by jltitus on August 9, 2009
For the last three years I’ve been taking about a week off the end of July and heading to Othello, Washington (my home town). I go and hang out with my mom, visit with friends, and just enjoy being there for a time. This time was no exception.
I got to visit my friend Cyndee and her family. She and I had a great girls day in Tri-Cities while Ryan and Daniel went to the Puz’s so Daniel could play with his friend. Cyndee and I went to Tri-Cities and got a pedicures. It was so much fun. It’s not often that I get pedicures so it was a nice treat.
I think after that we ran around to a few other places and then headed back to Connell to work on dinner. Once we got back to Connell Cyndee and I chilled and chatted about everything from what’s she’s doing now, to old teachers we’ve worked with, and more. I miss being closer and visiting her more. I’m so glad she’s lovig her job and working in Connell. It’s great too that Ryan is working there iin town too, so much better than the trips to Walla Walla.
We ended up BBQing for the night. It was so much fun! 
Cyndee was running the grill while Daniel and I were playing on his swing set, trampoline and soccer. Daniel is such a cutie pie and so full of energy. After dinner we headed to the pool so Daniel could go swimming. I decided I wasn’t going to goo swimming so no suit for me. I was so surprised with Dainel. He’s walk up the four flights of stairs to the top of the slide. He’d then slide down. I couldn’t believe it. he’s only 5 years old and he just does it by himself. I would be totally freaked out if that were me. He’s just fearless! It was an awesome visit! Now I just need to convince Cyndee to bring Daniel down here for a visit. I think he’d love the Children’s Museum, the Zoo, and OMSI.
Friday July 24th was the annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life. I’ve been going every year for the last three years. Our team is a bunch of teachers, friends, and family. I love the relay it’s such a great community event. Othello is a small town, about 6K, with a lot of heart. There are so many people that come out for this event every year. I’m always surprised at how many come out. I think we started out about 7pm with a few words from people that have survived cancer. One of those that talked this year w
as my mom’s friend, Kristi Spohr. She was actually my French teacher in high school. She did such a great job talking about her experience in finding out she had cancer. I stood there listening to her tearing up and thinking I should really go and get my mammogram done soon. After the talks those that have survived cancer did the survivor walk. It’s the first round around the track and done by those that have survived cancer. It’s really cool because you see a sea of purple shirts walk the track. It’s neat, and yet bitter-sweet to see all those survivors. I know so many of them too. Some are even people I’ve gone to high school with. I’m so glad they’re survivors.
Every year we raise money and every year we try to do better than the last year. This year we raised $1,700 from our team, the Studs and Duds. I was so happy we’d done so well. I’m always happy if we make more than 1K, maybe next year we’ll make 2K. This year was a ton of fun too because “the kids” (Alex, Cade, Drake, and Gabriella) got to spend the night with us. I think they had a great time! I was proud of myself too because I walked 13 miles straight in the relay. I could have walked farther but I got a blister on my foot so the last 3 miles were hard.
Once the relay was over mom and I headed home. Saturday was a day of sleeping and relaxing since we’d not slept the night before. It was so nice not to do anything. Saturday night we went out to Penny and Israel’s place to have dinner and visit with the kids. I love hanging out there with them. The kids are so full of energy and just fun to play with. Cade had recently gotten a new goat so we went out to the pasture to see his new goat and everyone else’s goat too. We also got to see the new chickens.
Monday I headed to Ellensburg to visi
t with Eric’s parents. I think it’s so great that we have such a great relationship. I love my in-laws, they’re the best. Tuesday I got to go with Julie to her book club luncheon. It was so much fun. I love Julie’s friends. We all enjoyed a great potluck luncheon and chatted about all things from books, to movies, to computers, to potatoes. I can’t remember everyone’s names but here’s a picture of everyone in attendance at the lunch. A bunch of great ladies.
Later Tuesday night Greg, Hollie, Miles, and Beth came over to Bob and Jullie’s to visit and play for a while before we headed to dinner. I can’t believe Mile’s is going into 2nd grade this year. I think Beth has one more year before she starts school. I just can’t believe how much time has flown by. It seems like just a bit ago when they lived up the street from us and we saw them more often. I really wish we saw everyone more often but that darn work just gets in the way of it all.
I had an amazing vacation! I actually extended it to include Thursday and Friday so I could spend time with Eric. I was go glad I took the time off.
Tagged as:
connell,
cyndee,
relay_for_life,
washington
by jltitus on December 25, 2005
This Christmas has been a total blast! Eric’s and I came up to Washington on Sunday and stayed with my mother until Friday morning. Eric got to go do a job shadow and see what being a radiographer is all about while I got to chill, sew a little and read a lot. Oh, and be lazy. Actually, while I was home I made a huge thing of Jamblaya for my mom and brother along with some of his favorite cookies. Thursday night we opened out gifts since Eric and I would be in Ellensburg for Christmas. Here are some pictures.
