Parmesan-crusted Chicken Penne Rosa with Chicken Noodle soup

After J visited San Francisco, C & I wanted to catch up with her and hear all about the trip, so we planned a lunchtime gathering at Noodles & Company. I ordered a Trio: Penne Rosa with parmesan-crusted chicken and a chicken noodle soup as the side.

While happily chatting away, we felt our booth shake. We all turned around thinking someone was shaking it. Of course, we saw nobody behind our booth and that’s when we realized that the whole restaurant was shaking. One of the customers immediately ran out of the door. Having lived in the Philippines as a young child, I remembered all the earthquake drills we had in grade school. I was ready to go under the restaurant table for safety. Fortunately, the tremors quickly subsided. Thank goodness there were no injuries.

Of course, we tried to get a sense of what just happened by going online and checking news sources. We also tried to reach our loved ones to make sure they were all okay. At the time, we found out that the earthquake’s epicenter was around Richmond, Virginia and that the tremors were felt as far north as New York and as south as North Carolina. The magnitude was 5.9. It was evident that a majority of people who experienced the tremors were first-timers. The excitement was palpable.

Post-earthquake treats of frozen yogurt yumminess

After we “survived” the earthquake, we thought a post-earthquake treat would be a great cap to our lunch, especially since there was talk of further aftershocks. We hit up the closest frozen yogurt shop and enjoyed our treats outside—mainly because it was a nice, sunny day, but also because we’d be safer outside if a strong aftershock were to occur.