Spencer's Whitlock Bay Fishing Trip

After a few weeks of pestering by Spencer, I am finally getting around to posting his fishing pictures. As you can see they did great and a fun time was had by all. This year trip participants included; Spencer Koch, Steve Koch, Jeff Bloom, Jason Lensing, Steve Woods, Cory Lindstrom, and Terry Bergendahl. All the men currently work for Schwan's or did in the past.

It's been forever and a day.... I know!

I know that it has been forever since I have blogged and I apologize for that. There is so much going on in our lives this summer that blogging got put on the back burner. I can hope to get back in the swing of things but I will not make any promises that I cannot keep.


So today's blog is about our the storm/tornado that occured in West Union on Friday. Spencer and I had lunch with Jeff and Julie at noon and we parted ways at about 12:45. It looked gray outside and we could tell it was going to rain but didn't think twice. I had a photography appointment at 1:00 so I headed to the studio.


My clients came and didn't mention the weather. We started the session and about half way through, my lights started to flicker. I thought that was odd and then they totally went out. My first thought was that I blew a fuse. I even said that I've never blown a fuse. We walked out into the front room where I have a partially glass door and no joke, the rain was horizontal along with all kids of debris flying through the air. I have to give a thumbs up to Kevin Brockway for insulating my studio well because none of us were aware that anything was going on until we saw it. The mother of the one year old was kinda freaked and I didn't know what we should do. My studio is atop of our garage with no interior access. To get to a lower level we would have had to run to the house. It was also hailing very bad so we scratched that idea and stayed put. Spencer was in our house and could see the weather and said he would call if we should run. My window and view from my studio is not very good and rather limited. I could see a tree down across our alley but that is about it. Needless to say it was a pretty tense 15 minutes sitting with basic strangers wondering if a tornado was coming. Oh, our kids were at bible school. I wasn't too worried about them physically but I was sure Makenna was freaking out since she doesn't like storms. Nicholas probably thought it was all "cool".


So after about 15 minutes, the storm calmed down. The power was still off but I was able to finish my session with a battery pack. After the session, I ventured out to see the damage. I was shocked to see the streets plastered with green leaves. From our house I could see about 10 trees, down or damaged. The streets were full of people as amazed as I was. Within 10 minutes, the sound of chain saws filled the air.


Here are some of the images of the damage. We were very lucky and only lost a portion of our tree in front. The pictures of the brown house is of a friend/coworker of mine, Bruce & Rhonda Bemis. His house was definitely the most damaged and sits about 1 mile from West Union. The crops to the east of West Union were stripped for about 8 miles. It is like someone took a machete to the corn. I heard that we had straight line winds of 85 miles per hour and along with the hail it acted like knives just cutting through the corn. There were also drifts of hail left over from the storm which was odd to see in July.


Ok now for the pictures......

This tree covered the intersection near our house - one of the first trees cleared in town.

Neighbor to the East tree - very close to my studio

Dave, Spencer and Louie working on the tree limb that fell across our alley

Tree located within 25 yards from our house

Our street right after storm - all the streets looked like this

Bruce's house just outside of West Union - This was on the Waterloo TV News.

There are three broken windows as well as all the siding and roof

Outside the Denist Office - one block from our house

A bush at Bruce's that looked like someone whittled away all the bark

Corn up close - all of the stalks are just like this.

Corn Field by Bruce's House

Poor Cooper

It is that time of year again when the winter coat must come off. So today Cooper went to the local groomer and returned a whole new dog. I wish I took a before photo but of course I didn't. I guess you can see him a few posts ago to compare the difference. Unfortunately we are not the best at brushing him so he had a few knots. When he has knots the groomer shaves him to get them all out. I swear Cooper comes home a totally different dog. It is like he is embrassed at first and then in a day or two he'll start getting more active than normal. It just takes him a few days to adjust. One good thing is that Baxter won't be able to bite at his ears any longer.

After we picked him up, Nicholas, Makenna and I, went to the elementary school to play. I also included some current photos of Baxter. He is getting bigger by the day and is close to Cooper's size - especially now. Baxter is nine weeks now and is turning out to be a pretty good dog. He had a great first week and then a week of accidents but now we are back on track and he is starting to scratch at the door when he needs to go out. The only other habit he has is barking. We need to find cure for that. Cooper never barks so having a yappy little dog is a change.

Tough Decision for Noah Next Year

Wrestling season ended for Noah at the beginning of March. He didn't do many tournaments but really improved and started wrestling the "second" practice which is the hard practice for the advanced kids versus the "first" practice for the beginners. Noah has been wrestling since kindergarten and we think it is a great sport for him since he tends to be on the small side for his age.

