard have often made me smile with joy and have literally made my day. It's amazing what one little small thing can do for a person. Happy blogging and Happy September/Labor Day coming up!!! Where di...

a picture from 71toes who'll you run into. Guess who I saw today? Shawni from 71toes.blogspot.com . A Mother of 5 who lives in Gilbert and a daughter of the Eyres , she teaches Power of Mom Seminars and has won the Young Mother of the Year Award . Oh, yeah...and she is in my Stake at Church! I went to pick up Elizabeth from a Stake Activity Days Girls Activity (which was super cute) this morning and who pulled up close to me in the long row of SUVs (?) but a super tall and dark headed lady carrying a camera bag. I knew it was her, but I didn't say anything as she booked it inside and soon we were all surrounded by tons and tons of 8-11 year old girls. Um. Yeah. Wow. Amazing! And now I know she is in my Stake and I'm sure we'll meet again! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

Scenes from a rest stop in New Mexico. Here's Asher with a Native American chief! It was quite sunny! Bathrooms at the rest stop as well- or maybe it was a souvenir shop! We saw a lot of sky and land as we traveled from Oklahoma and New Mexico on that Friday. Picture done by Josh. He likes to steal my camera and play around with it a little. He takes wonderful pictures! Home Sweet Home! Us in front of our rental home. It was built in 2006 and is a lovely 4 bed, 3 bath. Like I said before the extra bed and full bath is downstairs, so if anyone wants to come visit let us know!!!

The skies in Oklahoma are drop dead gorgeous! On Tuesday night we stayed with Jen and Uche in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. They have a beautiful home and we so enjoyed visiting with them! We wish we could have stayed longer! We went swimming, visited the Conoco Philips Museum and went out to eat, plus ice cream! It was so nice and refreshing to take a break from the road and visit for a while. Josh did most of the driving while I gave him a one to two hour break each day. Thanks, Babe! The kids loved the two hotels we stayed in! The 2 must haves for hotels with kids are 1. A hot breakfast and 2. a pool. The kids loved being able to swim at night and we loved that they got the needed exercise. One time I sent Josh with the kids to the pool and enjoyed a nice bath in the hotel room all by myself. Being in a car for 8 hrs a day with a lot of noise can be stressful! Then, we enjoyed hot waffles in the morning with the current news on tv. Oh, and we love free cable! Fun times! ...

On Monday night, we arrived at Molly and Doug's home in St. Louis, Missouri. This is the first time we have visited her in St. Louis and a bucket list item checked. She has a lovely home and a sweet, sweet family. We stayed the night and went to a children's museum called The Magic House the next day. The kids had a blast and I had fun taking some pictures. We left early the next day, on the road again. This is blurry, but cute! Elizabeth and Anna playing a game on the phone. Fun, fun Christian in the Bubble Room. The bubble had just popped! All the kids. A bit blurry. Sweet Baby Peter. He is such a doll. I loved, loved, loved holding him. What a sweet baby! He really has brought a lot of joy to the Larsen household! Paul waving hi. Anna is growing bigger and bigger. She is a sweet, helpful girl. Charlotte- I love how there are pictures of Charlotte in each and every room. Her Spirit filled each corner of the home. We miss her! ...

In a way, Joseph adopted Jesus. I injured my back on Saturday lifting some heavy boxes, so I have been immobilized today. This is good and bad. Good because it forces me to take a break and rest some- to think and to get organized. Bad because I am in pain and I can't get done any of the things that I wanted to get done today. While Josh was off at the bank setting up our new bank accounts, I tried to be a little more productive and went online. I blogged about our trip (see future posts), I updated my goodreads (nice to see you again, my friend!), I sent messages on facebook and guess what else I did? I looked seriously into adoption. It was scary, but I did it. I called up our nearest LDS family services and asked them point blank if a Mother of 4 with Bipolar Disorder such as myself was eligible for adoption through their agency. The very friendly lady on the other end informed me that once someone has 3 kids they can no longer use LDS family services. I didn't kn...

