Merry Not-Your-Usual Christmas

While everyone back home in Bend is enjoying a white Christmas, we are here in Florida where a cold snap of our own is going on...the high was only about 71 degrees!

Ben read part of Jesus' story from his story Bible. Then Brynna and Brighton took turns reading Luke 2.

We had a yummy breakfast of Christmas pull apart rolls.

We opened presents. The kids received gift cards from their Uncles. We also received funds for special experiences on the trip from a couple of different people. Brock and I sat down and told the kids, as we'd been saying all along, that this trip is our present. Orlando parks were our present. We want to keep our eyes open for another big fun family activity that we normally would not spend the money on and we will do it as our family Christmas present.

Yay! A gaggle of new DS games to share. Thanks Aunt Carly,
Uncle George, Jaden & Ava

I love my owl necklace especially first thing in the morning. Doesn't it
set off my pjs nicely?

Fun lunch included in our shipping box to take up space
and make us guess at what could be in there. Thanks, Chopper!

Grandma Beth and the kids picked this up for Dad when she was here
earlier this month. :O)

Bryn's new OSU tee courtesy of Grams
and Gramps!

Spencer loves his jersey!

Brighton with his manly tee.

Ben is number 1...also. Grams is so smart.

All of us Beaver fans - Thank you, Grams & Gramps!

After that, everyone went off into their corners to investigate and play with stuff.

Brock and I went for a nice walk around this big campground. Skylar scootered with us for the first mile and just us (and Heidi) did the almost second mile.

The kids and I went down to the playground for a little while and played around while Brock worked just a little bit since we were planning to drive out tomorrow and it would eat up a big chunk of his day on the road.

Big boy on the tire swing.

Spencer fake posing--hovering over the ant slide.

Cute Sky--fakey smile.

Spencer looking slightly devious.

Wow, Bryn is flying!!

After Brock finished working, we had a great dinner of "choice" rib, mashed potatoes and broccoli. It was all pretty good if I do say so myself.

After dinner there was a bit of a Lego Batman Wii marathon until it was time for bed.

Dad is Batman!

It was really hard being far away from the people we love today. I really enjoyed staying near to Facebook and seeing people's posts and pictures. It helped me to feel a little closer. We are very thankful for our family and that we are blessed to be on this journey. We are most thankful for Jesus. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

We got up fairly early and got ready for the day and then headed to the Food Pantry where we hoped to help out this morning. When we arrived, the director apologized profusely, but said they couldn't allow children in the warehouse. She was very nice and said she could use Brock and I, but the kids couldn't be inside. She gave us a tour of their operations. It was actually really large and very well organized. After the tour, we asked if maybe there was anything the kids could do outside and she said they could sweep out one of the trucks and also sweep out the bay where the truck parks. They walked all around the buildings looking for any garbage they might pick up, but it was very clean. Brock and I were able to help sort some food boxes that came in. Mostly produce, pulling out anything that wasn't good and putting those in boxes for feeding pigs and goats and putting the good stuff in other boxes to be picked up later that day. There was a lot of waiting because it seemed that the truck deliveries from the stores come sporadically. Only one delivery came while we were there and they said there would be four or five more today. We had hoped to help out with one more since Brock could help carry around some of the heavier boxes, but it didn't show up before we had to leave. There were a lot of really nice people, all volunteers, that we met and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

 

We had to leave in order to reach the post office to pick up our wonderful box from home that was waiting for us, but we had to get there before the PO closed at noon. We made it and got the box with no trouble at all. It was my first general delivery mail ever! It contained our mail from home and LOTS of presents from Carly, George, Jaden and Ava. We decided to wait to open the presents until tomorrow so we can put them around our little tree. :O)









We saw a cardinal on our way to the pool. No good
zoom on my phone though.

When we got back to the trailer, the kids were dying to go swimming. Today's high was still only about 60 and I had to do laundry. The sign on the laundry room door says not to enter with wet swimsuit so therefore, I couldn't swim, but fortunately the laundry room is right at the pool so the kids swam for a long time while I babysat the laundry and then folded four loads of clothes by myself since they were playing together nicely and having fun in the water. I told them that was their Christmas present from me. ;o) Only half joking. LOL

Tonight, we ate dinner and then opened up Brighton's present to the family, the movie Ice Age 4 and a pack of Starbursts, and we had a family movie night. Fun times.

 

 

Christmas Eve Eve

We started out this morning attending a non-denominational church service right here at the campground's clubhouse. There were probably around 20 people there and the regular pianist was absent so the pastor played the keyboard to lead the three hymns, two of which I'd never heard before. The music part of the worship time was a little uncomfortable and the service was a lot more ordered than we are used to, but the message was heartfelt; the pastor had prepared a nice sermon with good perspective on the character of Jesus' earthly parents. The service finished with communion which was neat.

After that, Brock took the kids to the playground while I made lunch in the peace and quiet of the trailer. Nice. Then we all ate together and everyone settled onto their separate electronics for a little while and we tried to decide what to do with our day. The pastor and her husband had told us that there was a little beach within about 10 miles of the campground with a pier and a little trail.They also told us that you could rent kayaks or canoes and explore around very locally and you can really get close to manatees. Or rather that they like to get close to you. That sounded really cool, but for today we just decided to go check out the beach.

It is still a little chilly today (I think the high was 59 degrees) so the beach was not the same experience that we've had most recently and this felt more like a little sandy crescent than a beach. It was still kind of pretty and it was interesting that the area has a big power plant with a coal plant and two nuclear power stacks as well. This beach didn't allow dogs either so Brock took Heidi for a walk up the road and the kids and I walked on the beach for a short while. They mostly just scared up the seagulls. Then we walked out on the pier and looked around. The trail from the beach to the pier was really cool. It was a boardwalk through what felt like a jungle.

After that short walk, we searched on google to find a local ice cream shop preferably on the water. There was one with really good reviews, but it was 20 miles away and we decided that was too far so we went to another one that was more on our way back to the campground. It was ok, but we wished that we'd just gone to Dairy Queen afterwards since most of the ice creams had big ice crystals in them and the brand that they carried was one that I see in just about every grocery store freezer around here.

Back at the trailer, the kids went back to the playground. I worked on sending a few more Christmas letters (super slow, inconsistent wifi) while Brock puttered around on his tablet. Close to dark, I took Heidi for a long walk. While we were out, I smelled all kinds of dinners BBQing and it made me realize that I was actually a little hungry. When we got back to the trailer, the kids had returned from the campground and they and Brock were watching the end of The Polar Express in anticipation of The Grinch coming on after.

We ate dinner and watched The Grinch together and after dinner, Brock moved into the kitchen and made some sugar cookies. Not our yummy traditional ones, but they were from a box and they still tasted pretty good. I especially liked that I didn't have to make them.

Tomorrow we get up fairly early and see what we can do at the Food Pantry. We're all looking forward to that.