Friday we headed to Ellensburg to spend the rest of the holiday with Eric’s family. I was glad the weather was nice. After driving in the snow and stuff to Othello I wasn’t looking forward to doing it again to get to Ellensburg. We got settled in and I started to cut the fabric for my other quilt. Oh, I’m making a quilt for our bed in the master bedroom for those of you that didn’t know. So I cut out the fabric and thought I’d stop there but I got possessed and got a little less than half done the first night. I felt sort of bad that I wasn’t being more social but I was assured I was OK. Friday night we went out to this fantastic Italian restaurant here in town. It was nice there. We even got our own little private room. Saturday we all didn’t do much, OK yeah, I worked on my quilt more. I got all but two of the outside borders done but I’ll do that tomorrow or the next day and be done. We drank some, had great munchies for dinner and noshed, worked on puzzles and had a great time.
Christmas Day!
This morning we woke up to a very merry Christmas morning. Here are some pictures. I’ll try and write more later but it’s late and everyone is heading to bed.
Tagged as:
bob_titus,
eric,
julie_titus,
linda_crosier,
washington
by jltitus on December 18, 2005
Today we headed to Othello for the holidays. We’re planning on going to my mom’s for about 5 days and then to Eric’s parents’ for about 5 days. Eric and I got up late today so we didn’t get out by 11 as we’d planned and I forgot to get the oil changed in the car so we really didn’t get out when we’d planned. Eric took the car to get the oil changed while I finished getting everything packed up and ready to go for our trip. Baylee was running around wondering what was going on too. I’d just gotten back from Boston and I think she was worried I was heading out somewhere else again. When Eric got home we loaded the car with everything, even the dog, got in the car to go and it wouldn’t start. Argh! So we called Eric’s dad and figured/hoped it was the battery. Eric went across the street to the neighbors, Brian’s, and got jumper cables to try and jump my car. We jumped the car and sure enough everything worked. SO we headed out at something like 2:30pm. It took us over an hour getting out of town because the roads were slick. Eric did a great job driving to The Dalles. At about The Dalles we changed places because the weather was getting really bad and the compact snow and ice is something Eric doesn’t feel comfortable in. I drove from there home. We went through bad snow storms and weather. There were a couple of times that it did get a little dicey too. I was so glad when we got to Othello safely.
Tagged as:
othello,
snow,
visit,
washington
by jltitus on July 30, 2005
Mom was supposed to join us today for Jazz in the Valley but she wasn’t feeling very good and couldn’t make it. It think it was related to the bee sting she got a week or so ago. She still hasn’t bounced back from that 100%. Today started with Julie, Kathy and myself heading off to the farmer’s market to see what they had for produce and things. We cruised the whole market and really didn’t get much but Julie got some bread and Kathy got this cool rock with a dragon sandblasted into it.
Later in the day we all came back down town for the Jazz and Wine festival. It was a great time. We started out listening to some jazz but it wasn’t long until Eric and I decided to walk across the street and sample some wines. We bought our wine glass with our scripts and were off. Eric and I did it a little different this year. For the most part I sampled the whites and dessert wines and he did the reds. We’d share with each other so we could really decide what we liked. It was a lot of fun.
It was a little crazy too because I ended up running into people I knew there too. I think I ended up knowing three people. I ran into Julie T who lives down here in Portland and used to work in my same group at Intel. I ran into another Julie, this one from Connell, WA. I taught two (Eric & Emily) of her kids too. The other person I don’t know as well as they knew me. They came up, asked me if I was from Othello and then told me they’d had my mother as a teacher and they now owned the video store by the Othello Outlook newspaper. Crazy!
Eric, myself, Julie, Kathy, Bob and Bruce did the bouncing from listening to jazz to wine tasting for most of the afternoon. We all had a lot of fun. We’d each try something and either suggest everyone else try it or tell everyone to stay away. There were some really great wines in Gallery One and most of the wines at Climer were not so good. In fact most, if not all at Climer were pretty bad.
As usual we all went to the restaurant Pearls on Perl. It’s the very best restaurant in Ellensburg. I love it. Whenever we come for a visit I like to go there one night. The food is fantastic and ambiance is great too. They’ve usually got some singer in the place doing a great job providing background music. The owner and waiters/waitresses are fantastic. We ate a great and wonderful meal and headed home.
What a great day!
Tagged as:
bob_titus,
ellensburg,
eric,
jazz in the valley,
julie titus,
washington,
wine
by jltitus on July 29, 2005
This morning we all got up early. Mom took Eric up to the Warden Golf course to meet his dad and uncle Bruce for a round of golf. Mom picked up Kathy and Julie there. All the while they did that I tried driving my car to Tri-cities and got about 5 miles down the highway when my car refused to go. I mean it was on, I could give it gas but it didn’t go anywhere. After a lot of phone calls I finally got a hold of a tow company in Tri-Cities to come tow the car. Great, Here I was sitting in my car on a relatively hot morning waiting for the tow truck to come and who knew how long it would take them. I mean it’s not like Othello isn’t out in the boonies. Mom, Julie and Kathy came out to see how I was doing and brought me some much needed water while I waited. Then left to take Josh to PT and it wasn’t long after that the tow truck driver came. He was a really nice guy. We had the chance to talk about all sorts of things. He’s been in eastern Washington for over 20 years… blah…blah… blah… but it was nice to talk nonetheless.
