Events

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Fourth of July Road Trip

Posted on July 14, 2019 by Ching under Events, Food and Drink, Zumba.

For the 4th of July, Rose invited us to the Zumbathon they were having at Newton YMCA. I’d never been there before because of both the distance and my schedule so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to check it out. We weren’t having any Zumba in Andover that day so the girls and I decided to carpool. We basically had a mini road trip.

(From left) Amanda, Kathy, Charis, and I all met up at our house and then we took Brian’s SUV to the Newton YMCA.

This is Rose. I’m so glad that she told me about their Zumbathon. It was the prefect excuse to visit Newton. It never occurred to me to go over there before because it’s a 40-minute drive from my house (one way). If I go for just one class then I spend more time in the car then working out. The day of the two-hour 4th of July Zumbathon was the perfect time to visit because it made the long drive worth it.

Here’s a pic of the four of us plus Jamie. This is basically the Andover crew.

Here’s a pic of me and Mandy. Mandy is home-based in Andover but she teaches at both Andover and Newton.

Everyone was very festively attired that day. Amanda and Kathy, in particular, looked adorably cute.

Andover crew with Mandy and Rose.

Here’s our group pic. They were clever and took the pic during the halfway point so we wouldn’t miss people who had left early in our group photo. I thought it was really smart. I made a mental note to do this at my next event.

I was famished after two hours of dancing, as were the others, so we all decided to grab a bite to eat. Since we were in Newton and we weren’t sure when we would be back, we wanted to eat somewhere local. We initially went to the Bread Basket, known for their amazing pies, but they were closed. It was quite disappointing because everyone had talked up how good the place is and how delicious their pies are, I really had my hear set on eating there and having a slice of pie for dessert.

Apparently, Newton is one of those towns where everything shuts down on Sundays and holidays. Anyway, we had just about given up and were on our way to hit the Cracker Barrel in Park City for lunch on the way home when Rose called and told us that Genova, the local Italian restaurant, was open.

We would much rather eat somewhere local so we quickly caught up with Jamie and her fiancé Alex at the gas station and told them the change of plans.

Here are some of our food pics:

I’m so glad that Rose recommended Genova because it was so good. Their bread, along with the oil and vinegar dipping sauce, was amazing! I loved it so much I ate three rolls before my lunch showed up.

We had one last roll left, which I was going to bring home to Brian so he could try it. I guess the lady overheard us because she came out with a couple of sacks of fresh-baked bread. Instead of having one roll, Brian got three rolls. Anyway, I can’t wait to go back and take Brian so he can try the delicious food they make there.

It was a super fun day overall. It sort of felt like we were on a road trip, albeit a short one. I think it would be fun to go a master class or a jam session out of town with these girls. Hopefully soon!

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Zumba All Night Long

Posted on July 13, 2019 by Ching under Events, Zumba.

Last month several of us participated in Zumba at Relay for Life. It was such a fun night. We started by taking my friend Charis’ Friday night Zumba class at the Andover YMCA and then we all met for dinner and ice cream — basically just killing time so that people would stay awake and not bail — before our 11 PM Zumba session at Relay for Life.

Several of us are part of the Zumba Wear Outfit of the Day group on Facebook and that week just happened to be metallic week so we all donned our best and shiniest outfits! It gave me a reason to wear my holographic tank I got at ZINCON last year.

Here’s a pic of us that Brian took at Oak and Pie as we were waiting for the rest of our group to show up.

I was very excited to drink my drink.

Obligatory pictures of food, naturally.

Brian and I shared some meatballs and a chicken bacon ranch pizza.

Here are the other pizzas that people had.

I’ve slept since then and I, unfortunately, cannot remember what they’re called.

The all looked quite delicious! The one Brian and I got sure was!

Post-dinner group photo.

Afterwards we still had lots of time to kill so we went to Churn & Burn for dessert. Some people had never been there.

