Love from Mom

Dear Family,

We did it! We made it through January! There is tons of snow on the ground on this cold January Sunday night. Dad and I just returned from an inspiring YSA devotional where we heard Chris Williams speak on the power of Christ and forgiveness. (see Mormon messages "Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light"). Very inspiring!!

Today was a big day for dad. Sunday's are always big days. He taught the fifth Sunday combined RS/Priesthood lesson. He prepared so long and did a wonderful job discussing perfection and how we can only be made perfect through Christ. Then he finished up his month of conducting sacrament meeting. And then he had all his after- church interviews. Then he conducted the devotional tonight. And, of course, he prepares and carries out each assignment so well. I love him. He is such a great example to me of constant and diligent service to build the kingdom of God.

It's been a couple of weeks since I have written. I can't remember what I have already written about but here are some random events from January:

- I painfully gathered 25 signatures from registered Republicans (by going door to door with a map Mike gave me) to help Mike Winder get on the Primary ballot for the Utah House of Representatives. Not my favorite project but good for me to do hard things and help Mike who I believe in.

- I joyously went on a weekend get-away with dad to Provo. We used Marriott points that were due to expire. We took Max and Ashley to dinner at PF Changs. On Saturday we attended the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the BYU museum of art and loved it.

- I sadly faced the reality that Rosey really was moving out. My mind knows it's the right thing, but my heart misses her company and her happy spirit. Just thankful she is so close. Loved it today when I suddenly heard her voice answering a question in Sunday School two rows behind me. It's so fun to share that part of her life. We sat together at tonight's devotional.

- I excitedly (and longingly) thought about Ben on his baptism day. Loved a message from him hearing that he had finished 1st Nephi in his brand new scriptures.

- I happily went to Clays 7-year-old birthday party and enjoyed spinach ice cream! And loved watching Clay and brothers stuff money into the bank.

- I amazingly set a new record at work - 29 patients in one day. I got A LOT of steps that day. And felt a little crazy.

- I enthusiastically watched both Bret and Clay play on their Jr Jazz team, and watch Nick patiently coach.

- I painfully learned a sister I visit taught in our home ward (Ashlee Ruoti) took her own life. I took dinner and visited with her mother and then attended the viewing and funeral. So sad.

- I gratefully attended the Bountiful Temple with family and Yorgs. It was our first temple of our "Temple Scene in 2016" to attend all 16 temples in Utah.

- I lazily finished the first season of "Flash" with dad. It's our guilty pleasure. Also finished the box of Haagen-Dazs vanilla milk chocolate ice cream bars. My but those are tasty!

- I hungrily went to lunch at Olive Garden with Rosey Teresa Sellers, our current YSA stake RS President. It was delightful.

- I cheerfully helped Janey with her sewing project to make a quiet book for Grif. My sewing machine died and Rosey let us set up the machine from grandma Bassett and it is working great.

So it's been a good month. Im thankful to be alive and thankful for all of you, my dear kiddos and grandkids. I pray for you all daily and think about you often. Be good.

Love,
Mom

-

Sent from my iPad

Re: Upcoming dates

You are sooo organized.  We'll be there for everything we can!  Plan on us.

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 6:24 PM Janey Nielsen <janeybassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the heads up STEF! 

On Wednesday, January 27, 2016, Stef's Gmail <stef.m.bassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Just been looking at the calendar today and wanted to get you some dates.

Bret will be baptized on his birthday April 30. Our stake does baptisms at 11 am. The stake center is located at 7336 South 3200 West. It's the old brown building on the west side of the road as there are three chapels on that stretch of 3200 West.

We will most likely bless the baby afterwards, as long as we can get approval for that.  We will have a luncheon at our house following the baptism and or blessing. We would love help and will talk about that as it gets closer. :)

The last thing is my year end dance concert; It is on May 21 (why are these things always on my birthday?) It will be held at the studio in Sandy where most of you have been.  We don't have a time yet but will get that out to you as soon as I know!  I would love for anyone that's able to come to support me. :)

Love you guys!  I will try to write a BAWB letter soon!

Love,

Stef



Sent from my iPhone

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: Upcoming dates

Thanks for the heads up STEF! 

On Wednesday, January 27, 2016, Stef's Gmail <stef.m.bassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Just been looking at the calendar today and wanted to get you some dates.

Bret will be baptized on his birthday April 30. Our stake does baptisms at 11 am. The stake center is located at 7336 South 3200 West. It's the old brown building on the west side of the road as there are three chapels on that stretch of 3200 West.

We will most likely bless the baby afterwards, as long as we can get approval for that.  We will have a luncheon at our house following the baptism and or blessing. We would love help and will talk about that as it gets closer. :)

The last thing is my year end dance concert; It is on May 21 (why are these things always on my birthday?) It will be held at the studio in Sandy where most of you have been.  We don't have a time yet but will get that out to you as soon as I know!  I would love for anyone that's able to come to support me. :)

Love you guys!  I will try to write a BAWB letter soon!

