The results are in!! Sarah and I both completed the half marathon on Sunday. That's 13.1 miles people. Sarah did an impressive 2 hr. 13 min. run, beating her previous score all during a month of working in the Neo-Natal intensive care(NICU) wards where she had little time to train. Joel feels good about his run too, running a 1 hr. 42 min run. His only hope is that he beat his sister's first long run pace. I mean really, there's gotta be something in life he's better than Karen at.
Other than the race, there is little going on here in Cleveland. The NICU wards have been keeping Sarah very busy and with school wrapping up, Joel has had little time to breath as well. There is only nine more days of school left before exams and the summer will be more than welcome. The good news for Joel is that he continues to love teaching high school as well as continues to impress his employers. The latest recruit to the "hire Joel" bandwagon is the football coach. That's a long story. Let's just say that if there is any business sense rubbed off from Joel's father, it's the ability to befriend just about anyone (Although Joel can't put a radio together to save his life... not even a crappy one.)
Sarah this week received her Ohio Medical License in the mail along with a wallet version. I guess she has to keep that in case there is the age ole question of "is there a doctor in the house?" Sucker. Now she's obligated to assist any ailing Ohioian who asks the question. No Bo... you do not qualify as an Ohioian. In fact from what I hear lately, you're getting closer and closer to qualifying as a nomad.
At the end of May, Sarah starts her mini-chief month (which some have referred to as a " mini-vacation month") and Joel is done teaching. Then will start the salad days. We look forward to a good summer this year. Lots of gardening and a little house work. Although, our plans on house work have changed. There will be no major renovations this summer, just a little sprucing up. If you were involved in said processes, communication will be forthcoming.
In conclusion, to all those who harassed the Ohio Mulders about updating their blog... for shame. When is the last time you updated yours. I know of only one who even has a blog. The plank in your eyes preclude you from asking me to remove my speck. Kelly, I do acknowledge that you updated before I did, but six times?... Let's not exaggerate. You caught up a little.... a little.

Ok Ok. Here is a new post. I didn't even realize it's been over a month since the last post. Wow how time flies when you are incredibly busy. Let's see.... what has happened since the last post. Oh yeah, Sarah came home. Sarah arrived home from Malawi on the first day of my spring break. This came as great convenience in the fact that we had some down time to catch up with each other. The weather was wonderful. It had been warm for two weeks and the crocus bulbs that I had planted in October had flowered just in time for Sarah to be greeted home by a floral valentine. We spent the first three days of the week in the Hocking Hills for a mini-vacation. I intended to take pictures of the spring flowers in that beautiful region of the state, but Sarah and I never left our little cabin in the woods. We spent the whole time talking, and telling stories, and filling each other in on the last two months of our lives. I am truly lucky to have a wife who is my best friend. The last half of the week we went up to Michigan to see some family. Sarah's brother, Nathan, is getting married soon and wedding showers have began for his fiance, Heather. So while Sarah attended a shower the Hull boys and I went to do guy stuff... a war movie. 200 is a cinematic masterpiece, although it is a bit historically inaccurate. It's as if some one read his history book at the same time as Lord of the Rings and tried to recall the Spartans' story a year later. After having our sense of history offended we went up to the farm to cool off. That is some beautiful land up there this time of year. The wildlife is all starting to get active after winter's sleep. If anyone reading this is within a short drive of Big Rapids, I know Bo would love company, and its really worth the trip. On our way home from the farm we stopped at Greg and Jill's for a wonderful dinner with family. Not only did we get to see Greg's family, who obviously didn't wait for spring to do their growing, but the Grevengoeds were there as well. It was great to catch up with all of them. Then we came home and had our sights on spring gardening the next weekend. Sarah and I drempt of digging in the dirt and planting flowers and vegetables and then Ohio did what it does best... depress you. We got our biggest snow storm of the season. On Easter morning the city of Cleveland shut down. We spent Easter morning with our friends and neighbors digging ourselves our. Although this sounds sad it really isn't. We all agreed that the gregarious time and love of friends really showed that the God of Love is truly alive. Between working hard to dig out and playing hard with friends Sarah and I stopped to give thanks for the storm (and the snowthrower dad gave us.) So life plods on and we have put our heads down to wait our the last hurrah of winter. The snow is just about gone now but the cold has not quite given up yet. Winter is still around, but there is promise of spring. Yesterday I saw our local stray cat (OSKy) waddle through our backyard with an obvious promise of spring time kittens. Anyone want a calico?

