Since Tara's last post, Addie turned the ripe old age of 9 months. In honor of the celebration, Addie went exploring in our room as you can see below. She's under our bed and loving it. 
She's becoming quite an explorer these days and is really working on her crawling speed. She's got to be up to at least 1 mile an hour by now. Her favorite thing to do is get up to ramming speed and bowl into Tara, sending them both flying (slight hyperbole) and laughing like crazy (not at all hyperbole). Another thing Addie really likes are the dog crates. 
Tara got a great shot of her coming out of her new-found fort. Given Addie's propensity for the dog crates, under our bed, tents, and crawling under bed sheets, I have a feeling she's going to be one heck of a fort-builder when she gets a few years older ... can't wait for that!
She's becoming quite an explorer these days and is really working on her crawling speed. She's got to be up to at least 1 mile an hour by now. Her favorite thing to do is get up to ramming speed and bowl into Tara, sending them both flying (slight hyperbole) and laughing like crazy (not at all hyperbole). Another thing Addie really likes are the dog crates. 
Tara got a great shot of her coming out of her new-found fort. Given Addie's propensity for the dog crates, under our bed, tents, and crawling under bed sheets, I have a feeling she's going to be one heck of a fort-builder when she gets a few years older ... can't wait for that!A few days later, one my consultants (Dr. Sems) had his yearly shotgun party. As I learned last year (sadly), this does not refer to shotgunning beers. Rather, Dr. Sems is a big hunter and every September has a shooting contest with shotguns and clay pigeons. He has an ideal set-up in his backyard with trees and farmland surrounding, so it's plenty safe. There were probably 30 people in the contest, plus another 40-50 people not shooting. Even though I didn't shoot in the contest, it was fun to watch and see people in their element. I got some great photos, which are below. The guys shooting are Presley and Greg, some of my fellow residents. Addie didn't seem to mind the ear plugs, but she did NOT like sitting on the 4-wheeler (even though it wasn't on).
Sometimes when it's warm, we'll let Addie crawl around in just her diaper. 
This has been fine up until now, but somehow she figured out how to adeptly undo her diapers. She also seems to understand that she is "supposed to" have a diaper on, and in true kid fashion, gets away from "trouble" as quickly as possible. Of course, we don't tell her we think it's adorable. Tara got a great photo of Addie making a break for it. She seems to be quite pleased with herself. (Note the background with Indy sniffing the recently deposited diaper.)
This has been fine up until now, but somehow she figured out how to adeptly undo her diapers. She also seems to understand that she is "supposed to" have a diaper on, and in true kid fashion, gets away from "trouble" as quickly as possible. Of course, we don't tell her we think it's adorable. Tara got a great photo of Addie making a break for it. She seems to be quite pleased with herself. (Note the background with Indy sniffing the recently deposited diaper.)As some of you probably know, my Mom and her husband Steve are developing a resort in Panama. It's on an island called Bastimentos off the east coast of Panama, just south of the border with Costa Rica. They've been pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into this project. This is especially true since spring, as they have essentially lived in Panama to oversee the project. They've been back to the States for a only a handful of weeks out of the past six months. I know it's been hard for them to be away from family, and especially hard for my Mom to be away from Addie. They've been wanting to get us (Tara, Addie, my sisters, and me) down there to see their pet project. Well, we now have plans to go down and visit! We are going in January and will be spending a week there. While we are very excited, there is always some red tape to get through. 
So I started looking over our passports and realized Tara and I needed to renew ours. 
And even Addie needs a passport. Yes, she needs the whole kit-and-caboodle. That includes the application, which required an input for height! I thought it was pretty funny that the application for children had a spot for height. Luckily, we had Addie's 9 month appointment just last week and found out she is now 2'4". It felt kind of funny putting that down, but hey - if that's what they want, they can have it. So we're trying to do the passport photos on a budget, and given that we have a nice camera, we took the pictures above (with some obvious cropping needed). I like the one on top better - what do you think?
So I started looking over our passports and realized Tara and I needed to renew ours. 
And even Addie needs a passport. Yes, she needs the whole kit-and-caboodle. That includes the application, which required an input for height! I thought it was pretty funny that the application for children had a spot for height. Luckily, we had Addie's 9 month appointment just last week and found out she is now 2'4". It felt kind of funny putting that down, but hey - if that's what they want, they can have it. So we're trying to do the passport photos on a budget, and given that we have a nice camera, we took the pictures above (with some obvious cropping needed). I like the one on top better - what do you think?For those who don't know, I am taking a year of my residency to focus on research. One of my colleagues and good friends, Justin, and I are looking at a new drug delivery system that could be very useful for orthopedic surgery. It's never really been tried before, so we're really excited. But the amount of ground work that goes into research is exhausting. It's not fun either - mostly emails, meetings, committees, applications, paperwork, reading, literature searches, etc. Finally we have our money, we have all the committee approvals, and we are going to start in earnest on the actual research within the next few weeks. Our experiment will last about 6 months, so I'll be at it for a while. But if the results turn out how we expect, this project could open a new door in drug delivery for orthopedic surgeons. Wish me luck! :)
Tara and Addie are fortunate to have a great group of moms/kids to hang out with on a regular basis. Most of the moms are married to my orthopedic surgery colleagues, so Tara has a group to commiserate with about a resident's lifestyle. And Addie has a group of kids all within a few years that help her socialize.
Tara went out to meet a group at a nearby park earlier today and got some fun pics of Addie. My favorite is the scrunched-up bulldog face. 
We haven't yet figured out why she's making that face, but it puts us in stitches every time she brings it out. The picture on the right shows Addie doing the typical baby thing - putting everything she can find straight in her mouth.
Well, this has been fun writing for the blog. And for a send-off, I figure I had better show you how much Addie takes after me (if you can't already tell just by looking at her). This last pic shows Addie putting down some (supposedly good-for-her) cheese puffs in true Dad style. Tara will be writing next, and probably for a while after that. So until next time ...
Tara went out to meet a group at a nearby park earlier today and got some fun pics of Addie. My favorite is the scrunched-up bulldog face. 
We haven't yet figured out why she's making that face, but it puts us in stitches every time she brings it out. The picture on the right shows Addie doing the typical baby thing - putting everything she can find straight in her mouth.Well, this has been fun writing for the blog. And for a send-off, I figure I had better show you how much Addie takes after me (if you can't already tell just by looking at her). This last pic shows Addie putting down some (supposedly good-for-her) cheese puffs in true Dad style. Tara will be writing next, and probably for a while after that. So until next time ...
