Island Park Christmas

Christmas break started at Island Park. Isn't it so pretty up there? (Luckily, the roads weren't as bad as this picture makes them look.)Jessa was our photographer for Christmas morning. Isn't she just so cute with the bow on her head?
Kessa was intrigued by the tissue paper. We discovered that it's easier for her to unwrap presents with tissue paper than with wrapping paper. (BJ was also intrigued with the puzzle he found in his stocking.)
Shawn also loved the tissue paper. Either that, or he wanted to try to be like Santa Claus with some extra fat.
After Kessa got the tissue paper out, she found a most wonderful blanket from Aunt Teresa! It is so soft and she loves to play on it every day.
BJ specifically requested this book. "The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear" apparently was a family favorite and a must-have for BJ's children. I had no idea what a hit it was until we unwrapped it. It was quickly decided that BJ should read it to Kessa. I wish beyond anything that I would have had the foresight to get the reading on video. But alas, I had no idea. BJ plopped Kessa on his lap and started reading her the story, very enthusiastically. That in and of itself was cute and fun. What I didn't expect, however, was the entire family to read along with him. Even if they couldn't see the book. They all had it memorized. It was an echo of Homer voices explaining to the mouse that the big hungry bear would do anything to get that strawberry. I giggled myself silly through the entire book. I now really want to frame some pages from the book (well, from a copy of the book) to hang in Kessa's room. Hopefully I can make that work.
There was much love abounding in Island Park.
Also, snowmobiling. Unfortunately, that happened after we left. (We were only there for a few short days.) We just need to get out and go snowmobiling another day so that BJ isn't missing out this year.

Overall, we still had a blast. We took up our Wii and got Mom Homer playing Mario Kart and all of us doing Wii Fit. We were in a different cabin than usual, but it was a nice cabin and still lots of fun. We played lots of games (in fact, Nick was so upset that we took Small World with us that he offered to buy it off of us. But my family was excited to play it, too, so we declined his offer). It was much fun times. We were really sad to have to leave so soon, but other plans awaited us in Ririe, so off we went, knowing we'd be back with the Homers for New Years.