Wow! What an AMAZING weekend. It’s not often that I have a weekend FULL of activities. I knew that Natalie and I were going to go to the Sock Summit on Friday. So before the summit I decided to sew up a  couple bags for us. I wanted to make something that was HUGE, could hold a lot, looked cute, and used fun patterns. I made a cool green striped bag for myself and a nice retro blue/green/brown bag for Natalie. I love making bags, sewing!

The Marketplace.. just one of the MANY vendors

My weekend really started on Friday. I took the day off to go to the Sock Summit with my best friend Natalie. She and I have known each other for many years. We met when we both worked at Intel in the training department for IT. Natalie is one of my very best friends. She’s an instructional designer too and a VERY avid knitter. She’s into technology too. She’s actually got a great podcast that she’s doing, Cloudy with a chance of fibers. If you haven’t listened to it, you should. She and I went to the Sock Summit on Friday. Who would have known that there were SO many people interested in socks. It was so crazy to see all the booths with yarn!

Results of my shopping binge!

I loved looking at all the beautiful hand dyed yarns and the combinations of bamboo, wool, alpaca, etc. There were so many booths, many more than I think I’ve ever seen for the scrapbook convention. The vendors came from all over the place too! I found so many yarns that I fell in love with. I did a little bit of damage while Natalie and I were there. It was sort of funny when we went because we’d start out walking the marketplace together, one of us would stop, the other would keep going and before you knew it we would loose each other. I don’t know how many times that happened. Ordinarily I would have just texted Natalie on my computer but we were both having a heck of a time with getting our phones working there. I guess most people were having issues. It did make things frustrating. Natalie organized a yarn crawl for those that listen to her podcast, or know her on twitter for the afternoon. We all met at the bell and then took the yellow line Max and headed to The Naked Sheep in North Portland (NoPo). I love that place. They’ve got great seating for people to just hang out and knit. They’ve also got a great collection of yarns and other knitting paraphernalia. So we hung out there for a while and then got pizza and Ruby Jewel ice cream at Atomic Pizza just two doors down. After that it was a walking trip back to the Max and then to Mississippi Avenue to walk the street and have some great dinner. It was such a long day but so AMAZING! I had a great time.

Saturday started out as a lazy day for me. Eric planned to go to the Beer Fest. I’m not a beer drinker so I really had no interest in going. I did want to go downtown though and enjoy the beautiful day. Eric and I hopped on the Max and headed downtown. After eating at the food carts we headed down to the waterfront. Eric headed to the Beer Fest and I headed to Pioneer Mall to get a new shirt because it was so hot.. I needed a new shirt. After hitting the mall I walked down to the waterfront and walked the esplanade. It was so nice to be out in the sunshine and just enjoy being warm. After walking around for a while I decided to head back up toward the Pearl District. I went to Cool Moon Ice Cream. It’s on 11th and Johnson, a bit of a walk but on a nice day, nothing big. I love Cool Moon. They make some of the most amazing custom ice creams. I ended up having the very best Salty Carmel ice cream I’ve ever had.

After grabbing my ice cream I headed across the street to the park to people watch, sit on a park bench in the shade, and knit my sock. It was so nice and cool, I loved it. I could do that every day. Maybe not the ice cream but just being outside on a nice day… that’s amazing. Once I’d been there for a while, and finished my ice cream I decided to head to Powell’s Books. I love that place and it seems that every time. So I went and checked out some books, but nothing spoke to me so I headed off to Stumptown coffee and the Ace Hotel lobby to hang out for a while until Eric, his cousin Brian, and Brian’s wife Diana finished at the Beer Fest. I ended up meeting them down in Old Town at Ground Kontrol. I hadn’t seen Brian in ages and I’d never met his wife until Saturday. Diana is so awesome. She and I chatted for a long time while the guys relived their childhood and played video games. It’s so funny to see Eric get excited about old video games he used to play. At one point I found Eric and Brian playing Joust. After everyone ran out of quarter we headed to dinner at Kin in the Pearl. It’s one of Eric favorite places to go. We sat there and chatted about everything from law, to politics, to family, to wine, and I can’t remember what else. I couldn’t help thinking the whole time that it was nice to see Brian again and nice to meet Diana. She and I would often break off in our own conversation and talk about socks, knitting, sewing, or our jobs. We were there for hours just chatting about everything. Once we were done eating we were off to Clyde Common for a drink. Diana has worked as a bartender so we wanted to take her there to give her the experience of unique drinks. We got there only to find out that junior had just clocked out so we headed to Tear Drop for great drinks. We sat and hung out together enjoying good drinks and just chatting. Junior ended up coming over for a while too which made it just that much more fun. It was such a great night. I loved meeting Diana and seeing Brian again.

As if my last post wasn’t long enough.. here’s the rest of the story.. er… summer. Can you say busy?

The middle of July Eric and I headed up to Deer Lake, near Spokane, Washington for a wedding.  It’s a long story but Israel and Penny are pretty much like family to us. Israel and Penny have triplets and a onelet all 6 or under. My mom has been there for them and their kids, since the kids were born. The kids even call my mom “grandma Crosier”. Gavin is Penny’s son and it was Gav

in’s wedding that we were going to attend. Israel and Penny have a cabin on Deer Lake that Gavin and Heather, his wife, decided they wanted to get married at. I don’t think I’ve even gone to a wedding on a lake before. I have to say this one was beautiful. Israel, Penny and Israel’s family did such an outstanding job getting it all looking beautiful. When Mom, Eric and I got there they were wrapping the trees with white lights. It looked gorgeous at night with all those lights. I have to say it was a lot of fun being there. I got to meet more of Israel’s family and get to know them better. I think the best was seeing everyone all dressed up. The boys in their tuxes and the girls in their dresses looked beautiful. I can’t wait for the next time we all go up to the cabin for another visit.