Love,

Stef



Sent from my iPhone

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Upcoming dates

Hi everyone,

Just been looking at the calendar today and wanted to get you some dates.

Bret will be baptized on his birthday April 30. Our stake does baptisms at 11 am. The stake center is located at 7336 South 3200 West. It's the old brown building on the west side of the road as there are three chapels on that stretch of 3200 West.

We will most likely bless the baby afterwards, as long as we can get approval for that. We will have a luncheon at our house following the baptism and or blessing. We would love help and will talk about that as it gets closer. :)

The last thing is my year end dance concert; It is on May 21 (why are these things always on my birthday?) It will be held at the studio in Sandy where most of you have been. We don't have a time yet but will get that out to you as soon as I know! I would love for anyone that's able to come to support me. :)

Love you guys! I will try to write a BAWB letter soon!

Love,

Stef



Sent from my iPhone

Re: Love from mom

We love ya mom! Wish I could sign that petition for you...darn! Fun connection with Kenny Brown. I don't know him well but he sure seemed like a nice kid. And I don't know if everyone knows this but anyone who knew Stef in Jr. High or high school called her Stefie. I'm guessing that's how Blaine knew her. 

Love you mom!

Nick

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 13, 2016, at 6:54 AM, bret bassett <bretbassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Mom is great! She's an example to me in every way.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:33 PM Janey Nielsen <janeybassett@gmail.com> wrote:

You are brave, Mom! Thanks for being such a good example. 

On Sunday, January 10, 2016, Wendy Bassett <wendy.bassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear family,

It's thanks to Kristi's encouragement that I'm writing this letter.  I always WANT to do it, I just need encouragement.  I enjoyed Nick and Kristi's letters that I just read.  Thanks guys.

I'm so happy our church time didn't change this year.  Our Taylorsville YSA 1st ward still goes from 9:20 to 12:20.  Then every other week there is a mingles afterwards (today was make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) and then choir practice.  Yes, I still believe in choir!  We start with Relief Society and end with sacrament meeting.  The reason for the off-set time is that we join with Rosey's Granger 2nd ward for joint Sunday School classes.  It's fun.  Dad usually has interviews well into the afternoon.  That is after starting his first meetings at 6:45 am.  Amazing!  And never a complaint.  I sure love him.  I am starting to get to know more people but it is ALWAYS changing.  And then kids will come faithfully for a few weeks, then you don't see them for another few weeks and then they pop up again.  Honestly, it is HARD to get to know people and remember names.  But I do love our calling and service in the YSA.

Nick mentioned that we had everyone for dinner.  You are all so nice about my cooking it gave me a boost.  Thanks for coming and for doing dishes!

So I did a hard thing this week - hard for me anyway!  A month ago Mike asked if I would be willing to gather names on a petition to put him on the Republican primary ballot to run for the office of State House of Representatives for our District 30.  I am so proud of Mike and all the good he does and the courage he has to step up in politics that I couldn't say no.  He had a meeting over at the dairy office earlier in the week for all his volunteers, about 25 of us.  He had carefully divided up the whole district and had a list of voters in our area.  So yesterday I went out for several hours (around brother Roundy's old house area) to gather signatures for him to run.  The catch is that you have to be a registered Republican to sign the petition. If people were unaffiliated then we had forms they could fill out to change if they were willing, which some were not.  Nobody slammed a door in my face but I had several barely open their doors with the look like I had about 2 seconds to leave.  It was humblingI had someone invite me in and wanted to talk about Mike and his Richard Burwash mistake.  After 10 minutes she finally agreed to sign.   I kept thinking about missionaries and how much courage it must take to tract!  I'm four names short of my goal of 25 signatures.

We had Hale Theater on Thursday this week.  There are five of us this year as grandma invited Doug.  Well actually Doug sort of invited himself but it is so much fun to have him come.  The play was Beau Jest and was such a fun comedy.  We had lots of good laughs!

Dad and I had a fun date night on Friday.  I'm not sure whether to thank Rosey or Blaine and Kristi because both have given us Cheesecake Factory gift cards.  We went to the City Creek location and it was tasty!  We got the gigantic 8 layer cake to go (thank you B&K) and took it over to Kent and Suzy's afterwards where we picked up grandma and played games.  The piece of cake served all five of us just fine!  Like the loaves and the fishes.  And we learned a fun, new Rook game, called 7-up.

I started back to work this week after a nice two week break.  Wade has hired a new aide who I work with on Mondays.  She is young and smart.  Then he also hired a new PT who rotates to their three different offices.  His name is Kenny Brown and he went to school with Stef.  Or "Stefi" as he called you.  (Hmm, did you date him Stef?)  It was fun to make connections.  Course he knows Nick and Janey too from BYU days.  He kept talking about Smart Cookie.  He said he roomed with Rand and Ian.  Anyway, I forgot to tell you guys that when you were here at dinner.

Okay I am really rambling!  Dad and I watched the World Wide devotional tonight with President and Wendy Nelson.  Amazing talks.

