2011

We started 2011 traveling between Oklahoma and Arkansas, seeing Angela's grandparents, old friends, and celebrating Bill's dad's 80th birthday with the entire Gifford and Couch families.

Jim and Sue Gifford, December 2010

Compared to our usual habits, we stuck close to home more in 2011. We only made one trip to Oregon this year to visit Angela's parents at Thanksgiving. Dan and Connie had a tree come through their home in March, that put them in temporary living situations for a good part of the year. We thank God for his protection on their lives. You can watch a little of their story here:

The boys at the Puget Sound

Our family with Jack and Susie Hurley (and Judy!)

Bill and Angela at the original Starbucks at Pike's Public Market

In June, we took a long weekend trip to Seattle, exposing our kiddos to big city life a bit. We enjoyed the Seattle Zoo, the Space Needle, Pike's Market, the original Starbucks, the gum wall, and a few precious hours with some of Angela's old friends from high school, who were passing through Seattle after an Alaskan cruise.

Bill and Angela on their 15th Anniversary

Bill is still active on our church worship team and a part of our church's golf ministry. His team raised over $9,000 for the needy through their tournament this year. Bill was recently promoted from training assistant to trainer, so now trains new employees for Capital One. He and a co-worker were sent to Colorado earlier this year to prepare their company for the new small business campaign that Capital One has begun. His experience as a small business owner has proven valuable to the company during this campaign. He continues to operate Coeur d'Alene Golf Club Repair, building and repairing golf clubs, and dreaming of how to grow the business. Bill is also anticipating surgery number four next month on his left leg to remove another large cyst. We may also be looking at a partial knee replacement to put a permanent end to that frustration.

Angela has had a fruitful year just watching God work when she took her hands off of things. Angela is now on the core team for women's ministry at our church and coaching the leaders for the new mom's ministry launching in January. This summer, Angela felt God impressing on her to prepare her book to give it away until she found a way to do something different with it. Never Go Hungry Again: A Spiritual Nutrition Guide for Moms launched on November 15, 2011 as a free e-book. She continues to pray about what to do next, and what plans God has. But Angela will tell you that this has truly been the most fulfilling year of her life so far. The economy hit the company she works for pretty hard this year, and she is now only working part time....which she considers to be a bit bittersweet as the loss of income translates into more hours for family and ministry. She continues to blog, and you can find all of her blog links from her personal website at angelacgifford.com.

Clayton's 14th Birthday

Clayton started high school this year! He is a freshman at Lake City High School and learning not to get trampled in crowded hallways during class changes. His area of expertise still tends to be all things computer and video related. He enjoys serving on our church's tech team and hanging with his techie friends at church. Last spring he took first place for radio commercials and third place for television commercials in a contest sponsored by the Spokane Ad Council. He recently found a way to trade all of his video game equipment and games for an Mac desktop, so he can more avidly pursue his video-making talents.

Riley juggling torches at Lake Coeur d'Alene

Riley is in 6th grade at Sorensen Magnet School for the Arts and Humanities. He has become quite proficient at juggling. This summer he learned to juggle flaming torches. He has also mastered the unicycle. He continues to be a part of the juggling performance team, and his team has been invited to participate at halftime shows this coming spring for Gonzaga, Washington State University, Whitworth, North Idaho College, and a couple of smaller venues. Riley loves kids and loves to serve. He serves in our kindergarten discipleship group at church and always wants to be at events early to help with set-up.

Ian as Thor, his favorite action hero.

Ian (4th grade) has also become a proficient juggler this year, mastering feats no one at his school has ever performed before, like throwing juggling passes under his leg while balancing on a globe. He is also on Sorensen's juggling performance team. Ian has discovered a love for fishing this year. There is honestly nothing he'd rather be doing. We are fortunate to have neighbors nearby with a private fishing pond that allows kids to catch and release. He asks almost daily when he'll be old enough to go by himself.

Hayden with our latest family addition, Pedro the bearded dragon

Hayden is in 2nd grade at Sorensen. He has also joined the juggling performance team and is perfecting his three ball skills. Hayden outgrew big brother Ian this year, and can still take Clayton down when given the challenge.  Hayden is our best eater and best snuggler. He is a great friend and has totally bonded with 2 year old cousin Audrey. Hayden gave his heart to Jesus and was baptized this year, and we are enjoying the process of encouraging his faith.

We have been a part of the Post Falls Campus (original campus) of Real Life Ministries since we moved back to Idaho in 2005 and are praying about our family's involvement in the downtown Coeur d'Alene campus that will launch this spring. We thank God daily that the church we prayed we could be a part of for years, actually does exist. We have enjoyed going on a number of church-wide spiritual journeys this year. Probably the most impactful on us was journeying through Crazy Love with Francis Chan, and having him come speak to our church. We have struggled internally over the last few years and tried to settle in as the normal American family, always striving for the better house, the better car, the better job, the better future. But all of those things leave a person hollow and frustrated.  With the economy struggling and friends hurting, it has been a perfect time to have our faith jump-started and think again about how we can pass God's lavish love on to others. Our question now is simply, "How can we live so that we have more to give?

We are in awe of the God Who did that for us....gave everything, so we could have life abundant and full...and not just for now, but forever. If you have questions about that, we'd love to help you answer them.

Much love from the Giffords!!
Bill, Angela, Clayton, Riley, Ian and Hayden


Angela - angelacgifford (at) gmail (dot) com
Bill - cdagolfclubrepair (at) yahoo (dot) com

P.S. I apologize if you desire to scan the previous years' news. All of the pictures are missing. Apparently asking Google + to delete your albums means deleting them from every Google application. So Angela has a lot of work to do updating her blogs. :(