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Hello from Rhode Island! This blog is a fantastic way to see how everyone is getting along. It's hard to believe it's almost been 10 years. It's really strange when the college years start feeling like a "long time ago."
After high school I planned to attend the University of Utah on a 1/2 music scholarship, but turned it down at the last minute, deciding that 4 hours a day of piano was not for me. So, I attended Salt Lake Community College for a year and then went to BYU summer school and began attending BYU full time after that. I went back and forth between music and English and decide
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d on English in the end. I stayed the summers at BYU, working for BYU leadership and the English department. I finally graduated with a BA in English in 2003, and went on to teach almost a full year of English and Business Communications at Hurricane High, where my parents moved in 2002. I didn't know what I was thinking, moving to a small place where people pronounced the name of their town "HurriCUN," but I ended up loving teaching, loving my students, and loving the small town (even the name). Now my students are going to college and returning from missions. Does anyone feel old at 27?
Toward theend of my teaching year, I met my future husband, Adam, who had been sailing in England and had come home to live in LaVerkin (another wonderful Southern Utah town name), about 10 minutes from where I lived with my parents. I taught Adam's niece piano, and his mom set us up on a blind date. We were married in the Bountiful Temple on May 20, 2004 and have been moving around ever since. In the fall and winter, Adam went to school at Utah State University, studying deaf education, and I worked in city planning for a small city next to Logan called Providence. In the summers we moved to the east coast (New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island) to help Adam accrue sea time for his captain's license.
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We welcomed Ian Benjamin Billings in to our family on May 27, 2005, and he is a firecracker. He has reddish hair and white skin like my dad (and grandpa just glows when he's around), and he smiles with both sets of teeth. I'm sure he's spoiled, though we don't mean to do it. He brings a lot of laughter and happiness, and we wouldn't trade him.
Adam is currently the captain of the Adirondack II in Newport, RI, and we live in Portsmouth, about 10 minutes from Newport. Both cities are on a tiny
island that is surrounded by beaches. It's a gorgeous place to visit and an expensive place to live, but we've met wonderful people here. Adam just finished his master's degree in deaf education and elementary education, and we're looking for teaching jobs right now.
We're also expecting our second child in February. We are excited to add another little one to the family, hoping he/she will help curb Ian's insatiable appetite for attention. (And of course, we're also just generally excited to have another baby.)
I would love to see everyone at the reunion and catch up. We'll see where we end up this time next year!