Time for bed.  Love you all.

Mom

Sent from my iPad

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: Love from mom

Mom is great! She's an example to me in every way.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 4:33 PM Janey Nielsen <janeybassett@gmail.com> wrote:

You are brave, Mom! Thanks for being such a good example. 

On Sunday, January 10, 2016, Wendy Bassett <wendy.bassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear family,

It's thanks to Kristi's encouragement that I'm writing this letter.  I always WANT to do it, I just need encouragement.  I enjoyed Nick and Kristi's letters that I just read.  Thanks guys.

I'm so happy our church time didn't change this year.  Our Taylorsville YSA 1st ward still goes from 9:20 to 12:20.  Then every other week there is a mingles afterwards (today was make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) and then choir practice.  Yes, I still believe in choir!  We start with Relief Society and end with sacrament meeting.  The reason for the off-set time is that we join with Rosey's Granger 2nd ward for joint Sunday School classes.  It's fun.  Dad usually has interviews well into the afternoon.  That is after starting his first meetings at 6:45 am.  Amazing!  And never a complaint.  I sure love him.  I am starting to get to know more people but it is ALWAYS changing.  And then kids will come faithfully for a few weeks, then you don't see them for another few weeks and then they pop up again.  Honestly, it is HARD to get to know people and remember names.  But I do love our calling and service in the YSA.

Nick mentioned that we had everyone for dinner.  You are all so nice about my cooking it gave me a boost.  Thanks for coming and for doing dishes!

So I did a hard thing this week - hard for me anyway!  A month ago Mike asked if I would be willing to gather names on a petition to put him on the Republican primary ballot to run for the office of State House of Representatives for our District 30.  I am so proud of Mike and all the good he does and the courage he has to step up in politics that I couldn't say no.  He had a meeting over at the dairy office earlier in the week for all his volunteers, about 25 of us.  He had carefully divided up the whole district and had a list of voters in our area.  So yesterday I went out for several hours (around brother Roundy's old house area) to gather signatures for him to run.  The catch is that you have to be a registered Republican to sign the petition. If people were unaffiliated then we had forms they could fill out to change if they were willing, which some were not.  Nobody slammed a door in my face but I had several barely open their doors with the look like I had about 2 seconds to leave.  It was humblingI had someone invite me in and wanted to talk about Mike and his Richard Burwash mistake.  After 10 minutes she finally agreed to sign.   I kept thinking about missionaries and how much courage it must take to tract!  I'm four names short of my goal of 25 signatures.

We had Hale Theater on Thursday this week.  There are five of us this year as grandma invited Doug.  Well actually Doug sort of invited himself but it is so much fun to have him come.  The play was Beau Jest and was such a fun comedy.  We had lots of good laughs!

Dad and I had a fun date night on Friday.  I'm not sure whether to thank Rosey or Blaine and Kristi because both have given us Cheesecake Factory gift cards.  We went to the City Creek location and it was tasty!  We got the gigantic 8 layer cake to go (thank you B&K) and took it over to Kent and Suzy's afterwards where we picked up grandma and played games.  The piece of cake served all five of us just fine!  Like the loaves and the fishes.  And we learned a fun, new Rook game, called 7-up.

I started back to work this week after a nice two week break.  Wade has hired a new aide who I work with on Mondays.  She is young and smart.  Then he also hired a new PT who rotates to their three different offices.  His name is Kenny Brown and he went to school with Stef.  Or "Stefi" as he called you.  (Hmm, did you date him Stef?)  It was fun to make connections.  Course he knows Nick and Janey too from BYU days.  He kept talking about Smart Cookie.  He said he roomed with Rand and Ian.  Anyway, I forgot to tell you guys that when you were here at dinner.

Okay I am really rambling!  Dad and I watched the World Wide devotional tonight with President and Wendy Nelson.  Amazing talks.

Time for bed.  Love you all.

Mom

Sent from my iPad

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Oh Ivy....elephant ears? She's funny! I loved this letter and miss talking to you! Thank you for writing and catching us all up. 

On Sunday, January 10, 2016, Kristi Bassett <kristi.bassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Family

Man, I'll tell you what, Sundays are about ten thousand times more enjoyable when you have 9 o'clock church instead of 2 o'clock church! We had a delightful day. Time for a game of indoor soccer, watching home movies, some people got a nap, a couple rounds of Skip-Bo, a nice homemade meal (broccoli and ham quiche with homemade crust - homemade pie crust is my new thing), scriptures and bed. When we had 2 o'clock church it seems we had time to go to church and eat a hodge podge dinner and that was it! This way is better! 

