First Time in St. Louis
Posted on April 16, 2016 by Ching under Food and Drink, Reviews, Travel.
I can finally say I’ve been to St. Louis, Mo even though it was just for a few hours. Ginger and I traveled there a couple of weeks ago to meet some folks at Laclede Gas Company (now Spire) and learn from them.
Been spending a lot of time at airport with Ginger of late. She is the best person to travel with. I’ve never had TSA Pre Check privileges until I these last few trips with her. I love not having to take off my shoes, take out my laptop and toiletries, and going through the short (or non-existent line) at airports. Now that I’ve had a taste of it, I’m almost tempted to pay for it even though I don’t even travel that much usually. I’d say it’s definitely a must for frequent travelers. If I traveled all the time, I would pay the extra for TSA Pre Check every time.
Ginger and I were supposed to have dinner with the rest of our team and the Laclede team at Brew House the night before our meeting but, as luck would have it (or my bad travel truck), our plane was delayed in Dallas. First they just had to change the tire. Then they discovered some kind of mechanical issue that needed to be fixed.
We actually boarded the plane and then were all told we had to get off so the repairs could be completed but were asked not to go too far away from the gate in case we were ready to board again. We were originally scheduled to arrive in St. Louis at 3:00 PM but didn’t land until 5:30 PM. We missed dinner with group obviously, which is the same thing that happened on our last trip together. Ginger and I joked that the rest of team is probably thinking that we’re trying to avoid the dinners on purpose.
We still had to eat dinner so we just opted to eat at the steakhouse next to the hotel instead. We didn’t want to wander too far away in case it started raining, which was in the forecast.
Neither of us wanted anything too heavy so we decided to just split an appetizer and an entree and then Ginger had a wedge salad. I probably should have ordered steak but I was quite happy with what I had. The food was pretty good. I really enjoyed the crab meat starter with hunks of jumbo lump crab over a horseradish cream cheese mouse and sweet chili sauce. The picture below doesn’t do the dish justice.
Here’s a picture of Ginger’s yummy-looking salad.
Then for dinner we split the jumbo shrimp scampi, which was also delicious. You can never go wrong with shrimp stuffed with crab meat. LOL.
The best part about dinner is the restaurant is connected to our hotel so you didn’t even have to walk outside. My room was pretty basic but I think it might have been an accessible room because I had tons of space.
It was an interior room so I didn’t have an outside view.
I didn’t really mind not having a city view but, being an interior room, made my room tricky to find at first. I didn’t realize that my room (625) was next to the elevator so, when I walked to the end of the hall where the signs were and followed the hallway around and then got down the hall, I was super confused when it jumped from 623 to 627. I almost called the front desk to ask someone to help me find my room but I couldn’t get signal and I eventually found it.
The Drury at the Arch was okay as hotels go. The location was great because of its proximity to the Laclede office. They also provide daily breakfast and happy hour which was nice. Ginger and I got to enjoy a couple of drinks on the day of our arrival.
The conference room we spent our day in is located in the corner of the Laclede building facing Busch Stadium. The walls were completely made of of class and the view was fantastic. It was good that it was kind of gloomy outside the day, otherwise it would have been way harder to concentrate.
We pretty much arrived the night before and then flew home immediately after the meeting. Ginger and I landed in Wichita about 10:30 PM that day. No issues on the trip home, thank heavens!
It was a super short trip. I wish we could have had more time to spend in St. Louis. I would have loved to have had pictures of the Arch and stuff. It seems like a beautiful city. I may just have to return and bring Brian. Perhaps we can plan a nice holiday weekend road trip with the girls.
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Fun Saturday Afternoon with Nickira
Posted on April 13, 2016 by Ching under Things to Do.
Fun pictures from a fun Saturday afternoon with my little sister Nickira… Incidentally, these were taken a couple of weeks ago. The blog is a few weeks behind and I’m just now getting around to catching you guys up.
First stop, the ICT Pop-Up Urban Park for some ping pong.
And then we were off to Botanica.
I love the colorful shadows that this archway casts.
It was a beautiful day and we got some great photos.
Last stop, Churn & Burn.
I have a sinking feeling that I’m going to regret introducing Nickira to my all-time favorite ice cream joint. She’s probably going to want to go there all the time now. Wait, that can’t be bad because then I’ll have a reason to go all the time now too!
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New Pet ID Tags
Posted on April 13, 2016 by Ching under Babies.