Anyway, this year in March some local parents put together a few basketball practices for the 4th grade boys. Normally in West Union organized basketball starts in the 5th grade but the high school head coach has a boy in Noah's class and offered to teach them a few Saturdays in March. Noah joined the group and has seemed to enjoy it. He has many friends that prefer basketball over wrestling so he had the opportunity to play with his buddies.

They only had one game and it was last weekend in McGregor, Iowa. The team they played were 5th graders that were on a traveling team and had been playing since November with our game being their 15th of the season. Our boys lost the game but only by one point 30-31. Pop-Pop and Grammy just happened to be driving back from the SMSU tournament out east so they were able to attend the game with us. I think Pop-Pop enjoyed it more than anyone.

Noah did well and had three steals and a few rebounds. The coach did well with rotating all the players in and they all seemed to really have fun.

I'll be curious to see what Noah decides for next year when it will have to be wrestling or basketball. I hope Spencer can keep his opinion to himself as well as Pop-Pop and let Noah decide. As long as he continues to swim, it is all good:)

Here are some photos from the game. Again this is my point and shoot camera which I struggle with but oh well.

Please help us name him!!!!

We'd like to introduce the newest member of the Koch household.... "???". That's correct we don't have a name for him yet. Normally I am really good at naming things but with this little guy we are struggling.

He is a half poodle, half bichon which makes him the exact same dog as Cooper is but a larger version. He is one of Sophie's puppies. Background info: Sophie was the puppy we tried last summer for three months that had major bathroom issues. She was a sweet dog but I'd let her outside for 20 minutes and nothing would happen and I swear as soon as I let her back in she'd take a dump on the floor. I finally gave up and we gave her to a very nice family that wanted to breed their male poodle. I made a deal at that time that I would give them Sophie for the pick of her first litter... voila!

We received the call on Monday that the puppies were ready and it then took two days of "Geneva Conference" type negotiations to talk Spencer into another dog. Many promises were made on my behalf that I hope I can live up to:) Spencer has been in Des Moines since Tuesday morning so I am sure I am over my text limit.

So I picked up the kids after school and off we went to pick out a puppy. Easy - you'd think. It took us close to an hour to decide which one we wanted out of the litter of four. One was pure white and that one was out immediately - not to be puppy prejudice but white dogs = crying eyes and constant baths. I did learn that from Sophie. Between the other three the kids kept changing their mind and then this little guy came up to me and snuggled in my lap and fell asleep. Must be the smartest one...right? That won me over and away we went to Fleet Farm to load up on chew toys, puppy food and a new dog bed.

So far he is a good puppy - no accidents and has gone potty outside four times. Goal is for him to be potty trained before Spencer gets home tomorrow night.... just kidding. He even goes into a kennel without whining. I hope tonight goes well with the kennel too.

So getting back to the main issue with my post. We have no name for him. I will give you list of names we are calling him. Please let me know your favorite or if you have another suggestion.

Oh - funny story, Nicholas wants to name him "Ray Misterio" after the WWE wrestler (notice that name is not on the list).

1. Baxter

2. Riley

3. Oliver

4. Archer and then call him Archie

5. Buddy

6. Murray

7. Champ (after Champ Bailey)

8. Franklin and call him Frankie

9. Darby

10. Max

11. Benelli (to win Spencer over)

12. Bacardi (to win Spencer over)

Hopefully with your help we can decide by tomorrow evening and I will post the winning name at that time.

This is Cooper and ???. Cooper is only 6lbs so now you can tell how little the new puppy is. I hope he is a tough as Cooper or can at least run faster because I am sure Nicholas will soon be his worst nightmare. The poor dog will probably rethink his decision of curling up in my lap.

A bittersweet day...

Noah celebrated his 10th birthday yesterday! I can't believe he is 10 and that I have been a mom for that long. It is moments like these when I am amazed at how fast times flies and how precious time is.

Yesterday I also went to the visitation of a local 15 year old girl that was killed in a car accident on Monday. Hilary Streif was a beautiful young lady that has babysat for us occassionally over the last 4 years along with her sister Morgan. They both were involved in the accident and thankfully Morgan survived. I have also had the opportunity to have photographed the girls along with their little sister Claire in my studio.

The last session was in January of this year. I feel so terribly bad for the Streif family. It really has made me realize how in a split second your life can be devasted. The image below is from that sitting. With the help of my wonderful photography lab, I was able to get this image in an 16x20 for her family to have by Tuesday. It was up next to her casket and although the moment I saw was horrible, it was also in that same moment that I was so thankful and proud to be a photographer.

