Frontier Thanksgiving~ Part 1

We did a really awesome thing for Thanksgiving this year. Exactly one year ago, we booked a cabin at Disney's Fort Wilderness for this holiday. Yes, they book that far in advance! These "cabins" are really mini motor homes edged in wood. They're about 800 sq. feet and have a bedroom with a queen, and bunk beds, full bathroom, FULL kitchen w/dishwasher to boot, and living room with a murphy bed. Each cabin is set in it's own "woods" among all that Ft. Wilderness has to offer. They have a petting farm, trails, pools, fishing, biking, horses, boats, nightly campfires, sing-alongs, outdoor movies, restaurants and more. We went on Thanksgiving day.....Mom had prepared our feast from scratch the day before and had it packed in coolers ready to go....including a 14 lb. turkey with all the fixings. We took our bikes, Barbie electric car, baby joggers, flashlights and oh yea.....the girls. :) Our particular cabin this year was set (see pic) in the middle of a cypress swamp. Joy, oh joy. Disney is trying to go "green" and is getting rid of all vegetation that is not indigenous to Florida. They have gone through and pretty much cleaned out all of the little cabin's wooded areas surrounding them....in hopes that this spring...the Florida stuff flourishes. That left us....with the swamp...full of tadpoles, frogs, a snake or two, and lots of green gooey stuff. The girls were in heaven! The dad declared swamp safe for girlies....after all, having been in so many 3rd world countries....american swampland looks very safe in comparison. We went through our whole sock quota the first day we were there. And we had no washing machine. Oh well. A small price to pay for the fun the girls had. We sent them out in their duck boots and let them run. They tortured froggies, tadpoles and whatever else they could find!

We have much to be thankful for this year. We have chosen as a family to walk the hard road both with our faith, jobs, our family and all decisions we make. It's definitely not easy, but the Christian walk never is. Our home is not on this earth. The first day was mom, dad, Julie and the little girls....... and others joined us as the weekend continued. We had a blessed time together! And Eloise actually behaved herself (even the fish-throwing wasn't out of control:)) TBC....

And as we sat on the first day there, at our outdoor Thanksgiving table and had everyone share what they were thankful for.......Katie for "EAT!", Kristin is thankful for polly pockets, turkeys, bunk-beds, ... Julie for her family and friends, .............Leni in a direct quote....." I'm thankful for my God, my Lord and my SWAMP!" (see pic.) Yes, she actually said that.

To be continued. If you want to see prissy girly girls you may not want to see the forthcoming pictures. Our girls are not known for their ruffles, lace and decorum when there is swampland nearby!!