Island Park

Jake spent the 3rd week of June in Texas for a business meeting - but when he arrived home on the 14th our weekend began! We would be celebrating my 27th birthday, and Jake's first Father's Day!

He arranged for us to stay 2 nights in a cabin in Island Park. We were pleasantly surprised by the size and coziness of the place!

We had made this same trip for my 25th birthday, but had stayed in a smaller hotel-type cabin. And this time we brought a baby along! But it was the same great outdoors ---

I took this picture during our stroll down by the river - I put Denym in a little front carrier so we could hike for a bit. We had fun looking at all the cabins, and saw a bald eagle.

Both nights we went to a dinner theater. We thoroughly enjoyed the prime rib as well as the shows! (The first was The Three Amigos and the second was Homeschool Musical.) We were again impressed by the couple who own the place and what a good job they do.

While we were there we decided to go on a Paddle boat ride - Fail!  The current was just too strong. We ended up trading our paddle boat for a canoe - which also kind of failed because Jake was trying to oar on both sides while I held Denym up front and could offer no muscle power. He did a pretty good job of it, and was awfully nice to put such an effort into it for me, but ultimately that only lasted a few minutes as well. So much for our high adventures on the river! 

We took a jaunt over to Big Springs where you can view an old cabin and lots of fish from a little bridge.

 This is a place we visited while we were dating - Check out this old photo I found of us there:

 Has it really been 8 years?

There were tons of seagulls there just lining up to steal the fish pellets that people were buying to feed the fish. It was funny to see some of the kids trying to think of good ways to get the pellets past the birds and down into the water.


 
 We saw a guy across the way who was going to great lengths to get good pictures of the seagulls, and figured he was probably pretty good with a camera. So Jake asked him to take a picture for us. Awww, our family of three on a mini-vacation.

It was a beautiful couple of days and a trip that has probably earned its place as a family tradition.