A Bit of a Brag-a-Log (in which Ellie says the alphabet)

Not that all blogging isn't really a form of bragging, but lately I think my family has done a bit of achieving worth bragging about.

First up, Brady. Quite a week for him. First, he ran his first half marathon. Here he is coming around the bend to the finish line.

He had some trouble with the tendons in the arch of his foot and ankle the week before the race and was worried he wouldn't be able to do it, but he eased up on the training schedule a bit and was still able to finish feeling great. He got a medal for participating, which I didn't think to get a picture of.

Then, a few days later (Tuesday) he went down to Provo and defended his dissertation. I wasn't able to go with him, so no pictures of this, though I thought he should have worn the half marathon medal to the defense. Turns out he didn't need the medal. The defense went amazingly well and he passed with no revisions of the content (though he did have to make some minor editorial changes here and there, but who cares about that?). In some ways it is hard to believe it's finally over, though he's worked so hard for it, it certainly is easy to believe he would do so well. His committee complimented him on how well-written the document was and how well-prepared he was. I really can't gush enough about how well he did. And it's all over, just in time to graduate. He just has to wrap up some clerkship hours and walk across a stage next month and then everyone has to call him Doctor.

Ellie is a bundle of energy as always and surprises us with new words and tricks every day. Lately she's been pointing out letters she sees on signs, people's T-shirts, or salad dressing bottles. Apparently PBS Kids has been rubbing off on her. I've been trying to catch her doing her letters on the camera for a few weeks now, but she is a hard one to catch in the act--not much of a performer on demand usually. Finally, this morning at breakfast I got her. It took me a second to get the camera going, so we missed 'A.' And for some reason she won't say 'S,' which is weird because that's what she used to call all the letters.



She can count to ten too, but that's even harder to catch since she really doesn't know what she's doing when she's saying the numbers, just kind of absent mindedly rattles them off at random times.

Not to be left out, Baby Brother is as wiggly and active as ever. I'm at 21 weeks along now. I remember reading that at 15 weeks a fetus can flex his fingers into a fist. That seems pretty remarkable to me. In less than a semester's time, he went from being a single cell to being able to bring his hand from a splayed-fingered position to curling it up in a ball. I don't think any of my college students made such advances in a single semester (not that they weren't smart, but c'mon). We're six weeks past that mark now. Who knows what this kid can do? He's probably worked his way up to differential equations by now. Genius.

(p.s. Not sure why this is saying this post is written by Brady. It isn't. He's not bragging about himself.)