Mother's Day - The 2nd Half

From Chino we headed to Whittier to have a late lunch with Dave's family.

Here are some pics from our afternoon:

Vera and her "kids"


Michelle, Miss, Debbee, and I being photographed...from the grass' perspective


Just some pretty flowers in the front yard

Mother's Day - The 1st Half

Dave and I met my mom at her new church in Chino in the morning. Enjoyed the service and hen headed out to breakfast at Farmer Boy's, a favorite of Mom and Wendy's. Then we went on a tour of all the many critters of Chino.

You see when I was very young we didn't have much money so my mom would take me to the dog pound and call it the zoo. It is now a running family joke. So we called our tour through the streets of Chino, "a safari through the Wild Animal Park".

Here are some of the fierce beasts that we encountered:

PJ

In Escrow!

Well, the Aliso house is finally in escrow!!! YIPPY! It should close at the end of May, assuming all goes smoothly. So on June 1st...let the horse shopping begin! :o)

Day 2 w/ The New Camera

Getting Closer....

Well, we have finally gotten a couple offers on the Aliso house. I will be sure to post an update once it goes into escrow, which we are hoping will happen in the next couple days!

Here is PJ helping Dave review one of the offers on his computer:

A Whole New World

Day 1 with our new digital camera!











Thanks, Jeff, for recomendinig the Canon Powershot A510. We are loving it. As you can see from the pictures, we will be loving it even more once we figure out how it works!

CHER

Lori and I went to the Cher concert at the Hollywood Bowl last night. We had a great time. Cher was amazing!

Del Mar National

Saturday I got up at 6am (not a single snooze did I hit) and headed down to Del Mar to go to the Del Mar National Horse Show. My mom's friend, Wendy, was going to be showing in the show.

It was such a wonderful day. As soon as I stepped on the property I felt like I was home. I miss showing horses so much!

Highlights for the day:

1. Spending the day hanging out with my mom.
2. Catching up with old friends. Funny how not much has changed in the 4 years I have been completely out of the sport.
3. My new jacket. It was getting really cool toward the middle of the day so my mom bought me a really cool new jacket. I have worn it every day since.
4. Standing only 5 feet away form Bob Avila! Bobby Avila is one of the top horsemen ever! He is like the Lance Armstrong of the horse industry.
5. Sting Ray boots. My boots are just about to fall apart so I was checking out the boot selection at one of the vender booths. They had boots made out of all types of hide, such as ostrich and alligator, however there was one that I could not identify. They merchant explained that it was sting ray and I guess it is one of the most durable materials to make boots out of it. It is non-porous so you don't have to polish them; you just hose them down when they get dirty. They were a mere $400 so I passed. They were really cool looking though.

Important Information....just in case

Kristin Michele Titov's Aliases

Your movie star name: Ice Cream Bob

Your fashion designer name is Kristin Paris

Your socialite name is Midget Cabo

Your fly girl / guy name is K Tit

Your detective name is Pony Ocean View

Your barfly name is Candy Vodka

Your soap opera name is Michele Waltz

Your rock star name is Strawberry Jet

Your star wars name is Kripj Titdav

Your punk rock band name is The Lazy Candle

The Amazing Meganame Generator

No More Planes...PLEASE!

WOW...What a trip!

My boss and I flew out of John Wayne at 9am Tuesday morning. We landed in Houston around 2pm for a 2 hour layover. Then we got on a plane headed for Charlotte, NC. However, once we got near the airport they closed it down due to severe weather. We flew in a circle waiting to things to clear up, but when we began to run out of fuel we were rerouted to Charleston, SC. We landed in Charleston, waited on the plane for a half hour and then they let us off the plane to wait in the now closed down airport. Donn and I were starving, having been well past dinner time by now. However, the only food options where inside the souvenir shop. I had a bag of Skittles and Donn had some salted peanuts. After about an hour in the Charleston airport they let us back on the plane and we headed back to Charlotte. By the time we got off the plane in Charlotte, haled a cab and got to our hotel, it was midnight. However, we still hadn't really had dinner yet. So we hoofed it to the nearest restaurant in the rain. We were exhausted and quite punchy at this point, but it felt good to be out side and stretching out legs.

