A fine nearly spring day

Well March is half way over and we are settling into a "routine" here at the lodge. Joel is back at work so he scoots out early in the morning. Dela and I get up soon there after and spend the rest of the day in a cycle that goes something like this

Eat-poop-cry-change-cry-eat-sleep-poop

She is a lot more awake now and is starting to interact a little more. She loves the play mat her grandma Mulder got her for Christmas and goes between that, her rocker chair and mommy's arms. Last weekend she meet her uncles Nathan and David who made it to Cleveland despite 20 inches of snow fall that weekend. They ended up staying a day longer than expected and left with Nana Cindy on Sunday morning after she beat the lot of them in a heated poker game. It's a good thing it was just chips at stake. our father may be the master chess player but mom could be on the poker tours in Vegas.


It was wonderful having Nana Cindy around for a week and I don't know how new moms ever do this without supportive family and patient helpful husbands. I often find myself pondering how single moms and teen mothers ever manage....



Today we put together our new stroller (Thank you Nana) and got out of the house. It was nearly 50 degrees today despite all the snow still left on the ground. We went around the block and through Cain Park. Adeline slept for most of the trip but I'm pretty sure she enjoyed herself despite that. Later while Joel and Dela finished her nap I finally made it to the gym and put a few miles in on the treadmill. Nothing has ever felt so good even if my body has forgotten what a crunch is.





Anyway, We hope to hear from you all soon. Be sure to check out our pics on Shutterfly!

Love you All!

Sarah

We're home!!!

I am proud to e-announce the arrival of Adeline Emma into our lives. This was quite an adventure. One that I will need to forget somewhat by the time we consider our second child. Adeline didn't come easy. We avoided a c-section, but we had almost every other complication available. Before the little girl came out she decided (with no consult from mom or dad) that it would be good to wrap her umbilical cord around her neck and then head toward the birth canal sideways. I think if she had the chance to reconsider this choice, she would. She did ponder the options for quite some time, since she had about 26 hours after Sarah's water broke to think about it before she was born. As a result we utilized every tool imaginable to get the gorgeous little one into this world. Needless to say there were some red flags during delivery that caused Dela to stay the first few days of here life in the intensive care unit. After that she was given a clean bill of health. Bo and Cindy came early, since it was their first grandchild and their only princess, and got to see Adeline right after delivery. Look how proud the new grandparents are.

Grandma and grandpa Mulder came the next day and reveled in the amazing beauty that is Adeline. As you can see, Dela was well liked by all, and it didn't take long before she was rolling with peeps of her own. She does know, however, that peeps are peeps but there is nothing like family. Yesterday the whole family came home and dad proved that he could take a sleeping baby and put her in a 5 point harness car seat with out even waking her. Dad is quickly developing a new skill set.















Today is Friday and all the grandparents are gone... having filled themselves on grandparental love. Now it's just the immediate loons left and the papa loon is left taking care of his two girls. They are using up some well earned nap times.

The Weekend

Well here we are. Nearly a week late and no sign of Adeline yet. For having very punctual parents this girl is taking her sweet time!

To pass the time yesterday Joel and I picked up where we had left off in our quest for a new car worthy enough to replace the Trusty, Rusty Taurus. (I only say trusty because I don't want to hurt the old girl's feelings, she was liable to call it quits for good at any moment.)
We had been looking at several hybrid cars and had wanted to check out the Ford Escape Hybrid. The only problem with that was that they don't make a lot of them and on the off chance that they show up at dealerships they disappear quickly for prices well above MSRP. I don't know about you all but I kind of wanted to drive one before committing to buying one and waiting 6 months on a list for one to show up didn't exactly appeal to me.

So yesterday we did some calling around and found a dealership that happened to have a 2008 on the lot. The only catch was that it was used. Some Dude bought it about 2 months ago put 800 miles on it and decided he wanted something with a little more power so he traded it in a few days ago. His loss... long story short Joel and I now own a slightly used 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid. It's a ton of fun to drive. When you pull to a stop you hear nothing. It sounds like you've stalled out. It's got more umph than we were expecting and certainly more than either car we owned before and you can't beat 34 mpg for an SUV.



