Epbot Exemplars: Thor in a Tutu, Brony Love, & The Best Big Brother Ever

Exemplars are geeks who know what they love, and show it with pride. I keep it mostly girl-centric here at Epbot, but I always reserve the right to feature anyone who helps inspire me to be a better me.

Meet Sabrina's niece, the mighty Zola:

Zola lived in an orphanage in the Congo until she was two and a half, when Sabrina's sister and her husband traveled there to adopt her.  During the journey Zola's new mom nearly lost her arm due to an infectious mosquito bite, and then she caught malaria and nearly died. (EEK!) Happily the three of them are home and healthy now, though, and taking fabulous family portraits like this:

 YESSS.

Sabrina writes,

 "Zola has been such an amazing joy in our lives, and as you can see from the pictures, she’s adjusting to life in the U.S just fine, and all 3 of them are doing fantastic! In September she turned 3 and had the MOST Amazing (Girly) Dinosaur Party. And for Halloween she [was] Thor.  I think she makes a GREAT Thor… Don’t you?" 

Why yes, yes I do. :D

***

Abbie N. has 3 boys and a girl, and writes:

"My oldest also has Autism, and SPD...and he's a hardcore Brony. He's gotten teased a bit, but has handled it SO well, and I couldn't be more proud. Now, if we could only get more MLP shirts for boys!! I can find them for men, but not so much for boys, [so] I had this one made:"

"Yeah...he was just a teeeeeeensy bit excited."

Look at that smile! Haha! I love it!

Abby tells me her daughter Judy, on the other hand, is completely in love with Voltron and all things superhero:

 "She wanted to be called 'Miss Captain America'... until I told her that girls can be captains, too!"

Aw yeeeeah. Way to raise 'em right, Abby!

 ***

Cynthia wrote to tell me about her daughter Brianna, dressed here at her Karate studio as Xena, Warrior Princess:

Cynthia made the costume out of a thrifted leather jacket - how cool is that? And these photos are actually a couple of years old, so get this: Brianna is a black belt now. She's a real live warrior princess, y'all! SO COOL.

***

And finally, you guys simply HAVE to read this exchange Gabrielle R. sent me:

"My 10 year old son Colin was horrified to learn that his 5 year old sister Alyssa wanted to be Wolverine for Halloween. Not the girl version with the tutu... the straight from the boys section muscle-bound Wolverine. He was convinced somehow that his sister dressing up like a boy hero was going to be the most embarrassing thing ever.

"Now, my daughter has her own opinions about what she does and doesn't like, but when it comes to her brother, she is usually quite the follower... so I was interested to hear what she'd say when he told her he didn't want her to dress up like a boy for Halloween.

"Her response?

"'Colin, people need to understand that it's okay for girls to like heroes too.'

"Well he thought about it for a minute, and then took her into his room. 10 minutes later, they came out dressed like this:"

Dang it, who started cutting invisible onions in here?

So many invisible onions...  [sniffle]

Oh, and as a bonus geeky grin, Gabrielle sent along this photo of the same brother and sister, five years earlier:

 

D'awww.

Speaking as a sister who also has a geeky older brother - and one who let me play Star Wars and Laser Tag with him, at that, this makes me ridiculously happy.

I hope today's Exemplars inspired you, guys! As always, feel free to share your own stories and photos (just don't forget everyone's names!) either on the Epbot Facebook page or by e-mail.