no title (Stef)

Hi everyone, just wanted you to know that I do read all your posts. Sorry I don't always comment on each individual one (it takes too long) and Bret's nap time is extremely precious.

We are excited to hear the Blaine, Kris and kids are moving home! Wow, it seems unreal, but we are glad we will get to see them more often.

We are also excited for the reunion! It will be so fun that the whole family will be there and ALMOST the whole extended family! How neat. I am also pumped because after it is over we get to go stay with my friend Obi in Philly. She is moving to New Hampshire in a month, so it was perfect timing! Also, I have been working really hard to finish a quilt for Obi (right after the mission, she and I both started denim quilts and mom just helped me finish mine, but hers has been sitting in a box for about 3.5 years!) and I hope I can get it done and take it to her! It has been really crazy because I haven't really done one by myself before and when Obi cut her squares, they were all way different sizes! So I really hope it will all go together okay and even more I hope it doesn't fall apart after I leave it with her :)!

I got called to be in the nursery. Oh man. Our ward has about 15 kids in there. I know its bad to say this, but its nice that they don't all come every week :(. There are some of the meanest little girls I have ever seen in there. I have officially dubbed myself mean kid police in there. I just want to help them learn to share better and be nicer. I went in there yesterday (they emergency called me in because all the kids were crying so they needed extra help) and it seems like we made a little progress by the end of the two hours. It's a tough calling for me because it seems like an extension of my week at home: picking up toys a hundred and one times, just to pick them up again. Fortunately, Bret is one of the nice kids in there, but that means I have to protect him from some of the little bullies. Man some of those little girls have some crazy high levels of estrogen already :) he he. I am really just trying to crack jokes and not being critical. It will be a patience building calling though and for that I can be thankful.

Bret is getting funnier by the day. I hope he can relax enough at the reunion to let his real personality out, but you guys have got to see him dance. He dips his head from side to side and stomps around in circles and just moves and grooves whenever he hears music. It's awesome! His interests besides that are still the same: electronics, anything he is not supposed to touch and musical instruments. He has found Nick's guitar behind our door and he loves to strum it. He is very gentle, its cute! Also, right after sacrament meeting ended yesterday, we let him go and he made a quick run for the organ on the stand. He almost got to it..... he's wild! He also loves to play catch and soft balls are of the essence. We have some hard ones and I got tired of protecting myself, so I just hid them. He loves to be chased and scared and he is a hoot when he runs. His bottom just twists and we laugh so hard!

Well now I am rambling. We are excited to come up this weekend. We will talk to you about plans before we come! Sure love you guys!

Stef

So much to be grateful for (Rosey)

So I just got off the phone with Mom and read all the fun reunion talk, I then decided I would write a post on our little blog before going to take care of my calling...but before I could write my post I read Krisit's post about Ivy and it really just got me thinking a lot about my life. As you all know, I like to keep myself quite busy....although I think this is usually a good thing, it can also cause me to not take the time to myself that I should take. So I have just been sitting here in my quiet living room listening to the dishwasher and thinking about how blessed I am. I am feeling very very grateful today. So for this post, even though it is no where near Thanksgiving, I want to take the time to share with all of you how grateful for I am for several different things. I think I just feel really grateful right now because I have gone through some personal stress and as you all know, when you face some adversity or tribulation, you usually realize how great your life really was before those hardships come....Not that I have been facing anything major, but life can just get really stressful sometimes. So anyways....things I am so grateful for.
- You guys!!! I realize I don't always show this gratitude because I don't spend near the time I should and want with all of you. But i am so grateful for a family that loves me and is good examples to me. I am so grateful for the way that Mom and Dad raised me, as I am exposed to more and more people, I realized just how blessed I was to grow up in the home I did (I am sitting here tearing up in my apartment just writing this...I hope nobody walks in right now:)
- I am so grateful to be a member of this church. I often wonder why I was so blessed to have a testimony of this gospel. Honestly I think I was blessed with the gift to believe in this gospel. I sometimes see people around me struggling and striving to believe that their Heavenly Father really does love them, but somehow that has never been a doubt or struggle for me. I know that I am a daughter of God, and that knowledge helps guide and direct my life daily.
- I am so grateful to have the privilege to learn both in school and in the gospel.
-I am so grateful for people of all kinds and all that they have to offer and teach me.
- I am so grateful for the scriptures and any other inspirational reading material.
- I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves me and is aware of my needs and helps fulfill those needs when I am willing to recognize and recieve them.
- I am grateful for good friends that make me life more fun and strive to be good examples to me.
- I am grateful to have a warm and clean house to sleep in each night.
- I am grateful to be part of such strong extended families that i can be close to.
- I am grateful to be in a fun ward with a wonderful Bishop who cares
- I am grateful for exercise and the way it makes me feel.

