Christmas in Orlando!

After a great time at the beach we made our way into Orlando for what would turn out to be another four nights waiting for the moving truck to arrive. Of course the first thing Sage ever wants to do at a new hotel is hit the pool. You can see just how excited Ty was with that idea...haha! After a quick dip we got cleaned up and headed to one of the hotel restaurants for our Christmas Eve dinner. It was so weird! That's the only way I can describe it. The hotel was decorated beautifully, the Christmas music playing, everyone was dressed to the nines (with the exception of us) and yet it still didn't feel like Christmas Eve. There is something not right about hearing "the weather outside is frightful" or "sleigh bells ring..." when it's in the 80's outside! But we were making the best of it!



The one thing we were all really excited about and looking forward to though was our time at Give Kids the World on Christmas day! Before we had arrived into town I had discussed with Jack spending this Christmas doing some sort of charity work. It seemed like the perfect year to do it being we ourselves were homeless. How nice it would be to work alongside the real homeless people. After some research we learned that between age restrictions and background checks, working at a homeless shelter probably wasn't going to happen. Jack, however, was able to learn about a charity that SeaWorld is heavily involved with called Give Kids the World. It would prove to be the perfect fit for our family. SeaWorld graciously organized us spending Christmas day there which was great because although Sage didn't meet the age requirement there too, they were able to get special authorization for her. GKTW is a resort that caters to children with life threatening illnesses who come there to stay with their families for a week, while also getting to attend the theme parks of their choice. Everything is provided to these families at no cost and sadly for some it will be the last trip their child will get to be able to go on due to their illnesses. It's really amazing. Most families are Make A Wish families who have been selected to have their Disney/SeaWorld/Universal dream vacation fulfilled. It was the BEST way to spend our morning! And we all decided that it's a tradition we'd like to continue.




After a great morning the remainder of Christmas day we spent hanging out at our hotel.



One would have thought we would have made reservations for a fabulous Christmas dinner but no, we had not. So Jack had recommended we go to a restaurant at the Ritz which happens to be attached to the JW Hotel that he had eaten at several times before. Well what he didn't know was that for Christmas they change up the whole menu and it was turned into a special buffet. That special buffet was $110 per person before tax and gratuity. I just couldn't stomach spending almost $700 to eat dinner as a family so we headed to the car and searched...and searched...and searched for a place that was both open and had availability. Well that was completely unsuccessful so I whipped out the handy Trip Advisor app and said find a place near us that is rated high. It turned out to be a pizza place...lol! It was good pizza but not exactly what we imagined Christmas dinner being like . Needless to say we will never move again during the Christmas holiday. Haha!!!