Dylan can crack a bubble out of a piece of Dentine

HOW ABOUT A SHORT HOLIDAY LETTER. The tone of things gets set in January when Patrick flys to Bozeman, Montana for the first and last job interview of 2008. Montana State University it is and we begin a really complicated move that involves five or six car trips and now, in the waning days of 2008, a U-Haul truck. Three guys and a truck. Dylan, Malcolm and Patrick. In between these bookends we have a story of transition. Wendy performs her usual miracle and manages to get an offer in response to the first resume she sends out. So now she’s working in this drop-dead-gorgeous setting in Gallatin Gateway (named for the debarcation place for train-traveling Yellowstone tourists). A small school with about 20 employees. She’s doing virtually the same thing as in St. Paul.

Dylan (the guy with the bubble above) is studying computer science in the College of Engineering at MSU. Results from his first semester a tad mixed. For spring semester we’re pulling our households back together into a three-bedroom fourplex not far from campus. We must give up our stellar view on the seventh floor of a graduate housing tower. We gain more space and a way to keep our vehicles out of the winter weather. Patrick, you probably know, is the fundraiser for the College of Education, Health & Human Development. This is his first professional venture into “a public” as we call it in the biz. Very different. But this is a great cause. This College is hyper active in the State, doing a whole lot of good. A major constraint to in-state travel is an over-abundance of Mule Deer and other critters that tend to show bad judgment when it comes to motorized traffic. Winter will, of course, present its own interesting challenges. 

Mariah remains on the home front, holding down “the fort” at 1636 with her friend Dan. Not the ideal time to have one’s house on the real estate market. And besides, we anticipate the arrival of light rail within five blocks of the place. Meanwhile this is an ideal setup for Mariah and Dan. 

The new address and other contact info are in the e-mail that transmits this link to you. Let us hear from you. 

Summer sunset from apt in the sky

At "The Motel" in St. Ignatius

Wendy with a few curios in Helena

A short cut in Judith Gap

Dan and Mariah with special news for the family