Gratitude and The Buzbees & the Booths

I have lots of pictures of Bruce and Mike and Laurie and Sandy (of RootsMagic.com)--and most of them are shots across from a restaurant table. Bruce and Mike are the real definition of mentors.  They have been there for us from the very beginning and we have learned SO much from them. I think they first mentored us because they didn't want to have to do their own chart printing-LOL-but I'm so glad they didn't. We have spent so many hours over the years talking about the genealogy industry, about how to run a business, and how to run a business in this crazy genealogy industry. I can credit them for so many of our business processes and marketing successes.  It was Bruce and Mike who first talked me into starting a blog. Yeah that. So this first photo is to show how far back we go with these old friends.  Yikes.  I don't want to think about how much we've aged.

4th of July 2008

Bruce and Mike have been the greatest of friends--even working for them doing phones for a while to help ease the pain of being a startup.  They have advocated for us and taught us.  Truly great mentors.  And always fun to talk to.  These are the guys who taught us to hit up two restaurants in a night. Talk about mentors!

Which brings us to doing triathlons.  More years ago than I want to admit, I got to spend lots of time with Laurie and some of their kids (Kristy here) doing triathlons.  I'd like to take credit for getting them into that--until my health issues slowed me down.  But they've kept going and they're freaking awesome. It was really lots of fun.

Laurie's surprise birthday party

Recently we've been having dinner together again regularly and we always look forward to talking with them.  I save up all of my analysis about the people and entities in the industry to bounce off Bruce and I'm always interested in his take on the situation. Figuring things out is always fun together and if everyone would just do what we think they should, we'd solve all the problems in the world.  It is so good to have a sounding board and now-- and after all these years, some really good old friends.