- The big news this week is we got word that the people renting our Round Rock house will be leaving at the end of their contract. They have been there for six years! That's longer than we lived there (2.5) and than the previous owners had lived there (2 years). The end of an era. We were pretty sure we were going to have them leave at the end of their contract anyway, but of course we were stewing about whether that was the right decision or not, this eased the mental turmoil a bit! So they will be leaving on March 1st and we will go in and do lots of updating on the house (I know, at the very least, it needs new carpet, flooring, and paint, and I am certain it needs much more than that). I am scared to see how much the repairs cost and hope that the cost isn't more than what we have in savings. Eeeek! I meet with my realtor there on January 22nd to walk through and assess what needs to be done. We will do all the repairs once they move out, and then list it for sale as soon as those are done. Everyone cross your fingers and pray that it will sell quickly and for tons of money (ha ha!). 

It will be interesting to see what happens there as a lot of our future hinges on what happens with that house. If it doesn't sell pretty quickly we will probably have to move back in to it. That's not my ideal, so I'm hoping it sells! 

- Blaine literally worked our elliptical to death a few weeks ago, he was super sad since he spends a lot of his work day on the elliptical. We talked about buying a treadmill desk but hesitate to buy anything too big since we will likely have a move coming up (lazy of us, I know). One day, however, a treadmill desk popped up on our neighborhood facbeook page, the price was right, so we nabbed it! Blaine has LOVED his new desk. He has it set up so his main monitors and work station is on the treadmill. I don't understand how he is coordinated or energetic enough to walk for so many hours a day - but he is, and now he feels like he is more productive and focused when walking. He walked so much the first few days that he got these weird rashes on his poor feet! Anyway, he is working on finding a balance! 

- Blaine also got a road bike! Gwen got a new bike for Christmas and we have been talking about getting a bike for me (and a trailer for Tess), but Blaine has really been enjoying it. Or at least he was until his brake fell off! That was a little scary, but I guess you get what you pay for (and we bought the cheapest one!). 

- Tess is totally in the terrible 2s. I remember with my other kids wondering what was so terrible about 2s (they all waited until the 3s to get terrible ;). Tess, however, has embraced the idea of terrible twos. There's lots of screaming, lots of no's. Also though, she is just our greatest joy. She's so precious to us. I don't know if it is because there is such a big gap between she and Tess or if it's because she is most likely our last, or because I am older and wiser,  but her babyhood and toddlerhood just seem extra precious. She is the sunshine in our home, and we all get such a kick out of her. Her diet consists primarily of cottage cheese, Ritz Crackers, and Chee-yos (Cheerios). She has funny little habits, like, there is this half gone package of lentils that she goes and finds in the pantry every day, then she carries that sucker around for as long as I will let her. She much prefers the lentils to her baby dolls. She also really loves books. She will sit and read books with you for as long as you will let her. She is doing well in nursery, she gets very quiet and just sits on the rocking horse, but she is good and getting more brave about letting me leave (though they have needed so many subs in nursery lately that I haven't had to leave too much!).

- Gwen is working hard on her science fair project. She is also working on an application for a magnet school for middle school. I can't quite figure out what magnet schools are - but she is excited about it. It's not quite a charter school, it's not a private school, it's a part of the same school district but there are applications involved. The one she is most interested in focuses on English and Math, and they have cool electives -- like a Harry Potter elective. Anyway, we don't even know if we will be living here for next school year, but I'm proud of her for pushing herself and working for something she wants. She was disappointed in her grades recently and is determined to do better next semester (she got one B and one B+, the rest were As). 

- Bentley is doing well in school. He is still just as obedient as could be, and is quick to respond when I ask for help. He loves his Disney Infinity game, but it's really sweet, if I ask him to do something while he is playing, I don't even have to ask twice, he immediately turns it off and does whatever I need. We are trying to build up his confidence on his bike. The poor guy, he is terrified. He gets it from me, and I feel so guilty about it. We will keep working. We just got word that he will be able to get baptized Saturday, so we will be working hard on preparations for that this week! 

- Ivy is her same spirited self. I think I feel about Ivy how mom and dad feel about Rosey when they watch home videos :). She is just exhausting. She is fun, she's energetic, but at the end of the day, it's just exhausting to be her parent :). She has had some struggles with friends at school, and she is on an emotional rollercoaster all the time. Her hair is getting long and I was excited that it would finally fit in braids and pony tails, but every time I do she would pull them out (which is weird because she has been so excited to grow her hair out!), anyway, it turns out she thinks she has "elephant ears". I have no idea when it happened but apparently she is very self conscious about her ears. She won't wear her hair any way but covering her ears. I feel awful about it. I'm not just saying this as her mom, but honest to goodness she has completely average and adorable ears. I am not sure how to handle this problem and build back up her self esteem. What a shame to even be thinking about something like that at six years old. 

Anyway, now I'm pretty tired. I'm excited to read what everyone else is up to! My big project for the week was getting our Florida trip all figured out. We've got it all worked out now, flights (free with points!), and a few extra nights hotel (also free with points), and a rental car (thanks to the gold plan, plus a little bit for the extra days we will be there). I am nervous to plan Bentley's baptism, and to figure out how to fix our Round Rock house to prepare it to sell (Jane, what would Chip and JoAnna do??!) 

