I'm not fat... I'm just pregnant....

it's true... if you have heard any rumors or have seen me lately, we are expecting a bran new baby boy or girl in just a short amount of time! Our little one will be here in APRIL! We have actually known since I was about 2 weeks along, but now we figured it was time to share our exciting news with everyone!

Our little bean! He is super cute!

It is a rather funny story how we found our exciting present, and it happened in Vegas. After the family reunion, we had returned to Vegas and I was feeling rather sick. Not the sick that you would normally think of a pregnant lady, but I was having the worst stomach pains of my life! I honestly thought I was going to die from my appendix bursting. After many debates and figuring out which doctor I could go see and still be covered by our insurance, and discussing it until the early hours of the morning; we decided to wait until the next day to see if it went away. The next day came, I was in pain all day and it was only worse if I ate or drank. I was taking care of 4 children while this was happening, and decided I needed to see the doctor. When Jason got home, we said hello, tag teamed it, and I headed off to the doctors office.

Well, I saw the doctor, peed in a cup and waited to hear that I needed emergency surgery. It was only a few minutes later the doctor came in and announced my exciting news. I was not dying from my appendix bursting, but was simply pregnant! I was given orders to re hydrate myself and left in shock as I saw that I paid 35 dollars to simply have a pregnancy test. How did Jason find out? Well, as soon as I heard the news I e-mailed him. Ha ha, yes e-mail. He had forgotten his phone at work and the only way we could communicate was with my phone and his i-pod, so I e-mailed him.

Being pregnant has actually been great! I haven't been sick, except for now and then when it's been hours since I've eaten, and my stomach has really been stretching, which isn't the greatest. It never really seemed real either until we saw our very first ultrasound. It was incredible to see our little bean move and think about the incredible power we were blessed with to be able to create a life of our own. It has been amazing just to think that this little guy is a piece of me and a piece of Jason, and that our Heavenly Father trusts us so much with this little life.

Our next appointment to see the little cutie (he's about an inch now) is next week! Keep reading for more updates on our little bean. We are so excited to have the wonderful opportunity to be parents together in this life! I'm going to be a MOM!!!

P.S I do have knee problems, but that's not why I didn't run a marathon. It was simply because my body wasn't ready with a new little baby inside. I could have ran 10 miles, but then after that would be a risk of miscarriage, so that's that story :)

Conference Weekend

When an aggie and a cougar get into a fight, who do you think will win? I totally thought an aggie, but apparently I was wrong. This weekend started out pretty ok :) It was a Mark Ballantyne reunion with all the childens from our family. I could hardly wait to leave work, because the anticipation of my family being here was driving me crazy! It really had only been a month since our awesome trip to Washington, but it always seems like so much longer when you want to see your family as often as possible.

Anyways, as soon as I got home we packed our bags and jumped in the car to head to Provo for the Utah State vs. BYU game. It was my mom's idea to have all of us attend the game, but leaving at 5pm was not the smartest idea. It was stop and go traffic for the longest time. The movement of the car moving forward and stopping and moving forward and stopping, literally gave me motion sickness. I had to lay down covered in blankets (cuz Jason broke the window in our car sometime during the week) and tried to sleep off the nausea.

4 hours later we arrived at the stadium with all of our family. I must say not too many of us were happy. It took Kira 7 hours to drive from Rexburg (normally a 4 hour trip), mom & dad 13 hours from Washington, and Jason and I 4 hours from Roy Ut, which really isn't that far away. We were all happy to be together at the game all snuggles close with lots of blankets and jackets. We really had a good time, and it just got better when we were at my brother's house covering his living room floor. It was so nice to have all of us together in one place, which hasn't happened since.... well a long long long time.

Saturday we listened to amazing general conference talks (general conference happens every 6 months where we get to hear from the apostles and prophets of our church) and enjoyed chillin together. Just before the Priesthood session (which all the men attend) we decided to take a beautiful drive up American Fork Canyon. There we built a fire, roasted some hot dogs and smores, and just enjoyed being together. The men left the girls to walk back (which was so fun to be with my sisters and mom) and it was then we talked of wonderful memories and enjoyed being girls.

