Ally's Benefit, School and Dance....Oh My!

Summer is finally over, Thank God! I am more of a winter, spring and fall guy because I am light complected and burn easy, plus I don't like to sweat. So what has the Schrock family been up to the last month or so? Well, the girls started dance and school, Dylanne started kindergarten and Micheala started preschool. Last weekend the gals all went to Illinois for Ally's "Rock and Rally" benefit and Addison's first birthday. I stayed home, worked and cried when the Hawkeyes lost.Here's Ally at her benefit this past weekend. I'm told that it was a lot of fun and lots of money was raised, WAY TO GO! It breaks my heart to not be able to attend these functions, but I know that Ally knows that I think about her all the time and love her very much. Doesn't she look great? I wish that I had half the courage that she does.
Ally's grandma, Jan, with the kids doing activities during the benefit. Noticed the T-shirts, if I must toot my own horn for a bit. Ally's shirt is cute, as she has found a way to make light of a tough situation. I am proud of everyone who wears the "Rally For Ally" t-shirts, as it is a physical reminder to Ally that people are thinking and praying for her.
Dylanne's first day of school. She is doing really well, although some mornings she just doesn't want to wake up. I am already seeing improvement in her education as she shares what she learns in school with me everyday. She feels the need to pose all of the time. Yes, she is a diva in training and Yes, I am in trouble when she gets older.
A head and shoulder shot. She was very excited on her first day, which is music to my ears because I was never into school much and I'm hoping that she really tries to get the most out of her educational opportunities. My wife thinks I'm crazy for thinking this way this soon, but I want Dylanne to build a solid foundation in education and I think it starts now.
Micheala's first day of preschool and she loves it! I apologize for the shadows in the picture, but I'm not Wilson Photography. Micheala has been doing great. No head trauma as of yet and the teacher, Mrs. Bark, has been keeping an eye on her and reports that everything is going well.
Once again, the girls strike a pose. Micheala really looks up to Dylanne, but at the same time is her own person.
Dance has started for the gals. They head to Troy Mills for class and so far, LOVE IT! Even though Micheala is more into shaking her ass, she is fine with tap for now. I am hanging on to the notion that dance class will improve their coordination for sports later in life. My wife tells me I need to get over it and come to the realization that the girls may not be interested in sports. I just tell Heather that she is talking crazy and that she should stay away from the booze, ha ha.

As I stated in my last post, busy, busy, busy!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I know that it's been a while since my last post, but we have been busy trying to enjoy what seems to be the end of summer. The girls have already started school and are doing great. I will have first day of school pictures soon, I've just been too lazy to download them. Hawkeye football is in full swing, as well as, the Giants attempt to defend their Super Bowl title, so I have been busy with stressing over my two favorite teams. I got season tickets to the Hawkeyes this year and our friends, John and Denise Harris are going with us to Minnesota in December to watch the Giants/Vikings game.

Heather and I have really made some nice friends in the neighborhood this summer. As always, we spend a majority of our time with Jason Liedtke and his wife Erica in the yard just visiting. We made some new friends in John and Denise Harris. They have two kids, Dylan and Jaylynn, who play well with our kids. They are a real fun couple and have many of the same interests and morals that we do. We had a young couple move in across the street, Doug and Mallory, and we are still getting to know them. They are very nice and seem to be fun and outgoing. We welcomed some other new neighbors this summer, Mitch and Janet, but they have been busy as they just had a baby girl less than a month ago. She is a cute one and their 2 year old is quite funny. Finally, Joni and Chris moved to Urbana. It has been awesome having them around. It will also be great to be so close to my new niece or nephew when he/she arrives.

We started a "bags" league at our house this summer. On Saturdays, the neighbors, as well as some family, get together and we play a bags tournament. We have gotten so into the bags games that we have built lights to play at night as well as cup holders. I keep weekly statistics and e-mail them to everyone involved. It's amazing to me how this picked up and became quite popular in our neighborhood. What a good way to spend Saturday nights, no money needed and the company of friends and family. Below are a few pictures from this summer. Dylanne on the swing. her and her friends spend quite a bit of time on our playset in the summer. Do the glasses give away the fact that she is also a full blown diva?
Micheala enjoying the swing. She's suppose to be taking it easy, but it's hard to hold her back.
Micheala playing Nintendo DS one night in the dark. My neighbor Jason, who just adores Micheala, takes tons of pictures of her and thought this was an awesome photo. She looks a bit freaky to me.
A view of the bags game set up from my neighbors house.
Another photo of he bags game setup. If you look to the left in the photo, you can see where everyone sits to visit and watch the games.

I promise to stay more on top of things as some people have been complaining since I haven't updated recently.

The Sunflower Project

Last spring, Dylanne's future kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Fangman gave the kids in her class a sunflower seed. With the seed was a message to plant it and watch it grow. By the time the sunflower is full grown, it would be time to start kindergarten. So Dylanne planted the seed, took care of it by watering it and now it has reached epic height. Needless to say, it's time to start school. A cool project for the summer.

Hawkeye Open Practice

Alright, well, Hawkeye football season is almost here and I got to go check out the open practice last Saturday. I know that this is our "family" blog, but I consider the Hawkeyes as part of my family.

Let me start by saying this; it may be a long season, although we look a little better than last year. As Captain Kirk stated after practice on Saturday, the offense put on a poor display. The defense looked good, but I'm not sure if that is due to the awful offense.