Love and miss you guys and can't wait to see you! 

Love,

Kris

Re: Love from mom

You are brave, Mom! Thanks for being such a good example. 

On Sunday, January 10, 2016, Wendy Bassett <wendy.bassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear family,

It's thanks to Kristi's encouragement that I'm writing this letter.  I always WANT to do it, I just need encouragement.  I enjoyed Nick and Kristi's letters that I just read.  Thanks guys.

I'm so happy our church time didn't change this year.  Our Taylorsville YSA 1st ward still goes from 9:20 to 12:20.  Then every other week there is a mingles afterwards (today was make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) and then choir practice.  Yes, I still believe in choir!  We start with Relief Society and end with sacrament meeting.  The reason for the off-set time is that we join with Rosey's Granger 2nd ward for joint Sunday School classes.  It's fun.  Dad usually has interviews well into the afternoon.  That is after starting his first meetings at 6:45 am.  Amazing!  And never a complaint.  I sure love him.  I am starting to get to know more people but it is ALWAYS changing.  And then kids will come faithfully for a few weeks, then you don't see them for another few weeks and then they pop up again.  Honestly, it is HARD to get to know people and remember names.  But I do love our calling and service in the YSA.

Nick mentioned that we had everyone for dinner.  You are all so nice about my cooking it gave me a boost.  Thanks for coming and for doing dishes!

So I did a hard thing this week - hard for me anyway!  A month ago Mike asked if I would be willing to gather names on a petition to put him on the Republican primary ballot to run for the office of State House of Representatives for our District 30.  I am so proud of Mike and all the good he does and the courage he has to step up in politics that I couldn't say no.  He had a meeting over at the dairy office earlier in the week for all his volunteers, about 25 of us.  He had carefully divided up the whole district and had a list of voters in our area.  So yesterday I went out for several hours (around brother Roundy's old house area) to gather signatures for him to run.  The catch is that you have to be a registered Republican to sign the petition. If people were unaffiliated then we had forms they could fill out to change if they were willing, which some were not.  Nobody slammed a door in my face but I had several barely open their doors with the look like I had about 2 seconds to leave.  It was humblingI had someone invite me in and wanted to talk about Mike and his Richard Burwash mistake.  After 10 minutes she finally agreed to sign.   I kept thinking about missionaries and how much courage it must take to tract!  I'm four names short of my goal of 25 signatures.

We had Hale Theater on Thursday this week.  There are five of us this year as grandma invited Doug.  Well actually Doug sort of invited himself but it is so much fun to have him come.  The play was Beau Jest and was such a fun comedy.  We had lots of good laughs!

Dad and I had a fun date night on Friday.  I'm not sure whether to thank Rosey or Blaine and Kristi because both have given us Cheesecake Factory gift cards.  We went to the City Creek location and it was tasty!  We got the gigantic 8 layer cake to go (thank you B&K) and took it over to Kent and Suzy's afterwards where we picked up grandma and played games.  The piece of cake served all five of us just fine!  Like the loaves and the fishes.  And we learned a fun, new Rook game, called 7-up.

I started back to work this week after a nice two week break.  Wade has hired a new aide who I work with on Mondays.  She is young and smart.  Then he also hired a new PT who rotates to their three different offices.  His name is Kenny Brown and he went to school with Stef.  Or "Stefi" as he called you.  (Hmm, did you date him Stef?)  It was fun to make connections.  Course he knows Nick and Janey too from BYU days.  He kept talking about Smart Cookie.  He said he roomed with Rand and Ian.  Anyway, I forgot to tell you guys that when you were here at dinner.

Okay I am really rambling!  Dad and I watched the World Wide devotional tonight with President and Wendy Nelson.  Amazing talks.

Time for bed.  Love you all.

Mom

Sent from my iPad

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: Bawbin it up

Bulu - I like it!

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 11, 2016, at 9:29 AM, Blaine Bassett <blainebbassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Sweetie, I loved your letter. Thanks so much for writing! It makes we realize we really need to write more. You captured so many fun things and I hate to think of all the things like these on weeks when we haven't taken time to record them. Hopefully 9:00 church will help us be better this year, but, anyway, thanks for getting all this stuff down--it's more than I have done in a long time. 

I guess I'll add that for my part of keeping our family history, I have been working hard at getting all of our old home video tapes digitized and digital home videos from iPhones and whatnot organized (e.g., off of old hard drives, exported out of iPhoto library prisons, etc.). I was going to try to get them all on DVD but a relatively quick conversation with Dad last night and I'm convinced that Plex will definitely be a better solution moving forward. By the time I hung up with Dad after an hour I already had the beginnings of "Bulu" (Like Hulu, but Dad used to call me Boo) to go along with BretFlix. There is a lot of work left to do but I'm excited to have all of our video in one place where we can actually use it and enjoy it. Thanks again for your help last night Dad!

Love and miss you all!

