My Mom has basically been sending me hate mail for the past three weeks demanding some updated pictures of Eventz . Apparently she wants to see how big her one and only Grandbaby is getting . So here is a little update for everyone ! Eventz is huge . I weighed him a few days ago and he was 17 lbs 1 . 8 oz . He has almost double his weight since coming home from the hospital in October . And he 's getting really tall too , but unfortunately we have never measured him , so I don 't know how much he has grown in that department ! ! Eventz crawls all over the place . He still mainly army crawls ( on his belly ) but he can crawl on his knees like a big boy when he chooses too . He will go a few steps / crawls on his knees and then goes back to his belly . He is much faster on his knees when he chooses to go that way . He can now pull himself into the standing position . We are working on getting him to roll the ball to us . His hair is getting so long and curly . It used to be perfectly straight . Haitians don 't cut their kids ' hair until after their first birthday . We aren 't sure if we will cut Eventz hair when he turns one or not . We want it to grow into a fro , but we might trim it to make it look a bit better ! ! Eventz will be one Feb 28 , less than a month ! I am already thinking about how to decorate his cake ! We went to a birthday party two days ago and he didn 't know how to eat the cake by himself , so we will need to do a lot of practicing within the next 3 weeks , which Nick is excited about ! ! And he only had little bit of sand on him afterwards . When I took his diaper off , he had about a pound of sand inside ! It took days to get it all out of his hair ! About a week ago Jean - Claude Duvalier , known as Baby Doc came back to Haiti unexpectedly . He was the last dictator of Haiti and has been living in France in exile for the past 25 years . Preval , our current president , recently lifted that exile , but no one really thought he would return . There have been a lot of rumors as to why he has finally returned and what his real motives are . One of the biggest fears amongst the international community is that most Haitians are too young to really remember when he was in rule . The average age in Haiti is 21 , so most weren 't even alive when he was in office . It seems that a lot of people have forgotten all the horrible things he did and all the people he killed . They now seem to be focusing on the positives that he did while dictaor . Here is an article written by Frank Thorp , a free lance journalist living in Port au Prince . He is author of the On the Goat Path which is listed on the side of my blog ! It 's well written and so I decided to just repost it here ! ! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ In a dimly lit room at a guest house in the mountains above Port - au - Prince , the press anxiously awaited something that had been promised to them every day over the past week , but never delivered . Since Jean - Claude " Baby Doc " Duvalier had mysteriously returned to Haiti on an Air France flight on the evening of January 16th he had not spoken to the press , not even uttering a word to any of the hundreds of journalist covering his homecoming . Behind a over - sized wooden table in the dimly lit room stood a short older Haitian man in an olive colored suit , his hands on back of a large wooden chair embroidered with red fabric . He looked down nervously as dozens of cameramen and photographers jockeyed for position in anticipation of what was to come . The man in the olive suit looked to the side , saw someone approaching , pulled back the chair , and then stepped away . From a hallway attached to the room walked Duvalier , he sat down on the chair and a paper statement was dropped in front of him . This was it , this is what we were waiting for … " Dear friends of the press , " he read in French as flash bulbs filled the room with light , " Thank you for having responded to my invitation today . I take this opportunity to speak to my fellow citizens . " His voice seemed strained , like he had a mouth full of cotton balls , but his delivery was better than expected . Since returning to Haiti , he seemed to be unaware of his surroundings , and some even thought he had the look of someone with Parkinson 's , but when he began talking it made it appear that it was all an act . The question on everyone 's mind since the bizarre return of the exiled dictator was why he had returned . In his statement he inadequately answered that question : " I wanted to pay homage to the victims of the devastating earthquake of January 12 , 2010 , " he explained while reading from his paper statement , " which caused , according to official estimates , the death of 316 , 000 people . Unfortunately , I did not arrive in time for the anniversary . " For the past weat Earlier this week Nick and I decided we were going to go check out Open Door , another mission near by because Nick had met one of their head guys at the airport and when we looked at their website we were really impressed . ( hint hint , look at their website , it 's a good organization ! ! ) . We didn 't really know where they were , but Nick searched on google earth for a while and found out how to get there . We could have gone