THE daily chronicle SHOW

after the long three hour flight from houston to orange county airport, ben and i propped ourselves in bed after cleaning up. it was almost ten o’clock houston time and we were dead tired. we ordered room service chicken quesadillas and two glasses of water, knowing it was way past our mealtime. forget nothing after six. we then tried to catch our favorite thursday night tv shows before going to bed.

early friday morning, ben got ready for his class while i stay cuddling white pillows. it was too early to get up so i stayed in bed sipping freshly-brewed coffee from the tiny coffemaker by the mini bar. nothing was really planned for my own friday rendezvous except that i’m possibly meeting our friends, jackie and thuan, who’s also in town for a wedding. maybe meet up for lunch on ben’s lunch break. my phone rang by nine o’clock, jackie was on the other line wanting to know how our flight went the previous night. their’s was an hour delayed going to LAX while our’s got on time. we decided to meet for lunch by the costa mesa mall which was a block away from our hotel.

the rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the mall and visiting jackie’s twin sisters and parents at sta. ana. ben had to go back to his seminar after lunch and we finally picked him up later that day and drove up to newport beach on a cool breezy evening. it was too cold for us houstonians to eat dinner by the terrace, so we stayed warm and ate inside the cozy restaurant of the laguna hotel by the beach. after feasting on tasty lamb shanks, tamarind chicken, mussels with butter sauce and clam chowder, we then hang out by the hotel’s piano bar listening to good ole tunes. it was close to eleven when we got back to our hotel, i was too caffeined-up to sleep so we ended up buying an in-room movie which we terribly enjoyed, the transporter 2.

saturday noon, after ben totally skipped the rest of his seminar, we met our other friends, venie and grace whom we haven’t seen for awhile since our last trip to LA. we spent most of the day driving around and chatting about work, vacations and life in general. we had lunch this time by newport beach, eating fresh seafood and enjoying the sunny bright saturday. we even drove up to dana point gazing on lovely beachfront homes and properties. since venie was nursing a horrible jet lag after three weeks in china, we stayed in our hotel suite that evening and continued the endless chatter while he catch up some zzzzssss.

it was a nice trip despite the short days but we were able to do some sight-seeing and spent sometime with friends before our early morning flight sunday. it was a great weekend. weather was perfect. our flights were on time and fuss-free. check out some of our pictures at my flickr album.