In the past Relay for Life has been at Bishop Carroll High School. This year they changed the venue to Wichita Collegiate, which actually worked to our advantage because most of us are East-siders. We didn’t have to drive clear across town this year. Since it was at Collegiate, it gave us a reason to check out the newer Churn & Burn location on Central and Greenwich.

Charis gave it her seal of approval.

Rose changed her whole outfit. I just changed my shirt. We planned our matching outfits that night.

It was a nice night for ice cream on the patio.

Then it was time to head over to Wichita Collegiate for the Relay for Life event.

Here are just a few of the pics we took that night.

Here’s a pic of me with Angelisa (left) and Jessica (right). Angelisa is the one who contacts me about volunteering to lead Zumba at the event each year.

Brian and Kate.

It was a beautiful night for dancing! There was a nice breeze and it wasn’t too hot. The weather was absolutely perfect.

At the end of the evening, after everyone had left, as we were walking to our cars, Rose and I were beckoned by the awesome displays. We couldn’t help ourselves. We ended up doing a bunch of after pics.

I had so much fun. I hope the others did too. I love helping with this event. I’m glad they moved it up a few weeks this year. Last year I was at ZINCON during the event and I couldn’t help. Melissa ended up leading the charge. I hope it works out for us to do this again next year. Until then… XOXO, Ching.

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Passing of the Gavel

Posted on July 12, 2019 by Ching under Events.

Brian and I attended a very special Rotary club social last month. Brian isn’t a Rotarian but I’ve been a member of the Rotary Club of Andover, Kansas for a few years now. On the final Thursday of each month, our clubs has an evening social open to members and their families in place of our normal Rotary luncheon. Last month was a special one. It was a passing of the gavel from Alison Couey our 2018-2019 Club President to Josh Vargo, 2019-2020 Club President.

Alison

Alison and Josh

I started teaching Aqua Zumba at West Central Genesis on Thursday nights so it’s harder for me to make these events. However, I usually send Brian to attend on my behalf. This time I gave him the very important job of taking pics.

The event was held at Areo Plains Brewing, one of the breweries that participate in our signature fundraising event – Haus of Brews, and we had a pretty good turnout.

We haven’t been the best at taking pictures at our meetings and events but, between Alison and Brian, we got some great pics this time. Josh asked me to be PR Chair for 2019-2020 so I really want to make sure we get lots of good pics each time. Before it was just kind of a thing I did at the events but it’s officially my role now. At least until the next person takes over. LOL.

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Belated Happy Birthday

Posted on June 25, 2019 by Ching under Events, Family, Food and Drink.

In case y’all didn’t know, my handsome husband turned another year older this month. He is now officially middle-aged. LOL. He will probably argue this fact but I looked it up. According to the dictionary, middle age is “the period between early adulthood and old age, usually considered as the years from about 45 to 65.”

Yes, babe, you are, in fact, officially considered a middle-aged man.

Despite being old, he’s still very handsome and aging quite gracefully.

Unfortunately, I had to take a CPR/AED renewal class on Brian’s actual birthday. It was my only affordable option and my CPR/AED certificate was set to expire on June 15. To make it up to him, I took him out the Hill Bar & Grill (one of our favorite places to eat) on the eve of his birthday.

We cannot go there without having chicharonnes.

This is the crab and chorizo queso which was pretty good and quite filling. It was the first time we’d ever ordered it.

We were not too full for the mini doughnuts though. They are not to be missed.

I took a picture of the daily specials so we can better plan our return trip.

Here’s a picture of me with my dummy at CPR/AED renewal training the next evening. I felt bad that we couldn’t celebrate on Brian’s actual birthday but we did that pre-birthday dinner and we still had the Symphony in the Flint Hills (more on that later) and his mom and dad’s visit at the end of the month to look forward to. There was plenty of celebrating to be had.

We began his birthday weekend celebration on Friday, June 14. Brian took the day off work to volunteer with me at Symphony in the Flint Hills. For those who don’t know, volunteering is a great way to enjoy the event for free.

