hosting people takes a lot of work, and it takes lots of planning and preparation. my best friend jj and his gf nikki made their somewhat annual trip to socal from august 22-28. jj usually has his annual...wait for it...STORM CON conference in anaheim. think of it as a less glamorous, coma-inducing, retarded step child to COMIC CON, minus the hot babes, crazy costumes, movie star celebs and free swag. up until this point, i thought the conference primarily consisted of a bunch of dudes talking about sewage pipes. jj quickly corrected me, and set me straight. it is a conference revolving around water treatment and drainage solutions. sounds like a party to me! nonetheless, the conference took a couple of days, so nikki (my nikki) and i were lucky enough to have jj and nikki stay with us afterwards! i must say, when jj and i get together, it's pretty much no-holds barred. much to the chagrin of nikki and nikki, they allowed us the luxury of being idiots, for at least a few days.

we made sure to plan ahead for places we wanted to take them and places they wanted to eat. we hit up this place in old town orange called "the perfect circle cupcakery" which was featured on cupcake wars on the foodnetwork, and won! the cupcakes were delicious. then we had a great dinner at this restaurant called rutabagorz. (oh, and the night before, we took them to this malaysion restaurant called penang malaysia for some roti canai!!!!)

the one thing you need to understand is that when nikki and jj are in town, you can't just sit and do nothing (which i love to do on a regular basis). i knew i had to plan some things for them, as i know they like to do a lot of activities. my nikki was lucky as she had to work thursday and friday, so she couldn't really join us for what i had planned.
we hit up some golf at hidden valley golf club in corona. this gem of a course is literally 4 miles from my house, and the views are fantastic. they had a promo running on facebook, so the rounds only cost $20 bucks each for 18 holes and a cart. you cannot beat that value!!! we did tee off after noon, which happened to be the hottest part of the day. being inland a bit, the temperature was up there...i know we were dabbling in the high 90s. nikki thought she was going to die, as she was burning all over. we couldn't get the sunscreen on her fast enough!

next we decided to do some mountain biking in the laguna beach. we figured that being close to the water meant cooler temps. only during the drive down there. we were pretty much exposed to the sun on top of the mountain, but the trails were awesome! however, it did take us almost an hour to get up the mountain. the terrain was all sandy and loose dirt so it made it more difficult to get to the top. when we did, the views were worth it. plus, all the trails were pretty much downhill. afterwards, we took a stroll to the beach, got some gelato and ate at a hole in the wall taco place off of pch. when we got home we were exhausted, and nikki's poor skin was red hot...it felt like it was giving off heat! we went for a massage and then a good dinner.

paddleboarding was next on the agenda. we went to paddle power in newport, and that was a lot of fun. we went around the harbor for an hour and half...i'll just end the story there...

we hit up the beach and boogie boarded. the waves were huge and the sun was beating down on us. it was the perfect day to be at the beach. we then picked up inga who happened to be in town doing a press junket for the 3D release of lion king. we headed back to our place for some margaritas, spritzers, and abnormally large portions of mexican food!!!

inga managed to get on the same flight and jj and nikki, so we took them to target for some last minute shopping and then to the airport. luckily there were no delays from hurricane irene, so they were good to go. honestly, the best way to spend a weekend...with good friends, good food, and good fun! thanks for coming out guys!