the long round about way on the main road , OR we could take a much faster way there , however it would include us crossing not one but two rivers ! ! How do you think we went , through the rivers of course ! ! We were on the bank of the second river , getting ready to cross and I told Nick that it had only been 5 minutes since we left . We were about 3 / 4ths of the way across the river when we heard a loud noise and the bike quit moving . I hopped off as Nick informed me that the chain had broke . His comment . . . We were still about 5 miles or more away from home ! ! YAY ! ! ! We pushed the bike to the edge of the river when all of a sudden we heard some guy whistle at us . We were then swarmed by about 8 men and 9 children ( all of which either were completely naked , or basically naked . Those wearing shorts were so short that they really did NO good . And I 'm not just talking about the children , the men were the same ) . They began looking at the moto and Nick asked if they could fix it and how much it would cost . Everyone started laughing and became really excited because we spoke Creole ! They told us they would fix it for free and ran to one of the dump trucks that was there gathering sand and grabbed a small box of tools . They tried working on it for several minuets , but didn 't have the right size wrench , so Nick made them stop before they stripped the bolt . Nick and I left the group and started walking towards home once again . Let me clarify real quick that we were in the middle of no where , so there wasn 't any real hope of finding someone with the right tools or with a new chain . So we walked , Nick pushing the bike , me trailing behind him ! We walked for about a fourth of a mile before a truck came up beside us , and two of the guys who had been trying to help asked if we wanted them to pull us . Of course we said yes , so I hoped in the cab with the men ( these two were fully dressed ! ! ) and Nick held on to a rope with one hand and steered the bike with his other . I began talking to the men and told them that I work at an orphanage for babies . He got really excited and asked if I live in Lagossette , to which I said I did . He informed me that he was Manno 's cousin , a guy that kind of works for us and runs Kid 's Alive which I 've talked about in the past . Of all people who could have helped us , it had to be a relative of someone we know . They pulled us for about 2 miles until we got to the main road . There was a guy there who had some tools and was going to fix it , but then we realized that while we were going the chain had fallen off the handle even though it was wrapped a few times . And once again , we were walking cause our friends had to go the opposite direction . At least now we were on a paved road , so it was a bit easier for Nick to push the bike . We were still about 2 miles from home though ! Along the way we were asked about a thousand times if we needed help . I 'm sure most people thought we had a flat tire and wanted to help fix that . Each time we said , nou pa gen chen , we don 't have a chain , and then the person who would offer would nod and drive off on their WORKING moto . We must have gone through this about 100 times ! We made it almost all the way home when Rikerns showed up with the truck and we loaded the bike into the back and we finished the journey . We got back just as our 4 hours were up so luckily Milouse didn 't have to stay any longer than what we had asked her to ! We each had a blister on our foot that became pretty bloody . I guess we were both wearing the wrong shoes . Neither of us were planning on walking at all ! This experience was kind of humbling in it 's own way though . One of our cooks lives out towards Milot near where we were dropped off at the main road . Each day she walks to and from work . It 's quite a distance and it really made me realize just how far she walks each day . Walking is nothing new to Haitians . For most , it 's their only form of transportation . We often have families that walk for hours that come to our gate looking for help . I couldn 't imagine doing that all the time , especially if I was carrying my child or something else heavy like we often see . Or walking that far pushing a heavy bike like Nick had to do ! ! I think I 'm going to change my blog name from " common visions " to " the misfortunes of the Stolbergs . " Seems like that is the most common theme I write about eh ? ( yes Carla the eh is just for you ! ! ) On Tuesday I accompanied Amy on a trip to Port with two of our children who needed to have catscans done . I have only been to the airport in Port Au Prince , never anywhere else . From the air I have seen the tent cities that still cover the landscape . But from the air , I can 't see the people , the children that live inside . I can 't judge the size of these tents , or the closeness of it all . I can 't see the living conditions inside of these areas . But from the ground , I can get a better idea . As we drove through Port in our air conditioned taxi , we drove past tent city , after tent city , after tent city . They seemed to never end . The entire area was covered in tents . With two young children , I obviously didn 't get out and explore , if I had I 'm sure I would have been