You know it's HOT when... -Your touch cell phone sticks almost completely to the side of your face. -You run your laundry on a cold/cold cyle and the clothes come out warm. -You can fill up the kiddie pool w/ warm water right away. - You've almost always been able to run while wearing your garments and now there's no way. This is my blog. My name is Megan A. p.s.- psst...Did you hear? Nie Nie- one of my favorite bloggers who survived a plane crash with 80% of her body burned- is pregnant with baby #5. I am thrilled! Mostly for her and her family and partly because it shows me there is still hope in this world. And I need some hope in my life right now!

Artwork by Elizabeth Abbott, 3rd grade I had a bad Mothering moment yesterday. Josh had been really busy for the past two days, so I had been doing most, ok- all of the child care- and when he was done, I let him take a long, long nap. I napped too, since I didn't sleep well last night, and when I woke up boy, was I grumpy. I had a snack and tried to wake myself up. The kids had been watching tv- something they have been doing a lot lately with temps over 105 degrees and me unpacking boxes- so when they saw me, they were starved for attention. "What can we do now Mom?" Ethan questioned and questioned. I tried the "Watch tv" again. No luck. They had a snack. And another snack of homemade Popsicle. I tried to have some quiet alone time while I woke up. No go. I was on the computer and Elizabeth was bouncing on a huge green ball next to me just chatting and chatting. Ethan had just knocked the ball into a lamp and the bouncing was making me tense. She mentio...

Asher in the pool in our backyard keepin' cool. Oh, and those are Ethan's legs too! A few things- #1. Arizona DOES have mosquitoes! I just got bit by one right now. And I just finished killing one in the bathroom. Dang it. Turns out with the poor economy people have been foreclosing like mad and have been neglecting their pools, which turn into huge mosquito larva fests. Have you seen baby mosquitoes? I have and they are shaped like this- J- and they wiggle around like crazy. It's gross. #2. Our house has been on the market for a couple of weeks. I'm so glad that I have my friend Kara who is a realtor and can look after our home for us until it is sold. She is having an open house this Sunday, so if you live in the area and always wanted to see my home stop on by (from 1-4 pm)! Kara just put pics up on facebook taken from one of those cool house photographers. You can go to facebook and look up Kara Crowley Hurley is my Real Estate agent and like her page to s...

We left our small town in Maryland around 2 pm Saturday Aug. 6th- after packing up several last items, buying a car top carrier and finishing cleaning our house- and we were off! The almost 2,500 mile trip would take us about 36 hours for us to complete but first we had to say goodbye to some friends. Here are the kids, with one of the boys' best friends Andy, in front of our moving trailer, saying goodbye. We sure will miss Andy! We also had to make one last trip to the Glen Echo park, since the kids needed a break from all that packing and riding a carousel was still on our Summer list of things to do. They had a blast! And we were off! Through West Virginia and green trees and on to Ohio. As I mentioned before, we got a shredded tire just outside of Washington, MD and had to stop for the night. Luckily a Super-Walmart was open on Sunday and we fixed the tire and went on our way with no more incidents! To be continued...

My friend Diana took this picture of me for a gift for Josh for our last anniversary- I love it! Josh and I went on a lunch date this afternoon to Olive Garden. It was amazing. We laughed. We talked. We ate breadsticks and then ate some more. I haven't gone out to lunch in a long time and I wondered why everyone was out eating lunch. Were they celebrating an occasion- like your last child so far making it to kindergarten? Or were they there to meet with friends and talk about old times? Or were they there to just simply eat. We will count this as our date this week and it was just lovely. Afterwards, we stopped by Best Buy to pick a new wireless mouse since ours had stopped working (I am finally back online-- not counting my phone-- hooray) and then on to the business of our lives. Our lives have been like a working vacation. We both don't have any salaried jobs to go to, but we sure do have a lot to get done from sun up to sun down. Life is such an adventure! Thi...

