And so it begins

A couple of days after returning home from the beach Chuck started his pediatric surgery fellowship. Let the two year count down begin! It's going to be a challenging two years with him on call every third night. The positive is that he now has his own office for us to come and visit.

Chuck & the kids in his office
Chuck was on-call the fourth of July. Things quieted down enough for us to come and have dinner with him. We celebrated the fourth by eating burgers in the Children's Hospital cafeteria. :) Carter and Audrey had chicken fingers. I must say that the food is actually pretty good.

Carter thought he was pretty cool sitting in Daddy's chair. Notice the sticker on his shirt? Carter loves that Chuck has access to an endless supply of stickers.

Mr. & Mrs. Wam

I'm finally getting back to catching up with what we have been up to this summer. I left off with our week in Folly Beach...

That weekend I left the family at the beach and headed up to Milwaukee for the weekend to be in my dear friend Christin's wedding. They had beautiful weather and the wedding was wonderful. Christin was absolutely stunning! I'm so happy for her and Kyle and wish them all the best for years to come.

The wedding party in front of the church

I love this picture of them in front of the Landmark.

Christin looking gorgeous

Just the two of us
Our friendship goes way back to our cosmetic girl days at Boston Store. She has been an amazing friend through the years and I can't imagine my life without her in it.

All the girlie girls

Going Galt

At the end of the year every graduating chief resident gives a Grand Rounds presentation. The one that stood out this year was Daniel Cox's. I know we have told many of you about this already and Chuck shared the link with some of you. Recently I was reminded to pass it along. No matter where you stand on health care reform take the time to watch it. It's well worth it! Here's the link to Going Galt: When Will Surgeons Say Enough is Enough? By Daniel Cox
The Lonely Conservative wrote an article with the video attached

15 months

No, I'm not caught up with our happenings yet but I just had to do a quick 15 month post before she gets even older. So here it is...
Our little diva is 15 months old!! OK, so she's 15 1/2 months by now. With all the traveling we've been doing her check up didn't happen until Thursday. Our little peanut only weighed in at 20 lbs. 2 oz. At least she officially weighs enough to turn around in the car now :) She's ahead of the game though for all the milestones. She has surpassed all of them a long time ago. It was funny to see that the language milestone was only 3-6 words. She uses more words than I can count. Audrey is such a happy rambunctious little girl. It's so much fun to watch her keep up with her big brother.

Another diva in sunglasses picture

My future ballerina :)

Folly Beach

Chuck had a week off in between residency and fellowship. Since we didn't have to spend that week moving we packed up the car and headed to Folly Beach, SC with Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Kate and Todd. Audrey fought her nap all the way there which made for an interesting drive. Carter was fine as long as the DVD player was going. Although, at one point he asked why we didn't just fly. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa for a wonderful week at the beach.

Carter loved the water as always. He spent a lot of the time splashing in the waves.
We walked to dinner and Carter claimed he was getting tired. Grandpa let Carter ride on his shoulders at least half of the way.

This time Audrey loved the beach. She played with the sand and would run into the water all by herself. She was so much fun to watch.

The kids loved being pulled on the boogie board. Audrey doesn't look happy in this picture because she didn't want Carter on with her. Carter let her have a turn by herself and she didn't want to stop.

Aunt Kate and Todd got Carter some sparklers. He was a little apprehensive at first but ended up enjoying them.

Group picture
Max cooperated and sat nice in the picture. Sasha wasn't having it and is laying by our feet.

7 down, 2 to go

Wednesday night we had Chuck's graduation reception. It's hard to believe that this day has finally come. After seven years Chuck has graduated from his general surgery residency!! Yes, general surgery is a five year residency but Chuck had to do two years of research in order to get a pediatric surgery fellowship. Chuck's hard work didn't go unnoticed. He won the outstanding chief resident award and we couldn't be more proud of him.

Chuck & I
I'm so proud of the hard work he has put into the last seven years. Each graduating resident gave a speech and Chuck did a wonderful job. We are both looking forward to starting fellowship and getting that much closer to the end of his training.

Chuck & I with his parents
They drove from VA the day before to be there for the reception.

The eight graduating surgery residents
Chuck has truly enjoyed working with such a great group of people

The four that took the long road of seven years due to the fellowships they are going into
Chuck, Ching-Wei, Stephen & Harrison

Throughout the year Harrison took pictures of all the chiefs operating. They all kept harassing him to e-mail the pictures and that night they finally got them. He framed a picture for each of them. What a thoughtful gift! Thanks to Harrison for putting the time and effort into this or we wouldn't have a single picture of Chuck operating as a resident. He is going to put all the pictures on a cd for us so I'll post a better pic once we get it.

Blue Harbor

We took the kids to Blue Harbor's Breaker Bay indoor water park Friday afternoon. They had a blast and Carter didn't want to leave. Here are just a few of the many pictures I took that afternoon.

There is a boat that dumps 1,000 gallons of water every couple of minutes creating a huge waterfall. I love the look on Carter's face when he saw it happen the first time. Even Audrey learned that the bell means it's going to dump. When she would hear it she would say, "Uh, oh" and then, "wow" as it dumped.

Audrey enjoyed splashing in the little water spouts. They were the perfect size for her.

If you ask Carter what his favorite thing was he'll tell you the water slide. He loved going down the slide as long as Tita Angela was at the bottom waiting to catch him.

Audrey splashing away

They had this snake, a sea turtle, sting ray, etc floating in the pool. They were so cute and Carter had to sit on a couple of them

This was Carter's other favorite attraction. I couldn't count how many times Carter dumped water on himself. He got a kick out of it every time.

My monkeys love the water!