Archive for "Community"
Birthday Pickleball
Posted on November 19, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
The girls surprised me at pickleball a couple of weeks ago. Although, the funniest part of this is that the surprise happened at lunch when I saw some group texts come through about needing this or that for play that evening. I really wasn’t sure what was going on until Kimberly texted, “Whose birthday is it?” And then Karen or someone else replied, “Ching.” I almost spit out my lunch and busted up laughing because I was in the group text. LOL.
Chie, Tami, and Stacy are missing from the group photo because our last game went into serious over time. We finished at 13-11 but it was getting really late.
It is so nice to have thoughtful friends who celebrate you even when you’re not in a celebratory mood. You can’t be too upset with life when you are surrounded by people who love and care about you. #feelinggratefulandblessed
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Monster Smash 2023
Posted on November 13, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
We had so much fun having a Halloween cookout last year celebrating the new pickleball courts at Sedgwick County Park last year that the Thorne brothers wanted to do something similar again this year. We originally planned for it to be at Edgemoor Park because of the six new courts there but Mother Nature had her own ideas. Thankfully, David Thorne worked with West YMCA leadership and got the event relocated indoors to the Pickle Center so we were able to still bring everyone together. It was a ton of fun! Here are some highlights:
After hanging out at the Monster Smash open play for a bit, Nicole Mathis, Kyle VonAnh, and I headed down the street to the Pickle Club for our mixed doubles practice session with Jenny and Austin Corley, Kendra Wicks, Ian Carr, and Ryan Kellenbarger. Ryan and Nicole and Kyle and I all wanted to practice together before Nationals so those were the team ups: Nicole and Ryan, Kendra and Ian, Jenny and Austin, and me and Kyle.
The next day Nicole and Ryan continued their practice weekend/team bonding by playing in the Chicken N Pickle Halloween pickleball tournament and taking it down. It was a nice, productive pickleball weekend overall. GNG.
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Making My Zumba Comeback
Posted on November 13, 2023 by Ching under Community, Zumba.
Guess what, friends. I’m gearing up for my Zumba comeback. As you know, I started teaching Zumba over ten years ago and, at one point pre-COVID, was teaching nine (9) classes a week. I started dialing it back after I discovered my passion for pickleball in 2019 and then really cut it back after COVID to the point where, for the majority of this year, I’ve only had one regular class – my Wednesday night Aqua Zumba at the East Harry Genesis Health Clubs location.
We eventually canceled that class as of October 1, 2023 due to low numbers (I could never get my 21st and Woodlawn regulars to come over, so I would have people between both locations but not enough at either location to warrant keeping the classes going). So as of the beginning of October, I have had zero (0) regular classes each week, which has never ever happened since I started teaching in 2012.
Anyway, the universe knows how much I like to keep busy so I was presented with an opportunity to sub a couple of Missy and Todd’s classes while they were on their two-week Panama Canal cruise a few weeks ago. I ended up subbing a class for each of them. I hadn’t taught land in nearly four years. I’ve been stuck teaching Aqua Zumba because they could never find anyone licensed to teach water but we had a plethora of regular Zumba instructors who could teach land so I ended up giving up my Monday night Zumba class to help cover Monday night Aqua Zumba and it ended up eventually becoming my regular class, which I eventually gave up to make more time for pickleball. But I digress, getting my playlist ready for subbing (pretty much starting from scratch because I hadn’t had a regular Zumba class for years) rejuvenated my passion for Zumba and so now I’m ready and actually kind of excited to get back at it.
I attended Missy’s Halloween weekend class a couple of weeks ago and cameo’d three songs. I’ve been so obsessed with pickleball the last few years that I had forgotten how fun and exhilarating it is to let go and just dance like no one is watching. I think it’s the jolt I need to find a new regular Zumba gig.
I’ve been talking to the leadership at West YMCA and it seems like they will have a spot for me there so I am now going through the process of getting rehired. I’ll share updates as things progress and, of course, I’ll be sharing my schedule and promoting my classes here and everywhere. Until next time, GNG.
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Backyard Pickleball Invitational 2023
Posted on October 12, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I have so many ideas and not all of them actually come to fruition so I was really happy when we pulled off Backyard Pickleball Invitational 2023 last month. I think the first time I thought of this was on a rainy day a few months ago. I was at Chicken N Pickle playing with Jenny Corley, MariAnn Heeren, and Fong Witte when it dawned on me that all three of these ladies have their own private pickleball courts at home. Each of them typically have a “go to” group of players that they play with and they just play at their own courts. However, with a single court, you can’t really have too many players. Usually, you just grab three other friends for a scrimmage. So then I thought to myself, “How do we bring all these private groups together?”
Zach Nguyen is another friend I have who has a pickleball court in his backyard. He actually doesn’t live too far from me so, after playing at his house one of the times, I pitched the idea. What if we could have a pickleball tournament where we host the pool play at various private courts in the morning and then we all met up somewhere in the afternoon for bracket play? We brought Fong and Jenny into a group text and started talking about it. Then we were like, okay, what weekend would work well for this (because everyone is so busy with tournaments and travel and stuff). We originally thought about playing the bracket at a park like Seneca or Edgemoor but then another friend suggested we play the bracket at Jeff Bally’s because he has two private indoor courts at his property. He just recently completed this project so what a perfect opportunity to break it in.
Anyway, I’m busy with tournaments and stuff because there was the PPA Kansas City Open and Tulsa Pickleball Classic and Shangri-la Open and then maybe some other things in between there so like a couple of weeks before the date that we kind of tossed around they were like, “Hey, are we still doing this thing?” I’m glad they stayed on me because it is very easy for me to get distracted and just let things fall through the cracks if people don’t really seem interested. Anyway, I’m like, “Yeah, yeah. For sure we are still doing it. I’ll the registration form link.” I totally added an entire page of liability waiver in there and made people agree to it as a CYA move so none of our court hosts and organizers get sued.
During the planning stages, we were thinking we would have 12 mixed doubles teams but actually ended up with 16 because so many players wanted to play. Instead of just having pool play at Zach’s, Fong’s, and the Corleys, we also had pool play at Jeff’s (our afternoon bracket play venue).
This is the group that played at Zach’s house.
We had another great group of players at Fong’s.
This was our group at the Corleys’.
I don’t think they took a group photo in the morning at Jeff’s but we did take a bunch of pics in the afternoon during bracket play.
Here’s a highlight video I made of the day.
I’m so happy that we pulled this off and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. I hope we get to do it all again soon. Until next time, GNG.
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Work Team Building
Posted on September 13, 2023 by Ching under Community.
Our extended work team participated in a team building/volunteer activity at Emporia State University’s Prophet Aquatic Research and Outreach Center (PAROC).
Got reunited with two of my favorite people, Molly Williams and Joy Jackson.
We started at Flint Hills Technical College and then drove to the PAROC site where we would be helping with riparian restoration.
We were briefed on all the various plants that we would encounter and learned how to identify poison ivy so that we could stay away from it. Honestly, even after the presentation, I still couldn’t tell which was poison ivy and which wasn’t. Although, they did say it was everywhere so maybe that’s why I couldn’t tell — because it all of it was poison ivy. LOL.
Despite the heat and despite the risk of getting poison ivy, it was a wonderful afternoon of bonding and team building. It was nice to be able to get together with everyone and connect face to to face. Here’s a picture of our immediate team, followed by a picture of the massive group that participated in the activity that afternoon.
Fun times!
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