Training Academy with Brady Randall
Posted on April 28, 2025 by Ching under Pickleball.
Year after year I always struggle to figure out what to get for dad for his birthday. Often, he just has to settle for a birthday card or a gift card of some sort (if that) because I can never figure out what to get him. This year I thought outside the box and got creative. I booked a Training Academy session with Brady Randall at Tap N Paddles for both mom and dad as an early birthday celebration.
I think they both enjoyed it. I mean, what do you get someone who already has everything?
Here’s a picture of the instructor, our friend Brady Randall. You might remember him from the Tres Palapas trip last November.
You can catch Brady every Saturday from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM at Tap. Here’s the full Training Academy schedule:
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2.5 – 3.0 Training Academy
- Tuesdays at 5:30 PM with Parrish Gumeringer
- Thursdays at 12:00 PM with Ed Egan
- Mondays at 5:30 PM with Dave New
- Saturdays at 10:00 AM with Brady Randall
- Mondays at 10:30 AM with Cindy Egan
- Thursdays at 5:30 PM with Ramon Lozano
3.0 – 3.5 Training Academy
3.5 – 4.0 Training Academy
4.0+ Training Academy
There are lots of options for lessons, and all the instructors are great. I hope mom and dad sign up for a full series.
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Itzcali Tapas & Tequila Revisited
Posted on April 25, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink.
The first time I tried Itzcali Tapas & Tequila, I really didn’t like it. Fast forward to one year later and I’m kind of changing my tune.
Chris Townley and I ate there for lunch a couple of months ago. This time I decided to try their horchata, which was super creamy and really good. It pretty much set the tone for the meal.
I ordered the elote and it was also excellent.
Normally you would have birria as a taco but Itzcali offers it in different forms so Chris and I had it two different ways that day. I had the birria soup and Chris had the birria flatbread pizza.
My birria soup was delicious. This lunch is truly what changed my feelings about Itzcali. So, when Chris suggested we have lunch there again a few weeks ago. I was like, sure. I really liked it the last time — thinking of our most recent visit and not the first one (which I didn’t really like).
On this next visit, I opted for the cucumber aqua fresca. It was amazing. It’s now my most favorite drink to get there.
I had the bowl with pork al pastor (above) for lunch. The presentation was 100x better than the first bowl I got there. Chris had a quesadilla (below) but I cannot remember what meat he chose. He said it was good, though.
Anyway, I like Itzcali so much now that I actually didn’t mind eating there twice in the same week. The same week that Chris and I had lunch there, I met our friends Grant and Susie Ternes and Brian there for lunch too. Chris and I went on Tuesday and I was back again on Friday. Grant and Susie had been there before but it was Brian’s first time.
Here’s a picture of the restaurant interior, which is interesting and unique. There’s no other place that looks like this in Wichita.
This was the day of Brian’s follow up with Dr. Chris Dakhil, when we found out the results of his PET scan. Everything looked good.
I had to get my favorite drink!
Susie went for something stronger.
The rest of the pics that follow are pictures of our lunch.
We don’t really have a lot of tapas places here in Wichita so I am grateful to have found one I like. I feel like this place struggled in the beginning but it looks like they’re finally finding their groove. It’s now on my permanent rotation. Let me know if you have other tapas places you like that we should check out.
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A Pitch Perfect Saturday
Posted on April 23, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink, Movies, Things to Do.
The day started out how most of our days start – with coffee. I finally got Brian to try Adelitas Coffee Co (formerly Las Adelitas).
While there, we were joined by our good friends Jay and Becca Dill. And then, sure enough, Chris Townley my coffee-run bestie from work, comes walking up. The five of us ended up hanging out for a bit that morning. Jay and Becca had just returned from their European adventure. It was nice catching up.
Later that night, I had some friends come over for a Pitch Perfect movie night which all came about because I found out my friend Susie Ternes had never seen Pitch Perfect, one of my most favorite movies of all time.
From left: Cindy Egan, Megan Phillips-Nighswonger, me, Monica McGehee, and Susie. Cindy had the idea to make it a pajama party.
Susie said she wanted to be there for Brian’s first bite of Ziggy’s pizza post cancer treatments so we decided to serve Ziggy’s pizza and wings that night. Brian fixed himself some food before retiring to the office to play video games.
We only got through 2 movies that night — Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2 — so we still need another movie night for Pitch Perfect 3. Although, I did watch the third movie a week or so later because I just couldn’t help myself. LOL.
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Gyoza Bar
Posted on April 21, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Super late post but Chris Townley and I finally got around to checking out Gyoza Bar last month. We started with some pan-fried dumplings because you can’t go to a gyoza bar without getting gyoza.
More pics of our lunch follow…
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Another Rite of Passage Completed
Posted on April 18, 2025 by Ching under Life.
I’ve been a total slacker. Our new recliner was actually delivered over a month ago and we’ve been enjoying it ever since.
We had to rearrange our furniture to make room for it. The new recliner basically replaced the loveseat that was in front of the fireplace in our kitchen area. This space has evolved over the years. When we first moved in over 12 years ago, we just had a chair and a small ottoman in this space.
Not long after, we added a rug we found at Pier 1 Imports.
Because this space has the only fireplace in our house, it quickly became our favorite spot. In our first few years of living in this house, with all the areas you could possibly lounge in, we would fight over this one chair. When I say fight, it’s not really argue. Mostly we would try to beat each other to the chair. Often we would just resign into squeezing both of our asses in the chair. So much space in the entire house and both of us would be squeezed in this one chair. I think our only saving grace was that we were both still quite skinny back then.
Here’s the original configuration — we had the loveseat part in the living room and the chair in the kitchen area in front of the fireplace as shown in the above photo.
As of the end of 2020, we still had the single chair in that spot. However, I think the pandemic was the catalyst. We were spending a lot of time at home and we both wanted to sit in the same chair and, while we were making it work, it really wasn’t that comfortable.
We pulled the trigger at the beginning of the next year, and swapped the position of the loveseat and the chair. We could finally sit together in front of the fireplace!
Saki appreciated the change as well.
Our furniture has been in this configuration for the four years or so until Brian’s cancer treatments late last year. After spending a couple of months lounging in a comfy recliner during his chemo treatments, Brian decided he wanted one.
We shopped around a bit and then finally pulled the trigger last month but had to wait a couple of weeks for delivery. The night before we moved the loveseat to the living room with the rest of the furniture.
I was hesitant at first because I was worried that the living room would get too crowded but there’s actually enough space for everything, surprisingly.
I had always associated recliners with old people but I suppose we fall under this demographic now. Anyway, we’ve been enjoying this loveseat ever since and I can’t believe we waited so long to get one. It’s so comfy!
Even Saki loves it.
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