Well Christmas has come and gone. It was one of the better ones. We unfortunately did not have enough time to see all our family, and we miss you guys who we couldn't see. But we did get to spend time with our immeadiate families. We first went to Chicago and saw the Mulders in all their glory (well Laura was not in her full glory... a touch of the Christmas flu I think.) Being soundly past that horrible phase in life when the family is a drag, the more time I spend with them, the more I wish I could see them more often. For the record, Brian and I are the Euchre champs for 2006. For Sarah this Christmas was monumental. For one, she got off work for a couple of days for it. More importantly, she hosted her family's Christmas for the first time this year. Our house was filled with 8 Hull family members. The tree overflowed with gifts and the mantel couldn't handle many more stockings. All in all, it was a wonderful year. My woodshop got a little bigger, the running gear got cooler, and the snow got a lot easier to throw, but greatest of all is the love of family living and growing. May we be even stronger next year. Merry Christmas everyone... we love you all.

Two Loons
So I hear some people think that this Blog under-represents the second and likely loonier loon in the marriage so here is my post...
Life is good. I'm working at the pediatric ER at a community hospital across town. The hours are great, the people there are great and the patients are great too. 9 out of 10 of them have nothing that needs to be addressed in an ER. (chief complaint: belly pain x 2 months should be seen by the regular doctor not 1am on Thursday morning) but I've seen some pretty sick kids too. And I don't even mind seeing all the kids with colds.
The other day I saw a little boy who was crafting with his mother and suddenly began complaining of nose pain. Mom brought him to the ER and after a thorough exam I discovered he had an eye in his nose. That's right, I took my light and peered up the left nostril and saw a googlie eye staring back at me. I resisted the temptation to ask him to shake his head so I could see the plastic pupil role back and forth and rather removed it with a pair of tweezers. An easy cure and a warning to anyone who thinks paper reindeer crafting is harmless.
I also wonder about parenting skills on the west side of town as I have fixed more nursemaids elbows in the past 2 weeks than I have seen in my entire career. They must be yanking their kids around by the wrist all day.
Anyway enough about work. Life at home is great too. Joel seems to be enjoying teaching for the most part. (see last post) but I think I may need to get him a kevlar vest for Christmas. I do admit that his Christmas decorations this year are pretty cool and I can't wait to have my family in town to see them this Christmas. I'm trying not to get myself to excited about the holiday yet because I have to take the third step of my licensing exam on the 20th and 21st. Wish me luck. I don't remember much about adult medicine except that I hear crushing chest pain is bad. Love you all and hopefully Joel will let me post again soon!
Sarah

