Christmas and Dogsitting at Winter Garden

Here begins our can't-find-an-RV-park drama...when I looked for a Thousand Trails site over Christmas, the only one I could find out of our regular candidates was Winter Garden RV Resort.  This was disappointing as 2 months earlier we had hoped to just stay near Daytona (and nearer my sister), but Winter Garden is a decent park in a decent location (especially if we don't care about going to Disney), so this wasn't so bad.

Our campsite at Winter Garden - we were REALLY close to that 
trailer on the left - could see right into their dining room from ours

We spent a few days at my sister's place to celebrate Christmas together.  I bought the kids a 'ninjabread' cookie kit from Aldi that was a HUGE hit!  I always love it when I can come up with something they enjoy on my own (as opposed to having my sister tell me what to get!).  We had a fun few days cooking and playing games and having the kids open their presents from us before leaving Christmas Eve.

Ninjabread cookie making!

Aaron with a couple nephews

Christmas Eve breakfast!  Note the Christmas tree waffles!

We left the house with my sister's dog, Beamer, in tow.  They were headed to her in-laws' house after Christmas on a plane, so we kept Beamer while they were away.  He loved traveling in our car (he can see out the window, which he can't do in their car because he has to be in the footspace) and loved all the new smells at the RV park.  We took care of him once before, so this time he settled right in, ate right away, and knew right where he wanted to sleep.  Even though the RV is pretty tiny, he still stayed in whatever room we were in...even when we were both in the bathroom getting ready for bed at night (that's a tiny space for two adults and a dog!!).  The only downside is that we had him for New Year's Eve with the fireworks...which he did NOT enjoy.  As long as we would sit with him where he could snuggle under our legs he was fine, but he didn't appreciate it when we got up and moved around!  I took SO many pictures of the adorable puppy (ok he's 11, not a puppy...but he's so cute!), I restrained myself to just post these three.

We had Beamer for Christmas morning and brought his stocking
from my sister's place so Santa could find him!

Isn't he so cute????

New Year's Eve :-(

Even though we hadn't planned to be so close to Orlando, Winter Garden is actually super convenient (30 minute-ish drive) to 3 of the 4 Orange County parks that we'll be popping in and out of, so from a gas savings point of view it's actually really good we stopped here!  

Happy New Year!!