Blaine

Re: Love from mom

Loved the letter, Mom! Wow, you are brave! You're right that tracting was hard, but, as difficult as it was to learn Spanish, there was something nice about the language barrier that made talking to strangers a little easier. The language, as well as the cultural differences, really kind of helped remove me from consciousness of the fact that I was "bothering" people at their homes or while they were just out and about their business trying to live their lives without being bothered. Of course I believed in the message I brought, but I was always very conscious of the fact that they didn't know about that message and had no desire at this point in time to learn about it. And yet it was my job to try to get them to hear it anyway. Not easy for a white/blue personality, but speaking in Spanish to people very different than me helped somehow. Thus, to talk to strangers in English in your own neighborhood about something you probably believe in but that is not nearly as "life and death" as the gospel is just sounds all the more difficult and terrifying to me. But I am so impressed that you would be willing to hit the streets and do it. What a nice aunt and great citizen!!

Thanks again for the update on everything else and it was fun talking to you briefly yesterday. Love ya! 

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:16 AM, Wendy Bassett <wendy.bassett@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear family,

It's thanks to Kristi's encouragement that I'm writing this letter.  I always WANT to do it, I just need encouragement.  I enjoyed Nick and Kristi's letters that I just read.  Thanks guys.

I'm so happy our church time didn't change this year.  Our Taylorsville YSA 1st ward still goes from 9:20 to 12:20.  Then every other week there is a mingles afterwards (today was make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) and then choir practice.  Yes, I still believe in choir!  We start with Relief Society and end with sacrament meeting.  The reason for the off-set time is that we join with Rosey's Granger 2nd ward for joint Sunday School classes.  It's fun.  Dad usually has interviews well into the afternoon.  That is after starting his first meetings at 6:45 am.  Amazing!  And never a complaint.  I sure love him.  I am starting to get to know more people but it is ALWAYS changing.  And then kids will come faithfully for a few weeks, then you don't see them for another few weeks and then they pop up again.  Honestly, it is HARD to get to know people and remember names.  But I do love our calling and service in the YSA.

Nick mentioned that we had everyone for dinner.  You are all so nice about my cooking it gave me a boost.  Thanks for coming and for doing dishes!

So I did a hard thing this week - hard for me anyway!  A month ago Mike asked if I would be willing to gather names on a petition to put him on the Republican primary ballot to run for the office of State House of Representatives for our District 30.  I am so proud of Mike and all the good he does and the courage he has to step up in politics that I couldn't say no.  He had a meeting over at the dairy office earlier in the week for all his volunteers, about 25 of us.  He had carefully divided up the whole district and had a list of voters in our area.  So yesterday I went out for several hours (around brother Roundy's old house area) to gather signatures for him to run.  The catch is that you have to be a registered Republican to sign the petition. If people were unaffiliated then we had forms they could fill out to change if they were willing, which some were not.  Nobody slammed a door in my face but I had several barely open their doors with the look like I had about 2 seconds to leave.  It was humblingI had someone invite me in and wanted to talk about Mike and his Richard Burwash mistake.  After 10 minutes she finally agreed to sign.   I kept thinking about missionaries and how much courage it must take to tract!  I'm four names short of my goal of 25 signatures.

We had Hale Theater on Thursday this week.  There are five of us this year as grandma invited Doug.  Well actually Doug sort of invited himself but it is so much fun to have him come.  The play was Beau Jest and was such a fun comedy.  We had lots of good laughs!

Dad and I had a fun date night on Friday.  I'm not sure whether to thank Rosey or Blaine and Kristi because both have given us Cheesecake Factory gift cards.  We went to the City Creek location and it was tasty!  We got the gigantic 8 layer cake to go (thank you B&K) and took it over to Kent and Suzy's afterwards where we picked up grandma and played games.  The piece of cake served all five of us just fine!  Like the loaves and the fishes.  And we learned a fun, new Rook game, called 7-up.

I started back to work this week after a nice two week break.  Wade has hired a new aide who I work with on Mondays.  She is young and smart.  Then he also hired a new PT who rotates to their three different offices.  His name is Kenny Brown and he went to school with Stef.  Or "Stefi" as he called you.  (Hmm, did you date him Stef?)  It was fun to make connections.  Course he knows Nick and Janey too from BYU days.  He kept talking about Smart Cookie.  He said he roomed with Rand and Ian.  Anyway, I forgot to tell you guys that when you were here at dinner.

Okay I am really rambling!  Dad and I watched the World Wide devotional tonight with President and Wendy Nelson.  Amazing talks.

Time for bed.  Love you all.

Mom

Sent from my iPad

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BWBassetts" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bwbassetts+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Re: Bawbin it up

Sweetie, I loved your letter. Thanks so much for writing! It makes we realize we really need to write more. You captured so many fun things and I hate to think of all the things like these on weeks when we haven't taken time to record them. Hopefully 9:00 church will help us be better this year, but, anyway, thanks for getting all this stuff down--it's more than I have done in a long time. 

