Tobin and Erin's Wedding

Here are some of the girls at the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner was really fun. It was held at a local brewery with authentic, rustic decor. Caleb was a little scared to head up the dark stairs to the banquet room, but the older folk thought it was really cool!

The beautiful Bride!!! This is after her hair and make-up are done the day of the wedding. Isn't she gorgeous!?!

A close-up of her hair...looks pretty amazing if you ask me! I'm not patting myself on the back either. That's not my work that makes her hair beautiful and curly!!!

The lovely couple cutting the cake. It did get a little messy a few seconds after this photo was taken, but I didn't catch that mess on camera.

It was a busy, fun, fantastic weekend. We are definitely exhausted but it was worth it.

Congrats, Tobin and Erin!

St. Louis continued....

This is the first good picture we took of the arch. This is the state house (I think that's what it's called) on the right. We are on foot at this point going to our first visit to the arch.

Isn't this the coolest picture??? Dan took it. He does really nice "artsy" pictures.

The dedication plaque for the arch. We learned all kinds of cool things about the architecture and design of the arch on our tour and in the museum.


Whoa...does that make you dizzy?!? It sure did make me dizzy! This is from the ground looking up at the arch.

The way up to the top of the arch was by way of elevator "pods." I am standing by the door to one of the pods which holds 5 people sitting down. Notice the size proportion. It was a tiny door.

The inside of the pod was even worse. It was a sphericalish shape with five chairs. I could sit straight up, but none of the men in the pods could. We were knee to knee in this tiny structure, and THEN...they close the door. Clautrophopia, hysteria, etc. set in at this point. (I thought I wasn't going to make it to the top...I didn't really cause a scene, but I've never been so scared in all my life.)

Awww...what a nice welcome! This is what you see as you climb the last few stairs into the viewing room.


Another one of Dan's pictures from the viewing room. He's pretty talented isn't he???

So this blog post is getting really long, but we also went to an authentic BBQ joint while we were there. We ate WAY too much food, but it was the best pulled pork I have ever eaten. J and Dan really like the ribs and brisket they had too. We also toured the Anhueser-Busch factory which was really neat. I like factories. It is amazing I think to see how something is made. It's such a shame that they spend all that time and money to make a nasty drink though. :)

The two hockey games were the reason for the trip, but we got a lot of sight-seeing in too which made the trip really busy but very fun. We also went to Grand Central Station which is now a mall, but in my humble opinion, it is a sorry excuse for a mall. It's more of a tourist trap with a food court and a couple good stores thrown in here and there.

I think Dan would appreciate it if I described the games a bit. The first was incredible. It was a no score game and the Blues won in a shoot-out. Wow, it was really crazy! I enjoyed it too. The second game was very high scoring, and the Blues were very close to winning. They were down by one point with 1 minute to go. So they pulled their goalie to have 6 men on the ice, but a member of the other team had a "fast break" (basketball term, I don't know the hockey term) and of course scored on an open net.

Dan, J, and I had a great time in St. Louis. We would highly recommend it if anyone is looking to take a trip!

St. Louis!!!

This past weekend (or two weekends ago maybe) Dan and I made a trip to St. Louis. The main purpose was to see the Blues...

Here you can see Dan's favorite player, Keith Tkachuk #7, warming up. Does it appear we are close to the ice??? Well we were! The second game on Saturday we were in the 3rd row off the ice! It was incredible to watch a game from that close. The first game we were about 20 rows off the ice, and that view was still amazing!

More pictures to come...must get my beauty sleep now!

the latest addition to the Stauch family...

don't get your hopes up...we're not pregnant!

This is danny's new baby....


As I understand it, it's a 61" HD DLP Projection TV...plus or minus a few acronyms

what the stauch's are up to....

This posting is to catch you all up on the exciting life of the stauch's. My family (immediate and extended) have reminded me that I have not done enough posting lately.
This is a picture of me and most of my former roommates from college. Kind of random...I'd post a picture of dan and myself, but I'd bet we haven't taken a picture together since Christmas. Wait...I don't need to bet. I'm sure of it...hmmm, what did we do for my birthday or Valentine's Day....I don't know....but we didn't take a picture of it!!!

(oh! the above picture is from meg's birthday in July, so it's recent!)Another picture of your's truly at Cristy's going away party. *Sniff* She has left the good times in GR!!!!

Dan and I are still gainfully employed. I just started a new job in July; so I'm getting used to that still. We are seeing some of the fam on Labor Day. I have a weekend trip with the girls this weekend. Dan is leaving soon for another business trip....other than that, there's nothing new to report!

I tell ya, what a great blog...pictures, words, pictures and more words! That aught to keep you all satisfied for a while! (aught or ought??? is ought a word? it's not misspelled according to google!)

more work updates

Today I had 5 hours of training with various co-workers on specific areas of my job. By the time I had completed the third hour my brain was absolute mush! Luckily, I had a lunch break before the next two hours, but I was still recovering by the end of the day!

The first two hours were training on creating a database, importing the data into Excel, creating a pivot table, and analyzing the data. This part was not too bad because my co-worker did a good job of explaining how it worked, and I was familiar with both programs.

Then I go to another co-worker's cubical for the third hour. I sit down and he asks, "So how much do you know about programing?" My reply, "Nothing." You can visibly see his demeanor droop. My interpretation, "this is going to be rough." Let me tell you, rough doesn't even begin to explain it. I don't even know how to describe it. It was SO over my head. Here's the overall picture that I will be doing on a monthly/quarterly basis: create a report from data on our mainframe, let the report run (which may take a few days), save it to a specific place, import the data into an existing Excel spreadsheet, tweak the data so it fits the need, and finally, email it to the appropriate person. Sounds easy, right? not hardly.

After lunch was another hour of said programing mumbo-jumbo. I can tell you I absorbed nothing from that hour...

so that's my week so far!

First day on the job

Monday, July 2 was my first day at Foremost. All in all it was a boring day. they didn't have my computer set up, or my email, or my training schedule set. So I watched people a lot...at lunch...looked at some spreadsheets and that was it!

Tuesday was much more eventful. One might say overwhelming. I got a TON of information thrown at me. I think I understand most of it, but there are a lot of details that I'm sure I've not even begun to learn. I learned quite a bit about how to calculate the premium for a one year insurance plan on motorcyles. So I spent this evening telling Dan about how he can save money on motorcycle insurance. (he really wants a "motor bike") sometime in the future, honey...

Danny had a good day at work. (he's jealous that i'm talking about my day...)