So Noah's 10th birthday was a bittersweet day. I was happy and excited for Noah and sad beyond words for the Streifs.

I hope Noah had a good day...

He woke us all up at 6:30 so he could open his presents. He wanted a cell phone in the worse way but I am not really for that nor does he need one at the age of 10 in West Union, Iowa. Instead, we bought him an Ipod with a gift card for 25 songs to download. Makenna and Nicholas got him a webkinz. He also opened his present from Grandpa & Grandma Koch - Under Armour baseball cleats. He was very excited for those.

At 9:30 am, I dropped off Schwan's ice cream for his class. He said that all the kids loved it. After school Tate, Ethan and Brooks came home with Noah to play in the yard since it is finally getting nice out. Tate was the last to leave at about 5:00.

At 5:30, Makenna and Nicholas helped me make Noah's birthday cake. We made a butter pecan cake with butter cream frosting. Noah was making a list of songs he wanted on his Ipod during this time.

For supper, Noah was able to choose anything he wanted to eat..... And his choice was Macaroni & Cheese with hamburger in in. Whew, that is item off of my skill set and not Spencer's so that was nice. Spencer joined us for supper.

After supper, Noah and I downloaded his Ipod with over 100 songs. He then spent the rest of night listening to all his new music.

For Noah's birthday party, he has chosen to have a few friends over to watch "Wrestlemania 25" in April. It is big pay-per-view event so that will be an interesting night, WWE wrestling with a house full of 10 year old boys. I remember watching the very first Wrestlemania when I was 10 years old and now they are on "Wrestlemania 25"!!!! The shows are a little different than when Hulk Hogan bodyslammed Andre the Giant.

Thank you to Ellie, Pop-Pop & Grammy, Grandma & Grandpa, The Villarreals and The Koch's for calling Noah on his birthday and for all the great gifts he received from you - He is a pretty lucky kid who can now be an official spokesperson for Under Armour. Thank you to Pat & Karyl for sending the cute card and birthday money for Noah. Your cards are also a treat that is looked forward to by my children.

Eight

I know I have been MIA for way to long but between pictures around the holidays and now appraisals with the lower interest rates - I get home at night and am exhausted or busy with other new hobbies. I hope to get back to blogging soon so just bear with me. I did receive this request off of my sister-in-law Kristen's blog the other day so I thought I could at least manage this as I am sitting here in my office:) It is called Eight. My lists are in no particular order.

8 Favorite T.V. Shows:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Private Practice
3. American Idol
4. ER
5. House
6. Lost
7. Top Chef
8. Friday Night Lights

Favorite Dishes:
1. Chips and Salsa & Gucamole
2. McDonald's French Fries
3. Ribs on the grill
4. Chicken and Dumpling Soup
5. Honey or Coconut Chicken - Chinese
6. Benjy's Crepes
7. Schwan's Angus Cheeseburgers
8. Any kind of homemade bread

8 things that happened Yesterday:
1. Called Grandpa (Spencer's Dad) to wish him a very happy birthday:)
2. I bought three webkinz for the kid's Valentine's Gifts
3. I started knitting a new scarf
4. Watched American Idol
5. Called Hart's to go visit Sophie's puppies today and hopefully pick one out
6. Got a call for a photography appointment on Monday
7. Made Mac & Cheese for kids supper - during the weekends they eat like royalty so I must humble them during the week.
8. Went to New Hampton to do an appraisal inspection.

8 things I look forward to:
1. Spending time in the boat this summer with the kids
2. Swim meets and baseball games
3. Any weekend.... I just like to hang out with the kids and Spence.
4. Ellie, Graham and Gavin coming down the end of February
5. Warm weather
6. Hopefully getting a new puppy - I am still working on Spencer for that one. Anyone have any ideas?
7. Rock Hunting
8. Mushroom Hunting

8 things I love about Winter:
1. Not feeling so rushed.
2. Just staying inside and being lazy
3. Snow Days as long as I wasn't planning to work
4. Spencer's soups
5. Wearing my Uggs
6. The Holidays
7. Snuggling under blankets with the kids and/or Spencer:)
8. TV shows since they are mostly new ones

8 things on My Wish List: (I am trying to do realistic wishes and not my crazy wishes like winning the lottery or world peace).
1. Stay best friends with my husband
2. Continue to raise happy, healthy and well adjusted children
3. Have my own full time photography studio with an assistant to keep me organized
4. Take a vacation with Spencer soon
5. Get that puppy that I have previously mentioned
6. Lose some weight
7. Get good news at our tax appointment on Monday
8. I wish I was better organized with my time, house, thoughts, etc.