touched even more . In some ways , I didn 't need to entire these cities , seeing them from the road was real enough . These tents aren 't anything special , cheap tents that we could all buy at walmart for a few bucks . I 'm sure a lot of them have holes in them and leak when it gets wet . Most were tiny 2 - 3 man tents , and I imagine that there are whole families of 5 , 6 , 7 or more people living in their with all of their worldly possessions . They aren 't just staying in it for a weekend of fun , they have been living in there for OVER a year now with no hopes of anything changing in the near future . These tents , aren 't right next to a beautiful river or over looking a rugged mountain range like the tents Nick and I normally stay in . They are on sidewalks , court yards , sometime right on the street . They aren 't secluded and by themselves . They have about 6 inch to a foot in between them and their neighbors on EVERY side . There is no privacy , no security , nothing , just them , their tent , and prayers for a better life for themselves and their children . The doctors office we went to was right next to the Palace which was also kind of interesting to see . The entire building basically collapsed , and still to this day has not been repaired or even cleaned up . It 's a reminder everyday of what happened . Can you imagine if the white house collapsed and we did nothing to fix it . Can you imagine if completely surrounding the collapsed white house were tent cities and people suffering . It 's unimaginable . Looking around , there were still piles of rubble everywhere . You could still see houses that had collapsed and are now sitting like accordians on top of each other . Driving by , I wondered what it would have been like to be in these homes , to feel them shake . I couldn 't help but think that there could easily still be a body inside that was never recovered . At one point I thought about the scene from Saving Private Ryan where half of the house had been blown off and you could look right into the inside of the home . This was the case many times , where half the home fell down and the other part still stood . You could look right into where a family used to eat or spend time together . Where are they now , probably in a tent somewhere . As we drove through the city and I stared at all of the things that I could do nothing to help , but at the same time I held a little guy in my arms and stroked his head trying to get him to fall asleep . I realized that I can 't help those that I am seeing outside my window , but I can and am making a difference in the two little guys life in the car with us that day . I held my little guy close thinking of how differently his life could be and thanking God for allowing us to be a small part of his story . I have very high hopes for both of the boys that we were with that day and know that they are going to go far and surprise us all . I was a little emotional as I stood behind the glass watching him lay , sedated , strapped to the table , receiving his cat scan while images of his brain flashed on the computer screen . He 's an amazing little guy that I have very much come to love , and here he is getting a cat scan , something that most Haitians could never dream of , especially people from our part of the country . Getting to Port and then paying for the fees to have it done , are all way more than any of the people we work with could ever afford . This whole trip was an eye opener for me . Port au Prince has WAY more infrastructure than Cap Haitien , and it makes me feel like our area could get there soon too . It opened my eyes to the fact that there is such a difference between being rich and poor in a place like this . There is no way that about 95 % of the population could ever afford such tests , but for those who can , their lives are way different . I dont know if any of this makes sense , but it was all a bit much to take in that day and I 'm glad I was able to be a part of it . More importantly , I am thankful for every child that we get to help and spend time with . Last week I had 4 children , and now I am down to just one . The twins moved downstairs and are staying with some short term volunteers until they are big enough to move out to the baby house . And the little 3 . 5 year old who was living with us for the past two and a half months borded a plane this morning and is on her way home to her adoptive family ! Her passport was supposed to be finished in May , but there was one guy who didn 't want to sign one piece of paper , so she has been waiting to rejoin her family for months ! We received news that it was done on Tuesday , varified that on Wednesady , and she and Nick left first thing this morning ! Nick will take her all the way to Florida to met up with her Dad . He will then rent a car and drive to the other side of Florida where he will be talking with a group of Engieneers who are coming down in March to help us install our solar panels that we have been fundraising for ! ! Nick has been emailing them for a while , but will be able to get way more hashed out during his time there than he ever could have over the internet ! He will be back either Sunday or Tuesday , depending on when he gets to met with the engeniers ! ! Eventz