Below are a few things that have been important to us the last 2 weeks. For more pictures just click: https://photos.app.goo.gl/krE1Qao83bPsg2wL6
- Halloween wrap up - cute grandkid costumes. Anyway, I didn't get a lot of these halloween pictures until after my last October letter, so I put them in my shared folder. Enjoy.
- Also, Sid's birthday was a fun event for the 3 brothers. And while his birthday was the end of October, it wasn't until the next Thursday that we could take Sid to b-fast. So I'm reporting it here in my November letter. Amazing omelets, great pancakes. Thanks to Sid for introducing me to this fabulous breakfast joint. Original Pancake House. Apparently they are everywhere. And like on Elf, when he discovered the coffee shop with the worlds best coffee, I wanted to congratulate our waitress for making the original pancake. But I refrained.
- Rosey and Steve went to France - I was so impressed with Rosey and Steve's courage and bravery. They took advantage of a good airfare deal, and loaded up their family and flew to France. I know there are lots of Jr Class members who fly internationally all the time - like Lorie/Manny, Maretta/Danny, Scott/Melissa all come to mind. But I get nervous during covid to see my kids head off to places in the world I've never been with tiny kids who are expected to test negative at every stop or else they miss a flight, or worse get stuck paying for a hotel for 2 weeks and trying to get a different fligth home, etc. And that is if a hotel would take them if they tested positive. Well they were negative all the way along and returned home without much incident. So now I can breath easy again. One fun thing about that trip was that I had lost my Apple watch at the SLC airport the night before when Wendy and I flew in from SC. I spent nearly 2 hours looking for it that night, but everything was closed. So Rosey checked the lost and found and miracle of miracles, it was there! Prayers are answered. The 'Track My…' app on my iphone was able to see where Rosey and Steve were for a couple of days until the battery died on my watch. But that was fun (and scary) to see how tracking can work. Amazing.
- These last couple of weeks we have been preparing for a family trip to Orlando since last Christmas. This includes the whole Bret and Wendy Family. We are so excited. We will be there over Thanksgiving for which we are grateful. Things are getting exciting as we prepare.
- Pre-Trip Playlist - Everyone sent Max their favorite song from Disney or any movie, and he created (after buying all the songs) a playlist called BAWB Jams - Entertainment version. If you want to see/hear it, feel free to go out to YouTube and check it out. https://youtu.be/f3p7fttgN8g
- Meal Planning - We are planning dinners/lunches/breakfasts/snacks for 28. That's a lot of food planning, purchasing, preparations, eating, digesting (fortunately our house has 12 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms), and cleaning up after.
- Purchasing park tickets - Liz taught us to not go to the parks during the week of Thanksgiving because of the unbelievable crowds. So most of us will be sticking around for several days after that week, and going to the parks of our choice. W&I will be going to Universal for 2 days with N&S and B&K and their families… R&S and M&A will be going to Magic Kingdom. should be great.
- Picking colors for family pictures - Not sure the next time we will all be together again, so we are making getting a family picture a priority. Janey is organizing us, so we have to pack the right colors.
- Talent Show video - Rather than a talent show where we all come up front and play a piano piece or sing a song, Stef has agreed to create a video which is made up of a collection of each person's talent sent to her prior to the family trip. So we are looking forward to seeing that.
- Planning out games, crafts for every age of children. We are going to follow Jann's example from our cruising days and bring a suitcase of games to keep everyone happy.
- Winterized the yard and got Christmas lights up. Yeah for us. Now we don't have to sweat it when the snow starts flying.
- For what it's worth, I got my Covid vaccination booster. Now I can keep my job (not that it is being threatened by the mandate). I don't know if I am the only one in the Bassett family who has gotten the booster or not, but I can say, it was painless and I hardly got sick at all. Just a sore shoulder really. But you're talking to a guy who puts so much medication in my body every day, that one little vaccine isn't too scary.
- BYU Victories are news around here. We are happy to have another good season with the cougs. Nick took his whole family to the last game. He sent us a picture (in the album link above) where they met a kid-sized Cosmo, and Sof got her picture take with him. It's adorable.
That's it from me. Party on. Looking forward to all of your letters this week.