I guess I'll add that for my part of keeping our family history, I have been working hard at getting all of our old home video tapes digitized and digital home videos from iPhones and whatnot organized (e.g., off of old hard drives, exported out of iPhoto library prisons, etc.). I was going to try to get them all on DVD but a relatively quick conversation with Dad last night and I'm convinced that Plex will definitely be a better solution moving forward. By the time I hung up with Dad after an hour I already had the beginnings of "Bulu" (Like Hulu, but Dad used to call me Boo) to go along with BretFlix. There is a lot of work left to do but I'm excited to have all of our video in one place where we can actually use it and enjoy it. Thanks again for your help last night Dad!

Love and miss you all!

Blaine

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Love from mom

Dear family,

It's thanks to Kristi's encouragement that I'm writing this letter. I always WANT to do it, I just need encouragement. I enjoyed Nick and Kristi's letters that I just read. Thanks guys.

I'm so happy our church time didn't change this year. Our Taylorsville YSA 1st ward still goes from 9:20 to 12:20. Then every other week there is a mingles afterwards (today was make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) and then choir practice. Yes, I still believe in choir! We start with Relief Society and end with sacrament meeting. The reason for the off-set time is that we join with Rosey's Granger 2nd ward for joint Sunday School classes. It's fun. Dad usually has interviews well into the afternoon. That is after starting his first meetings at 6:45 am. Amazing! And never a complaint. I sure love him. I am starting to get to know more people but it is ALWAYS changing. And then kids will come faithfully for a few weeks, then you don't see them for another few weeks and then they pop up again. Honestly, it is HARD to get to know people and remember names. But I do love our calling and service in the YSA.

Nick mentioned that we had everyone for dinner. You are all so nice about my cooking it gave me a boost. Thanks for coming and for doing dishes!

So I did a hard thing this week - hard for me anyway! A month ago Mike asked if I would be willing to gather names on a petition to put him on the Republican primary ballot to run for the office of State House of Representatives for our District 30. I am so proud of Mike and all the good he does and the courage he has to step up in politics that I couldn't say no. He had a meeting over at the dairy office earlier in the week for all his volunteers, about 25 of us. He had carefully divided up the whole district and had a list of voters in our area. So yesterday I went out for several hours (around brother Roundy's old house area) to gather signatures for him to run. The catch is that you have to be a registered Republican to sign the petition. If people were unaffiliated then we had forms they could fill out to change if they were willing, which some were not. Nobody slammed a door in my face but I had several barely open their doors with the look like I had about 2 seconds to leave. It was humblingI had someone invite me in and wanted to talk about Mike and his Richard Burwash mistake. After 10 minutes she finally agreed to sign. I kept thinking about missionaries and how much courage it must take to tract! I'm four names short of my goal of 25 signatures.

We had Hale Theater on Thursday this week. There are five of us this year as grandma invited Doug. Well actually Doug sort of invited himself but it is so much fun to have him come. The play was Beau Jest and was such a fun comedy. We had lots of good laughs!

Dad and I had a fun date night on Friday. I'm not sure whether to thank Rosey or Blaine and Kristi because both have given us Cheesecake Factory gift cards. We went to the City Creek location and it was tasty! We got the gigantic 8 layer cake to go (thank you B&K) and took it over to Kent and Suzy's afterwards where we picked up grandma and played games. The piece of cake served all five of us just fine! Like the loaves and the fishes. And we learned a fun, new Rook game, called 7-up.

I started back to work this week after a nice two week break. Wade has hired a new aide who I work with on Mondays. She is young and smart. Then he also hired a new PT who rotates to their three different offices. His name is Kenny Brown and he went to school with Stef. Or "Stefi" as he called you. (Hmm, did you date him Stef?) It was fun to make connections. Course he knows Nick and Janey too from BYU days. He kept talking about Smart Cookie. He said he roomed with Rand and Ian. Anyway, I forgot to tell you guys that when you were here at dinner.

Okay I am really rambling! Dad and I watched the World Wide devotional tonight with President and Wendy Nelson. Amazing talks.

Time for bed. Love you all.

Mom

Sent from my iPad

Bawbin it up

Hello Family

Man, I'll tell you what, Sundays are about ten thousand times more enjoyable when you have 9 o'clock church instead of 2 o'clock church! We had a delightful day. Time for a game of indoor soccer, watching home movies, some people got a nap, a couple rounds of Skip-Bo, a nice homemade meal (broccoli and ham quiche with homemade crust - homemade pie crust is my new thing), scriptures and bed. When we had 2 o'clock church it seems we had time to go to church and eat a hodge podge dinner and that was it! This way is better! 