The next morning started with a 7:30am wait-up call (keep in mid that this is 4:30am CA time). My eyes felt heave and I just wanted to stay in bed. I drug myself over to the mirror and was quickly aware of why my eyes felt so heavy. They were totally swollen and red. I looked like once of those big gold fish with the bugged out eyes. When I met Donn for breakfast he refused to even look at me claiming that they made him sick to his stomach (yes, this made me feel much better). We had 9am and 10:30am appointments (which I won't go into deals about being the discreet HR pro that I am). Then the cab came to pick us up to take us to the airport at noon. Our 2:35pm (11:35pm CA time) flight was delayed by an hour. Turning out 1 hour and 5 minute lay over in Houston only a 5minute layover. We found ourselves speed walking from the B terminal to the E terminal on direct opposite ends of the airport. We got to out next plane just in time...hot and sweaty, but on time. I was really not look forward to getting on another plane. This was just way too much airplane time in such a short period. And my travel companion wasn't very entertaining. The second we got in the air he would fall fast asleep and then wake up just as the landing gear was hitting the runway. We ended up getting back to The OC last night at 8pm.


PLEASE...N O M O R E P L A N E S ! ! !

House For Sale

Our Aliso house is finally beautified and on the market. It is on Homeseekers.com of you want to check it out. I am expecting the offers to be rolling in any minute now!

"Camping"

Friday night we packed up our camping gear and headed down to Doheny Beach to meet some friends from SCU for a bit of camping. By the time Dave and I got there it was dark but we were able to get our tent up with out too much trouble. We didn't bring a hammer so we weren't able to steak it down. But, we figured that that wasn't very important anyways. Also, we didn't really want to bother with the directions so we we just attached the cape on the top so that it "looked" right.

We all had a nice evening sitting around the campfire roasting marshmellows. At 11pm we decided it was bed time. We all ajerned into out own tents for a restful slumber. However, then the wind started up. It was blowing so hard that our entire tent was moving. Every few minutes the side of the tent would hit me in the head. And the cape that wasn't secured correctly to begin with was being caught by the wind and acting more like a sail. Oh, and it was also freezing. I just couldn't seem to get warm. So at 2pm I had not gotten a second of sleep so I sat up and turned to Dave saying, "I am seriously thinking about driving home." Giving the amount of complaining that I had done over the past few hours he replied, "I think that is a good idea." So he got up to remove the "sail" and I headed home.

The next morning I headed back to our camp site to endure some teasing, but turns out I wasn't the only one that didn't sleep very well. We spend that day basically just relaxing. We sat around and talked and read magazines. After lunch a group of us headed to a big grass field for a game of barefoot soccer. I wasn't planning on playing but when they were short a person I was called upon to even out the teams. I played defense and ended up having a really great time. Our team, consisting of Eric J., David T., Matthew J., Conner E. and myself, ended up the victors.

Dave and I stayed for dinner, amazing chili made by Jenn W. and Natalie J. Then headed home to get a good night of sleep since sunday was going to be spend putting the final touches on the Aliso house including planting tons of flowers and trees.

Paint Everywhere!

As most you know, that see me in person on a regular basis, I am a fan of the creative airbrush designs on my finger nails. I have had everything from stars to ocean scenes with dolphins and palm trees to the most recent Easter eggs. However, right now all that is noticeable on my nails is brown and white paint. No, not nail polish or airbrush paint....wall paint.

Dave and I are in the midst of getting our Aliso Viejo house ready to sell. Yesterday was phase 1. Dave resoded part of the back yard during his lunch break and then both of us were there last night. I chose a brownie-grey color for the bedroom to match the towels I had purchased for the master bath since there isn't a door between the two. I thought it would look great to have the bedroom brownie-grey with white accents and then the bathroom white with the exact same brownie-grey accents. I spent about 1/2 hour at Lowes finding the exact color to match the towels. After the color was mixed it looked perfect in the can. Then I got home and painted a little spot on the wall. However, on the wall the color looked more mauve. Dave and I continued painting hoping that it would dry the right color or maybe it was just the peachy-orange color it was covering that was reflecting oddly, but once it is all covered it will look right. By the time we left at 9pm it was looking better, but I seriously doubt that it will end up being the same brownie-grey as the towels. O'well...it was a nice try, I guess. Dave's dad is spending the day today finishing up the room. I am excited to see how it will turn out.

