A new member of the Bassett Family

Everyone who knows my dad Matt, knew of his dog Buddy. Buddy was half Border Collie half Austrailan Shepherd. He was an AMAZING cow dog. Buddy was a great protector of the family and of our house. If anyone pulled into the yard, Buddy would let everyone know by barking and walking towards the car with the hair on his back standing straight up. Everyone was deathly afraid of Buddy. He never would have hurt anyone, but you wouldn't have trusted that when approaching our front door. If we were wrestling around in the yard with some friends or family, he would think we were getting hurt and he would join in by barking and scaring off the "enemy." Buddy listened very well and such a loyal dog. We lost Buddy two years ago. He was 12 years old when he died. The dog was truly amazing. Each one of our family members fell in love with this AMAZING dog and thought of him as part of the family (even Mom, who is NOT a dog-lover). When Buddy died, I decided to make a scrapbook about him mostly for my dad.

You might be wondering, why after two years I would be posting this about Buddy. Well, just recently my dad got brave and decided to get another dog. He was hesitant about this for quite some time because loosing Buddy was so hard for all us. If truth be told, I think we were afraid of getting a new dog because the new dog would not compare to Buddy. Here is dad's new dog: Meet Brownie.

Brownie is 7 months old now. Dad got him when he was 6 months old. He is an English Shepherd. He looks somewhat like Buddy, but has no white. Brownie is actually holding up pretty well to the high standard that Buddy set. I don't know if dad would have said that the first night he brought him home. Brownie was put inside the horse trailer so that he wouldn't take off wondering into the night. He did NOT like this at all and kept the house VERY aware of that all night by barking and whining. To make a long story short, dad ended up staying the rest of the night in the horse trailer. :) Brownie is getting better about staying home and not running off when he gets the chance. He listens pretty well and is gaining a little more personality all the time. It has been fun to have a dog around the house again and I'm sure that dad has enjoyed the company of a full-time irrigation partner. We'll see if he becomes a REAL member of the family in our hearts. ;)

The Proposal Scrapbook Pages

For our wedding reception, We're going to decorate one wall with scrapbook pages that I've done of the Proposal. I've included both pictures and the whole story. I've done A LOT of pages, but have only chosen a few to add to our blog. Some of the writings are also from Nick's journal. He wrote about the night he went to my parent's house to ask them for permission to marry me. He also wrote about the day he proposed. Very cute and adds a GREAT touch to my pages. I know the pictures that I have taken of them aren't the best. I'll have to work on that. :) I LOVE to scrapbook, so this has been a BLAST. It's what I do when I need a break from everything else.

Finaly Graduated...

Northwest College is a two year school that is great in both the education and the cost. I met some awesome people here and made great friends. Two of the best people I met here are Toni Williams and Kate Jones(Left to Right). Both of these girls became two of my best friends. We always had SO much fun together.
The student ward and institute classes were both so fun. I was active in the Student Senate, Art Club, Trailblazers, and Institute. It took me a little longer than three years because I had back surgery (a two-level fusion) at the age of 18. My surgery took place over "Christmas" break in 2005. The months of recovery in a back brace put me behind a little, but none the less, I finished at NWC with an Associates in Fine Arts. I'm attending UNLV in the Fall where I plan to major in Art Education and minor in Interior Design. Nick will be attending CSN where he will be taking his paramedic classes that make him eligible for the fire fighter test he will be taking.
My Graduation ceremony was short and sweet. The speakers were actually very good. Nick was able to fly home for it. My parents and younger sister were both there. Nick's parents and his older brother were also there in support. It's nice to actually walk in the graduation ceremony of a smaller college because I knew a lot of the graduates. It was a very nice day and good to say good-bye to all my classmates and professors.

Lindi's Family

Before Nick was home from his mission, my family and I got 'Family Pics' taken. I have two wonderful sisters. We're only 2-3 years apart each, so we're super close. It's a blast when we all get together. I'm the middle child and am 21 years old. My older sister is Danielle. She is 23 and has been married for almost 5 years. Her husbands name is Bob. They live in Logan, Utah where he is in graduate school and she is working. My younger sister Katie and she is 18 years old. She just graduated from Lovell High School and will be attending Northwest College in the fall. She will the only child who is left near mom and dad. :( My parents are the best. They are both a ton of fun and have taught us girls well. They both are great examples and have such strong testimonies. My dad owns a ranch and also farms. My mom is a homemaker and devotes her life to her children, husband, her yard and house. She does an amazing job. I'm lucky to have such a great family.

