Our 2013 Christmas Letter & Year End Wrapup

From our house to yours this Christmas 2013, May the music of Christmas fill the air!

.  We have enjoyed hosting our friends at our annual Sing and Eat ;the cantata at New Hope was performed; we have enjoyed The Promise at Live Oak First Baptist; several Christmas gatherings are now behind us.   Now we sit back, relax, and let Christmas happen.

  We have been gifted with another good year together.  We greeted 2013 on

a post Christmas cruise with Rob and Traci enjoying swimming the Caribbean and touring St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, and Grand Turk    we thoroughly enjoyed being pampered by the staff of the Ziederdam, spending long afternoons in the sunshine, and participating in every trivia contest that came along.  After coming home it was easier to get through the doldrums and cold days of January and February!

After the Easter cantata and spring share day at New Hope, we headed to  East Tennessee to enjoy time with friends and family,  watching the wild turkeys and deer, enjoying the good mountain music, and relishing springtime...  We have gained many new friends through our “church away from home” Shady Grove.  The redbuds and dogwoods were especially beautiful this year and we enjoyed time with cousins in Rogersville, Kingsport, Knoxville and Oar Ridge while we were “in the hollar.”     

After celebrating Leila Kate’s fourth birthday, We came home in May to warm weather, gardening, lawn mowing, and pool time.   In late May we returned to Greenville to celebrate Ava Grace’s seventh birthday at one of her (and her Uncle Rob’s) favorte places, Chucky Cheese.

In June we did crafts for VBS at New Hope.  We had an excellent Bible School with a really good turnout.  We made lots of fun things with the kids and enjoyed our time spent with them. 

The day after VBS was over, we flew out of Valdosta to our annual roadtrip

which was through the state of Utah. We flew into Las Vegas, rented a car, drove over to Glen Canyon Dam and entered Southern Utah.  By the time we walked back into our back door at home, we had traveled 7200 miles seeing seven national parks, a slew of state parks, Mormon monuments, mountains, the great salt lake, alfalfa fields, lavender fields, buttes, hoo doos, arches,   Klep also got to do research on genealogy at the library in Salt Lake City.  We also slipped up into the edge of Idaho. 

We came home to summer in all of its glory.  July slipped into August when we made a quick trip to Greenville and East Tennessee, returning home to finish out August and most of September.  The Rock Hill School was having a reunion the 21^st of September, so we packed up and headed back to the hills for an extended fall stay.  The highlight of our trip was when Kevin and Reagan brought the girls to East Tennessee for the first time.  It was a delight to see them run up and down the hills and climb into the loft of the old Klepper barn.  Fortunately the ghost of the headless man did not make an appearance while they were there.  We also enjoyed catching up with all our Tennessee kin and friends including a cousin get together at Fall Creek Falls State Park with some of my Hendrick cousins.  Sadly, we bid goodbye to our dear cousin Beth.

We came home after a stop in Greenville in early November to get ready for

Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Thanksgiving was full of fun, laughter, sharing, food and all the joy that surrounds the day.  Although it was too cold to sit outside on the porch after dinner, everyone did get out for a resounding round of limbo using some of our giant bamboo.

After all the cars exited the driveway the day after Thanksgiving, we switched gears and headed full

steam into party preparation for our “Christmas Sing and Eat.” Now the end of the year is right around the corner and we can reflect on life.

Funny, we never really thought we would be this old in years, but we find that the age really doesn’t mean a whole lot.  It just means that we have a whole lot more memories, experiences, and friends than we did a half century ago when we were just becoming adults.  It also means that we’ve seen a whole lot of good and a whole lot of bad.  We’ve experienced a whole lot of joy and a whole lot of sadness.  But, all in all, we find ourselves incredibly blessed in all of it.  The older we get, the more wisdom we find in the tenets of the Bible.  The older we get, the more we understand how absolutely glorious these lives we are given to

live are.  We pray rich blessings of joy and fulfillment on all of you.  After all, isn’t Christmas about the greatest gift of all?  The ultimate gift of Love wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

                Love to you all!