and I will just be waiting here for him to return ! Eventz is batteling an ear infection , cold , and two new teeth all at the same time , so he has been kind of fussy the past few days . He has been having high fevers for about 5 days , so I 'm hoping that they go away soon . What a great time for Nick to be gone huh ! ! This will be the first time that Nick and I have ever just had Eventz , and it kind of makes it feel a liitle more real ! With having so many other kids staying with us , it often feels that we are constant " temporary parents . " However now that it 's just Eventz , it makes me realize that he isn 't going anywhere and that he is in fact mine ! ! I 'm excited to spend some time with just the three of us ! ! That is until all the short term volunteers leave and we get a few sick babies upstairs with us agian , but hey , we will enjoy the time we have ! ! Thursday was the one year anniversary of the 7 . 0 earthquake in Port Au Prince . I have waited to post about it because I don 't know what to say . I wasn 't there , I don 't know what everyone went through . I didn 't see the victims , or the destroyed city . I didn 't loose a loved one . I didn 't have a limb amputated . I don 't sit everyday and wonder if my child , husband , mother , or father was killed , or if they are out there somewhere thinking that I too was killed . When flying in and out of Port Au Prince , I saw all the tent cities , that are still housing people today , one year later . I have held and loved on some of our babies who lost parents or loved ones in the earth quake . My life was not changed , but theirs was . Millions of lives were changed during that 50 seconds last year . One year later , and what has changed ? I wish I could say that a lot has changed , but it hasn 't really . There have of course been some changes , but a million people are still living in tents , in horrible conditions . Nick and I often say that we wish there were places in Haiti to go camping , but we would feel horrible sleeping in a tent for recreation when that is a million peoples home . What we consider fun , is their worst night mare . One of the things we miss the most from home , is killing thousands here . I heard recently that after the tsunami in Indonesia it took 2 . 5 years to clean up all the rubble and there is 13 times the amount of rubble here in Haiti after the earth quake . Wow . After the earth quake things were really hectic here at COTP since they were in the process of evacuating 36 children who were already in the process of adoption . We were asked to come down and help out here since they had no one else who could . Our decision to come down for those two weeks really shocked a lot of people and is something that several people still hold against us . When we came down we missed Nicks Grandpas funeral . I left the decision completely up to Nick , and all though it was hard on him , Nick knew that the right thing to do was come here . Matthew 8 : 21 - 22 Another disciple said to him " Lord first let me go and bury my father . " But Jesus told him , " Follow me , and let the dead bury their own dead . " We may not have been there for Gramp 's funeral , but we know right where he is . We can go visit whenever we want . We are spoiled compared to the millions of people in Haiti who will never get to properly bury their family members . Who will never know where their bodies are . We said goodbye and were there by his side the night he passed . Haitians didn 't know that the earth quake was coming and didn 't get to say good bye . I was up tonight feeding one of the twins , when I heard a sound over by our desk . My first thought is Rat , but then I assure myself that it 's probably just the giant black moth ( or witch doctor as some believe ) that I saw in here last night before bed . However if it had only been a moth I wouldn 't be writing this post at 5am now would I ? Well I continued staring over there hoping to the moth just to be sure . I saw something move , but still continued thinking it was the moth trying to get out . Then I saw it move again , definitely not a moth . There was a rat running back and forth on our window seal trying to get out . I very calmly started walking to our bedroom to wake up Nick , but as I did so , it jumped off the window seal and I jumped on the couch . I was afraid that if I moved anymore it would run away and we wouldn 't find it . I refused to take my eyes off of where I had last saw it . Instead , I stood on the couch , tiny baby in hand , and yelled Nicks name , and pounded on the wall repetitively until Nick came out . Nick stood there trying to devise a plan on how to kill it , when all of the sudden it made it 's move . It ran from under the desk to our door , back under the desk , back to the door , back under the desk , and then towards Mika and Eventz room where I lost sight of it . At the exact second I lost sight of it , something touched my foot and I freaked out . Turns out it was just one of the plastic dinosaurs my Mom sent down for Eventz a few days ago . Nick threw our rat trap into their room hoping to catch it quickly , but once he saw it jump on Mika 's bed , climb up the curtain , and hang out on the curtain rod , he knew this was not going to happen . Eventz