We got the coolest pet ID tags for Molly and Saki from Tags for Hope recently. They’re made to look like Kansas driver’s licenses and are super cute.
Here’s how Molly’s looks on her.
No live action pic of Saki’s because she chewed hers up already. I was so bummed. I couldn’t believe it. Well, I should have known it wouldn’t last but a day.
At least the nice people at Tags for Hope are sending us a replacement. Will need to spray bitters on it so that she doesn’t chew up the second one.
If you need tags for your babies, I highly recommend getting some from Tags for Hope. The tags are high quality and look great, and every tag purchased provides an animal in need with food, treatment, and shelter. It’s a win-win for everyone!
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One Crazy, Busy Week
Posted on April 12, 2016 by Ching under Community, Events.
After spending most of the week in Madison, I came home to a private shopping party at Chic Street Boutique. It wasn’t well-attended but I was out of town the three days leading up to the event so I couldn’t really hound people to come. It was a combination of poor planning and just being super duper busy.
For those of you who are not familiar with Chic Street Boutique, they’re located at Central and Rock next to the most awesome tailor ever – Quickstitch. Chic Street has unique clothing and accessories that you can’t really find anywhere else.
They had some great clearance items the day of the party. I found a few things. I really wanted these pants but they were only available in XS. I was so bummed I couldn’t fit in them. And, then there was this one sheath dress I wanted but, again, it was not available in my size. I really wanted to buy it with the hope of eventually shrinking into it, but my friend Tammie talked sense into me and talked me out of it. Had it not been for her, I would have bought that dress and it would have been hanging in my closet, never being worn, for eternity. It’s important to have friends who will honestly tell you how it is and keep you from doing stupid stuff. Seriously.
The very next day was the Whine About Wichita YPW event at Union Station. I made Brian go with me. He was a tad overdressed because we came straight after work. Well, kind of. We had to take care of the dogs first and then had a quick bite to eat at TSK.
I had the chocolate bread pudding for dessert. It was amazing! It was probably the best bread pudding I have ever had. Hands down.
Ebony was at the Whine About as well. It should come as no surprise because she is on the YPW Board of Trustees and Advisory Council so she is at just about every YPW event. Ebony is not just involved YPW, she’s heavily involved in the community. Everywhere we go, she meets someone she knows.
She’s like a younger, prettier version of Don Sherman. LOL.
We got a really cool tour of Union Station.
Here are a few pictures that we took during the tour.
Obligatory selfie!
Brian looked really good. He looked like he was part of Mayor Longwell’s entourage.
I love that Brian humors me and goes to these events with me. I’m not sure if I would go by myself even though I did see quite a few familiar faces including our friend Cindy (@WichitaCindy). It’s crazy how we don’t see each other for years and we got to catch up and visit two days in a row!
I was looking pretty yuck because it had been a long day (more like a long week, actually). I’m glad that we went, though. We got to participate in the “whining” and “toasting” and met some cool people and we got these neat Wichita flag buttons. It was one crazy, busy week but totally worth it.
I love YPW events. YPW is definitely part of what makes Wichita great in book. Looking forward to the 2016 YPW Summit next week!
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Doolittles Woodfire Grill
Posted on April 10, 2016 by Ching under Food and Drink, Reviews.
Ginger and I had a nice dinner at Doolittles Woodfire Grill while in Madison, WI a couple of weeks ago. The hotel shuttle service ends at 6 pm but the front desk rep was nice enough to pay for our cab to the restaurant.
All we had to do was pay for an Uber ride back, which didn’t cost very much because the restaurant is located pretty close to the hotel.
Here’s a picture of the huge bar at the center of the restaurant.
We had the parmesan artichoke dip as our starter. They were nice enough to provide some sliced veggies for us in addition to the grilled ciabatta bread.
We also had the kinky mango sangria, which was super delicious.
Service was a tad slow, probably because they had a few large groups that evening, but when our food finally came it was totally worth the wait.
Ginger had the rib and chicken combo. She said they were the best ribs she’d ever had.
I had the shrimp and crab stuffed tilapia, which doesn’t look like much, but it was very good. I really enjoyed everything but the kinky mango sangria was my favorite part. As sangrias go, that was probably the best sangria I’d ever had.
Doolittles kind of reminds me of Redrock Canyon Grill at Bradley Fair because of the rotisserie chicken and ribs. I wish I would have tried their specialty for comparison. There aren’t any Doolittles in Kansas. They’re only located in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. We have a lot of similar places here though.
If you’re ever in Doolittles territory, I recommend checking them out.
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