Here are a few pictures from that day.

I was so excited because the site they picked this year was absolutely amazing. The organizers improved the set up and the layout of the tents was the best I’d ever seen. The site is also the closest its ever been. It was only about an hour away from our house. When we left the site on Friday afternoon, we were both super excited to return and enjoy the festivities the next day.

As (bad) luck would have it, the storm rolled through and destroyed nearly everything. All of the hard work the volunteers did over the past few days was obliterated. For the first time in its 20-year history, the Symphony in the Flint Hills canceled the event.

Here are some pics of the devastation.

I was bummed because I had been looking forward to it all year. It was how we were celebrating Brian’s birthday weekend. Selfishly, Brian was felt like he spent that whole day volunteering for nothing (since the event was canceled). I told him, as disappointing as it is, I was glad that we had an opportunity to volunteer and see the beautiful event site on Friday. Had we not volunteered, we would have missed it altogether. I was grateful that we got to see that beautiful land.

At first it was going to be postponed to Sunday. It would have been really tricky with me teaching Zumba at 3 PM and then both of us having to go to work the next day but Brian and I were really going to still do everything in our power to still go. Eventually, the event organizers decided to cancel. It was a huge bummer but it was all for the best because it was going to be a real challenge to attend on Sunday.

Since our Symphony in the Flint Hills plans fell through, we ended up going to Stearman Field for their annual fly in. We also wanted to go to it but we couldn’t because of the Symphony event, which happened to be on the same day. There’s always so many fun events going on around town that it’s so hard to choose which ones to attend. You just kind of have to prioritize. Don’t ever believe anyone when they say there’s nothing to do in Wichita. They are lying.

Or, as they say, there are no boring places, only boring people.

Here are a few of the pictures that we took at the air field.

These vehicles were on display on someone’s yard. We couldn’t tell whether or not they were part of the show. Brian felt weird taking these pics.

It turned out to be a beautiful day for a fly in.

But it was also too hot. We wanted to cool off inside the restaurant but it was a two-hour wait. Instead we decided to drive over the WBC for early supper.

As luck would have it, it was the official first day of the Wicked Brew Tour so we got our first stamps there.

Fittingly, Brian happened to be wearing his Wicked Brew shirt from last year, which is one of his favorite shirts to wear.

The Wicked Brew Tour is something we look forward to every summer.

There are even more local breweries and coffee shops participating this year!

We went to Churn & Burn East after dinner. The East location has been open a while but it was our first visit there. We always end up visiting the original location on Oliver out of habit.

The East location is super cute and close to our house.

Here’s a picture of our Swiss Cafe Mocha Churn & Burns (our favorite drink there). I got the big one!

We continued celebrating this past weekend when Brian’s parents came to town. Brian and his grandma always try to celebrate their birthdays together because his birthday is on the 13th and hers is on the 19th.

In Brian’s 45 years, they’ve only missed celebrating three birthdays together and those were the years Brian lived in Memphis.

Grandma turned 97 this year. As if that wasn’t enough to celebrate, we also celebrated Brian’s parents’ 46th wedding anniversary (June 2, technically) and belated Father’s Day. We’ve been so busy this year that we didn’t do cards or presents. In lieu of gifts, Brian and I just decided to buy everyone dinner.

I will post pictures of our food and you guys try to guess where we went.

CLUE: It’s pretty much our go to place for celebrations and dinner in general.

That’s pretty much how we celebrated Brian’s birthday this year. No huge party or big trip (since we did Costa Rica in April and we still have Orlando in July and Cancun in November) this year. We did talk about going to Colorado but we just couldn’t get it together in time.

Perhaps next year we will make it out there but, either way, we will be back in time for our traditional family celebration because grandma and Brian have to celebrate together. It’s kind of their thing. Until next time. GNG.

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ICT Brew Crew

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Brian under Events.

Last month I had the pleasure of joining a group of business owners on a tour of the ten breweries we have here in Wichita.

