I played in the final Friday Night Fiesta of the month with Zach Young. Well, kinda sorta. I played in a couple of games until my back could no longer handle it. Thankfully, Heide Bartel was there fill for the rest of the games.

I ran the weekly InPickle Nation mini tournament at Tap on Saturday afternoon. Thankfully, we had enough players signed up so I did not have to play in it.

Afterwards, I Brian and Chris at Nails and Beyond for some much needed self-care.

Then Brian and I went to Fong and Josh’s annual crawfish boil shindig. It was Brian’s first time attending.

I was supposed to go to O’Brien’s for Monica McGehee’s (on the right in the pic below) birthday celebration but I wasn’t feeling well (as I hadn’t been all month) and that was pretty much all the activity I could muster.

I spent all day Sunday vegging out. I was super “crampy” and maybe spent all of two hours upright. I think this was the weekend that we were supposed to have brunch at HomeGrown but I woke up just not feeling great and went back to bed. Brian was really looking forward to HomeGrown (it’s his favorite breakfast spot) and I felt bad for disappointing him.

Anyway, Brian got up me for breakfast later that morning, and I spent the rest of the day in our recliner with my heating pad. I don’t think I even showered at all that day. I wondered (besides calling it quits in the middle of FNF on Friday) if people could tell how very miserable I felt inside. I didn’t feel 100 percent all and was barely keeping it together.

Monday was Memorial Day and we met some friends (Susie and Grant Ternes and their three kids, and Keith Lietzke) at Hikari for dinner. It’s a sushi and ramen place in Haysville that our friend Keith constantly raves about. I’ll write a separate post on it later because I took a bunch of food pics.

I’ll also fill you all in about my ER trip last week which helped me figure out what has been making me miserable all month. I was down a significant amount of blood and was practically “walking dead” (I had 6.5 hemoglobin according to my ER labs). ER doc was amazed I even went to work that morning. He said if I were a man, I would have been bed-ridden. Nope. I was still walking around, doing stuff, and even “trying” to play pickleball. How I didn’t pass out at any of these places was beyond me. More on that next time though. Until then, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

One of Brian’s former T-Mobile coworkers opened a Mr. Wingz down the street from work so we went to check it out last month. I think they’re mostly a carry-out business because there aren’t many tables inside.

Your best bet will be to pre-order your food on their website so it will be ready for pick up when you arrive.

We decided to eat there when we went because we didn’t know we could order ahead. Now we do and that’s what I’ll do from now on.

The fries had excellent flavor and there were multiple wing sauces to choose from. We highly recommend checking this place out if you’ve never been.

I brought mine to work the next day.

Here’s a picture of my plants today.

I am happy to report that both of the plants I chose are still alive and seem to be thriving, which I am glad about because if these died I would be really upset. They weren’t cheap to make.

GROW is a neat place and the atmosphere is super fun but, if you’re looking at potting some plants, this is most definitely not the way to go. There are way cheaper options. I had a great time bonding with the coworkers though, so there is that.

I met up with the ladies at the West-side Emerson Biggins last month to try the soft-serve margarita flights and they did not disappoint. It was actually Janelle’s idea and I went along with it because I’m always down for a good time and trying new things. I invited Susie because she’s always down to try new things like me. Probably even more so.

I’m not sure I would do this all the time but it’s definitely a must in the summertime. The soft-serve is ultra-refreshing specially during a heatwave.

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.

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?

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.

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

Brian and I walked over to Mildred’s while in the Crossroads district of Kansas City earlier this month for the Hummel-Ward wedding.

It’s a cute little place within walking distance of our hotel.

Their breakfast pastries looked delicious but we both opted for a breakfast burrito.

They were pretty darn good.

I love this wall.

We had to selfie in front of it, naturally.

Here’s a pic of my latte.

We loved the convenience of being able to walk to Mildred’s and back to our hotel. It was a lovely morning for a walk.

Fast forward 10 years later, he finally got to try it. Also, you know it’s good because it’s still around. Few restaurants survive the test of time.

We walked to the restaurant from our hotel so we enjoyed a few drinks and didn’t even think twice about it. LOL.

Here are some pictures of our food.

I decided to have soup because the walk was a little chilly and I was unprepared for cooler weather. I didn’t even bring a hoodie. Anyway, this is the Tom Kha Gai which is not quite what I had expected. I feel like I had Tom Kha Gai at our local Tup Tim Thai here in Wichita and it was different. Different or not, it was good and I still enjoyed it. I slurp, slurp, slurped it.

Speaking of walk. I took a couple of pictures of Brian in one of the alleys we walked past on the way to the restaurant.

Here’s the funny thing. Ten years ago, when I asked to eat here, Brian refused citing that he thought the area looked “sketchy” and here were are ten years later — not only are we eating there, but we walked to and from the restaurant even. Either the Crossroads District has come a long way in the last ten years or we have.