FLIP + CHING

Pickleball Birthdays are the BEST

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.

I had missed Danae and Jeanette’s birthday bonanza because we had Banana Ball tickets. Thankfully, our friend Dawn organized a pickleball gathering in their honor and I was able to make that one.

Dawn, pictured below with Danae (left) and Jeanette (right), is the best at getting everyone together to celebrate birthdays. She’s so thoughtful.

As for me, I didn’t really have enough time get presents but I didn’t want to show up empty-handed so I bought a bucket of six beers, put a bow on it, and called it my contribution to the celebration.

Danae and Jeanette are so fun.

We had a great time celebrating them.

Huge thanks to Dawn for bringing everyone together to celebrate.

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Paris Banh Mi Cafe & Bakery

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Ching under Food and Drink.

A couple of months ago I won a one year membership to Rainier Arms Firearms Academy in a silent auction at a Blood Cancer United fundraising pickleball tournament at TapNPaddles; so last month Brian and I finally got around to activating it. I think he was grateful for his gun range membership because he let me try a new place.

We had dinner at Paris Banh Mi, down the street from the range, on our way home.

The restaurant is not very big inside but well-lit and they have this cute, very Instagrammable photo wall. We had to take a selfie obvs.

Here are some pictures of our food.

We shared some crab rangoon and Brian had a banh mi sandwich.

I had some pho for dinner. I just love pho!

Theirs was pretty good but we have a great pho place just down the street from our house called Kim’s Noodle so when I’m craving pho, that’s where I usually go.

I also had a boba drink. I mean, when in Rome, right?

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Banana Ball Craze

Posted on May 29, 2026 by Ching under Things to Do.

We ended up getting sucked into the Banana Ball craze earlier this month. This event is so hyped up but, after having attended, I don’t get it. I heard about it for the first time last year from a couple of friends. Because I’m such an easy target, I ended up entering the lottery. I think back in December-January time frame, I got information that I was picked in the lottery. You feel kind a special because not everyone gets picked so, of course, I went for it and purchase my allotment of five tickets. I didn’t really know what to expect. I was mostly just along for the ride.

Fast forward to Banana Ball weekend. Amazingly enough, they managed to fill Equity Bank Park. I have never seen the ballpark packed with so many people. We were in the outfield standing room only area and even that was packed. It was wild!

Supposedly, what makes Banana Ball such a huge draw is that it’s way more fun than regular baseball games. And it’s true, there’s dancing and tricks and crazy rules. I think we would have had way more fun if we had actual seats and weren’t in the outfield SRO section, though. I mean, we didn’t really know what was going on most of the time. The regular baseball rules are confusing enough for me. The modified rules made it even more confusing.

Anyway, glad we got to experience it but probably won’t do this again. Baseball, even if it’s fun like Banana Ball, just isn’t for us I guess.

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Another Day, Another Coffee Shop

Posted on May 28, 2026 by Ching under Travel.

Parker’s wedding weekend was an interesting one. We went up to Kansas City on Friday night and stayed for a couple of nights, checking out on Sunday. That same weekend, Brian had to fly out to Las Vegas for his ELEVATE conference. I have so much time off from work that we had initially considered having me go with him to Vegas. We thought it would we be convenient to fly to Vegas from the KC airport since we would already be there. That is, until we realized that Saki was with us that weekend. Whoops! Regardless of how much time off I had, I was definitely not going to be able to go because someone had to stay home and take care of Saki.

So then the next thing we considered was for Brian to fly out of KC to Vegas and then fly home from Vegas to Wichita at the end of the conference. But that would mean I would be driving home to Wichita from KC by myself — in Brian’s new vehicle no less — and he just wasn’t comfortable with that. So we ended up having to leave KC first thing in the morning on Sunday to make it back to Wichita for Brian’s noon flight to Vegas.

Brian didn’t want to feel rushed, so we left super early. So early that Messenger and Mildred’s weren’t open yet. And even the Roasterie coffee in our hotel lobby hadn’t been set up because Brian would have totally settled for that. He said it was good. I mean, you can’t go wrong with Roasterie. Anyway, we found this place nearby called Morning Rounds Bakery.

We might have been their first customers for the day.

The place isn’t big but super cute inside.

We made it back to Wichita with plenty of time to spare. We even squeezed a quick nap in our recliner before heading to the airport. It was much needed since we both go up super early that morning for the drive back to Wichita.

No joke, as we were leaving to head to the airport, Brian got a text from Cory that their flight had been delayed. I was supposed to stop by my parents’ house for some sinigang after dropping Brian off, we decided to just flip-flop it. We ended up eating some lunch at mom and dad’s before heading to the airport.

So Brian left that Sunday and didn’t return until Friday. He seemed to have a great time (and learned a ton) at the conference. I’ll let him tell you all about it. Hopefully he finds time to blog about it. The day he returned is also the day that I was taking mom and dad to their airport for their trip to Saint Lucia. It worked out because their departure/boarding time pretty much coincided with his return flight’s arrival. I surprised him by waiting at the bottom of the escalator by baggage claim and he didn’t even notice. LOL.

I guess this pretty much recaps our recent Kansas City weekend. Leave a comment if you want to hear about Brian’s Vegas conference. Maybe if enough of you ask we can get him to post about it. #peerpressure