Ok I am going to stop there because I could just keep going and going. Sorry you all had to suffer through that list, but it has been a while since I just took to time ot sit and think about how wonderful my life is, and why it is that way. I just want you all to know that you are often in my thoughts and that I love and miss you all dearly. I hope everybody is doing great. I am so so so so so excited about Blaine and Kristi's news and hope taht it will all work out well for them. Thanks for all that you guys do for me. I love you.

Love, Rosey

P.S. Everything is going good with Daniel (I am grateful for him too :)

The scariest sound in the night ( Kristi )

Remember how I got one of these at a garage sale for $10?They retail for about $110 and are easily going for $60 used, but the one we got was BRAND NEW in the package! The cheapskate in me really wanted to hock it on craigslist, but the mom in me wanted to keep it. I've always wanted a baby monitor and now more than ever it would be convenient to have one. Plus it had that cool SIDS pad where you place the sensor under the mattress and if they don't move for twenty seconds an alarm sounds, how comforting!

Blaine was not convinced, he still thought we should sell it and get a less expensive monitor.

I won. I kept it!

It's been nice having it, and a little annoying.Every single time Ivy cries in the night I run to her room, get her out of her crib, sneak back into my bed with her with me and about three seconds later. . .

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*

that stinking SIDS alarm goes blaring off in Gwen's room and nearly wakes the whole neighborhood. I ALWAYS forget to turn it off and it always goes off twenty seconds after taking Ivy out of bed and scares the begibberies out of me.

So tonight that alarm went a blaring and jolted me out of sleep, but....this time Ivy wasn't in my bed. She was in her crib where she should be. At first I just laid in bed thinking how weird it was the alarm was going offtill it hit me

THE ALARM IS GOING OFF

and I raced to her room and scooped her up in my arms and juggled her back and forth until she was perturbed enough to cry.

* long, poingnant, somber, thoughtful, contemplative silence *

You know, I been wanting to post for a while now. I wanted to blog complaining about our big decision. I wanted to blog about what a stupid thing it was for us to buy our house when we did as we are now in so deep over our heads that even if we were 100% sure about moving we financially can't do so, I wanted to blog about how I've spent the last three days cleaning my house for the realtor to see it but the realtor didn't get much past the front door before they dropped the "you would have to bring fourteen grand to closing" bomb.

But tonight Ivy's SIDS alarm went off.

While she was in bed.

Did the SIDS monitor just save her life?

Would today have been Ivy's last day on Earth if I hadn't gone to that garage sale?

All I want to blog about is how I am so glad that I won't ever know. And I have to blog that now at 3:00AM because I can't bring myself to go back to sleep.

And all of the sudden I know what is important.

The Ragnar Relay (Mom)

Dear Family,

You either experienced the Ragnar or I've talked to you (thanks for calling on Father's Day Nick and Blaine) but I wanted to get some of my thoughts and memories about this past weekend on paper so I decided to write it on the bawb. I'll try not to make it too long in case you want to read it! I'm really doing this for journal purposes.

On Friday, June 19 our van left at 6 am to drive up to Logan. In van 1 with me were Rosey, Max, Clay, James and Andrea. We would spend the next 30 hours together in the car. (A sometimes stinky car!) The other van 2 driven by Jed didn't have to arrive until around 2 pm when we were finishing our first set of runs. So Jed, Mike, Tom, Janey, Cristinne and Marg got to sleep in. We registered and were ready for our 8:30 am start time. They started groups every 20 minutes to spread the 600+ teams out. Several months ago we had to submit our running times to determine our start time. They want everyone finishing within several hours of each other. Better running groups start later. (The BYU elite team consisting of 6 runners instead of 12 started at 6 pm on Friday) Note our early start!

Mike was the one who got us all registered and was our team captain. He and Kent have done the race for the past two years with a Winder Farms Team. I guess they weren't invited to join them this year so Mike formed this family team. We called ourselves "The Wicked Winders of the West" and got matching blue race shirts. I might note here that the Winder Farms team came in 45 minutes after our time. I think that gave Mike some satisfaction after being shunned by the "jocks."

