Tom & Laura: Happy Anniversary

Friday, March 13, 2009

Happy Anniversary

Celebrating 22 Years

March 21st, 1987

I thought it would be fun to look back over our 22 years together and see the changes through a collection of pictures.

Outside our first "home"...a basement apartment in East Wenatchee

Celebrating our first anniversary

A surprise shower celebrating our first home in Wenatchee

A summer ski trip at Mt. Bachelor

A trip to New Zealand to visit friends and celebrate finishing our Master's Degrees. Laura found out she was pregnant right before this trip and was very sick!

1993
Celebrating our 6th Anniversary with a welcome addition~Courtney Beth!

Preparing our hearts to Welcome Jesus~It's almost Christmastime!

1995
Welcome Baby Isaiah!

Tom and Isaiah at Alex & Riann's wedding

A snowy Christmas in 1996

Family Camp at Tall Timber

1998

Welcome Baby Benjamin

All loaded up for our move to Little Rock as we joined staff with FamilyLife

2400 miles later we arrived at our new home...and had our very first meal...a pizza dinner on the floor in our kitchen...all our stuff was still packed away in the truck!

1999 was a Campus Crusade for Christ Staff Training Summer at CSU (Colorado State University). We stopped for a quick tour of the Cliff Dwellers at Mesa Verde.

In July of 2000, we welcomed Josiah to our family!

On the Road Again...

In June of 2001 we traveled to Arizona for the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Conferences. On our drive home we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns and took a walking tour inside the caves. It was a good experience, even for one who was concerned about being claustrophobic!

2001 was another CSU staff training summer. We drove from Little Rock to Colorado for staff training. We then drove to Washington state to visit family and friends. From there we drove all the way to North Carolina to visit family and then we drove back to Little Rock. Our notebook shows the number of miles we drove for that trip!!! After that Josiah would cry if he even got near our van!

October 2002

Caleb joins the Clifton Family

February, 2003

Fall of 2003

What we are really like...

The Three Amigos

Some of Laura's crazy side of the family at Thanksgiving in Washington following the Weekend to Remember in Bellingham...

2004 Brought Joys and Trials

Courtney and Isaiah both got baptized on Easter Sunday

We welcomed Whitney Grace into our family on October 31st...if only we knew the challenges that God had in store for us...

Courtney finally got to hold the sister that she had prayed for...

Just a few hours after Whitney was born she was in the NICU at Baptist Hospital with respiratory failure. This is her picture before being transfered to Children's Hospital.

Whitney Grace at Children's Hospital. She spent 5 weeks here and it was almost 3 weeks before we could hold her. She had PPHN (Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of a Newborn).

Finally...I get to hold my baby!

5 weeks old and Whitney finally got to come home...with an oxygen tank!

The Clifton Kids at Christmas, December 2004

Fall of 2005

2006

March 21, 2007...celebrating 20 years of marriage. Tom worked the Anchorage, Alaska Weekend to Remember Conferences. I joined Tom to celebrate our anniversary and to help with the conferences.

Tom's parents stayed with our children during the conference. 2007 was another CSU year. We drove to Rocky Mountain National Park and took a hike in the beauty of God's creation.

2008

MaryElise decided to "surprise us all" by arriving 3 1/2 weeks early...while Tom was in Alaska! God provided two special people (Teena and Renee) to help me through labor and delivery. It was an incredible blessing. God is so good!

Tom got home as quickly as possible. He got to meet MaryElise in the NICU. She was doing great but had to spend a few days there before coming home.

MaryElise was only 5 pounds when she was born and very tiny. Here she is next to Whitney's 15 inch doll!

October 2008

2 comments:

ChrisMarch 19, 2009 at 8:09 AM
Are you going to have any more children? Your only 3 away from 10! Beautiful family, you to Tom.
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EmilyMarch 20, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Aww, what a cool post!!! So much fun to watch the growing and changing of your family.
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Our Heart for Marriages and Families...

Early in our marriage God put a burden on our hearts for marriages and families.
We were elementary teachers and we saw first hand the effect of divorce on the children in our classrooms. Our hearts were broken.
We also had several close friends that were getting divorced and we wanted to help but we felt powerless.
In 1995 we attended our first FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Conference. As we sat there and listened to God's purpose and plan for marriage we thought, "This is it!"
On Sunday afternoon we had the chance to find out what it meant to join staff with FamilyLife. When Laura heard, "Raise your own support and move..." she immediately thought, "no way." Tom however knew this was God's call. Laura listed all the reasons why there was no way we could do this. God used her Bible study the next two weeks to show her this was His plan and He was calling...so we went.
It has been an incredible adventure to see lives transformed and marriages saved when people hear and apply the truth. You can see many quotes from the conferences we serve in our blog list.
As missionaries with FamilyLife, we are responsible to raise and maintain 100% of our support. If you would like to join us to make a difference in lives and families for eternity click on the link below. Thank you!

How So Many Families Today are Like a Sand Castle...

Have you ever built a sand castle on the beach?

The beach is one of our favorite places to go as a family. So for our daughter's fourth birthday, it was only natural to have a beach party theme.

Laura decided the perfect cake for the party was a sand castle cake. She found a similar cake in a cookbook and decided it would be easy. All was well until it was time to put the cake together. The cake acted just like a sand castle - it fell apart during the building process. Laura finally got the cake to hold together by using toothpicks and freezing it until the party. The cake lasted throughout the party and no one knew that it was literally crumbling from the inside out.

Unfortunatley, so many homes today are in the same condition as the sand castle birthday cake in this story. They are crumbling from the inside out. Families today need the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word! It is only by His strength and power that families can be changed, challenged and strengthened.

Here is an example of a marriage that was crumbling until it was transformed by the power of God...

"This conference has helped to open my eyes in many areas. I not only realized how much I was doing wrong, but I also realized how blind I've been. I opened my eyes and prayed for the first time. I accepted the Lord into my heart and into my life. We went from talking about divorce
already to actually sitting and talking for hours on end!! I strongly believe that we are going to thrive!"

This marriage had already ended in divorce. The couple came anyway and God worked a miracle...

"For every reason on God's earth we should not have come to this conference. We are divorced, our children have been shattered and our home
destroyed. Satan had complete and total victory in our family. His destruction was thourough...or so he though. This conference has restored
our relationship, our faith in God, and in His power to heal. We have given back to each other our heart, we have forgiven each other, we have set aside all the pain and the tumultuous history between us and we are moving ahead. We look forward to the joy of our family together, our hearts joined and to being married again. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!"

Tom & Laura

Welcome!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Happy Anniversary

2 comments:

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