Games, Good Times, and Goodbyes!

On Christmas night, there was a lot of pie in the house. Allison challenged Isaak to a "Pie Eating Contest." Let the games begin!

Isaak really shoveled it in for a while...

Allison was willing to match him, piece by piece!

They were enjoying it, but getting a little full at this point.  They did not have a choice which pie they were eating, I just cut small pieces and kept putting them in front of them.

This was near the end.  Finally, after looking like he might be sick, Isaak gave in.  We all knew that with Allison's hollow leg, there was really no way a normal human could beat him.

After the pie, we competed to make a Santa's beard with whipped cream.  Dawn, Allison, Isaak, and I tried for the biggest beard.

We really put our heads into the challenge!

One might say that Dawn was willing to face the competition.

There was debate amongst the spectators as to who had won.  I had several supporters.

Isaak pulled out of the competition fairly quickly, but later dove in for more.

Dawn really did make an incredible effort.  Some people said she went a little clown instead of Santa...

Allison's had a nice shape.  He squeaked in a victory with a split decision among the judges...

The bearded group!

Dana gave Isaak a spoon shave.  Ahhh, if only shaving were always that smooth.

We played a lot of games on Christmas night.  Romie knows a ton of card games.  Wil missed out this year, as he loves to play games.  We played "Sorry, Charlie," "Follow the Queen," "Usona (a Romie original)," and some others that I've forgotten.  We also played a lot of "Celebrity" over the holidays.  Scarlett and Hunter really enjoyed that.  The grumpy old men (Romie and Dana mostly) complained about some of the celebrity choices with phrases like, "Kendra is not a celebrity" and "Who the heck is Edward Cullen?" but they had no problem with Tom Mix (he died in 1940!) or Zane Grey (he died in 1939!)   Oh well, we all still had fun!

The time for goodbyes arrived all too quickly...Sunday.  The Pedersens took Caroline to catch her flight in Missoula.

A family photo of the Pedersen-Sims group.  They look great, don't they?  Caroline's flight was ultimately quite delayed.  But, she made it to Seattle that night and spent Monday there as well.

While Caroline was stuck in the Seattle Airport, the rest of us went on an outing to 4 Bs in Polson.  The restaurant re-opened last June after being closed for three years.  I had not been there since they returned to Polson.  It was an interesting experience at first when we had a sniffling server, major sniffling...once the other server took over, everything was great!

Scarlett and Dad pose in 4 Bs.

Back at the house for some more photos.  Scarlett and Mom strike a pose.

Dawn joined Scarlett and Mom.

Mom, Dad, and Scarlett.  We really had a fantastic Christmas with the family this year.  It was especially nice to spend time with Caroline and Scarlett, and get to know Hunter a little more.

They heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!"