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Our Journey Continues

8/20/2013

I think this is just the easiest way to tell all the people we love that we are moving to Phoenix, Arizona! Kent's company is relocating us and we will move as soon as our house sells here in Gig Harbor.

We have a lot of thoughts about this move. Most of them are positive. Some are not, but isn't that just how it happens in life most of the time? We will miss the incredible beauty here in Washington, especially the summers. We will also miss the friends we have made here. Our hope is that they will travel south during the dreary winter, stay with us, and enjoy the warmth and sunshine!

Want to know the positives? I knew you would say yes! By the way, these are in no particular order of importance...

Sunshine

Warmth

Having a swimming pool again.

Only 5 hours from my family in San Diego

AND...

The Beach!

Only 1,000 miles from our Texas family and friends instead of 2,200 miles! Whew!

3 hours closer to Ryan and Sarah!

We will be closer to The Taylor Family than we have been in about 20 years. Just 4 short hours away in Las Vegas.

Troy will have swim practice outdoors...
all year long.

The brand new Phoenix temple will only be 10-15 minutes from where we are looking at buying a house. Our family will also get to participate in the open house and dedication in the spring of 2014. What a wonderful blessing!

The Texas Rangers hold their spring training near Phoenix every year! Oh yeah!

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Old Mission Companions, New Friends

8/18/2013

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Kent served his mission in Guatemala way back when... the mid 80s to be more precise. One of his favorite mission companions, David Brailsford, lives in American Fork, Utah and Kent has had a great desire to reconnect with him over the past few years. We were finally able to make this reunion happen this past July.

We spent only a few minutes with David, his wife Shelly and their wonderful children, and Kent and I left their home wishing we could spend more time with them. We have so much in common and really enjoyed getting acquainted.

As luck would have it, we found out that they spend a week up in Washington every summer and have always wanted to visit the lovely Gig Harbor! We offered to show them around and they very excitedly accepted!

Left to Right: Claira, Craig, Shelly, Rebekah, David and Derek

Aren't they a great looking family? They are missing their oldest son Blake who is serving his mission right now in Rochester, New York. What a wonderful tradition of missionaries these faithful fathers started in both our families!

We had a great lunch at Kelly's, with many of us partaking of their fantastic Halibut Fish & Chips. Then a stroll down the pier to try and find some jellyfish and starfish. We had a very hard time finding jellyfish this time, but scored in the starfish department!

Rebekha was a little scared to touch it at first, but obviously that didn't last too long!

There was a little boy at the end of the pier with a crab pot. He could not have been more than 7 or 8 years old! Craig even had to help him pull his pot out of the water and lo and behold... 3 crabs in the pot. Two were very small, but one was big enough to take home to an even bigger pot.

Rebekah's face in this one just cracks us up! It's borderline thrilled and creeped out all at the same time!

The weather was so beautiful that we decided to get a lot closer to the harbor than just walking on the pier. We rented some kayaks and set off to explore.

Considering how many times I drop my phone in a 24 hour period, it was a miracle I didn't drop it in the harbor! I'm continually amazed at technology and how I got these great photos with a cell phone, not a camera!

I did shoot one little video with my phone. I love the sound of the water in this clip... but, the sound of my voice yelling across the harbor?... so annoying. Please ignore!

We have been so blessed to get to know the Brailsfords! They are a great family that loves baseball as much as we do! We are looking forward to more fun times together in the coming years and are so grateful for the blessings of missionary service that keep on coming, even after 28 years! I wish I could find a picture of Kent and David as young missionaries, but this will have to do for now:

Elder Bills and Elder Brailsford, together again!

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The Bills Family

We consider ourselves Texans, but now live in Peoria, AZ. We started this website so that the family and friends that we love so much can keep up with our lives.