So here are a few interesting points worth mentioning.

1. Somewhere along the line my Taurus dropped in value to $400 in the Kelly Blue Book. They gave us $500 for her because last Christmas my wonderful husband put a new stereo with a CD player in it for me. That means that a full 20% of my car's value was in the $99 sound system.

2. Why are American car companies shutting down factories and laying people off yet they have a highly advertised model SUV that they can't keep in stock? Can't they convert some of those plants to produce a car in high demand?

3. In all of our research we found a pretty cool website you should check out if your ADD has kicked in. Its www.fueleconomy.gov and you can go there and figure out the carbon footprint and actual fuel economy of any vehicle you are thinking about buying or may own already.



4. Joel is not a negotiator. I think he was a little scared that I was going to call someone a thief and walk away. (A trick that works great if you are ever trying to buy something in a market on Zanzibar) He negotiated keyless entry for us. I got us 10% off the asking price.

5. Some of you may remember the first Ford Escape that Joel and I drove. It was a rental on our honeymoon and we sunk it in a swamp in the middle of a crocadile reserve in Belize. The Pic below is from when
A. the vehicle was still upright and not filled with swamp water and
B. I still thought it was funny.





Needless to say we got over our deep seeded fear of the smallest of the Ford SUVs and welcome the newest member of the family with excitement and a little saddness for the loss of a close, blue, rusted out, friend. At least until the baby comes........



Sarah

OK so its been quite some time since the last blog. We've been a little busy. It's been nine months of get ready get ready, and now we're ready and all we have to do is wait. Today is the official due date. But there is still no sign of Dela. Sarah is still carrying around this belly. And as you can see, I put up the traditional block wooden letters to spell Dela's name. We're very happy how the nursery turned out. It's a warm cozy little place for our little one. I also have another picture of Dela around here somewhere... lemme see... its from an ultrasound about a month ago... here it is. Isn't she cute. Its hard to believe that in just a few days I'm going to be a dad. I guess I'm still in a little bit of denial. I still feel too young to be a dad, but we went to a birthday party a few nights back and there were a lot of parents there. Most of which were younger than me. In fact there was only one older than me. So maybe its time. I mean after all, I have put together a woodshop, a backyard fire pit, and now a nursery. I've developed a mountain's worth of patience (high school teacher), an off beat sense of humor and a taste for beer. I now have the ability to annoy my wife with out even trying, embarrass her with a single comment and make her laugh with just a look, which I can only imaging will transfer to the daughter. What more does a dad need? This is not a rhetorical question. You dad's out there... please comment. What more does a dad need? We'll keep you all posted for when the little one makes her appearance. Love to you all.

-Loons

So here is another update. Sarah and I still seem to have very little time for leisurely activities such as updating a blog. I can only assume that we will have more free time once the baby arrives. Sarah is growing quite a good little belly. Here is a succession of shots for all of those who can not make it to see the real thing at this time.What a cutie. The nursery is progressing nicely. Mom and dad Mulder came down last weekend and helped me hang drywall and start the mudding. It was a great help!! Sarah and I feel that this coming weekend, we will be able to paint the nursery. I guess that means that we will have to come up with colors this week. We are thinking red black and purple stripes. That is not set in stone yet though. Little "Foxey" is not much help in the decision making. All she can do at this point is kick, but she never does it in response to a question about room color. You'd think she would care a little more about her own room. I have been mudding the room ever since dad Mulder left and I've learned a few things. 1. Mud is cheap... buy as much as you need, then buy some more. 2. Always work your mud. It comes out of the bucket with lots of bubbles. Things will work more smoothly if you slap it around a bit first (insert crude joke here). 3. The bigger the blade, the broader the stroke. 4. In this case, pressure is a good thing. 5. There is great beauty in the phrase, "you're in a closet... don't try so hard." In all reality, if the drywall ends up looking like a perfect, smooth wall then it won't match the rest of the house. In other news, we are trying to narrow the search of baby names down, but it is still going rough. I am quite disappointed in the lack of participation in the baby name contest on this blog. Do I have to up the stakes. Who ever comes up with the winning name gets a free month of spending time with "Foxy" at their house (while Joel and Sarah go on a cruise)

