The past month has seen a whirlwind of mobility advancements from Andy.  When we arrived in Missoula he could stand, but was not crawling or getting up from laying to sitting.  Now he can do everything but walk across the room unaided.  He now crawls well, and climbs up to standing an almost everything.  Life is getting more fun(mike)/ scarier(beth) every day.  When we are not chasing Andy we have been taking him XC skiing which he loves.  The snow has been great and Andy even went on his first night ski yesterday.  Our Subaru has been having a great time clawing its way up to the trail heads in deep snow and even got an unexpected pat on the back last week when it pulled out a truck about three times its size that got stuck.  He should have known better than to follow Subaru tracks so high up :)  We thank Audrey for a wonderful month and hope we get to swing through again soon.  It has been great and we will miss all the family visits from Pat and Noreen.  The match that will decide the location for our next three years happens this coming Thursday (will keep you posted) and we make the move back to North Dakota this weekend for Beth's final two months of med school.  So the adventure continues but we are relieved to see the light at the end of the tunnel growing brighter.  We may get to retire the gypsies wagon yet.

Well we arrived safely in Missoula MT where we will spend a total of four weeks (thanks Audrey for a great place to stay) and wanted to share some new videos.  Beth's first week has gone well and nearly trouble free.  We traveled up to Helena Wednesday night for a legislature dinner on medical school funding and the Subaru overheated as we pulled into town.  It turned out to be nothing a new fuse and some serious deicing couldn't fix thank goodness and after spending a nice night with Pat and Noreen we made it safely back through more snow to Missoula.  It must be something in the Montana air, or all the new snow that fell as soon as we arrived but Andy has made some great mobility advancements.  Almost as soon as we arrived he finally got the order of operations down required to sit up from laying (see second video) and has also been regularly taking steps behind his push car.  He has also continued to let go of everything with reckless abandon.  However it is taking longer and longer for him to fall and he often stands rocking back and forth on his feet for ten seconds or more before falling over.  His babbling has also been getting more continuous and he now regularly vocalized "mmm's", "ddd's", and "nnn's" even seeming to say "mamama" and "dadada".  Enjoy!

Beth finished up her rotation in Spokane last week and we are back on the move.  We thoroughly enjoyed all of our time in CDA and wish we didn't have to leave.  What a wonderful thing it is to stay mostly in one place for more than a month.  Beth had a great month and liked Cardiology greatly.  If it didn't mean loosing so many more years of life to training she might consider making it a career.  Andy is doing wonderfully and has mastered all of the elements of walking, and crawling without any of the effective coordination that makes such activities possible.  He has loved standing up with assistance for months but he suddenly decided that the tub was the right place  to perfect pulling to standing.  It took us a bit by surprise but we got used to it quickly and is now a common occurrence.  This now hi-lights Andy's most frustrating problem... the inability to get back into the sitting position after falling over.  This is the cause of most of his fussing and it will be a wonder full day when he remedies the problem.  Andy also had a wonderful baby shower and is now outfitted with larger clothes, new toys, and a larger car seat.  We also put proceeds to work and picked up a used jumper seat and stand and sit car.  Both have been hits and I am sure walking will not be far off.  Our departure means we will miss the last two swim lessons but Andy loved the ones we attended and will surly miss the water time.  Thanks goes to to my parents for room, board, and baby sitting as well as Schoomer (our elderly retriever) for taking Andy's abuse in stride and writing it off as needed attention.  Take Care

Well once again I procrastinated and the good pictures built up.....  so here they are.  While the winter started off very well it has now turned warm and rainy.... hopefully this will not last.  Before the cold broke we did enjoy wonderful Christmases in Montana and Idaho with family and lots of good skiing including a very scenic morning XC skiing at the Johnsons and  a great trip up north to Red Mountain with my family.  Health wise it was an interesting year.  My father has been fighting through heart ablations to try and eliminate the atrial flutter he developed just before Christmas.  The second attempt seems to have worked but only time will tell.  He is now working on the arrangements to have a valve replaced later this spring.  Thank goodness everything has gone well but it has reminded us all how thankful we are that he pulled through the original surgery 15 years ago.  Meanwhile Andy is doing wonderfully and we are all enjoying lots of time at home with his grandparents on both sides.  He has mastered sitting, and does a little scooting in the backwards direction, but his real love seems to be for biped travel.  He prefers to walk while holding your hands and hates it when he backs himself into a corner (or stool) on the floor.  Last week we also began swim lessons which he loves.  He could spend hours people watching at the pool and loves floating around or chasing after his duck.  Hope all is well and pray for snow on the west coast.  The east has had plenty.

