Halloween is for Kiddos

Joel and I recently saw my godson, Anderson and his sister Ella at their house. It was trick-or-treat night and the kids were all decked out. I wanted to share the pictures because they are just so darn cute.

Brett Farve (he loved is Badger football)

Brett Farve explaining the logistics of football to Joel

Brett Farve and Blue ready to brave the cold for candy!

High School Musical

Only without the singing! I'm sure you've all been holding your breath for the pictures from my 10 year high school reunion. It was well-planned (thanks, Rebec!) and the venue was great. The Midtown Bar and Grill, we had the whole place to ourselves until 11pm. It was a blast-and I saw lots of people who I haven't seen in as many years and drank a bunch of wine. Fun!

Rebec and an old friend, Amanda

Julie, Gina and I

A friend I haven't seen in years (Tamar)
And there was dancing...

And what's a night out without Qdoba with friends?

All in all it was a great night but I was happy to leave everyone else behind and eat Qdoba with the people that I see every time I come home. My best high school friends!

Did You Know?

• That we give approximately $1 Billion in aid to Pakistan every year

• That the Pakistani government is beating its own people in the street.

BUT REMEMBER...That "We are the United States of America, we are very powerful, we have a lot of influence,'' the administration official said, "but we don’t dictate'.

Um...at least we're consistent?

Just a bit of political mumbo jumbo for this Monday night. Want to read more? Check it out.

Heartbreak

Seems like I've been writing this too often. Bad news on the latest MRI for Anderson. Please stop by and offer words of support and encouragement.

www.caringbridge.org/visit/andersonbutzine

Simple Request

Please stop by and offer words of support to a member of my godson's support group. It's a three year old girl named Erin and she and her family received some bad news today.

www.caringbridge.org/visit/erinroderick

I Once Knew a Man in Nantucket

Apologies for the internet silence. Time has gotten away from me and all of a sudden summer turned into fall. As promised here are some pictures from our trip to Nantucket over Labor day weekend (already over a month ago!). We had such a great time-meeting lots of new people and relaxing on the beach. We even rented bikes and rode around the island. Good times!

At the beach for a sunset!

The whole gang at dinner...

The sunset (these pics were taken on the same night!)

We had beautiful weather the entire weekend. Nantucket is really a glorious place-the residents have worked really hard to preserve much of the island so it's not over-developed. A lot of the island is land trust and left alone.

Stay tuned for pics from my ten year high school reunion...

Ode to the Makers of Monuments

I spent last week from Sunday through Friday in Washington DC for a week long training at the GAO Headquarters. They put me up in a really nice hotel (where presidential hopefuls and former presidents have stayed) at the government rate of course! Even though I was in training all day-I did have some time to see lots of friends from grad school and old work buddies for dinner. It was nice to visit with everyone and I learned a bit about GAO too!

My hotel (The Mayflower) is a historic building that they've restored. It's pretty fancy and very close to lots of great restaurants and just a few blocks from G.W. Bush's current home.

I met my friend Maggie for dinner one night in Georgetown which is just rows of little shops like this (though they are mostly chain stores like Ralph Lauren and Banana Republic).

On my last night in DC my friend Vered and I went to dinner and then took a hike around the monuments because I had been in DC all week but hadn't seen anything yet!

Our first president

The Washington Monument after dark across the reflecting pool

the first glimpse of Honest Abe (i was struck at how busy the monument was at dark on a weekday night)

I always get a little choked up at this memorial because it's so well done.

I had never been to the Korean War Memorial which is very close to Lincoln. It's extremely moving. The wall along the middle of the memorial is etched with the faces of soldiers and lit from the ground. And then on one side of the wall or life-size statues of a platoon of soldiers seemingly marching through Korea. They are also lit from the ground and the look like ghosts. I could hardly breathe when I was walking through it.

World War II memorial was very different with every pillar marked with a state name in an elipse with lots of water rushing along the outside and the inside of the monument. Standing in the middle is overwhelming and loud with the water. It was grandiose but really didn't affect me as much as Korea.

And last but not least...the White House

Stay tuned for pictures of Nantucket...Joel and I just got back from a long weekend!

Just a second...

If you have a moment this week please head over to my godson Anderson's website and leave a note for his family. He was scheduled for an MRI yesterday but he was running a really high fever and the MRI will have to be rescheduled. He is still running a fever and I'm sure his parents will appreciate any notes/thoughts/prayers of encouragement. THANKS!

Opening his birthday presents (he turned 2!!)

