One of our favorite Christmas traditions is eating crab for our Christmas Eve dinner.  We always ordered the crab from Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. When you order from Pike Place you can watch them pack your order on their Fishcam. Now that we live here, we are saving some big bucks on the shipping charges and we get to watch the fun in person.  The fun is watching the fishmongers yell out orders to each other and throw fish across the market.  Huge crowds gather to witness the flying fish every hour of the day. 

Samuel Samson was our fishmonger when we ordered our crab this year.  We have seen him many times and he is pretty funny.  Kent asked him a question and in reply Samuel started yelling, "8, 9, 10, 11, 12!!!"  Then he looked at Kent and said, "Don't ever talk to a guy when he's counting! You don't know that rule?" He was counting oysters for another customer.  It was really funny and we all got a big laugh out of it. 

Here they are folks! The answers to "The Bills Family Trivia Crossword" we sent out with our Christmas cards. Hopefully, you don't need this because you know and love us all so well! In any case, here they are:

I've committed the most grievous sin that a girl with a blog can commit.  I only took a few pictures over the Thanksgiving holiday.  This is especially depressing since the people we spent Thanksgiving with are some of our most beloved friends and we wish we could see them more often than every couple of years! 

The Taylor family consists of: Kurt, Ren'e, Zach and his wife Michaela, Brittany, Zane and Bryson.  Here is a beautiful picture of them that I stole off their facebook pages!

Anyway, we have known the Taylors for over 20 years. We met in Southern California in the Laguna HIlls 3rd ward when Zach and Ryan were still wearing diapers and we have been BFF's (best of family friends) ever since.  The only downside is that we haven't lived near each other at all throughout those 20 years.  Very hard when you love each other as much as we do.

Every other year or so, when we can't stand the separation any longer we have a phone conversation that goes something like this:

"We miss you guys!"
"We miss you guys!"
"We need some Bills Family time!"
"We need some Taylor Family time!"
"When are we going to get together?"

The answer to that last question ended up being Thanksgiving 2012 in Las Vegas!

We drove down to Provo, picked up Ryan at BYU and made our way down to a warm, mild, and sunny Vegas.  We were greeted with hugs and smiles and then the laughter ensued.  The laughter pretty much didn't stop until we said goodbye and drove off on Saturday morning. 

Highlights of our Vegas Thanksgiving Adventure:

1. Basketball for the boys
2. Volleyball for everyone
3. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner in Rene'e's kitchen
4. Sending Kurt and Kent out at least 4 times for things we forgot to get
5. Getting to know Zach's new wife, Michaela
6. ESPN
7. The Bellagio Water Fountain show choreographed to "O Holy Night"
8. The Bellagio Chocolate Fountain
9. The look on Kurt's face when Troy stuck his finger in this very powerful water fountain that was arching over our heads...priceless
10. Laser tag
11. Movie night
12. Eating at Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers
13. Epic game of Phase 10 that may have permanently eliminated our desire to play card games ever again
14. Motorcycles around the neighborhood
15. Meeting Ryan's mission president and his wife, Jonathan and Susan Bunker, who live in Vegas
16. Sean's friend, Sarah of wisdom teeth video fame, spending the day with us
17. Did I mention laughter?

Okay, here are the pictures I took.  Please forgive me, Taylor Family!  Despite the lack of photographic evidence, we love you dearly!!!

That's the end of the pictures.  See, told you it was a grievous sin!  Regardless, we had a wonderful time with the Taylors and it will be a Thanksgiving we will cherish forever.  We also made a pact that we will NOT wait 2 more years before we see each other again!