Deer Hunter

****Warning: Animal lovers or PETA people beware. The story and images below may be disturbing to you so don't read it and go eat a head of lettuce. We live in NE Iowa where we have a fifth season - called hunting season.

It's fall which only means one thing to my husband....Hunting Season! The bow hunting season opened a few weeks ago but unfortunately (not really) it was too warm around here to hunt and the farmers are behind in their harvest. That was true until last weekend when the temp started dropping and the snow started falling. Spencer took Thursday and Friday as vacation days to sit 20ft up in the air on a 2x4 all day long with the rain/snow blowing besides not being able to move. If he moves the deer might see him or he might fall off his 2x4. Sounds like a great way to use vacation days????? Huh???

Spencer does find it therapeutic also, I think or maybe hope. He says he loves sitting out with it dead quiet and watching all the animals. He sees squirrels, raccoons, turkeys, birds, other rodents and of course his deer. I told him that I would go with sometime if it were 80 degrees and I could get a little color. We got close this year but not quite there yet.

Spencer always comes home with tons of stories and I try my darnest to listen attentively through all of them. Thursday he was gone all day but saw some big bucks and actually missed a 10 pointer. Something with the using the wrong pin when he was aiming.... I think. So Friday comes and he went out at about 10:00 am and then came home at 6:00 pm and was all excited. He got one just before it was too dark. It came very close to his stand and he knew he hit it good but he didn't see it go down. So he comes into town to get backup in the forms of Rick, Woody and Dave. Again, I stayed home to man the fort and tend to the children while my provider was tracking our meat for the winter. (My friend was really over and we were socializing in the garage).

About an hour later, they're home with deer in tow. They found him pretty quickly as it was a "double lung" shot. That's right....a double lung shot. Up in the tree in our yard is then hung the carcass and the men start their process which I never stick around to watch. Nicholas was mesmerized and got way to into it. "Cut hims eyeballs out Dad!" Once I heard that, it was time for Nick to return to comforts of watching WWE Smackdown with his brother in the house. How do I win?

Well as the pics show, it ended up being an 8 pointer. Spencer was a little disappointed in the size. I think it is called "ground shrinkage". But I think it is like beer goggles - once you sit in a tree for 10 hours straight you become delirious and anything with antlers starts looking good. Subconsciously you just want to get your Popsicle ass out of the tree and back on solid ground.

I am just happy to have my husband back for a few weeks that is until slug hunting opens. And the circle of life continues. For real, Spencer loves it and I love that he has great hobbies and I love hearing his stories.

The pics below are courtesy of my friend Tiffany. Spencer wanted pics but I didn't want to get my big camera out to switch the settings and add my external flash - sometimes it is a pain to get good pics. Luckily Tiff had her camera in her purse so I was able to use that.

Halloween Highlights

Here are a few highlights from our halloween celebrations. Noah decided to be a hunter and was covered in camo. Makenna, like 80% of all the other little girls her age, was Hannah Montana. Nicholas was a Hawkeye sports guy. We didn't have enough items to make him a full football guy so he also wore a baseball cap and wrestling shoes. He didn't care about the outfit as long as he got treats.

Our pumpkins we carved - the kids didn't get the one of the left. They said "Dad, you did it sideways." I explained to them once they get on the computer more, they will get it;)

Playing with the pumpkin seeds that we later cleaned and baked.

Nicholas' preschool party - He is tougher than ever;)

Nick and a buddy in his class, Blake.

Listening during Makenna's class party. All the second graders wrote halloween stories and read them out loud in front of the class.

Makenna reading her story of a little girl that goes trick or treating.

A cute story....we got to our third stop trick or treating and Nicholas looks up at me and says, "Mom, I LOVE your birthday." He ran from house to house like always and had a blast. Unfortunately instead of fighting with him about how much candy he was eating, I decided to let him go to town in hopes that he would stop on his own due to a icky belly and then he would be over his candy fixation. Well, the night was fine but at about 3:00 am he woke me up after he puked. I dealt with it thinking ok this should fix him. The next morning, I was awaken to Nicholas voice at about 8:00 am saying "Mom, can I have some more candy?" My plan totally backfired so now we are back to putting the candy up high and me giving allowances.

Fall Pics from Northeast Iowa

Ok first for my disclaimer, Yes, I am a photographer but I am not claiming to be a Macro Photographer. I did, however, ventured out with Makenna one evening last week for some late fall fun. We went for a walk down a local nature trail and this is some of the things we saw. Enjoy....