Well I apologize for the delay.  The last month has seen many miles of travel and I believe that Andy has now visited at least 12 great states.  We left North Dakota and plunged right into a trip to Oregon where is snowed a lot, and Washington where the power was out for two days bringing the temperature in my brothers house down to a chilly 40 ish degrees that the plants did not like.  Anyway we found friends to accommodate the whole lot of us for the night in a warmer location with lights and after fighting our way through Seattle holiday traffic and lots more snow made it home for Thanksgiving and another interview in Spokane.  After a few days to visit family and friends we headed out on our southern tour to OR, UT, and ID.  This allowed Andy to bag another three flights as well as hang out at some cool ski areas as we took turns enjoying more fresh snow.  All the interviews went well and we made it home to begin shuffling the list and think about preferences with only one more interview remaining in January.  Through all this Andy develops in leaps and bounds.  He now sits up quite well and continues to love standing with balancing aid.  His day will be made when he figures out how to get off of his back into the more vertical positions on his own.  He seems to have no desire for rolling or even crawling and seems to strive for a leap straight into biped travel. Then we were off to Missoula, Helena, and Cutbank for Christmas which puts us at the present.  If you have some spare time to burn here are some pictures of our interview trips.  Through all this Andy develops in leaps and bounds.  He now sits up quite well and continues to love standing with balancing aid.  His day will be made when he figures out how to get off of his back into the more vertical positions on his own.  He seems to have no desire for rolling or even crawling and seems to strive for a leap straight into biped travel.  More will follow in time of the holiday trip.  Merry Christmas

Well we had a great Holloween, although there is always a catch right?  This time it was finding out that one of our gypsy wagons was a month past due, as the nice officer at the air force base politely made us aware before telling us to turn out disorganized hides around.  Probably not the best idea while living on the road?  I guess the layers of mail forwarding finally got us on something that counted.  Regardless Bill and Jennifer drove out to the gate and picked us up, so Andy still made it to the party, and enjoyed his costume.  We even went to the mall afterward but he seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the strange looking strangers.  Recovering in style however, when we got home he decided that we didn't need to spoon feed him anymore.  He could do it himself!  Not sure what rice cereal does to eyes and nasal passages but he didn't seem to mind the mess.  Next week it is back on the road, and we can't wait to get back west.

Well we have been having a great fall here.  Until last weekend when winter hit us with a snowy 65mph blast we havdn't seen a drop of rain and the abnormally high temperatures and continuous sunshine made playing outside easy.  Andy and I have continued to spend two to four hours a day outside walking, running, and watching wildlife around our favorite park.  We have been using Andy's stroller as a grocery getter.  Beth even managed to get a couple good mountain bike rides in with us during her last week of surgery.  However the Saturday before last she dove into following hospitalists on her internal medicine rotation and the biking has been cut short by her long call hours and the snow on the ground.  On the plus side since we live a skyway away from the hospital she has been able to come spend time with us between admits.  Andy  even took a little time out of his busy day to send a little message to one of his great grandfathers who we all hope feels much better soon.  This last weekend we took a little trip south to Bismarck for Beth's ski patrol refresher.  This gave Andy the opportunity to spend his first night in his new tent at the hotel.  It worked very well and I highly recommend them.  Then while Beth was refreshing we summited the snowy "peak" above Huff Hills Ski Area for some nice views.  Andy loves to explore.  It's been a big couple weeks for him.  He seems to have taken being 5% by weight very seriously and suddenly doubled his milk intake the beginning of last week.  In addition he has now mastered front to back rolling, and is getting much more comfortable on his stomach with his head up as well as seems to be slowly warming up to spoon feeding.  He really likes the high chair, that we finally had a chance to pull out of the storage in Bismarck last weekend.  That's a funny story in itself, but by the time we were done we had managed to rescue the snow tires for both cars from the bowels of the pile, change them out in the mud, dug our way into the keys for the fire safe we have been carrying around with no way to open, as well as retrieve ski gear.  So now we have passports (in safe) and equipment for our x-mas ski trip.

