First Time at Slim Chickens
Posted on December 4, 2018 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Brian and I finally got around to trying Slim Chickens. The restaurant has been open for some time but, now that we no longer live that way, we really hadn’t ventured out to those parts in a while. That entire Northeast area has completely flourished the last couple of years. When we were driving to the restaurant, I told Brian how I can still remember the days (almost 10 years ago) when there was absolutely nothing out there. For a long time, the only restaurant chain out there was Chili’s and they actually had to close because business was slow — because there was absolutely nothing around them to help bring traffic. The Chili’s is open again — at the same location — along with a plethora of other businesses. There has been quite a boom the last few years that’s brought about all sorts of businesses, including Slim Chickens.
We tried it for the first time on Saturday.
You would think the interest would have died down by now. Slim Chickens has been open almost two years. However, when we were there on Saturday (despite it being already after the lunch rush), we were still greeted by a line that was almost to the door.
I took a couple of pics while we were waiting in line. You basically order at the counter and then they give you a number to bring to your table and then someone brings the food to your table when it’s ready.
Well, except for the dessert which is pre-made. You get that right away.
It was kind of disappointing because we really had our hearts set on the desserts that were pictured on the wall — one was some kind of chocolate mouse dessert in a mason jar and the other was strawberry shortcake in mason jar. They didn’t have those so we had to settle for what was available. I got pecan pie and cheesecake bites in a mason jar and Brian got the Oreo cookies and cheesecake one. They also had a pumpkin pie one, which neither of us were really interested in.
Brian and I shared a meal consisting of five chicken tenders, five chicken wings, fries, and toast. We also shared a bowl of mac and cheese. It doesn’t look particularly appealing but it wasn’t bad otherwise.
As fast food goes, Slim Chickens is not particularly fast. We had to wait quite a while for the food to be brought out. We actually started eating our desserts. The food wasn’t bad. If you like chicken and don’t mind the wait, it would be a good place to check out. I thought the mason jar desserts were kind of cute. We kept ours because we couldn’t finish our desserts. Actually, the rest of mine still in the fridge. Now that I’m thinking of it, I might bring it to work for lunch tomorrow. LOL. It should still be good, right?
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Andrea’s Superhero-themed Zumba Birthday Party
Posted on November 26, 2018 by Ching under Events, Zumba.
We had a blast celebrating Andrea’s 32nd birthday on Friday night. Charis turned her normal Friday night class into a 90-minute Zumba party in honor of Andrea’s special day. We invited several instructors to teach and it turned it in full-fledged Zumbathon for the ages!
Here’s the official instructor line up (from left): Johnna, Andrea (the birthday celebrant herself), me, Jessie, Rose, Francie, Charis, and Amanda.
I wasn’t the only Wonder Woman. We had a few people dressed as Wonder Woman that night, including Danielle above. Jessie also wore her Wonder Woman head and arm bands. I love it when we have theme parties.
We had a wonderful turnout and a few even stayed for the group photo after class.
This one of me and Charis is one of my faves. She’s an excellent selfie-taker.
After Zumba we kept the party going at Los Cocos.
Here’s a video from dinner. It was such a fun night. I just love Zumba birthday parties and can’t wait until the next one!
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Thanksgiving Day 2018
Posted on November 25, 2018 by Ching under Events, Family.
I had a Zumba-filled Thanksgiving this year. I volunteered to teach a couple of classes. One at the Andover YMCA at 9:30 AM and then another at VASA Fitness at 11:00 AM. It was the best way to start Thanksgiving Day!
Brian even got in on the Zumba fun and danced with us! Click on the picture below to check out his awesome dance moves.
It’s always so hard to get people to stay for a group photo. At least we got this one at the end, though. Such troopers!
The next class was at VASA Fitness where I taught with a team of amazing Zumba instructors: (from left) Victoria, Lauren, Liz, and Jessie.
Lauren had Zumba bags for everyone.
Speaking of presents, one of our Aqua Zumba regulars (Cindy) made us shirts.
The pic above is before I customized the shirt. Below is the design I did for the back.
This is Cindy, the awesome lady who made us the shirts. I wanted to show her how much I appreciated her present so I wore it to Aqua Zumba yesterday.
The rest of Thanksgiving Day was pretty simple and quiet. We didn’t make too much food this year. We opted out of turkey and just had ham. We didn’t want to have too much food because it was just Brian, grandma, and me this year. After our Thanksgiving meal, we played Uno which is something we always do when grandma is here. She actually won this time. LOL.
We also had brownie a la mode for dessert. Grandma only wanted ice cream though, and took her brownies to go instead. After everything, we had our usual video call with Brian’s parents in Oklahoma. I did some snaps but forgot to take actual pictures. I need to make sure I take some next year.
