Well it was a big day here in Minot.  Beth's last day of her last rotation of medical school.  So tomorrow we hit the road to jettison belongings and have some fun on the way to graduation.  There we look forward to seeing lots of family and then turning the caravan around for the big move back to Spokane.  Andy is walking more and more of the time and thoroughly enjoying every step of it.  Some of the landings are a bit rough though :)  So its good by to our favorite apartment and off into the wild blue yonder.  Someone better warn Max and Roo we are coming for them.  Enjoy the last of the Minot pictures... the Minot zoo opened and Andy really loved the otters, we on the other hand really liked his hair styling in the tube slides.

Well Easter is upon us again and for the second year in a row we met up with the Junkers at a water park.  This time it was in Fargo and with the whole state sinking under flood water this time golf was out of the question.  The swimming was fun for us and the car and the company great.  Of coarse the weather was with us as always and we drove both directions in snow storms and the news reports were full of reports of drivers sliding off icy roads only to be rescued from the flood water later by the local dive team.  Only in ND.  Upon returning to Minot the weather took a turn for the better this last weekend and we decided it was time to shake some of the rust off the mountain bikes.  The weather was great and the views of the still frozen Lake Sakakawea from the Indian Hills trail were amazing, however the ride was short because all the north facing sections of trail were still under drifts of snow and It was a it much to pull the Burley through.  Andy is loving all the trips to the park and is choosing walk more and more.  He now routinely catches his balance, crawls up stairs, and climbs into and on-top of everything.  The fun continues.

Well wile the Eastern side of the state is disappearing under flood water the weather here is feeling great.  Beth reminded me this last weekend that there was exactly five weeks until graduation.  You don't think she is counting do you.  The nice weather has allowed us to get out an play a lot.  Last weekend we made a trip down to Bismarck to retrieve our much needed vacuum cleaner out of storage.  Using this as an excuse we booked a room at the motel allowing Andy to fit two swim sessions into the time between his visits to the science center and the zoo.  He loved it all, especially the water time and animals at the zoo. The pool was nice and warm and the cooler weather and lack of visitors seemed to make all the animals extra active and excited to see us.  To Beth's horror one of the cats even seemed to want to play with Andy and kept pawing the glass inches from him while one of the Alaskan grizzlies seemed possessed and ran up and down the fence line next to us.  Andy loved it all.  All the playground time also seems to be reminding Andy he still isn't walking much and he has taken up a renewed interest in walking around the apartment.  Enjoy the pictures and see you soon back west. 

Well spring is proving elusive this year if the negative 3 degree morning temperatures or last weeks 10 inch blizzard mean anything.  Beth even got a snow day because all the hospital clinics shut down until travel improved.  We didn't think twice about the need to pack our bikes along on this segment of road living but they may go unused.  However the XC skis that we skeptically decided to pack in have been getting daily use and at this rate with several feet of packed snow on the ground and temperatures well below freezing they will get lots more.  Life in Minot is going well and we have been finding lots of time to play.  In addition to lots of skiing, and some soggy trail running we took advantage of a long weekend and visited Katie and Jon in Minneapolis.  It was a fun weekend that involved a surprise birthday party for Jon and Andy's first trip to the aquarium that he really enjoyed.  In other big news anyone that hasn't already heard Beth matched to her first choice in Spokane, WA for residency so we will soon be heading home.  Enjoy the pictures.

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.