When we got back to my brother's house we thought of the brilliant idea of meeting the boys for ice cream. Dairy Queen was sounding mighty good to most of us, but once we told the boys are meeting place, found that it was overflowing with everyone from priesthood session, we decided some cartons of ice cream and being together at home sounded much more appealing.  I loved it, because by the time we finished visiting and eating our ice cream we realized it was too late for anyone to head home. We were all together for one more night! I loved it.

Sunday was a wonderful day, but also so very sad. Mom, Dad, Dyelan and Kira were able to get tickets to attend the morning session of conference and so we headed back home. It as mostly to make bread and food for a hungry family that would be stopping at our house in Roy to have lunch and head home to Washington. We listened to conference on our way home and talked about the future of our family, and a little that will someday join our family. Once everyone arrived, we all ate lunch and said our goodbyes, not knowing when our next exciting reunion would be. I hope it's soon though, because I'm already having withdrawals.

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend! It was wonderful :) I hope yours was just as enjoyable!

A Magical Weekend

Hello everyone! How was your weekend? I know I'm a little slow with telling you about mine, but see it only just ended this morning as I went off to work. It was a really good weekend, full of secrets, romantic dates with my amazing Jason, bowling with old friends, a temple dedication, and talking to the family about future weekends together :) Now... it didn't all start out this fabulous, but definitely got better as the day moved on.

Friday I spent the night alone. Sweet Jason brought dinner to my classroom and we tried to have a romantic date there. With only 15 minutes and not hungry Clarissa, it wasn't all that great. I am really starting to hate having Jason go to school on Friday nights as well. I did get to watch my all time fave movie Tangled and bask in my wonderful pile of work. When you are a teacher, your work in never done and it follows you everywhere.

Saturday turned out to be so much better! Jason still had class in the morning, but when he got home at noon we had endless possibilities :) We ended up going to lunch at one of or favorite places (Olive Garden), and heading to historic downtown Ogden. They were having some kind of Harvest moon celebration. It was like a farmers market and a farm mixed into one. I love going to farmer's markets and looking at all the neat things people make. It was pretty cool and we got tons of exercise. We were able to go to the train station as well, and walk through a train museum all about the Union Pacific.We had a pretty good date I must say, but of course it had to end sometime.

On our way home, we searched and searched for white hankies for a temple dedication. The Brigham City Temple was being dedicated and broadcast through out all of Utah, so we really wanted to participate. Not to mention it was another of Jason's firsts I got to share with him. After driving around pretty much all of Ogden we FINALLY found a place that wasn't sold out (barely). We purchase 2 of the last 5 remaining and headed home to our lovely house (which I have been a slacker of posting pictures of).

At about 9:00 we headed to Bountiful to see some old friends from a really long time ago. See I went to school at BYU I and I had this awesome SPED class. We had the best group of my life and have stayed pretty good friends ever since. We never see each other, but keep in touch and Frances called me up and invited me to go bowling. We bowled and visited until our hearts content at midnight when the place closed, and then it was a long drive home for us. I am so surprised we stayed awake for the temple dedication. We had to be there at 8:00am and it lasted a good 2 hours. It was a wonderful experience and Jason really enjoyed himself I think :)

After relaxing and actually being able to enjoy a Sunday nap at the right time LOL (we have church at 1) we were able to google chat with the fam. I love being able to see everyone and pretend we're actually all together in one place. I really wished we all lived closer, but life just takes you different directions. In a couple of week Siehara will only live 45 min away, and I'm so thankful for that! Well... thanks for listening to me blab. Until next time, have an awesome week!

P.S We have a new addition to the family!