Playing with cars

Market Daze, Elvis and Dim Sum

This weekend was great! Joel and I were around Chicago and spent it with friends going to a festival, running a 5K and eating dim sum in Chinatown for the first time! During the summertime in Chicago the city neighborhoods hold street festivals from mid June through the end of August and it usually involves street closures, lots of music, and food. Joel and I went to the Wicker Park festival a few weeks ago and loved it. This weekend we went to the festival in boystown (the gay neighborhood in Chicago) called North Halsted Market Days. It was really hot but we walked through with our friends, Lindsay and Jeremy and their family and had lots of fun. This festival has a different flavor than some of the other festivals.

The entrance

One of the bars had an outdoor patio and there were lots of men sans shirts crammed into it. Everyone was staring as we walked by...so I took a picture!

Earlier in the week, I decided to run a 5K on Saturday night so after the festival Joel and I headed down to the race start. IT WAS SO HOT! I knew it was going to be rough but it was a fun theme! It was called the Elvis is Alive! 5K and you can see above that a bunch of people dress head to toe as Elvis and run 5K like that! Crazy.

Run Elvis Run!

Run Mollie Run! I was hurting-it was really hot and I was struggling. But I finished!

On Sunday, Joel and I headed down to Chinatown for dim sum (it's like chinese tapas...small portions for the table). It was the first time we had ever been down to Chinatown to eat-it was great. But the company was even better than the food! We met Chris and Christine who are living in Hyde Park for the summer. It was great to catch up (they were living in Seattle last summer...when I was there!) and visit.

North Dakota's Goodlands

On the way home from Glacier we stopped in North Dakota at Teddy Roosevelt National Park. We camped one night in the park and had planned to do some hiking the following day-as we set out on our hike we encountered a herd of buffalo across the river...blocking our trail. We stood there for a bit but it was obvious the herd was in no hurry to move on. So we scraped our hike and drove around the park and we saw so much wildlife! Lots of bison, wild horses, and prairie dogs. The scenery was breathtaking and totally different from Glacier. Enjoy the pics!

The river through a canyon

A herd of buffalo across the river-Joel and I watched them for quite awhile

A herd of wild horses resting by the river (they were very close to the buffalo)

Another herd of horses-there were so many of them

We watched the prairie dogs for a long time too. They are so entertaining!

The young male bison (below) walked to the middle of the river and watched us to make sure we didn't come any closer (and we didn't!). Here he is giving us one last look...

We heart grizzlies

The reason that we love grizzly bears is that we didn't see one during our time in Glacier National Park. Although we did buy the $45.95 "combat assault pepper spray" made specifically for grizzly bears (you can see the can hanging from Joel's pack in a picture below). We bought it mostly for our own peace of mind and thankfully didn't have to use it...does anybody need any bear sized pepper spray? In any case, we had a great time and we saw plenty of non-aggressive, vegetarian wildlife!

It took us 23 1/2 hours to drive out there and bit longer to drive back. The drive was nice and we listened to a few books on tape (most notably, the 5th installment of the Harry Potter series which was 27 hours long!). The Honda civic held up well although a few times it didn't want to climb the mountain. We hiked a total of about 40 miles over the course of the trip-the weather was hot but it didn't rain so we couldn't complain.

We spend the first four nights and five days camping and hiking in the Park out of our car. We did the Highline Trail (which follows the continental divide) up to an old Chalet and then back down (on this trail we saw mountain goats and a marmot!). We also hiked up to avalanche lake which followed a pretty amazing gorge.

The last two nights we backpacked 8 miles along the US/Canadian border to Cosley Lake. It was gorgeous and relaxing. I read and we played cards. Joel and another guy tried to "bush-whack" up a creek bed to a peak above Cosley Lake and while they didn't get to the top they managed to have a pretty nice view (see below). Our campsite was right on Cosley Lake and though it was too cold to swim we still enjoyed the views!

After our backpacking extravaganza we headed back to St. Mary's (which is just outside the Park) and stayed in the lodge before leaving Montana the next morning. We stopped at Teddy Roosevelt National Park on the way home (and saw lots more wildlife). See tomorrow's post!

Joel all loaded up and ready to go backpacking!

We had to cross the river to get to our site on Cosley Lake-this bridge was really wobbly!

There were so many wildflowers blooming while we were there...this is Indian Paintbrush

A mama grouse that got pretty upset and poofed up as we tried to pass by!

A fawn was running around our campsite the day we left Cosley Lake

We saw a few big horn sheep right by the road drinking from waterfalls

Mama and baby walking right above us on the highline trail

Joel on the highline trail

At avalanche lake

On the highline (the views were breathtaking)

Joel's view after he hiked up off-trail to a peak (that's Cosley Lake)

Cosley Lake from our campsite

The trail leading to Cosley Lake (the lake is just over that ridge on the right)

A view of St Mary's Lake in the morning