After Brian took grandma home, we decided to finish the rest of our Christmas decorating. It was a super nice day and so we both agreed it was the perfect time to install our outdoor lights. We simplified this year and opted not to wrap the tree in the middle of the yard and our river birch. Not only did that take forever to install last year but it always took forever to take down. Brian decided that wasn’t going to happen again this year. After some negotiation, we compromised and decided to only light up Fern (our evergreen), the driveway, and our plants/bushes.
Installing all the lights (we have six sets of solar-powered LEDs) actually took less time than looking for the lights. Brian couldn’t remember where he stored them. We looked all over — in our storage area in the basement, the garage, the coat closet, the linen closets, everywhere! We could not find them. It wasn’t until after our third time searching the garage that Brian finally found them.
It would have helped if we knew what we were looking for… Brian and I both thought they were still in boxes. Brian had actually moved them to a reusable bag. We overlooked the bag several times thinking they were just our reusable grocery sacks. Once the lights were found, it took less than an hour to achieve our new and improved (and significantly simplified) lighting design — which was a good thing because Brian rented four movies for us to watch that night.
Many years ago we used to do the whole Black Friday thing but things have gotten quite ridiculous and so we’ve opted out of the madness the last few years. Stores are starting their Black Friday and opening their doors at 2 PM, which is when most people are doing their Thanksgiving celebration. That’s crazy. Brian and I decided we would just stay home and watch movies instead.
Our Thanksgiving movie marathon consisted of…
…in that order. Gotta love Redbox. I told Brian this reminded me of the days we would go to the drive-in and watch three movies back to back. Except this time we were watching four movies from the comfort of our own living room. Inevitably, I would doze off at some point. Not this time, though. Believe it or not, I stayed awake for all four movies. I amazed even myself.
Brian originally doubted that we would be able to get through all four movies in one go. I think I stayed awake partially to prove him wrong. LOL. That, and the movies he picked were actually better than I expected.
It was a wonderful Thanksgiving Day overall. Brian and I got to do all the things we enjoy most — Zumba, food, cards with grandma, family, movies — and even finished the rest of our holiday decorating.
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Harvest Feast 2018
Posted on November 24, 2018 by Ching under Events, Food and Drink.
My work usually has an annual potluck on Friday before Thanksgiving. We call it Harvest Feast. It’s a tradition that’s been going on for over two decades. I’ve been with the company for over 16 years and it’s happened every year. Some years I’ve been out of town or on vacation but, when I can, I always try to participate.
This year I was in Topeka all week. When I returned the fleet car back to the office, I found the team had already set everything up. I love this time of year because work always looks so festive.
Everyone chips in some money for meat (usually $5) and then signs up to bring some kind of dish for the potluck. This year I signed up to bring dessert. The brownie cake that Brian made for my VASA staff meeting last month was such a huge hit, I decided to recreate it.
The cake consists of three layers of brownie goodness. We decided to use different chocolate chips for each layer. We did one layer with dark chocolate chips (above pic). Another layer with white chocolate chips (below).
And the third layer had regular milk chocolate chips.
Here are pics of the finished brownie cake layers.
To save time, Brian and I decided to use store-bought whipped icing instead of making our own ganache (which would have had to cool for two hours). I wasn’t about to stay up all night for this cake. LOL.
Here’s the finished product. I thought this cake was super rich the first time we made it. It’s even sweeter and richer with the pre-made icing.
Here are some pictures of my coworkers enjoying the feast on Friday.
We had so much food and a huge selection of desserts.
Sue, Amelia, Erica, and Jeremy were part of the Harvest Feast team.
Erica is kind of hidden in the above photo. Here she is below between Amelia and Jeremy. They were helping serve food to everyone.
Josh was on the team also. It’s great to see all of the young people at work helping and keeping up the Harvest Feast tradition.
Here’s a picture of my plate.
Here’s a picture of Chris’ plate.
Chris normally eats later so we went around 12:30 pm. We made it just in time. There was only one slice of my brownie cake left so we shared it. Belinda said she wanted to try it so we actually split that slice of cake three ways. Even then we still had some left over. The cake was just to rich. I warned them ahead of time and told them to make tiny slices but I don’t think they believed me.
I’m so glad that I got to participate in Harvest Feast this year. With my transfer to special projects last year, I sometimes feel disconnected from the contact center. Plus, it’s not very often that you get to break bread and catch up with coworkers. We are all always so busy and heads down on work. Harvest Feast last Friday was a welcome break from it all. I look forward to it every year. GNG.
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I Like to Be Busy But —
Posted on November 19, 2018 by Ching under Zumba.