What a day. Sarah and I both had a harrowing day. The difference is that Sarah just left for work, so her day isn't over. I just got home and am having a nice drink to settle my nerves. More on that later. So if you live in Cleveland or are a big fan of the weather channel, you know that there are two big air masses colliding over Cleveland right now. This is creating a fair amount of wind. Enough wind, it turns out, to pull the biggest branch off the biggest tree on our property. Those of you who know our property and are thinking of the trees right now might be asking yourself, "Is the biggest tree on the Mulders' property that maple that the power lines run under." Yes. Yes it is. Luckily, the powerlines didn't break... unluckily they ripped the service off our house and scattered it in pieces in our side yard and the live wires landed in that big puddle that likes to form in our driveway. So here is the good news.... the newly restored garage survived unscathed!!! and we got some firewood for the winter. The electric company responded quickly and everything is back together. Well as far as electrical is concerned. Now we have to call the other utilities and get those reconnected to the house. Pretty exciting day for Sarah. Mine however was more exciting. Some of my blogging audience may be Pearl Jam fans. I find them to be a predictable cliche but my wife likes them and told me about the song "Jeremy." This is a song about a boy in school named Jeremy who got picked on by his classmates and had such a rough life that it made him snap. Well, yeah. I had a boy in my class today named Jeremy. He's a good kid. Those who are reading this who have the last name Mulder, did you get called "moldy" as a kid? I did. Jeremy got called "Germy," and didn't take it well. He was in my homeroom class as well as first period science. By the end of science class I thought Jeremy was a trouble maker, since I saw him jump up and sucker punch Joshua in the face. He went to the principal. I had Jeremy in my lunch period and my ninth period. After talking to Jeremy in my lunch period, I realized that Jeremy was picked on everyday by his peers. It reminded me of people calling me moldy. We talked about ignoring it, and Jeremy told me how hard it was. In my ninth period Jeremy was off in the corner looking at the gerbil cage. When I asked him to sit down, he told me that he was focusing on the gerbils because it helped him ignore the students picking on him. I invited him to come sit at my desk with me and he thought that was cool. Man am I glad he was sitting next to me, because the class I had was the most unmanageable class I've ever had. Jeremy and I were talking about his dog when the class decided to taunt him again. I had already given out detentions for this behavior, but they didn't seem to have an effect. Poor Jeremy heard Germy one too many times, and for the first time in my life I saw white hot blinding rage. Jeremy grabbed a pair of scissors of my desk and jumped at the girl who called him Germy. I caught him. I had him in a bear hug with one hand on the scissors. For 5 minutes he fought with all he was worth. The obscenities he was spewing and threats he was making made the whole class sober up and close their mouths. Jeremy talked of killing everyone in the school. "I want to bring a gun and kill the teachers, the students, the office people, then I want to blow up the school." I realized that it was a good thing I had one hand on the pair of scissors, because he was looking to stab anyone he could. As much as he argued I held him until security showed up. I did get the scissors away from him. After Jeremy left, the whole class and I had a good talk about what it meant to be ridiculed, how it felt, and why we did it ourselves. Many students apologized to me afterwards and said they felt bad for Jeremy. I wish I could talk to Jeremy though. I wonder what's going to happen to him. I know he's in counseling right now. About five teachers from nearby classrooms see me as a hero. After school they all came to my classroom to meet me and apologize for Jeremy. I told them I liked Jeremy. The poor guy has never been taught how to deal with ridicule. I remember my teasing education and the most meaningful phrase, "Joel, you need to have a thicker shell." Thanks dad. I wish everyone could teach their children how to handle the world. That's one reason I got into teaching. I hope I helped today. I'd like to think I did.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. It was a great day. We had a 20 lb turkey, so the sandwiches will be many. Since there is a five year tradition of Thanksgiving alternating between being hosted by the Mulders and the Stimmells, Sean and I have created a competition of who had the bigger bird. I fear eventually we will be eating ostrich just to keep the competition going. For dinner this year we had eight people: Nate, Tracy, Sadie, Sean, Sarah, Joel, Angela, and Kata (left to right). Kevin and Kelly showed up after dinner for games. Lily and Charlie, the four legged ones, made the day quite lively. The only mishap was that we forgot the traditional green jell-o in the fridge and nobody got any. To give credit where credit is due, Sean is the card champion of Thanksgiving 2006. The guy seems to have a gift when it comes to playing hearts.
Sarah and I started Thanksgiving day with the five mile Turkey Trot race. It was a beautiful day and we got to do a lovely run around downtown Cleveland. We also both had very good running times. However, the first 100 across the finish line got pumpkin pies and we didn't get one. I actully placed 363rd. Sarah was a little behind me. There was a total of 1982 runners. Because we ran 5 miles in the morning, we felt justified while feasting that afternoon. All in all it was a great day. If anyone is interested in leftovers, we have plenty.

OK so it took two weeks for an update this time. The reason for this is simple... nothing happened the first week. Now there is plenty to talk about. Sarah starts a new rotation today, ER. I assume it will be just like the t.v. show. The great part about this rotation is that she will come home to me every night this month (Don't get your hopes up, Bo). Most days it's a normal 9 to 5 job. This will be nice during the Thanksgiving/ Christmas season. As for me, I have been teaching like crazy. I run back and forth between high school and middle school. I printed up some business cards which I would leave on the teacher's desk when I leave, and they worked like a charm. I have so much work that now I only leave cards on the science teachers desks. The learning curve for the substitute teacher is sharp. Every day I impliment new tactics to manage my classroom, but still some days I come home feeling like I just spent the day in a wrestling ring. There are rewards though (besides the meager paycheck) Last week when I got lunch in the cafeteria, a table of students begged me to sit and eat lunch with them. Now that's a good feeling. By the way, cafeteria pizza hasn't changed in 20 years.
Another exciting time for the Ohio Mulders is the event we attended this weekend, a fish auction. Yea, just like a regular auction, only everyone there is a fish geek, including me. We spent a better part of the day in bidding wars for African cichlids. Using some Christmas money from the Grevengoeds, (THANKS GRAMPS!!) we got some nice one's. The pictures aren't great, because taking pictures through an aquarium has been rated as one of the most difficult things to do. It's right there below hearding cats. However, you can get the gist of our great acquisitions. The first picture (from top to bottom) shows brichardi, julichromis, compressiscep, and another brichardi. The next picture shows the hazards these new little guys have in their tank. Note the new fish below the striped one. Sushi anyone? All in all we got 20 new fish, and the tank is hoppin'.
Now to finish up this post with a quick movie review. Having half the genes of our fathers, we felt compelled to venture forth to view the new bond movie on opening night. Believe it or not, Sarah had to convince me... yup, Sarah's idea. I must say I liked it. It is a pre-quil, and it definitly shows a less refined Bond. He doesn't even know how he likes his martini's yet. It's a little more action and intensity then previous Bond flicks and definitely not for kids. However, the suspense and the plot twists make for a great film. The Ohio Mulders give it two thumbs up.
Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone!! We are thankful for all of you.
-Mulders