Well see??!!! We finally have something that is worth writing about. The ultra sound we had was truly amazing. We could see little hands and feet, movement and thumb sucking. Our child looks absolutely beautiful. Here's a peak. Look at that cute little merger of loons. Yeah, we found out what sex our child is, and no we're not telling you. Everything in the ultrasound looked good. The only thing out of the ordinary that the sonographer mentioned is that our child has very long fingers. Which grandparent wants to buy Fox a piano? Sarah is doing very well. She is starting to have difficulty dealing with her belly sticking out in front of her. She has even mentioned that it feels kinda like its not even a part of her, just something she's got to carry around. I on the other hand have it worse because my side of the bed is getting smaller and smaller. With her belly and her 23 pillows I feel the pressure to finish our new bedroom so that I can stay in the guest room.
In other news, I finished my marathon last weekend. I felt really good about it and only hobbled around for two days afterwards. My official time was 3:33:04. Not bad for my first one. I got a picture off the marathon website. Don't tell anyone. If you want to see more, just go to akronmarathon.com and click the "preview and order pictures" button on the right. search for bib number 387. It was really fun running to the next point where I could see my wife cheering me on. I don't think it will be my last marathon, but it will be my only one for a while. I'm giving myself plenty of time to lick my wounds.
Until the next time we have something interesting to blog about.
-Ohio Mulders

And now for a pleasant stroll through the Mulder Gardens. Despite the lack of rain, there is much beauty in the Mulder Gardens this time of year. The pond is full of life including two goldfish that showed up out of nowhere last summer and lived under the ice this winter.
Many things are sprouting new. On the left you see Pepe's Mango tree. It was planted in honor of Pepe's creation and seems to be growing faster than Pepe. Very exciting news it that after being planted 6 months ago, the Baobab seed that I received in my stocking finally sprouted. These trees grow huge. In about 500 years I can build a house out of it. So far it's only four leaves big.
The avocado that Sarah planted when we started dating is doing very well. I fear that after this summer, I will not be able to fit him in the house anymore. He lives happily next to the garage. Elsewhere in the garden things are blooming all around. We have a few orange day lilies, some fantastic purple Pickerel weed in the pond as well as a delicious apricot water lily that blooms constantly. Even the Venus Flytraps in the bog are flowering. It's a wonderful sight. There is trouble in paradise however...



The trouble lies in the vegetable garden and surrounding gardens. These gardens are at the back of the yard quite a ways from the house, so I can't keep a close eye on them. Imagine my horror when I came out to find my peppers pilfered. They were the first to go. The plants were eaten down to just sticks with some peppers hanging on them. Now I had some raccoon problems in previous times, but they had never gone after pepper plants. I was baffled. Later I noticed that every single flower bud was eaten off of the day lilies in the back. No sea of orange along our back fence this year. A few days later the leaves from the cucumber and acorn squash were disappearing. Then came the last straw. My big beautiful zucchini was devoured. I was (and am) furious.
The culprit turned out to be quite amazing. I knew that I would not be deemed credible by the majority of my family, so I took photographic proof. Yup... DEER!! You read correctly. Urban deer tough enough to go after peppers and spikey zucchini leaves. We see these two guys each evening that we spend in the garden. They are brazen enough to hang out in the neighbors yard while we have a group a friends around the fire pit. Who can blame them with the impressive antlers that they have. The photos don't do them justice, since I counted an impressive 14 points on the bigger fella. Even the one we call "the little guy" has 8 points. I guess with no hunting pressure they grow big around here.
So I suggest to Bo that he bring a shot gun next time he comes down. If you rid me of these pests, I promise not to let Pepe use the mango tree on you. Venison anyone??

OK. I know, I know... there is quite a bit of time between blog updates from the two loons. That is because there is very little excitement in the home of the two loons. But all that will be changing soon. I just got back from the doctor where I got to see for the first time the heartbeat of a very small li'l loon. That's right. My child already has a fully working heart. Sarah and I are both very excited to know that our child appears to be healthy and progressing nicely. The preliminary due date is Feb. 11. So with that we open the floor for corporate sponsorship of the name. How does Starbucks Mulder sound?

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.