Anyways, that is the big time consuming project for this week...getting the house ready to sell. We still have about 20-30 more projects on the list to get done before Monday.

Palm Desert

The brokerage firm the we use at Barbeques Galore invited Jen (our HR Assistant)and I to attend their Annual Employee Benefits Informational Seminar in Palm Desert at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort. Since it was free our boss encouraged us to go and learn more about trends and new legislation/regulations relating to employee benefits. Soon after RSVPing that we would attend we found out that our husbands were also invited. I though this was a bit strange, but Dave was more than willing to attend. So we left around 3pm on Friday. We got there around 5:30pm since there was quite a bit of traffic. The frustration of the traffic was quickly forgotten once I checked in and was informed that we would be staying in a "1 bedroom Penthouse Suite" on the "Concierge Floor".

Friday night at 6:30pm there was a Welcome Reception for all the attendees of the seminar and their families. Then after breakfast at the Regency club on Saturday morning the real work began at 9am. The hard work ended at 12pm just in time for lunch. And that was it. The "Employee Benefits Seminar" part of the weekend was over after only 3 hours of information. So after lunch Dave and I headed out to the pool for awhile and then it was time for my 50 minute Sweetish Massage. Then back to our "suite" for a quite nap and some lounging on the balcony enjoying the mountain views. And then to the regency club for ordurves and off to dinner. Dinner was at a swanky little Italian restaurant in the shopping district of Palm Desert. It was one of the nicest meals I've ever had (probably in the top 10). Dave had Filet Minion and I had some dish I can't pronounce or remember but had to moan with each bit. Oh, and did I mention the entire weekend was "open bar"?

When we went to check out on Sunday morning the only charge on our bill was for the tip on the massage. The weekend cost about $60 including gas and road tolls. Now this is my kind of "seminar"!!!

Easter

Easter morning started with going to church. We attended the 9am SCU/Sakred service.

Me & Karen


The boys of the RSM Community Group


Me & Troy


Then we made the trek to the Moreno Valley for an Easter meal with Dave's family.

The girls


The cousins


Dave eatting a color coordinated M&M

A Shopping Trip to Remember

I had the best shopping trip last night!!!

First I went to Nordstrom's because the super cute pointy toe boots I got there in December were getting a tear in one of the seams. So took the boots up to the desk and showed the guy the tear. He asked me if I would like to have them fixed or get a whole new pair. I told him that I didn't care. So he brought me out a shiny new pair of the exact same boots...tear free! With that success behind me I was off to find a new pair of jeans. Now I have never spent very much on my jeans, but jeans are my favorite piece of clothing. SO since I have finally been able to maintain a weight that I am happy with I decided that it was time that I have a pair of jeans that fit just right. I ended up in Saks 5th Avenue. I had never shopped there before, but their website had the best selection of jeans out of all the stores in the mall.

Saks is my new favorite place! It was so fun! They had a huge selection. I think I must have tried on 15-20 pairs of jeans. The dressing room they gave me was gigantic with multiple mirrors and everyone was super nice. I felt like Cinderella. My search finally concluded with finding my "Dream Jeans"! They are so perfect! They are a dark jean color with a touch of fading and fit perfectly! And the best part is they were under my budgeted amount to spend!

After purchasing the most perfect jeans ever I was walking out of the store when I noticed a sale rack that caught my eye. I found a super cute long sleeve shirt by Juicy Couture priced down to $24 from it's originally price of $64! I had to try it on! And..it fit! What a night! I am still reeling from the exhilaration (as you can probably tell from all the !'s)!

