holy moly

The past week for us has been loaded with fun, traveling, events, company, reunions, family and lots of energy being expended.

Thursday was another OB appointment.  All looks well so far.  Blood sugar good, baby's heart rate is good, measurements are all good.  I got hooked up with my meds to help prevent post partum depression before it even tries to hit, which is always a big comfort.  Post partum depression is unfortunately a part of my pregnancy journeys with my babies, and I am so grateful that for Luke, and this little girl, I can get help before it even tries to take over.
I walked away grateful for a good appointment.  Few!  Next appointment is in a week.  That one will be a little more "invasive" and should give us a better timeline of when our sweet girl may try to arrive.

We drove to Pocatello on Friday.  Ben immediately left for a bike race in Pomerell, and I stayed with the 4 kids at my parents house.

More of my family arrived Friday night, and we hung out and let the kids play in the wonderland my parents have for a back yard.  My mom and I snuck out to Sonic and got a Route 44 dirty diet coke.  ;)

Saturday morning we woke up, got everyone ready, and headed to Stetson Farm in Burley for the K&K reunion.  This is my Belnap reunion with my cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.  It has been every year since I can remember on the first week of August.  These reunions are always awesome, and we look forward to them every year.  This year, my parents were in charge.

It was exhausting for me (25 weeks pregnant) to chase the younger two kids around, but all of the kids had a ton of fun.  Mary and Sam had an absolute blast with their cousins!  It makes it all worth it.

They did the 200 foot water slide, about 100 times.

The Belnap siblings

Mary did the zip line, which was really cool, until the handle bars fell on her head.

They got to catch lots of candy from the candy cannon.

And we all had fun talking with relatives, eating a yummy lunch, playing on the swings, having a bridal shower for my sister,

 and feeling the Belnap love.  I really missed Ben that day, but he was doing his race.  He did a great job on a very hard course and came in 5th out of 10.  We wish we could have been there to support him, but we did look at the mountains where he was and send him good luck vibes.

We drove back from Burley, my mom and I grabbed more "go juice", we met up with Ben, and then headed to the church by my parents house for more relatives, food and games.  Again, it was fun to be around my family and watch the kids have fun too.

pie eating contest

That evening, after all was said and done, I stayed up and talked with my siblings.  It was so nice to hang out with them.  We aren't all together very often, so when we are, we try to make the most of it.

The next morning, was the family testimony meeting.  This is always my favorite part of the K&K reunion.  I am extremely blessed to come from a huge legacy of people full of faith, love, determination, and awesome stories of living the gospel.  These meetings are always full of the spirit, and very touching.  This one was no exception.

All of us in our number shirts.  I love this bunch of people with my whole heart.

 

my dad passing on the flag to his brother Steve, who will be in charge next year

After the meeting, we had a big lunch, talked with family, and then one by one each family left.  It was so hot, and I waited too long to eat, so my blood sugar got really low.  I ended up being able to eat one of my mom's homemade oreo cookies, without spiking my blood sugar!  Talk about making lemonade out of lemons!   I think I literally grinned the rest of the day.  It has been months since I have had such an amazing treat.  It was heavenly!
We hung out a while longer, and then headed home tired and happy.

On Monday I spent the morning running Mary to and from tumbling and cheer, and dragging the boys to down and up the canyon to Costco, Walmart and Petco.  I was getting our house ready for my brothers and their families to stay for a few days.

The troops got here around 1:00, and we headed to the snow shack and then to the park.

Luke's favorite park "toy"

I think my brothers were bigger monkeys at the park than the kids were.  It was really fun.

After the park, we went home, met up with Ben when he got home from work, and headed to the Kamas swimming pool.  Of course, everyone had fun there too.  You can't go wrong with Belnap's and water.  I wasn't able to join them in the pool, (swimsuits don't exactly fit right now) but it was great to watch them from the sidelines.

We came back from the pool, where I made a ton of spaghetti, garlic bread and salad.  We ate a crazy late dinner, and some of us stayed up and talked and laughed again.  We had quite the group of 7 adults and 8 children sleeping in our house, but somehow we made it all work.

The next morning, I took William to his preschool registration, while the crew back at the house began packing snacks and lunches.  When I got back, we finished packing and headed to lagoon with our massive bunch.

Sam and Ezra were non stop, and LOVED everything.  A very nice worker even let them go on the Colossus, a ride that goes upside-down twice.  They thought they had won the lottery..

William got a little hot

For having 4 different age groups for rides, lots of children of all ages, 2 pregnant women, and a single adult in our group, we totally pulled off Lagoon!  I wasn't able to go on the rides, but I didn't feel like I missed out on anything, because watching the joy on my kids faces and seeing how much fun they were having with their cousins, aunts, and uncles, made it completely worth it.  Everyone finished the day (all 8 hours of it) saying it was awesome.

yup, we ate lunch in the park, and it was a success!

 

The only glitch was a miscalculation and miscommunication with food, that led to me not being able to eat for 9 hours after walking all day, and resulted with a blood sugar of 35 by the time we ate dinner.  I am not supposed to get below 80....ever!  I literally could not think straight, my eyesight was fuzzy, my stomach was contracting like crazy, the baby wasn't moving, and I felt like passing out.  It was nuts, and very hard.

We did finally all eat dinner at Apple Bees around 9:30, and we made it back to our house around midnight.  William literally slept in a booth, with a pillow, through the entire dinner, and has no idea we even went out to eat.  ha!

Some of us idiots stayed up until 2:00 watching a movie that we have been waiting to see for months now.

Needless to say, we all woke up late, and completely beat.  But, we kept on going.  I cooked about a million pancakes for the troops, Ben had an early day at work, so he was in Salt Lake, the kids played, then I cooked about 5 boxes of Mac and cheese for the bunch, and we all headed to Midway to check out the antique shops and the duck pond.

After the ducks were well fed, and we were too tired to even walk straight, it was off to Timp Freeze in for "blue ice cream cones."

By this point, we decided to call it a day, and my brother headed off to Idaho to continue the adventures there.  We will be joining them again next week.

Until then, I think we need to rest, regroup, figure out our right from our left, and gear up for more playing.  What a way to end summer!