More Adventures of Jason and Clarissa

Hello out there! How was your weekend? Well mine, was pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. It was one of the best ones yet since moving back to Utah :) I have been crazy busy with teaching, so I was very excited to finally have a fun and relaxing weekend with out too much work to do (don't worry there is always at least a little bit).

It all started once the bell rang on Friday for my kiddos to head home. Fridays are my favorite, simply because I get the day (after 1:30) to plan and get stuff ready for another productive week. Only thing is... Fridays I stay way late. Jason has class on Fridays and there is really no reason to be home doing nothing with out him. This Friday however, he came to my work after work and took me out on the town for a date! Kira my little sister was coming in town to watch me run the Top of Utah Marathon and run a 5k while waiting, so we took her on our date as well :) It was a date with lots of laughing, eating BK burgers that we got for free, and talking about our awesome plans for the weekend. Jason had to jet out early for class, but then Kira came to my classroom to help get more things ready.

When we finally pulled out of the school parking lot at 7:00pm I realized our next stop would be a boring trip to the grocery store. We had fun planning what we'd eat for the weekend though, and when we got home realized we had forgotten many of the things we actually needed. We soon forgot about that when my older sister Siehara pulled up and I was able to give her the grand tour of our beautiful new town home. It was awesome to have an hour or so with just my sisters until Jason got home and we were off running again.

See... The Top of Utah Marathon was actually in Logan and I needed to pick up my stuff by 5am. Instead of waking up at 4 to drive up there just so I could get my shirt (my doctor said absolutely no way could I run because of my knee), we would just crash at our friends house the night before. We packed our things, packed Kira and Siehara's things and jumped in our little mazda. We were pretty crazy to be driving all the way up to Logan at 11 at night, but we did it and got to see our best friends the Sanchezs, which by the way are the coolest most nicest people you would ever meet! We completely took over their living room with how many beds we needed, and showed up at their house at midnight! They were totally chill and still greeted us with happy faces.

Our friend Carlos is a talker and we love listening to him, so we ended up going to sleep probably around 130am! Carlos had to work at 7 and Jason and I were scheduled for a ride to pick up my shirt at 5:00. Needless to say we got very little sleep, but it was totally worth it.

Upon getting my shirt for the marathon (yes I had to at least get that even if I wasn't running), I wanted to cry. It was so hard not to get on the buses with the other marathoners. Maybe I'll learn from my mistakes this time and train smart so as not to injure myself.

I cried... someday I will run a marathon!

Anyways.... We went back for a little hour nap and were up again to go to the 5k. I was so jealous of Kira and Jason, but so glad I had Siehara to keep me company while we waited to run. Both Kira and Jason did an awesome job running! Jason missed placing in his age division by mere seconds. Sad thing was, I wasn't there to see him cross the finish line :( Siehara and I wanted to grab breakfast, and with a place only seconds away thought we could totally make it back in time. We didn't really think about all the roads being blocked off however, and I bawled when I say Jason was already done. He had been done for a couple of minutes too. I felt like such a horrible wife, but getting breakfast was kind of a good idea. After Kira crossed the finish line, I had to take Jason to his class super fast. I felt so bad about missing him that I gave him my breakfast and things were good :)

Before the race :)

Kira was super excited!

I was so glad to have this crazy girl with me!

The end of the race... I missed him at the finish line :(

While Jason was in class we had a girls day! The sisters were able to go to breakfast and walk around the town of Logan Utah. We ended up going to PetsMart, held some sweet little kitties, tried out some Down East couches and walked around good ol' Old Navy. Before we could fall asleep on some of the really nice couches, it was already time to pick up Jason and time to get to a BBQ.

