Archive for "Community"
Fun Times at Greater Andover Days
Posted on October 8, 2017 by Ching under Community, Events.
These are pictures from Greater Andover Days last weekend. I know. The blog is behind again. Sorry, grandma!
This first set of photos is from the VIP Tailgate Party on Friday night. I kind of volunteered us to help at two different tailgates so Brian and I had to split up. I left Brian with the Andover Rotary Club. Misty volunteered with them as well. I volunteered with the Westar Energy tailgate.
Alicia brought her handcrafted cornhole/beantoss game and it was a huge hit.
We had people at our section playing the game all night long.
The free hotdogs and hamburgers were also a huge hit. They were lovingly prepared by the Happy-Bowman grilling team consisting of Glen and Bridget.
You might recognize them from the Home for Doc Benefit Gala that we attended the previous weekend. No tux and ballgown this time.
Alicia and Ron also helped at the tailgate. As well as Roy, who is usually always with the trailer. I can’t believe I didn’t get a photo of him!
Anyway, this is Ron with the fancy tire marks on his face. They had face-painting at the event and, apparently, they were painting faces for everyone — children and adults alike. I didn’t go because I thought it was just for kids.
This is me with my coworker Stacy. She volunteered to helped with the Westar tailgate as well. It worked out great because her husband’s band Lucky People was the entertainment for the evening.
This is Brian, hanging out at the Andover Rotary Club tailgate.
This is Brian and Misty presumably “working” at the tailgate.
Lots of people came out to tailgate. Some people tailgated privately, while others shared their food.
Here’s a picture of the band performing on stage.
It was a pretty relaxing evening and didn’t feel like work at all. Here’s Misty visiting with Ron at the Westar tailgate toward the end of the evening.
In addition to giving away free burgers and hotdogs, Westar also had free popcorn, candy, and water as well as other fun goodies for the kiddos like baseball cards, fake tattoos, little stuffed animals, slap bracelets, and frisbees.
It was a successful tailgate party overall.
Brian and I were back at Greater Andover Days the next day to support Ron as he competed in the hotdog eating contest.
Though not as competitive as the hotdog eating competition held annually in Coney Island, it was just as gross. LOL.
The guy standing next to Ron is the reigning champion of this event. He has won it the last few years and he won again this year. Ron has competed a few times and has always come in second.
It’s kind of a local version of the the Stonie-Chestnut rivalry.
They also had a car show going on at Greater Andover Days that day which was a nice treat for Brian who wasn’t too thrilled about watching the hotdog eating contest. It’s definitely not for the squeamish.
Anyway, it was a beautiful day to be out and about and enjoying Greater Andover Days. It’s the first time that we’d actually spent a considerable amount of time at the event and we had a great time. I’m actually looking forward to attending the event again next year.
No Comments
Zumba for FAAGW
Posted on August 29, 2017 by Ching under Community, Zumba.
A couple of weeks ago I volunteered to teach a Zumba class for the Filipino-American Association of Greater Wichita (FAAGW) group. Basically, they’re getting together every Thursday for different activities. The cost to participate is a $5 donation. You can also pay $15 for access to all of the events that month. The money raised goes toward funding FAAGW community projects.
So far they’ve had a couple of Zumba classes, some line dancing lessons, and most recently arnis, a form of martial art using sticks. Arnis, also commonly known as eskrima, is the national martial art of the Philippines.
I had a work dinner on Thursday night; otherwise, Brian and I would have been there. I hope they offer it again because arnis is right up Brian’s alley. I think he would totally enjoy learning it.
The Thursday night before that was my night to teach Zumba. It was my first time leading a class for the group and only a couple of people had taken my Zumba class before so I asked my friend Gina for advice. She recommended using lower impact songs because she said there are a lot of older women, many of whom have never taken Zumba or any other exercise class before.
I created a playlist according to Gina’s suggestions but Brian said it still looked pretty intense for some. Nevertheless, it looked like they were all having a great time (judging from the smiles). And, no one passed out. LOL. They even had enough energy for post-workout photos at the end.
My friend Andrea helped me out by leading a couple of songs.
Here are a couple of the pictures we took during and after class.
The group asked me to offer the class once a month but I originally only agreed to do one class because of my crazy schedule. We had such a great time that I agreed to do another one in September. It will be on the third Thursday of the month again. I hope you can join us for a booty-shakin’ good time on September 21. We try to start right at 6:30 pm and then go for a full hour.
Until then, keep on dancin’!
No Comments
2017 Wichita Corporate Challenge
Posted on August 22, 2017 by Ching under Community, Things to Do.
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this year’s Wichita Corporate Challenge.
This is our second year participating in the Wichita Corporate Challenge. We took third place in our division yet again this year, behind Cargill (second place), and Koch (first place and overall winner). Last year we were only half a point from second place but Cargill brought their A-game this year. It wasn’t close. We had a ton of fun competing though; and we learn and grow every year.
You can view all of the results on the Wichita Corporate Challenge web site but here’s a summary of our best events.
Events that we earned Gold:
Golf
5k Bike – Women
Table Tennis
Events that we earned Silver:
Briefcase Shuttle
Tug of War
Tennis
Events that we earned Bronze:
5k Run – Women 31-45
100m Dash – Women 45+
3 on 3 Basketball – Women
Volleyball
Softball
Anyway, you can draw a few conclusions based on these results. The one I immediately jumped to is that our female employees kick major butt!
Also, it should come as no surprise that Isaac medaled in all of his events. His teams earned Gold for Golf (he played with Dante, Sherii, and Kelly) and Table Tennis (he played doubles with Amy), and Silver for Tennis (he played doubles with Lindsay). He is both athletic and super competitive, which is great for our team.
