Events

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Christmas 2025 Festivities

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Ching under Events.

My friend Laurie Adams came to visit.

Checked out several holiday pop-ups.

Attended several fun Christmas parties.

Cindy’s annual Christmas gathering

Ladies’ annual pickleball gift exchange

Attend Chad and Laura’s annual beer and wine gift exchange

We also attended Brian’s work Christmas dinner at Kobe, and met a bunch of pickleball friends at Chicken N Pickle’s Holiday Hideaway. December was a really fun month. Looking forward to what this month and the rest of 2026 has in store. Happy New Year!

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Birthday Festivities

Posted on December 30, 2025 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.

I thought by leaving town the weekend before my birthday I would get out of birthday festivities. I just don’t like when people make a fuss. It makes me feel bad. However, Dawn texted with me while we were in St. Louis and she insisted on hosting a birthday get together at TapNPaddles. I was a reluctant participant but it was very thoughtful of her and I appreciated it.

Here are some fun pics from that day.

Pic with Cindy and Joe Witte. My US Open travel pals.

Picture with my good friend Ryan Kellenbarger. This isn’t his first appearance on the blog. I think he made his debut as early as 2021. We’ve done quite a few things together over the years.

Picture with James Pham who I met for the first time a couple of months ago in open play. He just happened to be at Tap at the same time as my birthday pickle so he got to celebrate with us.

With Cindy Witte and Fong Witte — no relation. Actually, Cindy pronounces her last name as “Witty” and Fong pronounces her last name as “Wit” so same spelling but totally different.

With Keith Lietzke and Chris Wilson.

With Jeanette Santo, Janelle Lindeman, and Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance.

With Chandi Bongers.

With Jeanette, Monica McGehee, and Chandi.

Two of our favorite girls — Huyen Nguyen and Hannah Wesolowski. They’re so fun!

With Uyen Dang, Hannah, Senda Vu, Fong, and Tiffany.

Jeanette, Dawn Hazlewood (she’s the one who orchestrated the whole thing), and Karen Fox.

Brian with Dawn.

Me with Sandi Dobbs.

Jeanette, Sandi, and Chandi.

With Dawn and Trung Ho-Nguyen.

As much as I don’t like to make a thing of my birthday, it was nice being able to see and play with everyone.

Dawn is the best birthday pickle organizer!

She even got me a fun cake!

But I also brought cake for everyone to try. I’m weirdo who brings cake to her own birthday celebration. Anyway, the funny story about this cake is that it has been showing up on my social media feed for over a year and I’ve been dying to try it but there’s no way I could eat the entire cake by myself — not even with Brian’s help. So, when Dawn decided she was hosting a birthday pickleball party for me, I rush ordered the cake so that it would arrive in time. This was the perfect excuse for me to try and it wouldn’t go to waste because several people would be helping me eat it.

Before the birthday pickleball party on Sunday afternoon, Susie and Grant Ternes had invited us to dinner at Bella Vita. This was our first time back since they moved to their new location. It was lovely dinner but I started to get a headache.

After dinner with the amazing Terneses, Brian and I went to Barleycorn’s to watch Grandma the Band perform. I had promised our friend Kyle Starkel that we would go. Although, we contemplated not going because my headache was getting worse. I didn’t want to go back on my word though because I had bailed on coming to his band perform a few times before.

It was fun seeing Kyle in his element.

The next day, my headache was still in full force but I couldn’t bail on the pickleball party because they were having it for me. I just had to suck it up. I’m glad I did though, because it was wonderful celebrating with everyone.

That’s my post-birthday weekend in a nutshell. I feel like I got to do everything I wanted to do during my birthday and then some.

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Sip and Support for Victory in the Valley

Posted on November 14, 2025 by Ching under Events.

Victory in the Valley had their annual wine walk event at Chicken N Pickle last month. It was on a Thursday night which was my team league night at TapNPaddles at the time so I could not go. I still wanted to support the event though, because Victory in the Valley was just so great while Brian was going through his cancer treatments. So, I got tickets for mom and dad and Brian to go. I signed mom and dad up for both the pickleball clinic and the wine walk. Brian was coming from his work and couldn’t do the clinic, which started at 4 pm, so I only got him tickets for the wine walk portion only.

Mom and dad really enjoyed the pickleball clinic. Dad even texted me what he learned that day after the fact. They’re not really big drinkers so they only stayed briefly for the wine walk portion of the festivities. Each attendee got a ticket for a full pour of their favorite wine and they both gave their tickets to Brian.

I had a feeling this would happen so, earlier that day, I asked Brian if he wanted me to drop him off at Chicken N Pickle on my way to my league and just come back to pick him up after. He was like, “No. I don’t want to be waiting around for you if you’re running late. I will drive myself.” I was not thrilled about this idea but I figured, I would go to CNP after league and, if he was in bad shape, then we’d leave his car there and he could just ride home with me.

So, he’s at the party having a great time (as you can see from the photos). Besides mom and dad, we had a bunch of our friends there also. I finish my league and give him a call. “Are you still at CNP?” I ask. He’s like, “No. I’m already home.”

“Okay. I won’t bother going to CNP then since you’ve already left. I’ll just head straight home. What are you doing right now?”

“I’m sitting in the chair,” he says. The “chair” is our loveseat recliner in front of the fireplace. It’s our favorite spot in the house (including the dog).

“How did it go tonight? Who all did you see there?” I asked him. Listen. This guy was so drunk he couldn’t even talk to me. I don’t know how he managed to get himself home. He was obviously gone so I asked him, “How did you get home?” He’s like, “Rex drove me home. Rex kept me safe.” Rex is the name of his car. Then he adds, “I’m sleepy. I think I’m going to bed.”