Lake Arrowhead

Karen, Dave and I drove up to Lake Arrowhead Friday afternoon. As we were driving up the final hill we were seeing all kinds of cool homes through the darkness and were getting pretty excited. When we finally pulled up to our cabin it didn't quite look like the luxury homes we had pasted by, but we weren't disappointed...yet. After opening the front door we were immediately confronted with an awful musty smell. The cabin was totally dark inside. We slowly made our way into our new home for the weekend turning on one light at a time throughout the house until every light was one. With the flick of each switch a glimpse of the 60's was reviled. First the brown, orange and green linoleum flooring in the kitchen...Then the patterned brown carpet...Next the neon green vinyl and white rod iron dinning room set with matching bar stools...and so on. Each window had its own set of heavy, albeit dusty, draperies in an array of rusty oranges, drab yellows, olive greens and poop browns. I have seen my fair share of Scooby-Doo episodes so I opened each cabinet and bedroom door with extreme caution half expecting bats to fly out at me. It was our estimation that no one had set foot in the house for few weeks at best. We made a quick phone call to Mike to ask him to be sure to bring up some candles to help with the odor. On the bright side; the cabin did have 3 separate areas that made for great gaming, nice big fireplace, and 2 really cool balconies with a gigantic tree coming up through the middle of both of them.

Once we had finished our exploration of the place we decided to make the best of our time by playing a game of Cities & Knights. Dave, of course, won. By the time we finished our game the musty smell was barely noticeable and Mike, Matthew and Anita we only a few minutes away. Once they arrived we played a quick round of Blackjack to decide who got which room and we were off to sleep.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sunny day. We quickly crammed down some breakfast and began a game of Settler's of Catan, which Anita, even though it was here first time playing, won. Then we were on a mission to find snow. We ended up driving to Big Bear were we purchased some plastic saucers. We found a cool little place that had some great sledding runs with a little help from a local. Dave and I were the first ones to take the saucers and hike up the hill. He suggested that I go first. I had 2 options...1. take the smooth slope or 2. take the one that resembled a roller coaster. I, of course, decided to try the roller coaster one hoping to catch some air. Well my wish came true. Everything was going well over the first bump, but then I started to spin around backwards and was picking up a lot of speed. The next bump proved to be a bit too much. As I crested it facing back up the hit I caught huge air that bounced me right off the saucer on the landing. However, by now I was flying down the hill totally out of control. I took the next bump without my saucer and finally came to a stop a couple of yards later. Dave declared that I won the award for Biggest Wipe-out of the Day! I am a bit sore, but no injuries. Needless to say I took the smooth tack for the rest of my runs. Once we had our fill of sledding we had a quick snow(ice)ball fight and then ended our snow experience by building a snow man.

While on our snow excursion we left the windows open in the cabin so by the time we got back that evening all traces of the musty smell had vanished. We finished up the evening with a game of Settler's of Catan and then various card games.

Sunday morning we got up and cleaned the cabin and then headed over to where the Aliso Community Group was staying for their Community Group retreat just a couple of miles away. I called our cabin the "retro cabin", but their cabin wasn't even a cabin. It was more of a palatial estate right on the lake. We hung out there for awhile talking and roasting marshmallows before heading back to The South OC.

The only pic of my big wipe-out:


The group:


Dave and I take a rest from the fun:


The snowman artists -- all I did was his hair:


Dave makes-out with the snowman:


Karen and I brave the hill together:


Mike and Dave, who won't even share a meal, share a saucere down the hill:

Annual Manager's Conference

Just got back from the 2005 Annual Barbeques Galore Manager's Conference which was held at the Torrey Pines Hilton in La Jolla. It was really fun and a great opportunity to get to know our manager's better, but also quite tiring. I had an awesome time, but am glad to be home.

Can you find me iin teh crowd?


Me & the 2003 Store Manager of the Year with the Owner and CEO of Lynx

PJ

Now that I can post pictures on my bolg I thought I would share some pics of my little kitty, PJ.


Posing for the camera


She just LOVES ribbons and...doesn't she have the cutest little toes?


Here we are in the car on the way to pay a visit to the vet


Enjoying Super Bowl Sunday together

Baby Shower

Karen and I attended a baby shower for one of the Bunko Girls, Erika, yesterday. She is due in just a couple of weeks. Karen and I met before the shower to pick up a gift. But, soon discovered that neither of us could remember if the baby was going to be a girl or a boy. So we strategically chose items that were neutral, but felt bad for not knowing. We took all precautions to hide our not knowing. Soon after getting to the party we discovered that nobody knows the sex of the baby, not even Erika :o) So our neutral gifts fit right in.

