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...)

:(

Today was my last day at the Center for Childhood Development. It was a sad day. They brought me gifts and cards which was really sweet of them, but saying good-bye to everyone was really hard. I really had a fun time working with all the people there. It is hard to leave a good work environment. The hardest part was when my co-workers said they would really miss my friendship at work...awwww, that brought a tear to my eye.

on to the next road in my life...

new job!

don't be shocked...but i'm actually posting on this thing!!!

I have BIG news!!! I have a new job as a "personal lines research specialist" at Foremost! I am starting on July 2, hopefully. I just need to jump through all the hoops and hope that Foremost can get all the paperwork together in time. They want me to start on July 2 so that I can get the yearly bonus next February...sounds good to me!

I put in my almost-two weeks notice today at work. It was a very difficult thing to do. I really like working there, the people are great, but I just need to move on and start my career.

So right now I am excited and sad at the same time.