Quarterback looks to have Jake in the starting role but Stanzi close behind. I was not impressed with any of Jake's progress from last year, nor did I see much. He continues to not look off receivers and telegraphs every pass. He threw a couple of good balls, and had many passes that would have been intercepted if our d-backs had better hands. I was disturbed to see Jake throw a slant route on the 10 yard line right into the hands of our SS, Tyler Sash. Sash made a good read, but even I knew the pass was being thrown in that direction. Weinke and Vandenberg saw a bit of action and looked good for true freshman. They are not starting material yet, but the future looks promising with these two. McNutt saw some third string action, but only to run. This guy has amazing athletic ability, but I feel is in the wrong position. They ran a spread shotgun formation with McNutt in, which was exciting, but could easily be read as a run play from the get go.

Running backs took a lot of heat from the local media, but I think that they didn't get the credit they deserve. Shonn Greene is the starter and I was impressed. He is a big guy with good speed and packs a bit of a punch. Paki O'Meara saw some second string action, but I feel is not ready to carry the load of a full time RB. Guillory seems to have fallen off the map since spring. he could see some playing time and has potential, but I haven't been overly impressed with him. Freshmen Jewel Hampton, Jeff Brinson and Adam Robinson really have come on since arriving at campus. I think the question is, who do you redshirt and who do you play immediately? It could go either way, but I tend to favor Hampton.

Receivers are hard to judge given our quarterback situation. DJK is a stud and I will not say anything more about that because I do not need to. Brodell and Stross were out and will probably play baring injury. Chaney pissed me off as I witnessed him given up on a route. Overall, we need to run better routes and shorter routes to make up for our lack of quarterback play.

Tight ends were catching a lot of balls today. I like Reisner in the absence of Moeaki because he provides a big target.

O-line was solid. Eubanks saw action at left guard as Bruggeman was at center. Bulaga out, but a starter. These guys seemed to have improved from last year and look as if they are getting better and better with each week. By all means, not the o-line of 2002 but getting better.

D-line, one word, SOLID!

Linebackers are tough. Edds looks good and the others seem to be going balls out to try and win a spot. Angerer seems to bring a lot of fire to the field.

DB's looked okay. Bernstein is the kid I like but sat out after the first series with a hamstring injury. I like Sash at safety and not really sure why. Morrow looked decent and I was impressed with Fletcher, which is something that I am usually not.

Our punter is solid and may see a lot of action this year. Kickers on the other hand....not so good. Murray will be the starter, but that's nothing to write home about.

We have some work to do folks and I'm hoping Kirk can put it together. Below are some photos from the open practice. I only took a few pictures as I was stomping my foot and trying not to yell vulgar things out loud. (It was kid's day)

Taylor Swift

Since Micheala made it home from the hospital on Thursday, we were able to follow through with Dylanne's birthday gift, Taylor Swift concert tickets! So I decided that Heather, Dylanne and Aunt Joni should go to the concert because Heather had spent the whole week in the hospital with Micheala. The concert was reported as AWESOME! No pictures from in the concert due to "no digital cameras allowed", but we did get some on a disposable camera. If you get a chance, ask Dylanne about the concert, she was just floored by the fact that she got to see Taylor Swift! Of course the highlight of the concert is when Taylor played her new single "Changes", a song about overcoming things that happened out of your control, while playing a slide show on the screen behind her of the Cedar Rapids flood and clean-up. Afterwards she announced that she was donating $100,000 to the rebuilding fund. Although Micheala and I didn't get to go, Micheala still rocked out her Taylor Swift t-shirt. It was nice spending the night at mom and dad's house and then a little one on one time with Micheala. If you are clueless on who Taylor Swift is and her music, I suggest you pick up her album and her new album will be dropping in a couple months.

Getting Back to Normal

Tonight I write with a good feeling in my heart. As many of you know, Micheala's surgery and recovery has gone awesome. For daily updates, you can go to www.caringbridge.org/visit/schrock. Heather and I decided not to fill our family blog with Micheala's surgery information because we wanted this site to remain as upbeat and positive as possible. In other words, we didn't want "dump" on this website as we all went through an emotional month. However, I did post some picture below of the day after Micheala's surgery.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank a few special people. First, to my mom, dad and sister Joni; thank you for being there for Micheala and the rest of our family. I know that there were times when Heather and I just needed to have you there to lean on and you didn't disappoint. Also thank you for looking after Dylanne while we focused on Micheala. Thank you to Aunt Marilyn for watching over Dylanne on the day of the surgery. The girls really enjoy all the effort you put into their stays at your house. Thank you to Lani, who came numerous times to see Micheala and made sure that Heather and I had what we needed while in Iowa City. A very special thanks to Tad Benesh. Tad came to see us right after Micheala's surgery started, a time in which I was mentally unstable, and gave us laughs and conversation that helped us pass the time. It is awesome to have such a great friend and I appreciate the time he took out of his work day to come see us. Thank you to Aunt Darci, who came out to visit Micheala and cook us some delicious meals. Finally, Thank you to everyone who called, sent messages and prayed for Micheala. I plan on sitting down with Micheala some day and explaining to her what went on and how so many special people thought and prayed for her.

The Schrock family is so blessed to have such special people in our lives. Thank you again to all that took a little time for Micheala this past week.

Happy Anniversary!

Well, with everything going on with K'la right now I didn't want Monday to come and go without recognition of our 7th Wedding Anniversary. Although the past 7 years have proven to be absolutely wonderful, they have had their share of difficult moments and I wouldn't have wanted to go through any of them without Mike. I am truly blessed to have him as my husband and I look forward to a lifetime of more anniversaries!

Happy Anniversary, Mike! I love you!