Here are some observations and things I want to remember:

Utah is Beautiful - The race covered 188 miles from Logan to Park City. I think we ran through some of the most beautiful country Utah has (okay, with the exception of red rock country) We went up and down mountains, over rivers, through little towns, past reservoirs. We have had such a rainy spring there were lots of green fields and beautiful wild flowers. I went through towns I hadn't even heard of.

Weather Matters - Fortunately we had really moderate weather, not nearly as hot as the past two years according to Mike. That was a blessing. I still wore my hat and sunglasses and sweated a lot, but it could have been so much worse. Jed, Tom and Janey experienced rain on their last legs. Janey started at the top of Guardsman summit in a cold rain and thick fog on a steep downhill drop of 7.3 miles into Park City. Fortunately the fog didn't last more than a mile and the rain stopped after a couple miles and it was sunny when she passed off to Marg who finished the race.

Boys Eat A Lot - And Andrea doesn't eat much. I think James, Clay and Max were hungry about every hour. They ate foot long Subways and only a few hours later got big, expensive burgers at Snow Basin. Andrea lived on yogurt and string cheese.

Max is a Machine - As our runner went along we would pass them in the van and honk and cheer. Max always gave us two thumbs up and usually did a little skip. His times were great. His hardest run was the second day (after very little sleep) from Francis up to the Jordanelle Reservoir overlook. This was like running up a canyon and it was 7.9 miles long. Although Max had trained a little, I was worried for him. No need to be. He did fabulous. I was so impressed. He just chugged along (no skipping this time) and said he felt the rush of wind when the BYU track team member passed him! You would have all been impressed with his stamina, persistence and good attitude. He never whinned or complained (except that he was hungry) Another Bassett runner and his mama was proud!

Janey is Jovial - Though not in our van, we made a point to see her on her last run down the mountain. Keep in mind this was after her first 3.7 run described as a "tough climb up old Snow Basin Road." This would be like running up Big Cottonwood Canyon. But the amazing part is that he had such a pleasant look when she ran! I doubt she complained either, even though she got very little sleep and felt sick that second day. Her second run was a night run at about 4 am.

Rosey is Remarkable - If you can't tell, my favorite thing about this whole race was realizing how amazing my kids are (oh how we missed Blaine and Nick) Rosey started the race with a witch hat and broom between her legs. Never a complaint from her. Her second leg, in the heat of the day, started at Snow Basin resort and took her 8.5 miles down, down down into the sweet little town of Mountain Green. She passed off to me for my short 3 miler and they didn't even let her stretch out or walk it off because they wanted to be sure the van got to the next exchange in time. Her knees must be killing her! Rosey had the longest total mileage of the group at 18.4 miles.

James is generous - and prepared. Clay didn't bring any food because he thought we were going to stop and get it. James had plenty and shared without a second thought. Course I love James as one of my own kids so it was great having him in the car. He hurt his knee and came in slow on his last run, but I never heard a complaint.

Clay is Cool - I have a whole new appreciation for Clay. I've always loved him but now I appreciate him. He admitted that he hadn't trained as well as he should of (I'm not sure if he was kidding when he said he had never run more than 3 miles) but again, I never heard a complaint, even when he could hardly walk to his exchange point to start his last leg. He was a trooper! He would always say how happy he was to be in the "cool van" with us. And he had purchased a package of new underwear, a 6 pack to be exact, and he let us all vote on which pair to wear on each of his runs. And speaking of runs, he appreciated the immodium I gave him.

Andrea Still Giggles - I loved having Andrea along in our van. She almost didn't do the run because of an injury about 6 weeks ago. She got better and was so fun to have along. When you are tired and have had little sleep you can either be grumpy or silly - we chose silly. We agreed we hadn't laughed that hard in a while.

Wade is Wonderful - Our van had the longest chunk of time to sleep during the night and Wade invited us to his house in Samak. He wasn't there but he had cleaned the place, had blankets and towels and milk and cereal all set out for us. Our van got about 4 hours there. Van 2 spent about 3 hours there and Wade got home and joined us for the end of the race. He is such a good guy.

I Am Old - I think the median age of runners was somewhere in their early thirties. There were very few people my age or older. I always cheered for the ones I saw. But I have to say, because of my diligent daily running, I was able to do all my legs (I had only a total of 13 miles and no steep up or downhills) and didn't even feel stiff at the end. I still average about a 10 and a half minute mile. Slow and steady wins the race is still my motto.