Time for another wonderful Mulder blog. Sarah is doing well in Africa and all I have to say about that is "only 10 more days!!!" I have been keeping very busy with work, which has been nice. I'm so exhausted by the time I hit the pillow that I barely notice that my bed is lonely. I have been really enjoying teaching at the high school. I'm turning the most notorious classes around and making lots of friends. This photo is evidence to why it is a bad idea to fall asleep in Mr. Mulder's classroom... especially when he brought a camera that day. I am very proud of the progress my students have made in science. More and more I have students coming for extra help after school and administration commenting about the good reports they are receiving from both students and staff. They are even overlooking some of my more unorthodox behaviors. One day I had my whole class walking backwards down the hallway to try to get a grasp on the concept of "frame of reference." Yesterday I was even immortalized in a student made comic book, which I believe may be the highest honor a teacher can receive.
I did take a few days off last week and flew down to Florida to see my parents at The Villages. As much as it was "Disney for the retired" I had a lot of fun. I got to go fishing with T.J., my college room mate, the first day there and man did I catch a big fish. T.J. caught it on film.I think the angle of the picture makes it look smaller or something, because that thing must have weighed 4 lbs. easy. My dad, Tj and I had a great day on the river, even if the fish weren't biting all that readily. Since the last time I really saw Tj, he acquired a wife and three daughters, but he hasn't changed a bit. He's still a great guy who will do anything for ya. I hope to make it a habit to go down to Orlando and do some fishing with him. I have to go at least once more, because he wants to meet the crazy woman who would marry his old room mate, and that crazy woman would like to meet him too. Another great thing about heading down to Florida was seeing my sister and her family. It's always a great thing to spend some time as the uncle. I promised Sarah some blog photos of some healthy kids, so here they are... in their pajamas.
All in all life is going pretty good. It's very busy, but in 10 days my wife comes home on the same day my spring break starts. We are then disappearing into the woods for a while, followed by a trip up to Michigan. Since Nathan and Heather's wedding is approaching, the bridal showers have started. My job will to be to keep Nathan and Bo company during the event, and gosh darn it I'm going to give it my all!

I was reminded of the quote today and I can't help but think that it applies to everyone I have ever met. I think it would make a fitting title to my post

"Work Like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like nobody is watching"

Greetings everyone, I wish I could say that I am blogging from Malawi but alas the internet is too slow to upload anything and this comes by way of my own personal knight in shining armor with high speed internet!

Here in Blantyre the big news today is that one of the two cell phone companies in the country burned to the ground taking its mainframe with it and leaving more than half of Malawi without any means of communication. The buzz around town is that the rival phone company set the fire because more people were switching to that service. Scandal, Arson and Corporate espionage in Malawi!!! You wouldn't think that cell phones are big here, but the dark continent is not so in the dark. Often I'll be seeing a patient, lying on the bed with literally a rag for a pair of pants and no shirt on next to his mother who is wrapped in the traditional Malawian swaths of fabric, faded with years of wear. And I am always amazed when I hear the distinct tune of fur Elise escaping from the shopping bag that doubles as a purse, suitcase (more rags) and lunch box. Everyone has a cell phone, only very rich people have a land line.

Malaria season is in full gear. Every bed in the children's ward is taken and on my ward we've added half beds. The 4 year old boy in bed 11 1/2 sleeps on the floor between beds eleven and twelve. His name is Madalitso and he happens to be my favorite patient right now and not just because he loves to run around after hours with no pants on but he is a very happy and outgoing kid. Yesterday he was nice enough to draw me a 10' by 12' picture of a "gallimoto" or a cab on the floor of the ward with his new box of crayons. All 12 families in the room had to leave for an hour while his mom mopped it off the floor. I wish I had my camera for that. All the mothers sleep on the floor next to the beds or sometimes they sleep sitting up on benches resting their heads on their child's bed. Sometimes they have other kids with them. Madalitso's little brother Hardwork (yes that's his name) has been on the ward for the whole time his big brother has been hospitalized.