It's another rainy day in Cleveland. This is the start of the "sun? what's a sun?" season here. This season will last until around May. Today is election day here in these beautiful United States of America. I hope all who read this have done their civic duty. Well Ok, perhaps some readers are too young to vote yet, but when the time comes you know what to do... and if you don't, find out. I will say no other political commentary here, other than vote for who you feel is looking out for you, and not themselves. Besides if I did make some commentary, I probably would get a red flag and a government log started on some mainframe in the pentagon's basement. However, living in Ohio I do feel I have the most right to complain. Has anyone looked into our election lately... many people vote by absentee to protest poorly secured voting machines and mysteriously the absentee ballots disappear. Does it have anything to do with the fact that the person in charge of running the elections is also running for governor? Nah, why would a conflict of interest alarm go off? Just because half of Ohio's incumbants have criminal records.... enough said about that.
On a happier note, I'm working more steadily in the substituting trenches (and I thought construction was hard.) I really enjoy it and am getting a lot of good feedback. The substitute office at the C.H. board of Ed. is already getting request for me from some teachers. I've also had students ask when I'll start teaching at their school. I've found that the middle schoolers are easier to manage than the high schoolers. I think it's because I can still strike a little fear into the middle schoolers. It's hard to intimidate someone twice your size. I'm not saying I haven't done it... I'm saying it was hard.
We had a visit from Bo and Cindy this past weekend and it was delightful. It's always nice to see Cindy. We would love any more visits from anyone reading this blog. We bought a big house in order to make guest feel welcome. We haven't seen most of you in Cleveland since the first summer we lived here. There is so much more to see and do here at the Two Loon's Lodge.

We'll leave a light on for ya.

Oh yea I changed the Photo Gallery link so that it is now a shutterfly website. There are more pictures to view and (per request) you can order prints if you'd like. Have fun.

Annnnnnnnd. DONE!!! I managed to rebuild a corrupt boot volume within my computer and she's online again. Although from the amount of comments (either on the blog or any other means) I receive, I pretty sure no one even noticed that my beginning of the week update didn't occur. I set up the blog to receive anyone's comments. Halloween came and went and we saw all kinds of kids at our door. It is fun living in a neighborhood. I must say, however, that the general public is getting quite ridiculous. We had many a kids and teens who had no costume and just walked around for candy. Worse than that, we had many parents who had their own bags (still no costume) and would pocket some for themselves. I even had one mother whom after I told her cute little girl to take one piece of candy from the bowl helped herself to three candy bars greedily saying, "MMMM these are good... Oh I like these too!!" The little girl followed instructions and took only one, but looked heart broken when she saw that mommy had three. On the off chance that that mother is reading my blog... You should be ashamed. Anywho, Sarah is working in the nursery these days and often exclaims upon arriving home, "There are some really cute babies in the nursery." I don't quite know what she's getting at. For me... I finally will be teaching 9-12 grade math tomorrow. Anyone remember what the Pythagorean theorem is???

Unfortunately, blogs will not be updated frequently due to the recent power surge frying my computer. We're working on the problem.