Volunteers Make a Difference - Each team had to have 3 volunteers and we got Gwen Yorgason and Isaac and Candalyn to be our helpers. They were on the course where James did his first run. It was so great to come up the mountain and see Gwen there directing us where to park. She looked so cute and later informed me that several guys asked for her number! Unfortunately not all volunteers were this pleasant. Some people get a little power and it goes to their head. We had a woman yell at us for not staying on the grass (was that what it was? I was so tired at that point I just remember thinking she was crazy)

Working Bowels are a blessing - Maybe that is all I will say about that but I did feel very blessed. I can't run on a full system. They had good little "honey buckets" that were clean and didn't smell and I had been worried about that part of the race and it was all good.

So it was a great time. We finished in just over 30 hours. (BYU team won with 17 hours - amazing) All 12 of us ran through the finish line together. We got cool medals. We all felt closer to each other. We bonded as a Winder family. This morning on my run I stopped at grandmas to tell her all about the race. She acted so delighted that we did it together. She said she was sure grandpa was happy, too. Sort of a Father's Day gift to him - his family is still close!

Love you all. You deserve a medal if you read all of this.

Love, Mom

Dance auditions (Stef)

Hi family! Just wanted to let you all know that between our two trips up to Salt Lake, I had a dance audition. The studio is called Premier Dance and last year they did an inspirational show called "Tribute to the Prophets." They do all sorts of dance to church music (EFY, hymns, etc) and each dance is dedicated to a different Latter Day Prophet. It was a huge hit last year so they are going to start doing it every year. Well I auditioned to do the show and I made it. Now I just have to tell them that when we actually perform I will be as big as a whale and see if they still want me :)

If they don't, the good news is, I can still go to practices for the exercise and stuff! Fun hu? That's all for now. Love,

Stef

Watch out on the roads!!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone, I thought I would just like to share where I just got back from. This morning, mom and I got my birth certificate, my social security number (because I don't have it memorized) and we drove to the Driver's License Division where I took the written test for a Learner's Permit, and I passed!!! :) I only missed 7 questions, and most of them were the questions about the point system, which mom said she didn't even know anything about, so I was really happy about that! Then we went to KFC to celebrate! A couple minutes later, mom said she needed to go pick up something at the Morris's and now that I have my permit, I got to drive! I was shaking a ton, but it was a lot of fun! I even got to make a left turn...on my very first day! Luckily, there was an arrow to let us go. I was still really, really nervous, but we survived so it's all good now! :)
But anyways, I thought I would just let you all know! Love ya,
Max

Hi from Dad

All,

Wow, what a fun ride this last week has been. Thanks to Blaine and Kristi for sacrificing their sanity, their gas, and their friendships back home (tending the escape artist - swiper) by coming out to utah. We hope that you felt like it was worth all the effort. We sure had a great time. Thanks also to Nick and Stef for making the long 5 hr trip (twice) to see the family. As you look at it, it's 24 hours for Blaine and Kristi to drive home. But it's 20 hrs for Nick and Stef to drive up to SLC from St. george if they do the trip twice. So both of you had long hard trips...and we feel like we're the benefactors. Thanks, and thanks.

During the last 2 weeks (and the next 2 weeks coming up) I've been giving talk after talk, and running meeting after meeting. I've posted a few of my talks out on the other website...Feel free to come enjoy the talks.
http://bbbmetaphors.blogspot.com/

I also posted all my pictures for the last couple of weeks. Come check em out.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bretbassett/June09#

Kristi, I posted in a private album the pictures we took at James' wedding...enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/bretbassett/GenesseyWeddingPhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCKXrt6WMxqWbhgE#

Loves and thanks to all!!

AT&T - Time for change (Dad)

One of the toughest things to do is to change...

- To change jobs

- To change homes

- To change cars

- To change who you cover on your family plan

We have come to that point where we need to make that change.

So here's what we propose:

1. We lose Nick off our plan. It's been a fun ride Nick, but since you've stocked your shelves with food now, maybe it's time to carry your own plan. We'll miss you since you've been such a nice customer, thanks for your business. ..

2. We move to AT&T. This gives us a couple of benefits. We can talk unlimited with Blaine and Kristi (and anyone else on an AT&T plan). No more (can't talk now - we don't have any minutes). We can reduce our # of minutes to 700. Why? Because Nick is on his own plan and because we can carry over unused minutes from month to month...thus building up a safety reserve. This would include unlimited texting. Get new phones that make it easier to text (for mom and I). Free photo and video transfer. And Dad can finally get an IPhone (happy father's day)

.