He tasted all of the wines (multiple times) and then he drank his full pour, mom’s full pour, and dad’s full pour. I am amazed that he didn’t (a) get pulled over on the way home, (b) get into a car crash, or (c) run over someone, or (d) all of the above. I am so grateful we don’t live that far from Chicken N Pickle because he was a mess.

When I get home, he was already laying in bed naked. He managed to move from the chair to the bedroom and undress himself. I also undress and get in the bed with him. I guess it’s bedtime now. He’s laying next to me trying to sleep off his drunkenness while I’m laying in bed, playing on my phone (doom scrolling as they call it – I just call it catching up). Then it his him. Thankfully, he still had the wastebasket next to his side of the bed from when he was feeling sick during his treatments. Off the bed he goes and he’s kneeling over the trash can vomiting. I’m thinking I should probably go help him. So I get over to his side and start rubbing his back and ask him if there’s anything I can do to help. He just shakes his head and tells me, “You’re already doing it.”

He’s on the floor puking into the wastebasket. I’m next to him. This goes on for a while before he stops and goes, “I think I’m done.”

“Okay. Should we leave the can here in case you get sick again?” He’s like, “No. I’m done.” I know what he’s thinking. He doesn’t want the putrid smell of vomit next to him all night.

We get him in bed and I grab the plastic sacks, double-bagged, careful to make sure there are no leaks. I walk it straight out to our trash bin in the garage. I didn’t want to smell it in the house either so I wasn’t going to throw it in our trash bin in the kitchen. It was going all the way outside. By the time I get back to the bedroom, he’s already puking again – over the bathroom sink this time. In my mind I’m thinking, “I told you so” as I’m looking around in the bedroom to see if there’s any puke on the floor because his side of the bed is furthest from our bathroom. Amazingly, he managed to make it to the sink without dripping puke anywhere.

Again, I stroke his back and console him, and make sure he is okay. When he’s done, we clean him up and also clean up the sink and try for bed again. We were successful the second time around. He was feeling much better when we woke up the next morning and he could finally tell me how the night went. Suddenly, he was Mr. Chatty Cathy. I was glad to hear that he had a great time (other than drinking so much that he got sick) but man, what a night!

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April’s Birthday at Napoli

Posted on November 14, 2025 by Ching under Events, Food and Drink.

We had such a wonderful time celebrating April’s birthday at Napoli. This was actually a couple of months ago but I’m super behind on posting here.

We enjoyed some fabulous food and drinks in addition to the wonderful company. It’s always great to see these guys because I don’t feel like we get to spend enough time together. Everyone is just so busy.

Food pics…

And the drinks… I only got a couple of pics, though.

Our friends are huge fans of Napoli. We love Napoli too but I think our go to for Italian right now is FioRito. The food is fantastic and it’s more centrally located. What about you all? Which Italian restaurant is your favorite?

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September Activities Round Up

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Ching under Events, Life, Travel.

I met another one of the guys from the chess club, Austin. He was a good sport and tried pickleball after we played chess. Their regular weekly meetups, which I have yet to attend since I joined the chess group several years ago, are at the Delano Braums on Wednesday evenings, and the Advanced Learning Library on Sunday afternoons. A few of them have come out to check out TapNPaddles, though. I hope they can add Friday nights at Tap to the regular rotation.

I participated in a super exciting team-building activity with my workmates. Our afternoon began with volunteering at the Kansas Food Bank, happy hour at the Monarch, and we were to wrap up with a baseball game, which ended up getting canceled due to a hailstorm.

We ended up just hanging out in the suite until it was save to walk to our cars and head home. There were two storms that night. The others stayed but a few of us decided to take off during the intermission, aka the break between the two storms. Tom Grace came down from to Topeka and he walked from his hotel to the meet us at the Monarch so I ended up giving him a ride back to his hotel. Literally, no sooner than I dropped him off, it started hailing again. I could hear the hail hit the roof of my car as I was driving down Kellogg. I kept looking around me to see if there were holes because the hits were so loud. I was afraid (because it sounded like the hail could punch a hole through thick steel and could really hurt you if you got hit with it) but also secretly hoping I had some hail damage because I have a crack on my windshield that’s getting bigger by the day. I was hoping to get hail damage money and use it to replace the windshield. Brian checked my car after. Alas, no such luck. I guess I’m going to have to pay for my new windshield out of my own pocket. Currently a low priority so I’m putting it off.

Brian and I had tickets to the ballpark for the next day. It turned into a double header. They played both the game from the previous night and that night’s game back to back but reduced it to seven innings. We couldn’t take off work so we only went for the second part. The Dills (Becca and Jay) and the Huntees (Tina and Justin Huntington) met us there. It was great seeing Tina and Justin as we hadn’t seen them in ages.

Speaking of things we hadn’t seen or done in a while, we went to Zoobilee for the first time in a long time. Free tickets are kind of hard to pass up.

We went to Allen, Texas (DFW area) for a quick weekend getaway so I could participate in the Chicken N Pickle ambassador event. More on that later.

We went back to Chama Gaucha, which has quickly become one of our favorite places to eat down there.

Checked out a new restaurant in town that we had never been to yet. More on this later too.

Got a plant for work.

We celebrated the Wichita Pickleball Facebook group reaching the 4K members milestone with a special Friday night open play and a huge Friday Night Fiesta, one of the biggest ever!