Happiness

The rest of the trip would be best shown in pictures. Thursday night we stayed in a scary hotel and went to the park with Molly and Doug and kids. After that we ate lunch and drove up to Uncle Doug and Aunt Sheelah who live near Santa Barbara, California and very close to the beach. We went twice. Friday afternoon and most of the day Saturday. Here is Asher with a toy on his head. Carpinteria Beach, Ethan and Jonah exploring the waves. They were hesitant yet brave. They loved the splashing of the waves, but mostly they loved the sand, as seen later. Aunt Sheelah and Elizabeth making cookies. :) Asher with the sandcastle that he built next to mine. He feared the water, any dogs and all seagulls, which made for a scary time. Oh, well. Maybe next year. Ethan loved the sand. They would stop, drop and roll around in the sand and then even make snow angels in the sand. Silly Eastern kids! Jonah opted out of sand castle making in favor of digging a giant hole. He was very proud of it in the e...

Josh and Elizabeth, waiting at the airport in Dulles Grandpa John with baby Mitchell Aunt Molly with baby Mitchell- I just want to eat him up!! These baby cheeks make me Baby Hungry!! All 15 Grandkids, minus Charlotte The pictures are from Day 1- family reunion at Gma. Betty's . Today Ethan says to me "So, you blog everyday, right?" "Yep," I reply "Everyday." But, I'm not addicted like I was when I was depressed. When I was depressed all I wanted to do was sit on the computer and read blogs, for hours and hours at a time. This was the summer of '08. I had all four kids at home- no summer school- and my neighbor said to me at one point: "Have you guys been on a vacation for a long time?" Um, no- I've just been depressed. Thank you very much. Anyways, now I have a limit and I am back to normal. All those who saw me in Cali can attest to that, right? I love being normal. I'm planning on stopping my meds in July. Not because I...

Picture taken of the whole family! Missing Tommy, Kelsy and Charlotte On Thursday, June 17th, the day after school got out, Josh and I and the four little ones flew out of Reagan National Airport (thanks, Aunt Ellen, for driving us) and headed on out to good old California, where my Parents and Josh's Parents and some other family live. It was a long day- flying across the whole country! We took 6 sandwiches, 6 empty bottles of water to be refilled past security, one big, black checked-in bag, 4 small sleeping bags (which we didn't end using but they carried their pajamas anyways), 3 big carry-on bags, one purse and one box of sees candy acquired at the airport (my favorite!). We had two legs of the flight- 2 hours to Chicago, a long walk across the airport carrying said bags, sleeping bags and chocolate, and another 4 hour flight into LAX. Upon arriving at 2:30 pm or 5:30 pm Eastern time, what amazed the kids the most were the palm trees. They had never seen them (well,...

Oh, you didn't know I was on vacation? Sorry! I've been keeping it on the down-low and scheduling blog posts before I left. Now you know. I have tons to blog about, which I will do as soon as I get back or as soon as I recover from the 3 hour time difference. Whichever comes first. Meanwhile, check out Hilary's cute blog that has pictures of my adorable kids on it. Oh, and some of their cousins as well. We are having a BLAST! Too bad it all ends soon. Very soon. http://www.keepitsimple-hilary.blogspot.com/ Love, Megan

Asher is my youngest child. As such, he gets all of my attention and love while the bigger kids are at school. Sometimes I feel this is spoiling him to no end. Other times, I just love it and dote on him as much as I possible because I know that next year he will be in Kindergarten. Next summer he will even go to Summer School. And just like that, it will be over. The time spent and home with mostly Mom and a few friends and a little preschool. Asher cracks me up by the way. When I was pregnant with him, he was always moving and kicking and doing something. He never let up. Okay. Maybe to sleep a little, but other than that it was all the time. He kicked more the twins, put together! When he was born I said "Phew, now I can feel some peace and be alone for just a second." He still has the same personality. He is always going, going, going. The other morning, I went to wake him up and he was standing on the top of his bed frame, just looking down at me ready to pounce! The oth...

Jonah and Ethan, 2005 Jonah and Ethan and Elizabeth, 2007 Ethan and Jonah, 2010 Ethan and Jonah are now graduated from Kindergarten! Wahoooo! Actually, I'm kind of sad. Where did the time go? With Elizabeth, everything was completely new and exciting.With Ethan and Jonah, I knew more about the curriculum, the school schedule, the field trips, volunteering, a lot. If the years go by faster with each child, then by the time we are done with our last one, the school year will be gone in a blink of an eye. Let me tell you about two of the cutest twins around. Seriously, they are a-dorable. They are both blonde and blue eyed. Josh teases me that I married him to have blonde kids. It's partly true. The day I met Josh, I later saw him sitting under a lamp, the golden light sparkling off his hair and I knew that I wanted to know more about him. One marriage, 9 years and 4 kids later, here we are in Washington D.C. But that's another story. Ethan and Jonah are identical. I can alway...

My dad! It's Father's Day! I am with my Father-in-law today and I get to see my Dad in a few days. How awesome is that? I love both of my Fathers very much, but today I wanted to focus on my biological Father. I was just reading (just as in a few weeks ago) reading another blog where the girl dedicated a post about her Father. You see her Father has cancer and was told that he would die in six months if he didn't do anything about it. My Father had cancer. CLL, or Chronic Lymphonic Leukemia from June 2006- sometime in 2008. He is in remission. He didn't die. And I am oh so glad. Because I wouldn't have been able to handle it. I was already suffering from major Depression (actually Bi-Polar but I didn't know it at the time) when he started getting worse and worse. His white blood cell count was bad. He was doing radiation. He had low energy. Things were not going well! We had a fast as a family for him. I fasted. My sisters fasted. My brothers fasted. My Mom fas...