Tahoe Pics

The SCU Community Pastors ready to hit the slopes


Lori, Dave and I preparing to take on lift #5


Pro Snowboarders


Riding up lift #2 behind Dave and I


Innertubing


Lori and I wrestling in the snow


Aren't we cute?!?!?!

My Calling

It has been confirmed that I am a better driver than Dave. We went to a birthday party for a good friend at Dave & Busters on Friday night. Well, you know how they have those Daytona race car simulators that can race against each other? I think Dave and I raced 4 different times. I won all 4 times! By the 4th win Dave had completely run out of excuses for this phenomenon. Turns out my calling isn't Human Resources it's RACECAR DRIVER!!!

Tahoe Trip

Just got back yesterday from an awesome trip to Tahoe with the South County United Community Pastors. It was an amazing week for fun, relaxation and fellowship. We left Orange County in Troy and Tricia's van early Wednesday morning. The six of us (Troy, Tricia, Marc, Megan, Dave and I) drove straight to Tahoe only stopping for restrooms, food, and gas. We arrived in Tahoe around 3:30pm and Jeff and Lori joined us about an hour later. We stayed in a condo in Kirkwood right on the mountain. The ski lifts were only steps away. There was tons of snow on the ground (looked like about 8-10 feet). Each evening we broke apart different sections of Col. 4:2-6 and discussed how to best live these verses out in our lives, our community groups and our church. Each morning a different couple would lead us in a discussion ranging from prayer with your spouse to dealing with specific prayer needs. It was such an awesome time of being real and vulnerable with each other. I feel like God is really moving inside of us. These discussions wree actaully the highlight of the trip for me.

During the days we were on the slopes or playing games. Thursday morning, after some time of prayer with our spouses, we hit the slopes bright and early. The sun was out and the snow was perfect. Dave and I made some real progress with our quest to be master snowboarders. I even did a black diamond (of course I didn't know it was a black diamond until I got down the hill or I probably wouldn't have followed Troy down it). I never did master riding on the toe edge of the board. I just rode down on my heals switching between regular and goofy foot in order to steer without ever having to go on my toe edge (the standard "falling leaf" method). I was, however, quite proud of the progress I made with getting off the lifts. I only ate it big once and didn't even take anyone down with me.

We were on the slopes again the next day. It was another beautiful day. It snowed lightly all day until about 5pm when it really started snowing heavly. By the end of the day I was so exhausted the muscles on my thighs were totally spasming. However, Dave looked like he was about ready to turn pro. He was going down the mountain on both the toe and heal edges. I was so proud of him. Is there anything that this guy isn't good at???

It snowed all Friday night and we awoke Saturday morning at 4am to the snowplows pushing snow into our windows. Then at 6am started the canons. It sounded like we were being invaded, but I guess they were causing avalanches to make the mountain safe to ski on. This blasting continued until about 8am. So much for sleeping in! Oh, and I fogot to mention the fire allarm that went off for 2 hour the first night right when we were getting into bed (yes, sleeping was a bt of a challenge on this trip). However, when I looked out the window at 7:15am Saturday morning I was faced with the most beautiful sight. The sun was rising, the ski was blue, and everything was covered with a thick layer of snow. It was incredible! That day we went intertobeing! It was so so much fun!!!

Sunday Troy said we were to leave at 5:28am, but the cars didn't start rolling until 5:31am. Fortunately, even with this set back we still made it home by 2:30pm and had plenty of time to unload the vehicles, get to our homes, shower and be to church by 4:45pm for the 5pm service.

I am so thankful for this pastor's retreat and the opportunity to rest, refresh, pray, and have fellowship with this group of incredible people.

It was such a wonderful trip and I had a total blast, but it is good to be home!

Sin City Here I Come

Tomorrow morning I am off to Las Vegas to do some recruiting for work. It will be a quick trip. I should be getting back to the OC Thursday evening just in time to go to Community Group. I don't really mind these short trips. It is nice to get out of the office once in awhile. I will miss my hubby though :o( Dave will probably spend most his time while I am gone sulking around the house staring longingly at pictures of me. At least that is how I will picture him.