Christmas 2016 Newsletter

 

thumb-600-43What a year it has been! We started out the year with finding out that we were having a baby. Travis began interviews soon after and traveled to San Diego, Seattle, Indiana and elsewhere (18 flights this calendar year). We were thrilled to have an opportunity to stay in Nashville, and Travis accepted a faculty position at Vanderbilt. We began to look for a house – the market in the area is tough and we were lucky to have our first offer accepted. Renovations began soon after we moved in. We had a great contractor. We love the new neighborhood. Gavin arrived October 11 and we are enjoying getting settled in for our first Christmas at home. We have loved having family and friends come visit…

Gavin

Gavin is excited for his first Christmas.  He is 2 months old now and is starting to show off smiles to everyone.  He is growing quickly and exciting to learn to crawl and eventually wrestle with his big brother.  He is a little jealous of all the fun things Owen gets to do.  Gavin enjoys spending quality time with mom, drinking lots of milk, and modeling cute clothes lovingly given by family and friends.

Owen

Owen attends Vanderbilt daycare and has enjoyed the move to Brentwood. He played soccer at the YMCA and has enjoyed learning to skate, bike and play tennis.  The newest skill he is developing is a love for chess.  While he hasn’t beaten dad yet, he knows the names of the pieces, how to set up the board, and is quickly learning all the rules.  Wild Krats, is currently his favor show, and he keeps asking to go to the San Diego Zoo to see all the animals there.  He began an electrical apprenticeship and is now a trained electrical receptacle tester.  He also has done some demolition work and pulled some networking cable.  References are available if you would like to hire him.

Travis

Travis began the year by interviewing for faculty positions at universities from Nashville to Seattle.  After completing fellowship in June, he officially joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in July with appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine.  Travis sees lung cancer patients in the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center and is working on research electronically identifying patients for lung cancer screening.  He has had a busy academic year with multiple presentations at national conferences and winning a prestigious ASCO Young Investigator grant to help support his research.  Travis completed the last two specialty exams in October.  He is now board certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and clinical informatics.  He will not need to take another certification exam for the next eight or nine years.  In his ample spare time, Laura and he have taken up kitchen and interior design.  Travis is looking forward to spending some time over the holidays with his lovely wife and two boys.

Laura

Laura began the year with a positive pregnancy test. She has been busy keeping up with all the boys, working at Vanderbilt and the renovation. She is enjoying painting the new house (33 cans of paint and counting). The renovation has been a great experience from camping out in the basement to washing dishes on the back patio table. It’s been fun to see it all come together. She has been on maternity leave and enjoying time at home with Gavin. After Gavin’s arrival, she was glad to have her mom, nana, dad and brother Dan come to stay over Thanksgiving. It was a memorable time preparing and sharing meals in the new kitchen for family and celebrating her parents’ birthdays here in Tennessee. We had a special night out celebrating her dad’s 65th Birthday at the Grand Ole Opry – complete with a limo ride (which Owen thought was pretty great!) Laura is looking forward to doing the Country Music Half Marathon in 2017 with Dan.

With Love,

Travis, Laura, Owen, and Gavin

(and Rozzie – our 7 year old weimaraner)

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26

Christmas Present

Christmas Past