Brandon Update

1. We celebrated his 29th birthday


2. He is almost finished (like minutes away) with his second quarter at Booth
3. He has trained Alyse to point to him or a picture of him when asked, "Where is daddy?" (she also does this with herself and sometimes with me)
4. HE GOT AN INTERNSHIP FOR THE SUMMER AT ONE OF HIS TOP CHOICES!!!

I alluded to it a little in previous posts, but just so it is stated again: this past quarter has been awful in terms of time, energy, and travel. Brandon started applying for internships during Christmas break, and the focus on recruiting didn't stop until last Tuesday when he got the call from Franklin Templeton. He was emotionally and physically drained from the process and so was I! Needless to say, we are SO grateful and excited for this opportunity...oh, and it's in San Mateo, CA too so we will get to spend the summer in Cali and be close to family too!!! There are a lot of logistics to work through (i.e. where to live/afford to live), but the comfort in knowing we have a great job for the summer helps everything else feel less stressful.

On an unrelated but still fantastic note, Alyse is continuing to grow up and do cool things. Just today, while we were at Target, she pointed to a photo of one of the child clothing models and said: girl. She'd never said that word before! Her favorite word right now is "car" and she said it the whole time I went running with her in the jogging stroller yesterday and the whole drive to and from Target today. She is getting much more adventurous, climbing all over the playground stuff, and we've been able to be outside a ton because the weather has been gorgeous!

She is so used to putting on her hat and gloves to go outside that she doesn't understand that you don't need those when it's nice out!

She is also learning how to color: 1) crayons are not for eating, 2) color the paper and not yourself or the floor or mommy, 3) you can do squiggles, jagged lines, dots,or circles and use any color(s) you want.

She also continues to make up gestures/signs to tell us what she wants: wash/lotion is rubbing her hands together, eating or drinking is when she points to her mouth and makes a little eating noise, baby is when she mimes how she holds her baby doll. Cute stuff :)
The warm weather has increased my energy and enthusiasm...I've been running a few times on the trail, gotten together with friends, made some yummy and healthy meals, and am keeping up with our fitness challenge. We are on week 6 of 10 and I'm loving it because it feels like second nature now to not eat sweets, eat tons of produce, choose healthier options to eat, etc. Next week is Spring break for Brandon, so we are planning several fun Chicago things to do together and looking forward to hanging out with him a lot more!