There is a good reason for my absense....

We are at 17 weeks and counting. Yup, we are having baby #4. Our due date is Jan. 9th. I'm feeling much better now, but I'm still very tired. I'm still trying to draw the line between pregnancy fatigue and just being a mom of three active kids during the summer. All I know is that somewhere in between all that I am exhausted by 9:00pm which is usually when I do my blogging. So, I'm hoping to do some blogger repentance over the next month or two to catch up.

Bitton Family Reunion 2010

Day 1 - we all meet together at the little Pocatello airport. We were there to pick up aunt Terry Anne from her mission in Los Angeles, CA. The cousins were so excited to see each other and their Grandma and Grandpa along with their cool aunt that served a mission. My favorite part of the airport was when I saw a t-shirt that they were selling there that said, "Welcome to Pocatello, now set your clocks back 25 years." I thought that was pretty true to life. Everything is much slower there and peaceful too.

We were all treated to a buffet dinner at Golden Corral. This was the "little boy table".
The little girl table - including aunt Terry Anne

Day 2 - hanging out at the lake. It was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed just hanging out with their cousins and playing in the water.

Dallin and Ryan decided that it needed to be BYU day. When driving though Utah we stopped at BYU and bought the kids each a shirt. Now whenever one of them puts one on in the morning they think that we should all wear our matching gear. The kids insisted that even I put mine on.

Grandma handing out one of her many special surprises to the kids - Frisbees. It sounded like a good idea until you have little ones that don't know how to throw and almost decapitate the adults. They thought it was so much fun to have their own!

Jared and I in our coordinating BYU gear.

The evening ended by meeting up at a local park and eating pizza for dinner. Look at all those playmates to choose from. Our kids are so lucky to have so many cousins.

Day 3 - look at that amazingly large backyard and view! We had a fun BBQ at Mark and Elizabeth's home in McCammon. That morning we had family pictures (hence everybody in white and jeans). We had a great time visiting and playing.

Cool uncle Richard scoring points with the little kids just before he leaves to go on his mission to Costa Rica.

That evening we had an awesome experience because all 8 Bitton kids were able to go to the temple together. I hope to be able to continue that kind of a legacy with my own little family someday!

Day 4 - Pioneer Day! Nothing says small town Idaho like a Pioneer Day parade and Rodeo. The kids loved it because each of the floats in the parade threw candy out to the kids. It was such a small parade that after all the floats had passed by once, they came back through and went by a second time. It was so cute and entertaining to see how excited the kids were. I especially loved the Bancroft Relief Society float with my brother-in-laws mother wearing a pioneer costume. My kids are really getting a taste of country life.

We then headed to Carrie and Loren's home where the kids played more and had another delicious meal. Carrie and Loren live the real country life. Loren is a farmer with his dad and my boys thought it was especially cool to see all of his farm equipment.

Ryan kept referring to this combine tractor as "Frank" from Lightening McQueen. He thought it was so cool to be able to ride on it.

Jared was so good to take many trips on the 4-wheeler with all of the kids multiple times. I really don't think he minded one bid considering these are the things we never really get to do living in a big city.

Grandma Bitton having a bonding moment with the three oldest granddaughters. We had such a wonderful time and the kids talk about these trips with such fond memories.

Ryan even got to ride on a horse all by himself this trip. What a big boy!

We had such a wonderful time and the kids talk about these trips to Idaho with such fond memories. I'm just so glad that they get to experience the country life and have such a great time with family during these reunions. Thank you everyone for making this such a great trip for all of us! We love you!

Zions Canyon

These pictures are in backwards order of our trip so start at the bottom.

Ryan showing his excitement of the promised treat at the end of the day

the effects of a long day in the heat
totally excited at the end of our day to find a river to cool off in
the kids putting on a happy face halfway up to weeping rock
Julia before she decided that it was too hot to keep going

Jared and Dallin on the tram taking us to our hike

On our way to our Idaho family reunion we decided that we would take a slight detour to Zions Canyon Nation Park. The last time Jared and I had been there was back when I was pregnant with Julia. We had a great time so we thought that it would be fun to take the kids back there.

It really would have been a perfect day trip except for the fact that it was sooooooo hot! It was around a 105 degrees outside and coming from San Diego where our June gloom was lingering through July and it was a very mild 70 degrees this was a drastic change for us especially the kids. They thought that they were going to die of heat and had a very hard time hiking a half mile trail to Weeping Rock. We managed to survive but not without a lot of complaining. I would love to go back again sometime but in the spring or fall when the weather is much more mild. We promised the kids ice cream cones at the end of our day which helped with the end goal which was to get through the heat and see a few beautiful vistas along the way.

Dallin's Pirate Party

Julia taking her role seriously as the official story teller

our pin the patch on the pirate game

looking like official pirates

our pirate cupcakes with skull flags and gummy sharks

our table decorations with some pirate booty

The party crew

Ever since I have had a little boy, I have always wanted to do a Pirate birthday party. My boys have usually picked character themed party ideas though like Diego, Lightening McQueen and Star Wars. But, this year I was able to sway Dallin into thinking that a pirate party would be really cool which I have to admit it was. We did everything from coloring treasure maps, to pin the patch on the pirate (drawn by Jared), painting and decorating our own treasure chests, a bean bag toss with a pirate ship, making our own pirate hats, a story reading of "How I Became a Pirate" by Julia and a treasure hunt with a treasure box pinata at the end. We had the best decorations and we even had sound effects with the sounds and songs from the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland that I was able to download from Itunes. Julia got so into the whole thing (my in-house party planner) that she wanted us all to dress up like pirates too. I had to remind her probably 10 times that day that this was Dallin's party not hers. :) We had such a blast and I loved every minute of it. Even though we could use more girls around here, this was definitely a fun boy moment! Happy Birthday Dallin my big 5 year old!

Our Saturday adventure

Summertime is really hard on our family because Jared has to work so many more hours than normal. We usually only see him for a few minutes each day, so we try to make Saturday afternoons meaningful because it is our only time to spend with him. We decided that we would try out the Torrey Pines trail hike. It really was beautiful. It was a little long and steep for little Ryan so we decided that after we got to the bottom instead of turning around and going back up the boys and I would walk along the beach while Julia and Jared walked back up the trail to get the car. Ryan was over tired and decided that he didn't want to walk about halfway back along the beach. The water came pretty close to the cliffs so we got pretty wet and I'm sure we were a sight to see when I being pregnant with my two year old on my shoulders and trying to coax my 5 year old to keep up :) Oh the memories!