I got to the dealership and it didn’t take long for them to tell me it was my clutch and it was gone. I couldn’t believe it. I mean my car only has something close to 47K for miles and the clutch goes out. I wasn’t worried until he told me it’s not covered by an extended warranty for the items because it’s considered a “wear and tear” item. I was totally bummed. I mean, now I had to come up with the money to pay for this. So of course I got on the phone with my mom and told her about it and that it was going to cost me a little more that $1,000. I’d just gotten a bonus from work and here it was going to my car. Argh! Take one step ahead and one behind. So I didn’t have a choice so I left my car to get fixed and drove off in one of their rental cars. Of course as I drive the rental car away, the RPM’s shoot up and the car isn’t going very fast. I was just about ready to jump out of the car and never drive again. That is… until I figured out it’s a “sport” Subaru Outback which means you can either drive it like an automatic or pretend it’s a standard and shift. Apparently, I needed to shift. Once I figured that out I was off and back to Othello.
So I got back to Othello and Mom, Julie, Kathy and I sat out back and sipped some wine and chatted. Women can talk… a lot… about a lot of things. It was a good time. I don’t even really remember what we talked about besides the fact we all couldn’t believe the clutch had gone out in my car and that it wasn’t covered. Not long after the guys got back from playing their round of golf and it was dinner time. Eric was the grill master again and did a great job. Mom really outdid herself with the BBQ. We had great salads with the burgers, chips and things. It was nice for everyone to sit outside and enjoy a great BBQ like that. Thanks MOM.
After dinner I got the call that my car was fixed so Eric and I headed down to the dealership to pick up my car. I paid them the money and got in my car to drive it and had a hard time. The clutch was a lot looser than before so it took a while to get used to that. We got home, had some dessert, packed the car to go to Ellensburg and were off.
Tagged as:
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forester,
othello,
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by jltitus on June 19, 2005
This weekend we went to Port Angeles. Port Angeles is where Eric grew up for part of his life, high school on. His grandfather still lives there. We went up for Father’s Day to finally see PA and for Eric to play in a Father’s day golf game. I’ve been in PA, or rather through PA before but I’d never gone and really seen PA. On the way there Eric and I had a great conversation about his time in PA and what adventures he had as a high schooler in such a small town.
Saturday morning we went to the PA Farmer’s market. It wasn’t hat much to get excited about. It was even smaller than the Orenco Sunday Farmer’s market.
We walked down to the waterfront and down a path that’s right by the water. There was some sort of pirate function going on so we didn’t go all the way out to the pier. We walked around downtown PA for a while and shopped for a birthday present for Julie since her birthday was a few days ago.
We went for a cruise around PA and Eric showed me all his old haunts. We cruised by Jorge’s house, John Waz’s house and his high school. We even went to his old house to check it out. Here’s a picture of Eric in front of his old house.
Sunday Eric, his dad and grandfather left the house early to go play in their tournament while Julie and I stayed home and hung out, read a bit and ended up talking for over three hours. I can’t believe we talked for that long but there was lots to talk about, especially Eric’s school plans and what he’s going to do since he didn’t get into his program for fall of 2005.
Later we met the guys at the golf club, had lunch and headed home. Here’s some great pictures of the guys after their round.
Tagged as:
father's day,
jim titus,
port angeles,
washington
by jltitus on February 13, 2004
Ok, it’s been over a week since my last post. Nothing much is going on with life. We’re getting a puppy tomorrow. I can’t wait. This one is going to obedience training. I can’t wait to have a dog again. I like the cats a lot but I LOVE dogs. I’m going to work so hard with her to get her to be a great puppy. I figure it’s a great time since Eric is home a lot of the day it will make life easier for the dog. Next quarter when he’s got more classes she should be trained well enough to be fine..
Eric and I are supposed to go up to Washington this weekend for my grandpa’s birthday. It’s not shaping up like I thought it would. I thought we’d all be having lunch in Prosser with grandpa and grandma but I guess the plan now is dinner in Othello at dad’s. Eric and I can’t do that. We’re getting the new puppy on Saturday and can’t just leave her all day on Sunday and Eric has mid-terms on Monday and needs to study. I guess we’ll have to go up in a week or two or something. This just stinks because I wanted to go up there but it’s just not working out. I hope my grandparents aren’t mad.
Wedding plans are progressing. I think we’ve nailed down a date and possible location. The plan right now is to have a small, immediate family only wedding, go on our honeymoon, have a simple luncheon in Othello for a reception and then an open house in Portland. It should be pretty easy and fun. I just want simple and easy to do. I called and talked to my mom about it this week. Things sound good. I’m sure I’ll have to go up to eastern Washington a few times so we can nail down details but it’s a pretty exciting thing.
I know I don’t have a lot to write at the moment. Things are plugging along and I guess I’m not getting the gratification from writing in this journal like I thought. I figured people would respond to my posting or in some way indicate they were reading them but such is not the case. I don’t know if my family, immediate & extended even read this or care. Oh well?.
Tagged as:
eric,
jona,
puppy,
washington,
wedding plans
