Happy Birthday, Mary!

It's Mary's birthday today. Interestingly, she was born on this day of the week -- a Sunday. "And the child that is born on the Sabbath Day, Is bonny and blithe and good and gay."

We hope she has a great day. Seems it started out well, for today she won a school raffle of a refurbished pew from the old St. Gerard church.

Yesterday, Ann and I went with Mary and family members to "Pvt. Lives," a play at Great Falls High with Sam in a main role as Silvio. It was well done and entertaining. Just another sample of Mary's fine life. Once again, happy birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Just a quick Happy Birthday shoutout to my mom! On this super snowy Wednesday in Billings, we had a fun dinner and some brownies and ice cream at our place. Happy Birthday to a great mom and an amazing person!

The Gramma Project

Abe and Hannah have embarked upon a quest to chronicle Mom's life in words and pictures. They started planning last fall, involving Jimmy in the process. Abe visited Great Falls in early November and began gathering information. We sorted through lots of photos and documents (she has a lot!), and Abe interviewed Mom for a few hours. Maurika joined in, too. Unfortunately, we didn't take any photos that weekend.

On January 14, Hannah took the reins to keep the project rolling.


Hannah completed the interviews with Mom. Of course, that also meant referring to a lot of photos, as seen here.


Now it's a matter of transcribing, scanning, composing, and editing, with Abe as Editor in Chief. I think it's a great idea, a great project, and I really look forward to the results.

Guam continued...

As you can see, some of the spaces in the cave were a tight fit! Our palm tree Christmas tree. 3 dashing young folks on Christmas Eve. And then Jen, Mike, and me on one of our hikes. It may look like sky in the background, but that's actually the ocean. AWESOME trip!

Here is the link to my BBBS bowl-a-thon site: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/mollybuyske/pirate-bowl Even if it's $5, every donation is GREATLY appreciated.

Guam...and other schtuff

Hello gang!

I hope everyone is recovering from the holidays and getting back into the swing of things. It's taken me a while, but I'm slowly starting to get there. Just wanted to give a little update. My trip to Guam was FANTASTIC!! I had so much fun with Jen and Mike. We went scuba diving, hiking, snorkeling, swimming, and then Jen and I went skydiving (Mike was too chicken) and kayaking. The weather was gorgeous and the island was beautiful. If you get a chance, go. Just don't fly through Japan because they may cancel your flight, forcing you to fly back across the ocean to Honolulu to wait 8 hours for the flight to Guam, making you cross the international dateline 3 times so that when you finally arrive in Guam, you have absolutely no idea what day it is. Just saying, be warned. The top picture is of Jen and I holding our certificates for skydiving. We made it out alive! Of course we HAD to get a picture taken on the beach. Then it's Mike and I hiking Mt. LamLam, which if you measure from the base instead of sea level is actually the tallest mountain in the world. We made it to the top in about 40 minutes. BOOM! And then it's Jen and me on New Year's Eve.

I found out this weekend that I got a small part in the upcoming mainstage show at Grandstreet. It's a comedy called "Almost, Maine". It's a huge cast and should be pretty fun. So if anyone has the last weekend in February or the first 2 weekends in March open, come on over to Helena!

Finally, I am participating in a Bowl-a-thon for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Helena on January 28th. A few of us from the law firm plus our significant others will be on a team. We are accurately dubbed the "Pin and Tonics". I can't remember the link right now but I'll look it up and post it above with some more Guam pictures.

Love you all and I hope everyone is enjoying a happy and health 2012 thus far!

Happy New Year to All!!

Just wanted to say Happy New Year to a wonderful family! We are all so lucky to be intertwined and happy to be together! We were fortunate enough to spend New Year's Eve with Johnny and Annie and another couple who are great friends! We laughed, we played games (Johnny cheated), we had fun! That is what having family around is all about! We hope that all of you had a wonderful closing to 2011 and welcome 2012 with open arms!! Oh the places we will go!