2015 was quite a year and the Loy family theme was
“Celebrate!” We began the New Year on a cruise ship with the whole Johnson side
of the family (thanks to my dad) and celebrated my dad’s 80th
birthday and our 20th anniversary in the Hawaiian Islands. Greg has
definitely proved his vows of “in sickness and in health” as I was still
undergoing chemotherapy when the year began. Chemo stopped in March and my port
came out in July, and we have spent this year celebrating newfound health and
fun times with family and friends.
Celebrating new energy since chemo was behind me, we managed
to fit a number of small trips in throughout the year. I visited my hometown of
Concord to see my dad and my high school friends. I went on a “girlfriend” trip
to Savannah, Georgia and Aiken, South Carolina and had a blast seeing the
beautiful history of those cities. In June we took a family trip to the San
Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest and finished that vacation celebrating my
sister’s 50th birthday in the Portland area.
We celebrated the boys’ academic successes—with Micah’s
promotion from middle school and Noah finishing his junior year. This year we
had a freshman and a senior in high school—with Noah driving his little brother
to school daily—my years as carpool chauffeur were over—time to celebrate
again! Both boys are involved in Young Life at our high school and we are
excited that Young Life has expanded into our local area. We love supporting
this ministry that has been near and dear to us for many years. In the fall we
continued with birthday celebrations as Micah turned 15 ((driving permit on the
horizon) and Noah turned 18 (and I had a small melt down—my baby becoming an
adult!) Micah continues with lacrosse and Noah continues with soccer and we
have spent much of this year focusing on the college application process.
Over spring break we went on a Southern California college
tour visiting Biola, Whittier, Westmont, UCSB and Cal Poly. Since I have former
students at all those schools, visiting the college campuses comes with private
and fun tours. But after looking at a number of schools, Noah changed his focus
and decided to look at larger schools with an emphasis on his major of sports
marketing. So we found ourselves on a
lovely fall trip to Colorado where we visited five schools and fell in love
with that state. Consequently, Noah chose his number one school, applied to it
for early action, and has been accepted to Colorado State University, Fort
Collins—he is excited to be a CSU Ram and we are thrilled for the opportunities
to visit next year! Another reason to celebrate—the stressful college
application process is OVER!
Our backyard didn’t fare well in the California drought and
our oasis quickly became a sand pit, so Greg worked hard to implement our
drought resistant design into making our yard kid, dog, and neighbor friendly
again. We celebrated with many summer sunsets and happy hours on the cabana.
Greg spent a lot of hours working, taking care of his business, and taking care
of me and the boys, so I am hoping that in 2016, the theme of the year will be
“Greg!” I need to get started celebrating this amazing husband of mine!
Deciding that being cancer free wasn’t enough, I set out to
run some races and set some goals for 2015—and while training for a half
marathon and triathlon, I fell off my bike and tore my ACL. I managed to
continue biking and hiking (but no running) up until my surgery on December
1—and have been in recovery for the past 20 days. If there is ever a reason to
celebrate walking, moving, and living life to the fullest—go through being
immobile for 14 days and you will be so grateful for the things we all seem to
take for granted!
We live in a broken and unsettled world. But we celebrate
the Savior who came in the humble form of a baby—Emmanuel—God with Us. It is in Him that we place our hope and our
daily celebration of a life renewed by His spirit. Everything we have, everything we are, we celebrate because of Jesus. We pray that as you navigate
life, that you would find reasons to celebrate—the small and the big, the
mundane and the exciting and that your hope, your purpose and your joy would be
found in the Savior, Jesus Christ, the King.
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