For weeks I was super excited to go on this adventure with my Friend Jay Dill, who owns The Travel Junkie travel agency. Three days before the event, I developed a cough that I could not get ride of and on the day of the event it was at its worst. It was so bad that I barely got any sleep and I actually slept in another bedroom of our house because I kept waking Ching up.

Regardless, I wasn’t going to miss out on this adventure. I pulled myself together, got me some coffee that morning, and pushed through. I was glad I did because it was a great tour of the breweries. I learned very quickly that not all breweries are the same.

We started at Aero Plains Brewing in the Delano District. This is one of my favorite breweries due to the delicious Irish Red they brew but you have to be quick as it’s very popular and it tends to sell out very fast.

From there we moved to Limestone Beer Company, a very small brewery and restaurant. They had several varieties of beer that I was not too fond of but there were others in the group that really liked a Blueberry beer that they had.

Next up was Nortons, another one of my favorites. Here we got to speak to Dan Norton, the owner. He is very down to earth and humble and takes his brewing very seriously. He believes in producing quality beer for everyone while still exploring a wide variety of flavors. Plus, he has some outstanding food available, Bacon Crack is one of my favs and I can’t go here without getting some. My wife an I frequent Nortons because the atmosphere is great and they have live shows in their outside space from time to time.

Wichita Brewing was next. This one was on the West side of town. By now everyone was feeling pretty good and we had a tight schedule that we were, amazingly enough, keeping to. Wichita Brewing is another of my favorites as they have an excellent food menu, great pizza, and their 502 Amber is pretty tasty as well.

We stopped for lunch at Augustino Brewing and had the pleasure of eating some Noble House Hawaiian food. This was my first time trying Noble House and I have to say that it was pretty tasty. Augustino makes some good beer as well and his brewery is actually set up nicely.

River City Brewing Company is one of the original breweries in Wichita. They have been doing it for a long time and, at one point, had set the bar as far as breweries in town go. They have another Amber beer that I like (you can see where my beer tastes lean) and they also have a great menu available. Ching loves the food there.

Third Place Brewing is a tiny little spot just downtown, located right next to an old-fashioned barber shop called the Artestry Lounge. You can stop here, get your hair cut, then walk next door for a cold one.

Hopping Gnome has been a mainstay in Wichita for some time now. They offer a variety of beers and even have specials events when they tap a new flavor. Again, it’s a small venue so get there early if you want to sit somewhere.

We jumped across the street and had some snacks and a few more beers at Central Standard Brewing. This is not one of my favorite places, as their beers are a little out there for me, but I love the location, all of the outdoor seating, and they have food trucks roll in all the time. It’s a great place to meet up with friends and again, come early as there is always a crowd.

Just down the street from there was the PourHouse from Walnut River Brewing. They have, hands down, my favorite beer! I usually have at least a six pack or two in my fridge at all times. I’m working up to getting a kegerator so I can have it on tap in my basement bar and, yes, I would drink a keg if allowed. The PourHouse is one of the newer Breweries in town; however, Walnut River is not new to the brewing game. PourHouse offers a wide variety of food and an excellent selection of Walnut River’s beer.

Finally, we wrapped up the evening with a trip back to Aero Plains Brewing. Since I wasn’t feeling well, I really didn’t go beyond the small tasters that they offered so I wasn’t as plastered as some of the others. All of the participants with the exception of me had drivers, Ubers or Lyfts waiting. Since I started the day under the weather and I was more into seeing the workings of the breweries, I drove myself. However, I had at least two backup plans just in case. My wife was waiting for a call from me as she offered to Uber over to get me when she was done with her class and my cuz offered to come and get me as well and drive me and my car back home. So I was well cared for no matter what state of mind I happened to be in.

All in all, it was an excellent event that I was very honored to be a part of. I met a lot of very cool people and got to learn more, not only about the local breweries, we have but I got to learn more about the local businesses and the people that own them.