Another weeks gone by. Not a lot going on this week. Sarah worked like crazy and Joel just wishes he would get some work. We did finalize holiday plans this week, so those of you keeping track here ya go. Thanksgiving will be here in Ohio. Sarah did get the day off, so we will be cooking a large turkey, making pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and of course green jell-o. As tradition states, albeit a short one, Sean and Sadie will be joining us for Thanksgiving, but that only makes four of us and if tradition hold, we will cook enough food for 10. So if you'd like to come spend the day with us, just RSVP and bring a bottle of wine. For Christmas we will be spending the weekend before in Chicago for the Mulder family Celebration and returning to Ohio on Christmas eve where we have the honor of hosting the Hull family Christmas. Sarah is very excited to host her first family Christmas and I believe I saw a little bit of a 10 year old's fervor in her.
As for the current holidays, we did a little festive pumpkin carving on Saturday. We both won awards in very legitimate categories. Sarah won "most reflective of actual art," and Joel won "most inefficient use of space." We are both very proud. Come to think of it... everyone at the party won in some category or another... huh. Anyway, today is Monday and things just aren't right here. Check out this picture of my mums. See anything wrong for mid-October. Ahhhhh!!! It's snowing like crazy! This is just going to make Sarah more anxious for Joel to get the electrical out to the garage.

What? Huh? Another week's gone by? Time flies these days. So many things show how time just flits on past us. The most obvious in Ohio this week was our first snow. Yeah. Snow. Here we are, minding our own business, thinking we got plenty of time left in the summer to do all those crazy awesome things that we do in the summer, and BOOM, it snows. Truth be known, it was kinda fun to see. Anywho. We keep on keepin' on. Sarah is still in PICU (pediatric intesive care unit) and it's still kinda rough. She's on call every fourth night, which is acceptable for a month or so, but since Sarah is going to do a lot of interviews for new residents coming up, the powers that be scheduled all her heavy call months early in the year. She has been on call every fourth night since July. Much more of this and she will need some kind of 'ICU. Unfortunately she has one more rotation of it. As for Joel, he plunges head first into substituting next week. (hey, who's writing this?) All the paperwork is in order, fingerprints have been taken and filed, and FBI background checks have all cleared (told ya so). He is excited to get back to work again. Although with that and a full time school schedule, he may need an 'ICU. He did run his first competitive race today and it was a complete success. Although not as spectacular as Sarah's 26.2 mile triumph, Joel and Kevin ran a respectable 5K run in Cleveland's Race for the Cure. They completed it in less than 34 minutes... that's 10.8 minutes per mile people! Well hey, they were proud, it's their first race... but not their last. Plans are underway for next month's "Turkey trot." It's a 5 mile run that helps support food shelters in Cleveland. Kevin and Joel like to run for causes, using their powers for the good of mankind.
Well that's about all there is this week in Ohio. Enjoy the fall my friends. It's a magical time of year.

I've added a some new links, over there... to your right. There is not a lot in the photo gallery now, but the galleries will grow. You can also sponsor Joel in his 5K this Saturday. The money supports cancer research. And then there's Kevin's blog... the views expressed on Kevin's blog are those of his own and may not reflect the views of Two Loon's... but then again... they may.

So here it is. The Ohio Mulders have decided to take that extra jump into the 21st century and create a blog. This will be handy for all the friends and family to catch up on the Ohio Mulders who are notorious for going a long time without phone calls or emails or any other signs of life. So here ya go. There is a lot going on in Ohio. Most exciting is that Sarah finished her first marathon!! Yeah, she and our friend Sadie ran 26+ miles for no apparent reason. Sean, Sadie's husband, and I watched as best we knew how. She finished in 5 hrs. and 2 minutes. Not to shabby. It was truly inspiring for me, and I have decided to join her running hobby as well. This Saturday I will be running a small 5K race for the cure in Cleveland. Yeah, I'm starting out small, but we are already looking at different marathons around the area that we could both do together. The beauty of the whole thing is the price of the hobby. $70 for a nice pair of shoes and you're good to go.
In other news, as some already know, I have decided to leave collegiate academia. It was a hard decision, but I feel that my talents and temperament is better suited for a different path. The path that I am now embarking on is secondary education. Since I already have a lot of experience in biology content as well as some teaching experience, I was accepted into an accelerated program at Cleveland State University (CSU). I will be fully licensed to teach by next fall and just like my new hobby it is free. Since Ohio is in need of good high school science teachers there is a state grant to train qualified individuals. I applied and they fell for it. That demand in Ohio also all but guarantees me a job in the fall. Finally I'll be out in the real world again. I've started classes and enjoy them. Next week I'll begin substituting for Cleveland Heights School district.
That's about all that is going on. It's fall and the world is beautiful. The nights are getting so cold that Sarah and I pulled in our house plants from outside. We counted 53 this year. Sarah insists we have enough, but I'm not so sure. Keep checking this site, since I intend to post frequently. Emphasis on "intend." And to all who read this blog remember, there is always a room at the Two Loon's Lodge.