Sonya's Blog - Day 185 - Christmas Eve!!!!

Sonya’s Blog - Day 185 - December 24th - Christmas Eve!

There is a family that offers trail rides at our campground. Blake booked trail rides for this morning, but then found out only 3 of us could go. The lady that does the trail rides can only bring 4 horses with her at a time and she needs one of them, therefore, only 3 of us can go. It was decided that Blake and the kids would go. They had to be at the Camp Office at 9 AM for their trail ride.

My excitement was that I decided to wash all the sheets. I know you’re are thinking, whoa - settle down now Sonya! Alas, they needed to be done and nobody was using the laundry room at the campground. I got started at 7:30, so everything would be done by the time the trail ride was over. It was pretty darn exciting, but I lead a very exciting life. I also had to wrap some presents, so it was nice to have the RV to myself.

The trail ride started a bit late, so they were not done until 11 or so. Blake and I had to rush out right away because I found a vet nearby that had Kizmet’s food, but they were only open until noon. We also had to do a quick run to the store, which I would have preferred to do much earlier, but that is the way it goes. We got the food, which was great. Kizmet will still be fed for the next couple of months. We braved the grocery store. It was very busy, but they had a lot of cash registers open, so it didn’t take very long. We left the kids at home with a list to accomplish, so hopefully everything will be done when we get back. We can then hang out and enjoy the rest of the day.

The list was pretty much done when we got back. I had to get Isaac to re-do a couple of chores, he was pretty happy with that. We got the groceries put away and had some lunch. It was smokin’ hot outside by this time. I still had some more presents to wrap, so I locked myself in our bedroom. Blake and Isaac went outside and the neighbour was there, so they started having a good ol’ conversation. The neighbours are from Kentucky, so they were talking all about that great State.

When I was done my wrapping, I headed outside. The neighbours had left by this time and Isaac had their drone helicopter to play with. He headed out to the field to give it a try. Blake wanted to check out the pool, because it was so hot out. Blake and I went to the pool, Isaac played with the drone for a bit and Natasha was reading.

The pool is nice. Some of the greenery is so tropical, you could almost think you were in Hawaii or something. The pool was not heated, so it was pretty chilly. It is really hot now, but they did have a cool spell and the pool has not heated back up. We just put our feet in to start off with, but then Isaac came to join us and the boys jumped in - with a lot of encouragement from me. Here are the pictures:

There is a lake right beside the pool, and I went over there to get a picture with it in the background. Blake took forever to come take the picture and this tiny red ant crawled on my foot and bit me! I was cheesed off, but we still got the picture:

When we got back, Blake helped Isaac figure out the drone. He was having a hard time controlling it and the slight breeze was blowing it off course as well. It is so light that it cannot fight the breeze. They managed to get it into the air, but learned that you have to keep up with it because if it gets out of range, well, it just drops out of the sky. Picture here:

Blake had some presents to wrap as well, so it was his turn to lock himself in the bedroom. I went outside and watched Isaac play with the drone and read my book. I am reading People of The Lightening. I was given this book by Betty in Montreal when they had us over for supper (that was so many blog posts ago) back in the summer. It is a historical fiction story about the Natives in the Florida area based on archaeological research that has been done in the area. They know very little about the people as there is no written history left by them, but the writers have done some research and then written a story based on that. I am not very far into the book yet, so far it is pretty good.

Everyone in the campground was invited to the Clubhouse for a Christmas Eve get together at 5:30. The hosts were providing most of the food, but asked if we could contribute a small dish. We made up a plate of cheese and crackers and went over there just after 5:30. There was a good crowd there and a whole table laid out with food. Unfortunately others had brought cheese and crackers as well, but oh well. They had two hams, and proper bone in hams, as well as a turkey roll. There were lots of plates that the other campers brought and there were also buns if you wanted to make a bunwich. There was also a whole dessert table. The camp hosts said a little speech, this was the first year that they had done something like this. They thought it would be nice to do on Christmas Eve for those of us on the road and away from family. It was lovely. They then asked for someone to do the blessing and one gentleman volunteered and the best thing about it was that he looked a little like Santa. You can tell we are not used to the blessing part because our kids were already into the food, oops. There are three large tables in the Clubhouse, so we sat with other campers. At our table was a couple from Florida and one from Ohio and then us. We chatted about our various trips and what we are all doing. The couple from Ohio had been to the balloon festival in Alberqueque in October. It is all hot air balloons and it goes for about a week. There are all sorts of shapes and sizes and thousands of balloons take off. We will be in New Mexico in March, so we won’t be able to see that.

Isaac stole Blake’s chair, so Blake went and sat with another couple. They were from the San Francisco area and had lots of advice for us and places to see. They have been on the road full time for a number of years now and Blake had a great time chatting with them. It was a good gathering and a nice way to spend Christmas Eve.

We then headed back to the RV and pulled out some snacks. We weren’t very hungry after the full spread we just enjoyed, but we snacked a bit. Blake loves to watch A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve. His favourite version is the Allister Sims, but we didn’t have that. We did have the Disney animated version with Jim Carey. We watched that one, it was really good.

The kids went to bed and then we waited a bit and put all the presents under the tree. Not so worried about Santa coming, since he is camping here right now. He enjoys the warm weather too!!!

We hope everyone has a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!.

Sonya