The BBQ was so much fun! We had a group of us who are really good friends get together. We enjoyed delicious food, laughed hysterically, and played some beach volleyball. It was awesome! Although I'm kind of sad to find that I was a little sore this morning :P

We drove back to Roy after all of our fun, and ended up having a pretty early night. We were all exhausted from the lack of sleep and busy day that even a movie couldn't keep us awake. Sunday morning came a little too quickly, and before we knew it we were eating an amazing breakfast (that Jason made) and saying our goodbyes. I love seeing people and visiting, but the goodbyes always suck! Kira got to stay a little bit longer, so we went to church, met our new class (we are teaching the Sunday school class for 14-15 year olds), made a mouth watering dinner, enjoyed a delicious desert, and said our goodbyes yet again. Next time they come, we will be attending the BYU vs. Utah State game!! Ha ha, I can hardly wait!

The best baked potato soup of your life!!

Our delicious peach cobbler! We had it with yummy vanilla ice cream!

Well... it's time to get some rest in preparation for yet another crazy week. If I survive, I'll tell you about all the awesome things that happen. Until then.... enjoy the rest of the weekend. Monday seems to come so quickly.

I'm a survivor!

It is amazing how crazy and wild life can get sometimes. In fact, being a teacher automatically makes your life crazy. Thinking about your students all the time, and making sure they are getting the best education that you can give them, is exhausting! I survived the first week of school though.... and boy was it a doozy! I guess I'll start from the beginning and tell you all about it :)

The first day of school was so nerve raking, but turned out to be the greatest day of the week. I met all of my sweet little 3rd graders and got to see a glimps of how the rest of the school year would be. I LOVE being a teacher! It is so amazing to have my dream job in 3rd grade too! Back to school night later that night was a little rocky. I was so nervous to be in front of so many parents, and honestly I felt like I was a bore. I haven't gotten yelled at though, so that's a good sign :) No, actually my parents this year are so wonderful! They are all so eager and willing to help. I LOVE IT!

The rest of the week was a little crazy. In fact Wednesday morning I was going for my usual morning run (don't worry, it's only 3 miles so my doctor can't yell at me), and about a mile away from you house there were train tracks. Running at 5 am is a little risky, because it's still dark and very hard to see. I thought I would be fine running over the tracks for the millionth time, when all of the sudden a car whipped around the corner and was going WAY TOO FAST! Not really thinking too much about it, I moved out of the way and ending up falling a long ways down and tripping over the tracks. 2 seconds later my arms were bloody and I felt as if I had just gotten hit by the car. I had to laugh a little at myself for being so silly and started my walk back home. I guess my fall was a little worse than I thought because I was covered in bruises, had a broken pinky finger, and broke my phone cover. Great way to start off the first week of school huh? My little 3rd graders were pretty concerned about me when they saw me that morning :)

I made it through Friday, and was excited to have a some what relaxing weekend getting ready for the second week of school. I guess I can't really decide what happens, because I ended visiting my sister and going to a Women's Expo. Upon my return home Saturday however, my car decided to hate me. I was broken down on the side of the road awaiting a rescue from Jason. Luckily I wasn't too far away from my sister, and ended up being able to hang out with her some more. After Jason being the amazing man that he is and fixing our car we actually decided to just stay in Orem with my sister for a little while. That little while turned into Rock Band with some friends for 3 hours and falling asleep to Hot Rod on my sister's couch. So much for getting anything prepared for school ha ha.

Now we are home with a still broken car and I am freaking out a little bit about tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to put my quick thinking skills to use and whip something up :) Until then, sorry there are no pictures. The fall pics were a little to gross to post, and honestly I didn't take any pics during school.... I hope you enjoy reading and next time I promise more pictures! :)

P.S Next weekend is the BIG marathon I'm not able to run, and Jason will be running a 5k. Not to mention, I think one last camping trip is in order... Until then, have a better week than I did!

We're ALIVE!!!!!

Oh my wow! It has been awhile, and I have the simple excuse of being crazy busy, and having no internet until... well now :) So... if you were wondering if we died, WE'RE ALIVE!!! How happy is that?