3. Max will not get a phone till he gets his Eagle. That's as per our original agreements. We'll add him when he's done.

4. Janey, Rosey and Mom, you can go out and pick a new phone. If you can stop by a Best Buy to look at the options they have, that would be nice since we'll probably get it there, and they have a lot of options as free which don't show free online. Otherwise go out to this website and see if you can find one you like. If it's not free, then you'll pay be the difference.

http://wireless.bestbuy.com/HelperPages/morePhones.aspx?PhoneId=27098&cid=34309_bb1bc069640749419982f37768b7affe&phoneBundleID=18679&action=swap&viewmode=1

We'd like to make the switch before our trip to New York.

If you want to keep your number...let me know so we can ensure that happens.

Thanks and loves.

Dad

Happy Bawb Day (Dad)

Hi happy family -
Well, actually B&K may not be so happy right this second because they've been in the car for about 100 hours as they head to Utah...but we are happy they are on their way! We hope we can help make it worth their while.

I'm calling this - Happy Bawb day, cuz I'm online and actually writing to my favorite people int eh whole world. That is the Bawb crowd. It makes me so happy to be part of ya'lls world that I'm celebrating it with it's own day.

I have so enjoyed going through all of your letters and comments and videos. Thanks.
Please keep it up! Also - a quick reminder to put your name in the subject line of your bawb entries.

First, let me give you a link to our Picasa web page where our May photos are posted. Note we've also started posting June photos. But this letter will just give you a run down of our May.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bretbassett/May09#


We went to B&J's Cottage Grove for BSS. It was great. As per normal, bruce had planned so many activities that there wasn't time to do it all. But it was momentous for a number of reasons: Goats were running crazy, We had a fire for roasting marshmellos and making smores out by the pond. We played horseshoes. We sang to Dallin on his Mother's day call home. Jann called us and told us her mission call. And we had a slideshow where Bob and Ashleigh announced their pregnancy. It was momentous.

Since Janey was in Disneyland on her bday, we celebrated her bday two weeks later. It was one of those perfect summer evenings where Yorgs and GMa B&W came over to watch her open gifts outside.

May was a big night for Max and his music. He had his last band concert of his career. Mom is tormented whether to keep the trumpet and pay it off, or just return it. When you've paid $100's (over $650), you hate to just walk away from it. But Max has got a very busy schedule for HS which beings for him in earnest next year. Max also had his piano recital w/ Sarah. It was a great Ragtime hit. Then he played "bumble boogie" at the awards ceremony which was an absolute smash hit.

Memorial day weekend was grand. We went with Curt and Mom up to see Gpa/Gma Bassett's grave. We told stories and laughed and cried. Then we came back to our house where Royce and Mardette joined us for dinner and a movie. After that we went to Gpa Winder's grave and told Grandpa stories. We read from the book we wrote about his life. It was great. On Monday we went to the Yorgasons' Paradise Ranch (my name not theirs) where they have done a ton of work putting in more pastures, building a display area for his wagons, and where we went 4 wheeling around the area, including the fish hatchery. What a great time.

Anyway - May was a great month. Check out the photos. Loves.

Dad

Blaine and Kristi coming!!!

Hey everyone.. I just got off the phone with Mom and we were talking about how excited we are that Blaine and Kristi are coming to town... I know you guys are planning on making this more of a Genessy trip but if you are planning on spending any nights or whatever with our family I would love to know so that I can plan it into my week. So I guess I am just suggesting we make some sort of plan...I don't want to stress anybody out but I really want to see you guys, and with work and school and everything I will have to plan in advance. I was thinking a cabin dinner would be super fun, but I am good for anything. Anyways, I have school every MWF from 8:45 to 12:30 and then usually work right after that until 5ish... On TR I have class from 10:30 to 3 and then usually no work. So that is kind of my schedule. Anyway, I would love to start making some plans and getting excited for everything. Plus the sooner you let me know the better chance you have of meeting the one and only Doctor D (as Dad calls him...he asked me if that meant he should go to Medical school by the way Dad :) Alright, I am done. Love you all, and can't wait to see your family Blaine and Kris..
Love, Rosey
P.S. I hope Nick and Stef can come some time too...but I understand if you can't! Love ya

Mothership and Me

Blaine's band was a hit at the ward talent show!





It is so fun to be in such a great ward. I was looking forward to the talent show for several months and it certainly did not disappoint!