Today EMG reserved the Great Park Orange Balloon for the entire company as a team building thing. We just left in the middle of the day and went for a hot air balloon ride, how cool is that! It was fun just to hang out with everybody. If you’d like to ride the orange balloon, you can find information on their site. It’s free until the end of summer!

View a 360 panoramic of Irvine and play the flash game my coworker did at work (yes, we’re really productive):

Looks like a big navel orange!

Chaparosa Grille at the District

I went to lunch today at Chaparosa Grille with Debbi, Lisa M and Lawson. Lawson and I shared two dishes (since neither of us can decide on what we let to eat…apparently we both like things “fruity”…hmm). It was pretty hard to decide…check out their lunch menu! They also serve dinner but I haven’t tried it yet.

I ordered the Jamaican Chicken sandwich…it was so delicious. The fried plantains in the sandwich gave it a second level of texture and a sweetness that I love. If you like sweet and savory, this is a sandwich for you (too bad I had to give half of it to Lawson!) Good thing he ordered the Spinach and Mango Salad which was equally delicious. I love fruit in my salad. Lawson did complain about the spinach – mango – chicken ratio, but I thought it was perfect. Both Lisa and Debbi ordered the Roasted Turkey Avocado Melt. This looks really good and since neither lady offered to share, I’m guessing it was delicious as well. The fries (Don’t judge!) were pretty good too. Worth the calories! Hey! They were the skinny fries so they’re not as bad, right? ;)

The District at Tustin Legacy location:
2449 Park Avenue (in front AMC Film Theatre)
Tustin, CA 92782
Jamboree and Barranca
Telephone: 714.259.9888

vil threw a summer bbq at his ‘fully furnitured’ apartment in LA. :) we had good times, even at the end when mike gave the denny’s at garden grove an impressive free show!

pictures from the festivities are posted

some highlights:

fancy furniture

making new friends

thanh and captain hook

ba noi showing off her mad tai chi skills

yes, the lams also got sucked into this fad, but it’s so cool:

we have a very mischievous little puppy…she somehow got herself caught on something and ripped out a bunch of hair off her nose. she’s okay, just a little bit uglier than usual…hopefully i grows back!
BEFORE…

AFTER… (poor baby)

Everybody knows that I love food, but like other things, I tend to forget all the places I want to visit. So, to help me remember where to get some delicious yum-yums, I decided to start an entry that I will continually update with the places I want to eat at. If anybody has visited any of the places I have listed below, please leave me a comment with how your experience was.

BBQ
—–
Fogo De Chao (http://www.fogodechao.com/) – I saw this Brazilian BBQ place on “Ham on the Street”, a Food Network show. The food looks really good and how can you go wrong with BBQ.

these things for most families are probably pretty solemn…but for my family, it’s usually a drunken mess! this year we were pretty tame. not sure if that’s the way ong ngoai would have wanted it though…*smile*

beauty can be fun

being it was my last week at smarthome, i partied all week with my favorite people…who could ask for more!
pictures:

leaving the man for another mann

what is going on here?!

dude, brent rocks! hahaha

congrats, roger, on your new house!