Our house in Vegas

To fill you in on all the craziness that has recently taken over our life, I will start with the day of the 20th of August. It was a sad day, but very exciting all at the same time. See, it was the day we would be leaving our crazy Vegas life behind as our new place in Utah finally became a reality. After days of day dreaming of finally being there, we packed up our things and drove a million miles to yes... Roy UT. We sadly said goodbye to our very nice air conditioned house in Vegas, and said hello to our HOT house in Utah. By the way, pictures will be coming as soon as I actually get all the boxes unpacked and put away :D

We were able to enjoy our hot house for a day (we were too cheap to turn our AC on lol) and then it was off to work for the both of us. Jason got a job in Salt Lake and I was FINALLY able to start getting my classroom ready for the exciting new school year! I didn't realize how much work putting a new classroom together could be. It took me about 2 weeks, but I think I am ready to say hi to my new kiddos! I can hardly wait! :)

Two weeks of working, unpacking, being very tired every night by 6 pm, finding out we live by a whole bunch of old people, seeing old friends, making a 1hr trip to Logan turn into 2, and making our way to Washington to be re-united with our other family member (according to Jason), has tuckered us out. We will be on the road again tomorrow morning YES (sarcastically)! Until then, we only have interent this weekend and hopefully the nice men from Comcast will come and install our very own. So we will fill you in again once life starts slowing down. Until then, enjoy our pictures and stay tuned for some very exciting things to come in the future!

Family Reunions and Awesome Experiences

Well... I'm back, and boy has the last week been pretty eventful, exciting, and awesome! The Ballantyne's have an epic family reunion every 2 years. They are the most organized week of fun you'll have with huge group of people who happen to all be related in your life! I have always looked forward to being with my amazing family, and seeing those who live far away. The last reunion Jason was in school and I unfortunately had to work, so we were super excited when we found out we'd be able to make it for at least of couple of days.

Thursday morning we left our house and headed to the airport at 4:30 am. Our morning was a whirl wind because we were honestly running so late. It doesn't help that we were at our friends place until 10pm and were so excited sleep was kind of out of the question. I had to make sure everything was packed and ready to go, which really ended up doing us no good :). The flight was so quick, but boy was I not happy. Flying with allegaint air, you don't get to pick your seat unless you pay for it and what can I say, we are cheap so we didn't pay for our seats. That came to bite us later when we were seperated and the lady I happened to be sitting with actually paid for her seat and wouldn't let Jason and I sit together. Yes... I was a little bitter, but an hour flight by myself was really nothing to get mad over.

Walking off the plane and into Idaho was amazing! The weather was PERFECT and I could actually breath! For a couple of seconds I think I was actually cold. It was awesome! We then took a shuttle to get our rental car, and we were off driving into the beautiful scenery of Idaho.

I will never forget the looks on everyone's face when we drove into Camp Smokey. Our rental car was a 2012 hyundai accent with Wyoming plates. No one knew who we were until we pulled up to my parents truck and asked if they had seen any Ballantynes running around. Everyone commented on our new car while we were there and asked how we were liking Wyoming even though they thought we were in Vegas. It was pretty funny.

Anyways, as soon as we arrived it was lake time! Alturas Lake was right across the street from our camp. We had tons of toys to play with too, including kayaks, a motor boat, a sailboat and an awesome dock to jump off of. Of course the first thing we did was jump off the dock and get our bodies ready for some hard core skiing and tubing. I was so sore the next day from all the tubing we did, and Jason got up on skis for the first time! We had so much fun! I think one of my favorite moments was when Jason and I were scheming to push one of my cousins off the dock. It ended with Jason totally not following our plan and tackling him into the water.

After several hours at the lake, I headed back to camp with the family I lived with during my student teaching. My aunt and uncle are incredibly awesome, and they have the sweetest kids! We were so bummed when our assignment changed from New Plymouth Idaho to Las Vegas, just because we wouldn't be near these guys. I really liked visiting with them, and even got a book read to me by the cutest 8 year old girl ever! She's a sweetie!

Dinner followed soon after, and it was so awesome to just look around and see everyone from our wonderful family together. All together there were about 50 of us so we were quite a sight. I got to see my brother too, and visit with him and his wife for a little bit which was awesome!