It’s not unusual for me to have bazillion things happening any given day. On the weekends, it’s actually quite special when I can somehow squeeze a nap into the schedule. I enjoy being busy and having something going on at all times but this is getting ridiculous. I’ve always pushed myself to do as much as I can and I’m constantly testing my limits. I never thought the day would come when I’d cry “Uncle” but I think I may have reached it. LOL.
A typical Saturday for me kind of looks like this…
- 8:45 to 9:45 AM — Aqua Zumba at VASA Fitness
- 10:30 to 11:30 AM — Zumba at Andover YMCA
- Party or movie in the evening
…with laundry, lunch, and a nap in between (not necessarily in that order). Oh, and a shower (two actually). Just in case you were wondering… I shower when I get up in the morning and I shower again after my Zumba class. However, I only wash my hair during the second shower.
I don’t sleep in and I’m always on a schedule of some sort. That’s normal. A couple of weeks ago I got this crazy idea in my head to take a Y-Box workshop and then we got tickets to a Tallgrass Film Festival screening and gala party, which I didn’t want to miss. That day looked like this…
- 8:45 to 9:45 AM — Aqua Zumba at VASA Fitness
- 10:30 to 11:30 AM — Zumba at Andover YMCA
- 12:30 to 3:30 PM — Y-Box Workshop at Downtown YMCA
- 7:00 PM — Tallgrass Film Festival
Lunch that day consisted of a bunch of snacks that Brian packed for me to eat on my way from my Zumba class to the workshop. It was a day when the ShowerPill really came in handy as I only had time to change shirts.
Laundry still had to happen among other things. I thought about giving up my afternoon nap but I was so exhausted. Brian and I napped for a bit and then didn’t want to get up. We were meeting Jenni and some friends at TFF and, while we are normally early to everything, this was an exception. Jenni and April both beat us there. And, to think, I didn’t even bother fixing my hair and I didn’t have time to plan an outfit — which I would have had time for had I skipped the afternoon nap. Rushing makes me moody but I think I probably would have been far moodier without a nap. LOL.
Then last Saturday, I found myself in the same situation again. This time, the schedule was even more hectic…
- 8:45 to 9:45 AM — Aqua Zumba at VASA Fitness
- 10:30 to 11:30 AM — Zumba at Andover YMCA
- 1:00 to 4:00 PM — ZIN Jam Session at Eventum
- 6:00 PM — Light Your Heart event at the Marriott
There was no nap this time. Although, I did have time to grab something at Sonic on the way to the jam session. At least I wasn’t hangry.
The jam session lasted until four o’clock but there’s always group pictures at the end so I stayed for that. I think it was 15 or almost 30 after by the time I got out of there. Oh, there was also a master class later that same day, which I had to miss because we were already committed to the other party.
It was almost five by the time I got home so that gave me an hour –tops– to shower, get dressed, and fix my hair and face. On the plus side, the Marriott is about 10 minutes from our house so it wouldn’t take long to drive there.
We got to the party a little after six. I walked in just in time to catch Mike (from Splurge! mag) leaving. Brian was still parking.
Here’s a picture from that night. I have to say, for someone who took less than an hour to get ready, I didn’t look too bad. LOL.
I remember those days when it would take me hours to get ready for a fancy party but now I’ve gotten it down to an art. I can usually get ready in less than an hour. I think the Zumba cruise has had a lot do with this. I would always try to squeeze as many Zumba classes as I could in my schedule to the point where I would have 10-15 minutes to get ready for dinner. It was insane! But, as they say, practice makes perfect and I’ve had a lot of practice getting ready super quick the last few years. At this point, an hour is more than enough time for me.
By the way, here’s that group pic from the jam session that I didn’t want to miss.
A few of us also took some additional photos because we were matchy matchy.
Rose (middle) was the one who orchestrated making us triplets with Jessie (left).
These girls are so fun. I just love them!
Anyway, I think I was at a breaking point this weekend. This past Saturday, Brian asked if I wanted to watch a movie and I told him I just wanted to read my book and chill. I think part of it was that I was still put out by watching “The Spy Who Dumped Me” (perhaps the dumbest movie I have seen in a long time). That’s two hours of my life I will never get back. I was like, “Stupid movie or finish my book?”
I was reading Kevin Kwan’s Rich People Problems, the third book in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy.
The answer was evident. I did some reading and also got a nap in. LOL. That also meant, Brian had some free time to play video games, which I though probably wasn’t an unwelcome turn of events for him. He really did want to watch a movie though, which we managed to squeeze into the schedule last night. He gave me the option to pick the movie this time and we watched “Mile 22” — which I really enjoyed. It made up for watching that last movie.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Until next time. GNG.
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