4. The trees trunks are painted white as a kind of "tree sunscreen" so they won't get sun damage. 5. Your kids are required to wear sunscreen to school and bring a water bottle every day. 6. It is still 85 degrees at 3 am in the morning. No going for a walk to cool off. 7. Nightly showers become a must in order to fall asleep. 8. The ceiling fan must be partnered with a standing fan and air conditioning set at 80 to cool down. 9. Your air conditioning can only be set at 80 unless you want a bill that is almost the same as your food bill. 10. Your snickers icecream bar melts almost completely on the 3 minute drive home from you Super Walmart. I'm counting down until October- when things will cool off! Mostly!!! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

We made it! We arrived in Gilbert around 6 pm and spent an hour with our land lady- a Mom of 3 who is the sweetest most organized land lady ever- getting to know the ins and outs of our new home. We crashed on sleeping bags and air mattresses to wake up and meet the Elders from our ward at 7 am. Yes, 7 am. Because we tried to beat the heat. Which arrives at 8 am in full force! At 9:30 am this morning, after dropping off the kids at school ( who all have very friendly teachers) it was 98 degrees. Allow me to take note of the heat for one moment and then I will be happy. Top Ten Heat Notices- 1. If you have not lived in the desert for 15 yrs or more you may develop a heat rash. Two days here I got red buumps all over my knees, elbows, chest and legs. No, you may not see a picture. 2. You will have to drink water constantly to maintain homeostasis- or whatever that is. Really. 3. Sunday afternoons can find the children melting ice in cups outside for fun ( I took benadryl for my r...

We have almost arrived in our new hometown of Gilbert, Arizona! I am blogging from my Android phone at a Comfort Inn at Santa Rosa, New Mexico. I couldn't help posting from on the road! After a 9 hr day tomorrow we will have arrived in Gilbert, AZ. After a 6 day trip across almost the whole United States, including a stop to visit my dear sister molly and her lovely family in St. Louis, Missouri, a stop to sweet Jen and Uche (Josh's sister and our brother-in-law) and two hotel stays, we have almost arrived. School for all 4 of the Abbott children starts on Monday- with Asher starting his elementary school/career in kindergarten, so we are not at all busy. ;) We packed up our very last few belongings unto our ABF trailer last Saturday morning, finished sweeping and mopping a few floors with the help of our Aunt and Uncle Craig and Ellen Abbott and children- who were literally life savers on several occassions during our move), ran to the store to buy a car top carrier to hold ...

The next time I blog, I will be blogging from the warm, sunny climate of Gilbert, Arizona! Originally I was just thrilled to be going on this GRAND adventure- moving our smallish family across the country. I love planning things. I love imagining things. I love hoping and wishing and dreaming. And then the work sets in. The boxes are gathered and bought, the rooms and items sorted and organized, the children let to their own imaginations to create toys out of plain old packing materials. And I get lost. Lost in the execution of it all. Finally, this morning, while I finished packing up my bathroom so I wouldn't trip over anything when I got out of the shower, I made a DECISION. I was going to be GRATEFUL . Grateful that we have the money to make this move. Grateful that we have a new and lovely place to move to that we are renting and not having to buy- just yet! Grateful that Josh gets this whole week off to help me watch the kids, run errands and pick up big heavy boxes I can...

I'm taking a little break from packing to blog about swim team. We've had such great help with people packing most of my kitchen (and many other rooms!), bring boxes and watching our kids. We would not have been able to do this whole thing without this kind of help and it has been one miracle after another. It's been amazing for me to watch! July 22nd was the kid's last day of swim team. They had such a blast this year! It was hard work- showing up every day for practice and then spending a few hours a week at the meets. It was hard racing against kids that were better and faster than you. And even Disqualifying in one race. But it was fun. We (both the kids and I!) made new friends, learned a lot and had a great time doing it! Good thing there are swim teams in Arizona! We LOVE SWIM TEAM! These pictures were taken by my friend Toni! Thanks, Toni! I have some of Elizabeth and Jonah as well, but they are on my other camera. Asher and coach Evan (love the green in the bac...