My favorite part of the day is when I hand a kid a mosquito net and say "see you in a month Madalitso, watch out for the mosquitoes" My least favorite part of the day is when they don't make it to that point.

There is so much I wish I could share with all of you but to sum it up, pineapple and passion fruit are in season, it rains at 3pm most days, Malawian people are really into shoes and HIV sucks.

Hello all. Yeah, it's been awhile since the last blog. It's March already for crying out loud. Maybe it's because not much goes on without my wife. Maybe it's because I have no time to sit down at my computer. Since I started my new job as a science teacher, I've been going non-stop. I didn't realize it would be so much work and be so draining. It's now Saturday morning and its the first time I've had to relax in two weeks. My plans are to do absolutely nothing, and I love it. I also love my new job. I have got a great bunch of kids. This photo is only one of my 5 classes of freshman. Yeah, those are 9th graders. They are making them bigger these days. They were all very excited to take the picture (especially when they heard that Mrs. Mulder would be seeing it in Africa) but as you can see the guys still have to keep up that cool look. The guy in the front is Andre. He's my class clown. I'm pretty sure Andre's going to be a lawyer, because he will always try to argue a technicality in order to avoid schoolwork. I have a total of 90 students each day and I love every one of them. I'm not saying I get along with all of them or that some don't drive me up a wall. I'm just saying that deep down my kids have great potential and I love trying to show it to them. Sometimes getting them to see it is the hardest part. This past Thursday was parent teacher night. Six hours of parents cycling through different subjects. It was fun to meet the parents of some of my kids, but unfortunately only a small fraction of the parents attended. A lot of parents don't seem to care, and it always shows in their students behavior. As much as I was embarrassed each time I found little notes all over my locker the next day, I'm very lucky to have parents that always came to my parent teacher nights when I was in school.
Well the coffee is ready, so I'm going to start my busy day of drinking coffee and wishing it was spring time.

Today I started my first day as a full time teacher. Wooof!! So the story goes that this teacher started the new year in September and took medical leave less than two months later. Huh? A substitute who we'll call Hat guy (due to the ridiculous hat he liked to wear in the winter time) filled in for this nice lady while she was gone. Just recently she told the school board that she was taking early retirement. "Well [Hat guy] is going to have to fill in for the rest of the year," said the principal
"How's he doing in that classroom?" "More than 2/3 of the class is failing!!" "Really?! Is [Hat guy] qualified to be doing this?" "I'll check his credentials... OOPSS!!" "Quick find a certified long term sub for science."
This looks like a job for Mr. Mulder.
Joel was asked by the principal on a Monday. Due to multiple snow days, some formalities were skipped and Human Resources called him on Thursday afternoon, telling him to start Monday. Being the intrepid go getter that he is, on Friday Joel travels makes the 1/2 mile trek to the high school to meet this principal again and get a handle on "the ropes." Our hero's heart sunk when he learned from the secretary that the principal was out sick that day, and no one in the office new anything about him starting on Monday. The only advice given was come back Monday morning.
Well Joel doesn't take this lying down. He tracks down a science teacher that he knows and gets the scoop on the curriculum. He spends the weekend refreshing his memory on Newton's laws and force diagrams.
When Monday arrives our fearless warrior, akin to the greats such as Gilgamesh and Jason of Troy, finds the principal and is told that Hat guy will be working with him for the first week, so that those legendary "ropes" may be found. But first the principal had to find [Hat guy] in the building so that he could inform him that Friday is his last day. YEAH!! POOR HAT GUY DIDN'T KNOW!!! Well let's just say that the rest of the day was , hmmm.... awkward. Hat guy was not happy. I figured since this was the first day of the week, I'd just observe his class to get to know the students and see where they are. I mean, our hero did. At the end of the day the bomb fell squarely in Gilgajoelson's face. Hat guy announced, "I'm not coming back this week. You're on your own." Now our warrior must head into battle tomorrow on his own. Cannons to the left of him. Cannons to the right of him. Cannons in front of him. Rides the one. Oh yeah, Gilgajoelson was also informed today that the nice lady who went on medical leave did so because of her (now his) sixth period class. The likes of which the high school has never seen. Medical leave was code for nervous breakdown. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!
tune in next time for more adventures from the tales of "What did I sign up for??!!"

ps. Sarah arrived safely in Africa and so did her luggage... two days later.

