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Long after his car pulled out of the garage, Mom woke us to start getting ready for school. We headed into the kitchen for breakfast and were always delighted to find the Valentine’s fairy had not forgotten about us. Sitting on the rickety old kitchen table sat three heart shaped boxes. One extra large box for mom, and two miniatures for Amanda and I. The Valentine’s fairy came. And although I would take a bite out of every piece and inevitably spit it out, because I only liked one kind, he did it every year.

This Valentine’s Day I climbed out of bed, put my slippers and hoodie on and slowly made my to the kitchen to make breakfast. Passing by my big black dining room table, I couldn’t help but notice that it was empty, not a thing on it except my red backpack sitting on one of the chairs. I got my English muffin and water and sat down at the table by myself. I smiled as I thought of those red heart shaped boxes, and wished that if I closed my eyes long enough one would appear. Because although I only ate one out of the five pieces, it wasn’t about the chocolate at all; he was our dad, and we were his Valentines girls.

And, drum roll please, I’m pleased to announce the winner of the Megan Beth cupcake contest is: comment number 30, Lindsay Thompson! Email me your address Lindsay for your box of a dozen fresh Georgetown Cupcakes! If you didn’t win this time, there will be another contest coming up soon for something equally as awesome!

Lastly since no post is complete without a picture, here is a little gold nugget of Amanda and Brian at one of my weddings last year, who both just celebrated birthdays during the snow storm last week. I won’t mention how many years, but there was a milestone in there. Love you guys!

I don’t really abide by the pre-set major food groups, I have my own. And well, cupcakes is obviously a group of it’s own, obviously. My favorite is chocolate on chocolate, but honestly I don’t discriminate. So since we’ve been snowed in here for the past, umm, way too long, I’ve decided I should spread the love for valentines day and share some of my favorite cupcakes.

And you ask, how do you get some of these cupcakes?! Well, here it is, a MEGAN BETH CUPCAKE CONTEST. All you have to do is leave a comment with your favorite cupcake flavor, and then I will randomly pick a winner from a number generator. If you win, you will receive a dozen fresh assorted cupcakes directly from Georgetown Cupcakes. Here’s the catch, the total number of comments/entries must reach at least fifty, so spread the word on facebook and twitter by reposting with this link: ‘@MeganBeth cupcake CONTEST, enter here: http://tinyurl.com/yhmej88‘. Entries must be received by midnight Friday, February 12th and you must be in the United States to enter. Winner will be announced Monday February 15th!

Ready, go.

Photo courtesy of Georgetown Cupcakes.

It snowed a little here in the DC metro area over the weekend, shutting down practically everything. Everything except for my street which stays well plowed because of the fire station at the end of the road. And fortunately, or unfortunately in some cases, there is another snow storm coming tomorrow and Wednesday with another foot of snow. I love the snow, but standing at five feet, I’m slightly afraid it will soon get over my head. Must remember to wear my hat with the flag for easy Megan Beth GPS locating.

Check back tomorrow for an AWESOMELY delicious CONTEST! You heard, a CONTEST.

And here I am making sure my dance moves are still sharp in half of the twenty-eight inches of snow we got. Still got it! Holla!

I got up way earlier than I even knew existed that morning; he was in a suit and I tried to pick my most grown up outfit. It was a big day, with at least an hour ahead of us to get to work. I felt like a grown up sitting in the passenger seat beside my dad enjoying the ride in the rush hour traffic with the rest of the adults, did I just say ENJOY RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC?! yes, I think I did. I laid my head on the seat belt strap and rested while nervously anticipating the day ahead. We were listening to a morning talk show and I couldn’t understand why a TALK SHOW on the radio, but I convinced myself it’s just what grown ups do. And that was my job for the day, experience the life of my father as a grown up, for a day.

As my mom came in and woke me, she gently whispered, Megan it’s six thirty, you don’t want to be late. I drove over to his house, picked him up and off we went for the long morning commute. He was sitting in the passenger seat with his tired head resting against the seat belt and I asked him if he was nervous. He said no, just ready to get it all over with, and I couldn’t agree more. We sat in silence among all the hundreds of cars rushing to work, and in the background a morning talk show. I couldn’t help but wish that the roles would have been reversed like that morning sixteen some years ago, but this has become the new grown up me, taking my father to the hospital for surgery. Something, I never wished to experience.

I cried as I left him there alone for the evening and couldn’t wait for him to be released the next day. It had been a rough couple of days for him, so I decided he needed some cheering up, thus commencing OPERATION CHEER DAD UP.

OPERATION CHEER DAD UP from Megan Beth on Vimeo.