This week we had lots of fun.  On top of the normal biking and running during the week we decided to go exploring over the weekend.  This took us north to the Turtle "Mountains" of North Dakota.... Don't want to hurt anyones feelings, the area was beautiful but we didn't see any mountains.  Just a couple hundred foot high plateau with lots of short trees on it.  First we stopped at the Strawberry lake camping area... which was in fact a very nice campground although even in the mountains of ND the watter appears to be rising.  As a result many of the picnic tables, a few lights, and at least one outhouse are currently submerged or near so.  Next we continued across to Lake Metigoshe State Park for some hiking.  Interesting the park had its beginnings as a transient camp for the civilian conservation corps and was littered with abandoned buildings.  On our four or so mile hike we must have passed at least half a dozen abandoned outhouses as well as several larger buildings and a huge abandoned lodge.  The map also left a bit to be desired and the first trail we took began as a mowed road with variety but suddenly turned to single track.  I followed this path around a group of bushes with a short chunk of fence tangled up in them and headed up the trail toward what I thought was a pioneer grave marker.  On closer look it was very nice chrome colored and said United States on the close side... so I walked to the other side... and it said Canada, causing me to jump back to my side since we certainly were not carrying passports.  Oops...  So we turned around and found some different trails to explore.  On the way home we stopped to see several of the great turtles the guard the mountains... ND has lots of big things spread around and this area is no exception.  The first is a huge turtle made of welded together car wheels, and the second is a very tall turtle ridding a snow mobile...   Go figure..So not a bad weekend and I think Andy had lots of fun.  Let me know how you like the new slide show thing, or I can go back to the old layout.

Well we have safely arrived in Minot and survived the first week without getting stranded in the sketchy elevator.  We are living in some interesting hospital owned apartments across the street from the hospital.  The location is very convenient although it is far from pent house accommodations and the helicopter regularly beats its blades on our windows as it slips by to the landing pad just across the street at about the same level.  Andy likes how they look up close but it has made sleeping through the night a bit harder.  Andy is also under strict guidance not to eat any of the paint chips that hang from our ceiling.  Our elevator is also of the vintage that used to require a bell boy for operation.  We are now required to close the doors and expanding grate ourselves, otherwise it won't operate for the next person.  To keep OSHA on edge the doors to passing floors pass by easily within reach through the grate, and the passing doors are mechanically unlocked as you pass so that if one were so inclined they could pull open a door as you passed by causing you to get stuck between floors until they kindly re-closed it.  For the engineering minded it is also interesting that it is hydraulic, lifted by a single stage cylinder.  This means that to service the four floor apartment building their must be a five floor deep hole below the building to house the cylinder.  Anyway things are good.  Beth is enjoying her Surgery rotation and has received interview offers from almost all of the Family Medicine Residency's that she applied for.  Andy is growing quickly and loving our running in the park, outside is always better right.  I am trying to get back in shape by running daily and mountain biking every couple days on the nearby trails that have proven much nicer than expected. Hear are a few pictures... next week I will have to post a picture of our new 3' by 4' baby room / closet.  For this post we have to thank Pat and Noreen for their help on the drive as well as the borrow of a camera while ours is out for repair.  We don't know how we would do it without all the family and friends keeping us on track and rolling.

Well the last week in Salt Lake was a great one.  Josh continued his habit of shirking work for play allowing us to get in several more biking and climbing sessions.  Even one bike trip with the entire Bozeman crew in attendance.  Thanks John, Rob, and Josh.  We also got Andy a new duck tub that he loves... just like Audrey's and fit in lots more hiking.  We stumbled across a trail marked "Mt Aire" and having left only enough time to reach the saddle below the top got some great sun set pictures before stumbling several miles back down in the dark.  It was so much fun that we tried again a couple days later but failed to get moving early enough again and made it nearly to the top by sunset leaving us an even longer darkened stumble.  Probably not advised by the average parenting handbook, but Andy loved it and we would do it again any day.  If not on purpose  then by accident!  We had a great time and did't want to leave, but Friday the trek back to ND begins.  Thanks to everyone for a wonderful time and see you again in December for interview season.