I suggested that he play in every single event next year. LOL.
I’m pretty competitive but lacking in talent so I’m not much help. I do love participating though, so I always just volunteer to compete in any events that need participants whenever I can. I’m just grateful to be included. I hope they let me play again next year.
No Comments
Zumba at Relay for Life
Posted on August 5, 2017 by Ching under Community, Zumba.
A few months ago, a friend of mine who was on the Relay for Life organizing committee this year reached out to me and asked if I would volunteer to teach a Zumba class on July 14 at 11 PM. I love volunteering for things so I told her of course I’d do it but I did want to clarify the time because I thought it was a typo at first. It turns out, she really meant it.
The Relay for Life event goes from 7 PM to 7 AM and they planned various activities every hour to keep participants awake and fully engaged throughout the 12 hours. She needed something for the 11 PM time slot. The instructor who volunteered last year had moved away and so she decided to ask me this year.
Though the time made me pause, of course, I agreed to do it. I live for this kind of volunteer work. It’s so fun!
Anyway, when she asked me back in January, we hadn’t finalized the summer schedule yet so I agreed not realizing that I would be teaching an 8:45 AM Aqua Zumba class the next day. I was a little bit worried but I had faith that I’d be able to handle it. I think the excitement of dancing from Friday into Saturday outweighed my apprehension. I hadn’t danced that late into the evening/next morning in years! Plus, this is my first ever 11 PM Zumba class.
Dancing alone is never any fun so I decide right off the bat to recruit some people to help me. I had five amazing Zumba instructor friends who answered the call. More people wanted to help actually, but we only had a one-hour time slot so we couldn’t have too many instructors. I took the first five to confirm. Huge thanks to Andrea, Nick, Melissa, and Charis for helping me!
All of our friends who agreed to stay up and dance with us that night deserve recognition too. I mean, I realize they were sacrificing sleep time to help. The party wouldn’t have been any fun without people to dance with.
Here are few pictures from that evening…
This is one of my favorite Zumba people, Melissa. She is just so vibrant and full of life, and she’s always willing to help me out with my Zumba volunteer events.
I’m glad we brought a few Zumba addicts with us because only a few of the Relay for Life people participated and most of them didn’t stick around for the full hour. I’m sure they were trying to conserve their energy for the long haul. After all, they had 7 more long hours to go and we were only there for the Zumba bit.
Brian is always really supportive and around for all of these events but I decided to give him a break from having to drive me around all over the place that evening. I managed to hitch a ride with Andrea to Melissa’s 6:45 PM Zumba class at East YMCA and then I hitched a ride with Melissa to Carlos O’Kelly’s (our usual post Friday night Zumba hangout specially right now because they’re doing that summer drink tour) and then I tagged along with her to her house and Bishop Carroll High School where the Relay for Life event was going on. Her house is just around the corner, less than 10 minutes from the school.
That was actually one of the craziest 24-hour periods of Zumba I’ve had (not counting ZINCON). Basically, I took Melissa’s Friday night class, then the Relay for Life Zumba at 11 PM, then I taught my two classes (Aqua Zumba at 8:45 AM and Zumba at 10:30 AM) at Andover YMCA the next day on about five hours of sleep (if that). That’s four Zumba classes in 16 hours. It was nuts!
And, Andrea did it all with me!
Anyway, I considered it my warmup for ZINCON, which is a grueling schedule of four straight days of 24/7 Zumba. It’s so fun though! I can’t wait to tell you all about it. I may have time to blog about it tomorrow.
In the meantime, here are the posts from last year:
Then these are from 2014 (we skipped 2015 because we used 2015 ZINCON budget for the 2016 Zumba cruise instead):
The very last Zumba Instructor Conference in LA in 2014:
My very first ZINCON in 2013:
No Comments
Wichita Wicked Brew Tour
Posted on August 3, 2017 by Ching under Community, Date Ideas, Things to Do.
Have you gotten your Wicked Brew Tour shirt yet?
Brian and I have been diligently getting stamps on our passport in hopes of earning our shirts before the deadline or they run out of shirts. I actually completed my passport already and got my shirt. Brian would have completed his already too, except he left his passport in one of his shorts and it ended up getting obliterated in the laundry a few weeks ago.
Being the persistent people we are, he’s decided to start over and I decided to start over with him. So, I may have talked him into starting over. I mean, how are we going to be matchy-matchy if he doesn’t get his Wicked Brew Tour shirt?
I got my first shirt in a Medium size and I now want one in size Small. That’s pretty much my motivation for starting over with him. Anyway, we need a few more stamps but we’re getting there slowly but surely.
I’m not generally a coffee drinker but this whole Wicked Brew Tour has got me drinking way more coffee than I’ve ever drank before. Brian is a coffee addict but he don’t really like the kind I drink. He likes to drink his coffee black — plain and unadulterated. He was really excited for the beer drinking part of the tour, though.
The Wicked Brew Tour has got us visiting places we don’t normally get around to visiting. Here are a few photos.
The picture above is from our trip to the Donut Whole a few weeks ago.
This one is from River City Brewing Company. Incidentally, the night that we decided to go there for dinner was the same night as Automobilia and that was a real treat. Mostly for Brian but I enjoyed watching his eyes light up as he walked up to his favorite cars.
Automobilia surrounded River City so we decided to look check out the car show while walking off our dinner. There were 1500+ cars on display downtown from Washington to Broadway. It was car heaven!
We’re really enjoying the tour so far and I think we’d enjoy it even more after we get our Wicked Brew shirts. I’m hoping we can get the rest of the stamps in the next two weeks because the deadline is just around the corner. I sure hope they have some shirts left!
No Comments
