an LSU rainmaker

Well, I know Graham isn't going to blog about last night. So, as his biggest supporter, I get to be the one to tell you all the great news. Last night, Graham and I attended a dinner where he was named one of this year's LSU Rainmakers -- the top 100 faculty researchers at LSU! Each department was able to nominate one highly productive scholar for every 20 faculty members in their department. The senior faculty members in our department decided months ago that Graham was our department's nomination. Later, we learned that he had been selected as one of the one hundred overall honorees for the entire university.

In a nutshell, he was nominated for this very prestigious award based on his work within his very first year as a faculty member. I'm sure you agree that this really is a fantastic honor. We were only able to get one photo for the night when we returned home {well, we could have had the official photographer take one at the dinner, but no one else was and who wants to be uncool at an academic dinner ;) }. Looks like some really short person has been kissing that mirror again ...

Unfortunately, the joy of the night was tempered by the fact that Eden and I had just returned from the doctor's office an hour earlier where we learned that Eden has to have breathing treatments for the next few days. It seems her lingering cough from the past two weeks really should already be gone. So, we're giving her three treatments a day to fight the congestion that has taken up residence in her chest. The doctor didn't seem worried, and we did breathing treatments last year when she had bronchiolotis. Just hopeful that it really does help her cough, and she's able to get back to being 100% healthy.

Regardless, Eden has been in a great mood today, and we learned she'd had a great time reading books with Emily while we were gone last night. It was so nice to at least be able to focus for a little while on all that Graham has been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. From the looks of the room, he was the youngest person who received the award. Isn't Eden lucky to have a rainmaker for a Daddy?