Thursday, December 24, 2015

It's a Christmas Card !!

This Christmas Card in the form of a blog post provides a wonderful place to catch everyone up on the happenings with the Aliso Viejo Turners.

The importance of family cannot be underestimated, especially in these challenging days.  God gave us our family - we didn't choose it. He gave it to us as the best present anyone could ever have.  Nothing is ever perfect in life, and family is no exception, but to live life without family would be a tragedy.

As a family we love skiing and that love has been given successfully to the kids.  They are getting ready with anticipation for our ski trip after Christmas.  Skiing is a time to develop great family memories and enjoy some active time together and be a little goofy along the way.  Patrick has turned into the boy that loves skiing through trees.  Eliana has amazing balance and hopefully will learn how to stop this year.  Then, watch out world, here she comes. :)  It may be a blessing in disguise that this is an expensive sport otherwise we would want to try it every week in the winter time :)  We are looking forward to another Copper Mountain adventure in January 2016.

We do think there is much more of a chance for our kids to turn into beach bums rather than ski bums.  They absolutely adore the ocean and living in Southern CA gives us the opportunity to go to the beach 11+ months of the year.  There is, however, nothing better than sharing the beach with the cousins!  The yearly trip to South Carolina is brought up in conversation year round and looked forward to with anticipation.

Upon reflection we realized that some of the most important things in life might be taken for granted but we don't want that to be the case.  We appreciate the way God has provides for us.  We appreciate the church we belong to, the home fellowship group we are involved with, the school the kids attend and more.  There is so much in life to be thankful for and so little that is really worth complaining about but if I took the time to write it all down this blog post would go on forever, so please share in our year in review through our "favorite things" video at the end of this post.

While this is being finalized on Christmas Eve 2015, the kids are looking forward to enjoying the mounds and mounds of presents that are sitting under the tree.  These kids must be loved more than life itself :)  But the greatest gift of all was born 2020 years ago or so in a stall fit for animals, a humble beginning of the son of God, the Christ child.  The creator of the universe who was known by Abraham came down to earth to solve our sin problem.  He is the sole reason for the HOPE that we have.  His birth, death and resurrection gives us that eternal HOPE that we will carry with us forever.  We hope that you are able to experience it also.


Have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2016!! (wasn't Y2K yesterday???)


And now the video.....


https://vimeo.com/149992555


1 comment:

Kathie Reid-Bevington said...

"Big pizza! Now french fries!" LOVE that!!!