Had a pretty decent weekend.

We drove to Orlando to visit our good friend, Phong. He's originally from Vietnam. He came to the US when he was only 13 after being stuck at a refugee camp in Malaysia for 3 years. Talk about an interesting story.

Anyway, Phong does the same job that Ben does except Phong stays in various hotels when he's working, unlike us living in our RV.

Since he stays in hotels 90% of the time, he earns "Reward Points" for various hotel chains. He offered to take care of our hotel room while we were there.

He hooked us up on Friday night with a hotel at the Embassy Suites on I-Drive in Orlando.

Or so we thought.

Turned out that the hotel was old and had a bug problem. Eeeew!! We switched rooms from the 7th floor to the 6th floor before going to bed. The second room was much better. No bugs in that room.

In the morning the hotel offered a buffet style breakfast. I ordered an egg-white omlette with tomatoes, mushrooms & green peppers. Unfortunately, the mushrooms were spoiled! Uh-oh! Luckily we came prepared. I had brought one of our favorite cereals as well as some individual serving-size bottles of Silk.

Whew!

Phong found out that we had switched rooms when he came to meet us the next day. He felt bad and insisted that he get us another room at a different hotel.

Luckily, since Ben reported the bug problem and since the hotel chain offers a 100% guarantee of satisfaction, they credited back the reward points to Phong's account.

Phong was able to book us a room at the Homewood Suites just down the street on I-Drive. Ben and I had stayed in that very hotel 4 years ago before we had the RV. It was a great hotel then and it still was a great hotel. Not only were the rooms sparkling clean and smelled good (I forgot to mention that our room at the Embassy Suites smelled of stale smoke even though all rooms are non-smoking due to the new Clean Indoor Law passed in Florida back in July this year.) but it also was actually LARGER than the other room. It also had more ammenities. Not only that, but cost Phong HALF the number of points than it would have cost him had we stayed at the Embassy. Ben and I were THRILLED that Phong got those points back and that the Homewood Suites didn't "cost" him as many points.

While we were in Orlando, all three of us went to the brand-new Mall of Millenia. It was GORGEOUS! And it was HUGE, too! I think I have a mall fetish. Hee, hee! :o)

We ate at Olive Garden twice and even played miniature golf. I beat the boys! YAY!!! Friday night we visited Pleasure Island but decided not to stay because although the admission price covered all 8 clubs, $20 per person is a lot of money when that doesn't include any drinks! Saturday we went to Pointe Orlando and walked around. Ben and I had also visited this outdoor type mall back in 1999 but back then there wasn't very much to see. Now the size of the area has quadrupled and there were many interesting shops to go in and look at.

One shop we went into was a Specialty Wine shop. They were giving samples. I tasted strawberry wine, blueberry, blackberry, chocolate-orange (blecch!!) and even one called Coco Polada which is a mixture of coconut, pineapple and orange flavors. YUM! Can you tell that we walked out of there with a bottle? heh heh

Phong bought the blueberry wine for himself and a bottle of the raspberry for his girlfriend's father. (He still lives in Vietnam and would really like a wine that can only be purchased in Florida. All the wines were made locally.)

All-in-all it was a fun weekend. We really enjoy spending time with Phong. He's interesting to listen to as well as funny!

It's a blessing to have such terrific friends!

Thought of The Day: (one of my favorite quotes) "Real friends stab you in the front!"-- Oscar Wilde

Until next time... peace, love & HEALTH!!!