Helping Steph move and trip to Saturday market

Stephanie, a friend of mine and Eric’s has lived in downtown Portland since February. She lives in this great new apartment building, Cyan with her two black labs, Frodo and Kelly. I helped Steph move in and even helped build the many Ikea cabinets she used in the place. Early this summer, when the weather was nice, Steph, Eric and I hit the Portland Saturday market. I haven’t been down there in ages. In some ways the place hasn’t changed at all and in others, it’s not even the same place. In any case… we all had a great day there. Later on in the summer, we helped Stephanie pack up a pod with all of her things. She was moving to Austin, Texas. I have to say I was really bummed that she was moving, Steph and I get along great, but I was happy for her too. It’s always nice to turn the page in life and start a new chapter. Now she’s in Austin, loving it and enjoying her new job!

July Relay for Life

Isn’t it funny how you can go a week or more and not journal but have a ton to say? I mean, I enjoy journaling and posting here and getting comments and everything but I’ve not been journaling/blogging for about a week. Hummm…. I guess it could be because I’ve been busy with things. I know that’s an excuse for everyone. I have been working, which I’m loving. I love my job and the people I work with. it’s so nice to work with people that have a common goal and interest. It’s great too that I’m working on the projects I’m working on. I mean I’m helping make some decisions for the future of the training organization. How cool is that! I’m doing the typical, create training courses for online delivery but I’m also in charge of determining and giving recommendations for authoring tools we’ll use for now and in the future. I’m working on moving some of our content, like manuals to wiki’s, which is super cool. I could give you the link and password but then I’d have to kill ya… HAHA… I’m working on developing some Instructional Design Standards and templates for us to use which is cool too. It’ s just so nice to have such growth opportunities. it’s the stuff I’ve always wanted to be doing but haven’t had the opportunity in my last job for a variety of reasons.

This weekend Eric’s parents were here which was so nice. I love it when they come, or my mother comes because we always have a great time and it’s not a high maintenance, gotta make sure they have something to do, sort of thing. Of course we had great food and exceptional company while they were here but I think the best part was playing Pinochle for a couple of hours. Of course this time the guys beat us but usually Juile and I are the winners. Oh I also need to say THANKS a TON to BOB for getting the cable up in the garage with the curtains. If not for Bob and Eric, I don’t know when it would have gotten done..

I love Christmas for a lot of reasons. I think the biggest reason is that I love being with family, celebrating time together, spending quality time together, catching up and just being together. This year was no different. I was a little worried because Eric had to work right before Christmas Eve and then the day after Christmas which meant we’d have a short visit but everything worked out.

Christmas eve was spent with Eric family. We ate a ton of food, put puzzles together and just spent time together. and I had dueling laptops going for quite a while and at the end of the evening we took a little time to open a few presents. it was a nice night. I had the kids open their PJ’s so they could wear them. They both looked so cute.

Christmas morning we all got up and had a wonderful Christmas breakfast of blueberry pancakes, and bacon. yum…. made a great breakfast for us all. and and Miles and Beth were nice enough to come over a littler early so we could all have breakfast together and then open gifts. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have been an issue but we needed to leave by 11am to make it to yakima for my mom’s family Christmas. It was so much fun opening gifts but watching the kids open and play with theirs was the best. They are both really growing up to be big kids.

The Nathlich Family

I really did have a great time at the Titus house for Christmas but I have to say, going to Yakima and having a HUGE Christmas with my mom, brother, grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins and their kids was the best. I can’t even remember the last time we were all together like that. It was great too because I was able to get a picture of everyone before any of us left. It really made me appreciate my family and appreciate the big Christmases we used to have. I love having a ton of people for the holidays. I had a great time touching base with my cousins and just being together.

All in all this year was great. The weather cooperated, we got to be with family, spent time with my family that I haven’t seen for quite a while, and had great food.

Next year… Christmas at our house!!! Can’t wait!!

Today was AWESOME! We had a whole bunch of people over for a BBQ, it was so nice. We had Eric’s brother and family, guys from Eric’s basketball team, some of my friends from Intel and the neighbors. It was such a great group of people.

The weather was wonderful and so nice that we were all able to hang out outside and chat without being super hot. It was a great afternoon. I think everyone had a great time. We all had things we could talk about and I don’t think we talked work (Intel) much at all which is really hard to do when you’ve got a bunch of people from work. Everyone brought something to the potluck. The food was so great. We had wonderful salads, and desserts for everyone. Eric made this great lemonade too. Man it was great!

Most everyone left by 7 or 8 but Mike and his family stayed and we watched some TV. We watches the first two episodes of 30 days and a few other shows. It was so great to all hang out together, watch some TV and chat about things. Mike’s kids are so well behaved. I was so impressed. His kids are early teenagers. Not once did I see them pull one of their parents aside and ask to leave or give the look that they didn’t want to be here. Very impressive! It was such a great night, I hope that we can get together with them more and have something like a games night or something. I guess we’ll see.