Well ok. So it has been awhile since the last post. I figured the previously mentioned humdrums would buy me some time, since very little occurs during the humdrums. On top of the humdrums, we are in this deep freeze that is reminiscent of the bottom level of Dante's inferno. Our old house is having a hard time battling out the cold. At times a slight cold wind will be felt inside. Sarah and I have dealt with this the best way we know... going to the botanical gardens. The gardens are a favorite of ours for many reasons: they remind us of our wedding day at the Meijer gardens, they warm us up in the hard winter, and they give us a slight taste of how life will be when we move to the middle of the jungle and disappear from society. Aahh life will be good. Living off the land without a care in the world. We already have the majority of the vaccinations known to man and we know the secrets of the fire swamp, so we feel we could live quite comfortable in the wilds. Here Sarah is coaxing in a scrumptious butterfly to have as a tapas in a jungle feast. See that look of hunger in her eyes? The exodus grows closer and closer everyday. In two days Sarah leaves for Africa. One of her missions is to stake out a place in the Great Rift Valley where we could create a homestead. She leaves me here to start packing. If she can find a good one, I'll join her soon enough. But until then we must just dream of our futures, and live in the present. Towards that end there is some good news in the "present" category. It seems I have procured a long term teaching position at the high school. I'll have my own classroom, a steady job, and about twice the pay. The only hitch is that it's been so cold lately that the schools are closed, so I'm having trouble tracking down the principal to discuss the job. I bet African schools are never closed due to cold.

Sarah Here Now: Well I have a couple of days left here in the Frigid cold (we're getting soft, it's a whole 8 degrees outside) before I trade it for 85 and raining each day. I'm going to try to post a few blogs from Malawi if I can. If I can't I'll try to stay in touch with e-mail. I'll let you all know when I find our new homestead. The address might be something like this:
The hut next to the lake just north of the old hippo field. Wish me luck everyone and enjoy the rest of the winter!
Stay warm everyone, and keep dreaming of spring like us.

Life plods on here in Ohio. We are smack in the middle of the Ohio seasonal humdrums. It rained for about three days strait. After which we had the luck of it turning to snow. I got to use my snow thrower again. Previously I only had a chance to use it for one snowfall and it's a lot of fun to use. So we are again blanketed in white and in sub freezing temperatures. It came just in time to successfully put the buds and bulbs back into hibernation. They were almost to their point of no return. A couple more days of 40's and 50's and our lilac bushes would have had leaves.
There seems to be no work for subs this week. The public schools here in Cleveland Heights have their final exams this week. That means shortened days and plenty of full time teachers available so that they don't have to pay subs. It does allow me to get other projects done. I put together my workshop. Check it out. As you can see there is a pegboard with my lovely tools hanging above a desk level work area. The old work bench is still there in the distance with my wonderful miter saw on it. Between the two is new shelving. The piece de resistance is the peninsula coming into the foreground of the picture. It features my new table saw(thanks Bo) built in, which I used to build the aforementioned, as well as a fold out extention creating a large beautiful work area. Now the eloquent pieces of wooden poetry may flow from my tools, mind, and inspiration.
Speaking of inspiration, the lack of it for my new running hobby is problematic with this kind of weather. Even with my new ipod running gadgety gizmo (thanks dad) it was getting tough to find the motivation to get out and run. Towards that end Sarah and I both signed up for the Cleveland half marathon this May 10th. Now I have to train, or suffer the humiliation of not completing the run which I'm sure Sarah will complete. Free housing will be available for any who want to come cheer us on.

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.