was already in our bed because he has been having trouble sleeping in his new room , so we woke Mika up and carried her into our bed and then called in some reinforcements , Toby , our dog ! Nick took all the dinosaurs my Mom sent down , and chucked them at the rat forcing it to come down ! ( Thanks Mom for the great toy , they came in handy ) . Toby then chased it around the room for a while but wasn 't getting anywhere , even with Nick poking under the bed with a broom stick . I was on baby duty , since we now has 4 awake children at 4 : 30 am , and Nick was on door duty . See their door doesn 't have a handle ( I assume for safety reasons , it was like that when we moved in ) and so Nick had to stand there and hold it closed the whole time . Since there was no handle though , he could peek through the hole and see exactly what was going on at all times ! After a few minutes of getting no where with Toby , I asked if we should pull out the big guns and bring in Roxy , our ferocious guard dog who cuddles up in a ball on top of our lawn furniture to sleep each night . She might not protect us well at night , but at least she is good at killing rats . We debated for a while because we were afraid that if we did she would either However we had no other choice , so I called her in . At the meer sound of me saying " Rat " she became very excited . The rat was once again up on the curtain rod , so Nick chucked another dinosaur at it and quickly closed the door , but not quickly enough cause it had a chance to run across his foot first . Luckily it stayed in the room though ! At this point I had moved from standing on the couch to standing on the kitchen chair so I was able to see this part of it . I saw Nick hit the thing with the dinosaur and it fly / fall through the air . Nick started laughing and said we should video tape this , so I grabbed the camera but before I did Nick opened the door . Well obviously the rats aren 't getting in through our gas line , so now we think that they are coming in through our windows . See none of the windows here have glass , there are all just holes with two types of screens on them , one to keep bugs out and one to keep rats out . For some reason a lot of the ones in our apartment only have the bug screens , and although there aren 't any holes in them , they aren 't stapled that well , so theres a chance that they are pushing them out and getting in that way . I realized after writing the last post that I may not have been clear on something . I said that Nick killed 36 ( 37 now , he says he helped so he gets to share the glory with Roxy ) rats . I just want to emphasize that these are all RATS , not mice , but big long tail rats ! ! ! I 've never really been a huge fan of creepy crawly things . I remember in middle school there was a little mouse in my closet and I refused to sleep in my room for a week AFTER it was killed . If I remember right , the only reason I ended up going back there is because my Mom kicked me out of her bed and cleaned my room to prove it wasn 't there anymore . I wouldn 't completely freak out when I saw bugs ( I 'm thinking about 2 of our foster girls when I say this , Mom you know who I am talking about ) , but I preferred not to have them around and would kill them when I saw them . If I ever saw a bug in my glass I would refuse to drink out of it until it was cleaned . Now it 's not uncommon for me to see bugs crawling in the silverware drawer . What is my reaction , I either pretend I didn 't see it and eat off it anyway , or grab the one below it hoping that it is cleaner ! ! Oh how my life has changed ! Having encounters with rats , mice , giant spiders , and cockroaches are every day occurrences . When we first moved down here I tried to avoid places where I knew there would be rats , now I walk in there and don 't even think about it . There have been several times over the past 7 months that I have had great insect / rodent stories that I have wanted to blog about , but haven 't had the time . Well here are a few recent ones that I decided I would share . I went to put Eventz back in his bed one night and I saw some giant black thing move in his crib . It was a large cockroach . Since my hands were full , I called in Nick who was up feeding one of the twins and had him kill the bug so that I could put Eventz in bed . Several months ago I was up feeding a baby and had a large cockroach run across my foot . I killed it and continued on with the feeding , not really thinking much of it . When I was finished I was crawling back in bed and saw another giant cockroach just hanging out on our mosquito net . When I say giant , I mean at least an inch long , so quite large . A volunteer woke up once and had one on her face . Hopefully I will never have that experience . Then on New Years Eve I was quite tired and getting ready for bed . I opened up my retainer case and guess what was inside ? A cockroach . I 'm ok with a lot of things , but I am not ok with cockroaches sleeping in my retainer case . Large wall spiders are common here . They aren 't dangerous and instead help eat the mosquitos and other bugs . Most of the time when I see them I let them be , but there are times when I just can 't handle them . When deciding whether to kill a wall spider , you have to decide how dedicated you are because these buggers are FAST ! About a week ago , I went to grab a bottle out of the bin for Eventz , when all of a sudden I noticed I was about to grab a spider . I recruited Nick to kill it , because I knew I would never be fast enough and I really didn 't want it crawling around on my cupboards . We had been seeing some signs of a rodent in our house , and Nick thought that it was probably a mouse , not a rat . Well we set a trap and guess what we caught , a rat ! A few nights went by and we assumed we had taken care of the problem , when we heard a bunch of stuff on our counter fall to the ground . Apparently not . I was up the next night feeding the twins when I heard a noise come from the oven area . All the sudden I saw a rat run across my kitchen . I sat there completely still for a few seconds , and then I saw it run back in the direction it came from . Nick moved the trap and a few hours later , we had rat number 2 ! ! We thought that they were coming in through our gas line for our stove , so we filled that in . Once again we assumed that we had solved the problem , and we had , for a few nights at least . Today we were making lunch and there was a small noise coming from the oven . We joked around that it was probably a mouse who was trying to get away from the heat . A few minutes later we heard a LOT of noise coming from the oven and were convinced that it was in fact some sort of rodent that was being forced to move because of the heat inside . When we were done cooking , we looked inside . There was no rat / mouse , but there was several giant chunks of rodent hair in there . I kept telling Nick that it smelled like burnt rodent but he said I was being dramatic . Guess that means we are once again setting a trap in our house and hopefully getting rat number 3 ! ! We don 't know where they are getting in at , but will hopefully find out soon ! Nick has killed 36 rats since we have been here . Most of those were in the first month when he set traps every night . He hasn 't done this for a long time and until just a few days ago , he hardly ever set any traps , but is starting to get back into it . No matter how many we kill , there just always seems to be more . The rodents here aren 't like you would expect them to be . They don 't run away when you walk into a room or make a noise . Instead , they stare at you and have this look that says " are you really going to make me move , or are you going to leave the room ? ' Sorry I haven 't posted in a while , it 's not because I haven 't had anything to say , in fact I have about 5 posts I would like to say , it 's just that I haven 't had time and I 'm overwhelmed with things to write about . This week has been full of emotions . We have had amazing moments and difficult moments . There have been tears and laughter . We have been all over the place ! I don 't have much time now to write about it all , so I 'll just list some of the stuff that happened this week and hopefully later I can expand upon it more . . . . - One of our much needed babies went home this week to a very loving Mother . She was all smiles as she waited for us to finish everything to send him home . This baby lived in the volunteer house for several months , and stayed in Nick and I 's room for 5 weeks , so this was a very happy sad day for us ! ! He is in the formula program so I will get to see him every two weeks ! ! - This same day we had two babies pass away , one of which stayed with me for about a week while she was sick . Her death was very sudden and unexpected . It 's always difficult to bury your babies and even harder to watch parents say goodbye to their little ones that they love so deeply . Please pray for their families who are greiving . One of these babies has a twin sister , please pray for her as well . It 's difficult to go into the baby house and see her twin cause it 's a constant reminder that she is no longer with us . - I went back to the peds ward of the hospital twice this week to admit two of our sick babies . This was the first time I have been back since visiting Eventz there and it was really difficult being there and thinking about how sick he was only a few months ago . It makes me wonder why he survived when he was so much worse than some of our babies were who have passed . Eventz being alive is a miracle ! - Eventz started sleeping through the night and now sleeps in his own room rather than in our room ! He is army crawling all over the place and getting into everything ! He is only a few days away from crawling like a big boy ! He now weighs over 16 lbs and talks more than ever ! - Nick has killed 2 rats in our kitchen this week ! We think we know where they were coming in at and have since blocked the hole . I have not seen or heard any in here for a few nights , so hopefully they are all gone ( for the time being at least ) ! We both grew up in Washington State and have been married since August of 2008 . Nick has a degree from WSU in Business and Nikki from WWU in Human Services . We are the field directors of an infant care center called Children of the Promise in Cap Haitien , Haiti . We have lived here since June 2010 . We are adopting a little boy named Eventz and are blessed to be his parents !