Our reunions include firesides, talent shows, olympic games, usually someone getting hurt, and organized fun through out the day. They are quite epic, and from my experience and others I have taken with me.... they have never experienced anything like it. After dinner we had a fire side and slowly made our way back to our cabins. Jason and I were so exhausted we fell asleep 5 min. into The Lorax which was our first attempt of watching it together since getting it. We decided to watch it simply because we didn't want the day to end, but I guess we didn't really have a choice.

Friday was pretty fun. It rained most of the morning, and we decided to take a trip into Stanley with our immediate family to check out some white water rafting. That ended with us just visiting, calling all over for places that would take a group of 8 on Saturday, and eating ice cream (well some of us). When we headed back, camp was completely empty, and so we went exploring. We ended up finding a ghost town called Sawtooth City, which was about 120 years old. You could really tell, because all of the buildings were rotting away and in ruins. With that, we took a little walk around a historic ranger station and headed back to camp.

Jason and I were totally falling asleep in the car was we drove back to camp, and so our plan was a 20 min nap and hittin the lake with everyone else. Unfortunately our 20 min nap turned into a 3 hour nap and a call that dinner was almost completely gone. We were supposed to help cook it too! We laughed about sleeping that long, but I really wish we would have made it down to the lake.

After dinner was our legendary talent show. We have so many awesome talented people in the Ballantyne family. It is so fun to see everyone share their talents with each other. Jason and I were pretty stoked about this talent show too, because we actually learned a piano and guitar duet (a video will be coming soon). However, we ended up not having a guitar, and the piano was way out of tune, so we did skits with the family instead. We were the commercials in between talents and it ended up being a ton of fun.

Soon after our awesome show, we said good night to a few and stayed up and visited with others. Finally around 1 am we had a second attempt at The Lorax and ended up falling asleep before it even started.

Saturday was a sad day, becasue we had to say goodbye to everyone. Usually everyone heads back to Grandma's house to finish up the weekend together, but not this year. Everyone was headed home, and although our flight wasn't until Sunday we had to head back to Idaho Falls. Luckily my immediate family was able to have one last bang before saying our goodbyes. We all went white water rafting!

White water rafting was pretty awesome! We only had a couple of class III rapids which kind of stunk, but we had lots of entertainment along the way. The boys were in kayaks and upon our first rapid, had a casualty. We thought for sure it was Jason, but once Jason and Tain made it through we were super surprised to see Dyelan floating down the river on his back. He kind of hit the rapid sideways, and well I guess that's not the best way to stay dry. Half way through our trip we stopped to jump off a rock, we stopped for a snack a little later, and continued on our journey. I got to be in a kayak with Jason the second half of the trip, and if I have any advice to give about rafting... it's to take a kayak because they are so awesome!

Our 3.5 hour trip turned into 5 hours and by the time we were on our way to Idaho Falls to see a good friend, we were super late! Jason tried to close that gap of time, but while I was reading the second book of The Hunger Games looked up to find a police officer with his lights on behind us. Jason recieved his very first speeding ticket by going about 15 over the speed limit. A word to the wise, even if you are on country roads in Idaho, you can still get pulled over!

Our night ended with eating pizza with our friend Kyra Rankin, watching Catch Me if you Can, and dreaming of our new house in just one weeks time. First we would have to survive being parents to 4 children for a week...

Sunday morning we attended a singles ward, drove to the rental place, said goodbye to our sweet ride, and sat next to each other in the plane! A nice lady actually gave up her seat so we could be together even though it meant sitting by a lady with her baby. We were pretty happy, and actually got through most of The Lorax on our third attempt.

Well ladies and gentlemen, we are back in Vegas and found out yesterday that we no longer need to be parents. We watched kids for 2 days and ended up being able to go home. This made me excited, because our move is now moved up to the 19th!!! In just 4 days we'll be back in Utah!