The Proposal

Like I said, my mom and Nick had planned to the whole thing. I've always LOVED the Salt Lake Temple, but because of the distance from our hometown to Salt Lake, we've chosen not to be married there. Nick LOVES to get everything on camera so he knew that he wanted to get pictures of it all. My mom knows Heather White, who lives in the Salt Lake area and wondered if she might be willing to photograph this amazing moment. Heather is an Amazing photographer and does such a great job. Nick wanted it to be a huge surprise to me and so they both came up with this plan and it worked out just great.
We spent January 8, 2008 on Temple Square. Nick hadn't seen the Joseph Smith movie yet, so we watched that and then had lunch. We walked around and looked at all the beautiful landscaping. The spirit was strong there and it was such a nice feeling and experience to be there together that day. Nick was acting all sorts of weird. "Don't look in my bag", and "don't look through my phone either." LOL!! It was pretty funny. After walking around all afternoon, I was starting to get a little curious. We still had to make the 7 hour drive to Vegas that day and it was 1:00 in the afternoon. I wanted to get going, but Nick was like, "Let's just keep walking around a little longer." We had seen everything on those grounds at least 4 times. :) Finally Nick said we could probably go. We started heading toward the gate when this lady came up to us and told us she was with LDS Living Magazine and she was doing an article on people enjoying temple square. She explained she needed pictures of people just walking around. She then asked if she could take some shots of Nick and I as we walked around. Nick told her that we needed to get going and was sort of rude. I was like um Nick, that's rude, she can take a few pictures then we need to get going.
Of course this was Nick's plan. The lady was Heather White. My mom had gotten ahold of her and asked if she would be willing to do this for us. Heather loved the idea and did an amazing job at disguising herself as someone else. She totally had me going.
After getting a few shots of us just walking around, Heather asked if we would be willing to pose for the "cover" shot. We agreed and she had us sit in the edge of one of the gorgeous fountains. She told us to just act like we were talking and casually sitting there. While we were just acting casual, Nick says to me, "You want to know why I've been acting so weird today?" I was like ya, that would be nice. He continued to tell me that he went out to be parents house and talked to them about... at this very second I had figured out what was going on. I began trying to figure out the whole thing. That's when it hit me... Heather was NOT from LDS Living Magazine. She knew Nick and he had planned this whole thing. After I calmed down and tuned Nick back in, he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand.
It was ALL I could do to keep back the tears. He then asked me to marry him. I was SHOCKED. We had talked all about where we would live, where I would finish my schooling, when we would get married... but we also talked about not getting engaged UNTIL later. I said yes and kissed and hugged him. I was SO excited and happy. It was the MOST amazing day. Heather was such a good sport about taking the time to come do that for us. She even took us around for another hour or so and took engagement pictures for us. She did an AMAZING job. Check it out...



Watch the AMAZING video that Heather made for us:

Our story...

Nick served his Mission in Las Vegas, Nevada and returned home at the end of November. While he was serving, I was attending Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. Powell is only 30 mins from our hometown. That's right... me and Nick grew up together. We were in the same class and became really close friends in the eighth grade. I'm pretty sure that was when a secret crush on one another had begun. ;) We ended up dating on and off through high school. When he left on his mission, neither one of us had any intentions of marrying each other. In fact, we weren't exactly on talking terms. :) Eventually all that blew over and we had begun writing each other each week for the last 6 months of his mission. It was very exciting waiting to hear from him each week. I remember there were a couple of times when he would get too busy and was not able to write for a week. Those weeks were a downer and not so fun! :)
Nick arrived home in November and we immediately starting hanging out and going on dates. It was so good getting to see him and also getting to know the "new" nick. Even though I wasn't going to graduate from Northwest College until May of 2008, Nick had planned to go back to Vegas where he wanted to fulfill his dream of becoming a Professional Fire Fighter. He planned to return to Vegas in January. Since I was still on "Christmas" break, I was able to drive down with him to help him move and also a chance to see Vegas. The trip was a BLAST and little did I know Nick had planned to PROPOSE to me on Salt Lake Temple Square. Nick knows this is my favorite temple, and he wanted it to be special to me. My mom and him had planned the entire thing. We now have pictures of the special moment that will help us to remember that amazing day forever. (You can read ALL ABOUT the Proposal in the "Proposal" post) I flew back to Wyoming so that I could finish school. Nick has been working two jobs and saving up for when we get married and begin our lives in Vegas. We've been flying back and forth each month so that we can spend some time with one another. I wouldn't recommend a long distance engagement. It will keep you out of trouble, but it isn't very fun AT ALL. However, we have hung in there and are grateful that we only have 23 DAYS left. Nick flys into Billings on June 13th and we're getting married June 20, 2008 in the Billings, Montana temple.