Spring Break from the Dexter Bows!

Spring Break for the Dexter Bows started with the Mission Impossible Gymnastics Meet on Friday April 3rd. Nikki had a good meet, with an all-around score of 35.725, placing 4th overall. She placed second on floor (9.10) and 8th on beam (8.90). She had a solid vault with a score of 9.05 and a wobble on her bars dismount resulted in a score of 8.675 (7th place).
Jenny’s Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Elkin had her last day of school. She is taking a few weeks off before her baby boy is born later this month. Jenny will miss her but is looking forward to having Mrs. Giglio in the classroom.
We flew to Cancun (via Minneapolis) on Sunday morning, arriving in Playa Del Carmen in the late afternoon. We stayed at the Riu Playacar resort. The food was awesome! Nikki loved the buffets and tried lots of new foods – she’ll eat just about anything. We all enjoyed the beach and turquoise Caribbean waters. Jenny just couldn’t get enough of the waves and spent a lot of her time body surfing and on the boogie board. Nikki and Jenny both got their hair braided. Nikki and Debby went parasailing, which was very peaceful, especially after the wild ride to the parasailing boat on the Jet Ski! Dave went SCUBA diving at Peurto Adventuras while the girls visited the dolphinarium. Nikki and Jenny loved the sea lions, manatees and the dolphins. We especially enjoyed seeing the two infant dolphins (a few days old) with their mothers. Another highlight of our trip was a tour at Hidden Worlds where we took a Jungle Buggy into the jungle and snorkeled in two Cenotes, Tak Be Ha and Hilarios’ Well. Both caves are sacred to the Mayans and are adorned with amazing stalactites and stalagmites. Our vacation and we returned Thursday via Atlanta. Looks like we missed the snow!

Paholak Family Update!

Everyone is doing well here...

David has a job offer; it's a long-term contract job and closer to home (no travel). Karen is hoping to hear from Quicken Loans after their recruiter called her on Monday. They are offering 5 weeks of training in Loan Origination. This job offers benefits too!

Tom is still working for Mead & Hunt in Lansing. He's hoping they'll offer him a full-time position (he's currently working on a temporary basis). Hayley is graduating in May, so we are excited to share the celebration with her!

Helen has an appointment with a counselor at OCC on Monday and plans to continue her education toward earning a degree in Dental Hygiene.

We're all missing Grandma and Grandpa tremendously lately.

More from Heather

Heather Emailed me today and wanted to spread the word first of all that Marty made the cut (or didn't?) and is still gainfully employed!

She also wants me to put together info on who is going to Ludington and when. They will be going August 7th - 13th on lot 144. I believe Jerry has this information compiled somewhere...?

Heather and Marty Update

My update is my new job at Providence Park in Novi. I am in the hospital on Mon, Wed and Friday and in the outpatient center on Tues and Thurs. It is a lot to learn the ins and outs of a new job but I have worked with most of my co-workers in the past and they are great. So far so good. I have to count my blessings that I got this job....Providence is now on a hire freeze for PT's so I am lucky to get the job I always wanted. Marty's Job is going through lay-offs... just like everyone else....we are keeping our fingers crossed. We find out March 31st. :) But he is doing too. Hope everyone else is doing well. I think of everyone often so this is great to keep in touch.

Becky Update

Becky Larson has been caught… that was supposed to be like unsolved mysteries

I have been working hard day and night with no sleep, I am used to the sleep deprivation by now, especially because I have started to drink coffee on occasion… I should say though I can still drink a cup at 1 am and fall asleep 10 minutes later. I am excited to have my second annual murder mystery party this weekend, and am pretty pumped for the rain to come for sampling… next time it is 3am and raining imagine how lucky you could be to be outside at the dairy farm collecting manure runoff samples (actually it is kinda great to be outside at night in a rain storm, it’s just the 4 hours of lab work that follow that are undesirable). I won an award, but unfortunately it was just a resume builder (meaning I got no money) so it wasn’t very exciting. I am hoping to go on vacation in a year or so…. And then every week after that until I have bankrupted whoever I can convince to finance my travels. Other than work I am enjoying all east Lansing has to offer, that is when I can avoid being Caltropped by Steve and Dan. All in all things are pretty good, work has long hours but is relatively rewarding and I am excited to be rounding the bend for my last year (which is a drop in the hat for anyone who has already been in college for 9 years)! I am also teaching an engineering computer lab class that teaches Numerical Solutions using Matlab

I thought I would teach everyone a little about what we do in my lab real quick. A recent study we have worked on had to do with food processors in Michigan. Food processors use a lot of water to clean and produce their product, meaning of course that after they have a lot of polluted water to dispose of. A common disposal practice is to spray this water onto large (usually grassy) fields. Unfortunately as the water leaches through the soil profile it reduces the oxygen within the soil (due to chemical, physical and biological processes that I will not go into detail about). The problem with reducing the amount of oxygen, is the soil is now a reducing environment which reduces metals. Many metals when reduced become soluble, meaning the can mobilize and leach through the soil within the water. This means things like dangerous Arsenic can move into your groundwater, dangerous and common (please get your water tested every few years at a minimum if you have well water, city water is tested every day before distribution, many counties offer testing very cheap sometimes even free). So we are using sensors to monitor the soil for things like dissolved oxygen and soil moisture in order to predict prior to when the soils will start to leach metals, so that they can start and stop applying waste at the correct times to limit metal leaching. I will stop here because I am sure this is by far the longest science class you have had in a while. There is much more detail to these processes and what happens (but it is the more boring stuff), and I have been hearing some disturbing news concerning groundwater contamination so get your water tested! The column tests are now in their second phase and we have a manuscript out for publication detailing all the work. After the next phase hopefully we will see these babies get into action at the actual sites. Stay tuned for your next Biological Engineering lesson (tried to limit any sort of terminology that may throw you off, hope I was successful).

Update from Matt and Michelle

Not much new to report from Matt and Michelle except that Nick celebrated his 6th Birthday this past Sunday leaving Michelle wondering where the past 7 years have gone! Happy Birthday Nick!

Update from Pat and Gary

Gary's son Mike in Phoenix just had his thyroid removed. Oddly, he and Marisa ran with Elaine in the half marathon in January, and he seemed fine. The doctor said he probably has had this nodule for 10 years. Both he and Marisa lost their jobs at IBM in early February. Mike had a physical at that time and they found this problem. Now they found more bad cells in the lymph nodes. So we are saddened by this. He will be on a iodine free diet, then will have a radioactive capsule, which will require total quarantine. We are trusting that God will cure him of this, and the doctors are optimistic. It is a hard time to be sick. On Sunday,our granddaughter Sara (6), when the pastor said does anyone need prayer for healing, hollered "yeah, my Daddy".