- The big news this week is we got word that the people renting our Round Rock house will be leaving at the end of their contract. They have been there for six years! That's longer than we lived there (2.5) and than the previous owners had lived there (2 years). The end of an era. We were pretty sure we were going to have them leave at the end of their contract anyway, but of course we were stewing about whether that was the right decision or not, this eased the mental turmoil a bit! So they will be leaving on March 1st and we will go in and do lots of updating on the house (I know, at the very least, it needs new carpet, flooring, and paint, and I am certain it needs much more than that). I am scared to see how much the repairs cost and hope that the cost isn't more than what we have in savings. Eeeek! I meet with my realtor there on January 22nd to walk through and assess what needs to be done. We will do all the repairs once they move out, and then list it for sale as soon as those are done. Everyone cross your fingers and pray that it will sell quickly and for tons of money (ha ha!). 

It will be interesting to see what happens there as a lot of our future hinges on what happens with that house. If it doesn't sell pretty quickly we will probably have to move back in to it. That's not my ideal, so I'm hoping it sells! 

- Blaine literally worked our elliptical to death a few weeks ago, he was super sad since he spends a lot of his work day on the elliptical. We talked about buying a treadmill desk but hesitate to buy anything too big since we will likely have a move coming up (lazy of us, I know). One day, however, a treadmill desk popped up on our neighborhood facbeook page, the price was right, so we nabbed it! Blaine has LOVED his new desk. He has it set up so his main monitors and work station is on the treadmill. I don't understand how he is coordinated or energetic enough to walk for so many hours a day - but he is, and now he feels like he is more productive and focused when walking. He walked so much the first few days that he got these weird rashes on his poor feet! Anyway, he is working on finding a balance! 

- Blaine also got a road bike! Gwen got a new bike for Christmas and we have been talking about getting a bike for me (and a trailer for Tess), but Blaine has really been enjoying it. Or at least he was until his brake fell off! That was a little scary, but I guess you get what you pay for (and we bought the cheapest one!). 

- Tess is totally in the terrible 2s. I remember with my other kids wondering what was so terrible about 2s (they all waited until the 3s to get terrible ;). Tess, however, has embraced the idea of terrible twos. There's lots of screaming, lots of no's. Also though, she is just our greatest joy. She's so precious to us. I don't know if it is because there is such a big gap between she and Tess or if it's because she is most likely our last, or because I am older and wiser,  but her babyhood and toddlerhood just seem extra precious. She is the sunshine in our home, and we all get such a kick out of her. Her diet consists primarily of cottage cheese, Ritz Crackers, and Chee-yos (Cheerios). She has funny little habits, like, there is this half gone package of lentils that she goes and finds in the pantry every day, then she carries that sucker around for as long as I will let her. She much prefers the lentils to her baby dolls. She also really loves books. She will sit and read books with you for as long as you will let her. She is doing well in nursery, she gets very quiet and just sits on the rocking horse, but she is good and getting more brave about letting me leave (though they have needed so many subs in nursery lately that I haven't had to leave too much!).

- Gwen is working hard on her science fair project. She is also working on an application for a magnet school for middle school. I can't quite figure out what magnet schools are - but she is excited about it. It's not quite a charter school, it's not a private school, it's a part of the same school district but there are applications involved. The one she is most interested in focuses on English and Math, and they have cool electives -- like a Harry Potter elective. Anyway, we don't even know if we will be living here for next school year, but I'm proud of her for pushing herself and working for something she wants. She was disappointed in her grades recently and is determined to do better next semester (she got one B and one B+, the rest were As). 

- Bentley is doing well in school. He is still just as obedient as could be, and is quick to respond when I ask for help. He loves his Disney Infinity game, but it's really sweet, if I ask him to do something while he is playing, I don't even have to ask twice, he immediately turns it off and does whatever I need. We are trying to build up his confidence on his bike. The poor guy, he is terrified. He gets it from me, and I feel so guilty about it. We will keep working. We just got word that he will be able to get baptized Saturday, so we will be working hard on preparations for that this week! 

- Ivy is her same spirited self. I think I feel about Ivy how mom and dad feel about Rosey when they watch home videos :). She is just exhausting. She is fun, she's energetic, but at the end of the day, it's just exhausting to be her parent :). She has had some struggles with friends at school, and she is on an emotional rollercoaster all the time. Her hair is getting long and I was excited that it would finally fit in braids and pony tails, but every time I do she would pull them out (which is weird because she has been so excited to grow her hair out!), anyway, it turns out she thinks she has "elephant ears". I have no idea when it happened but apparently she is very self conscious about her ears. She won't wear her hair any way but covering her ears. I feel awful about it. I'm not just saying this as her mom, but honest to goodness she has completely average and adorable ears. I am not sure how to handle this problem and build back up her self esteem. What a shame to even be thinking about something like that at six years old. 

Anyway, now I'm pretty tired. I'm excited to read what everyone else is up to! My big project for the week was getting our Florida trip all figured out. We've got it all worked out now, flights (free with points!), and a few extra nights hotel (also free with points), and a rental car (thanks to the gold plan, plus a little bit for the extra days we will be there). I am nervous to plan Bentley's baptism, and to figure out how to fix our Round Rock house to prepare it to sell (Jane, what would Chip and JoAnna do??!) 

Love and miss you guys and can't wait to see you! 

Love,

Kris

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)