Pickleball

Archive for "Pickleball"

Busy Weekends Recap

Posted on October 4, 2026 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.

I keep falling behind on the blog due to busy Weekends so this is going to be another catch up post. First, I volunteered at our work booth at the Kansas State Fair a couple of weeks ago. Didn’t really get to enjoy the fair because Brian didn’t want to come up. That and we had Zoobile the prior weekend and a pickleball tournament in Overland Park on the second weekend. We had work in between so there wasn’t really any time to go.

I was so focused on getting to Hutchinson early that I prepared my bag the night before. However, I forgot to throw the most important thing in there–my ticket. I grabbed my bag when I walked out in the morning and didn’t realize that my ticket was still on my desk until after I parked. I figured that I would probably just have to pay for a ticket for the day but when I explained the situation to the gate attendant, she just let me in. I guess I have a trustworthy face. LOL.

Actually, she was like, “Just remember to bring your ticket tomorrow.” I wasn’t volunteering any other days, but I wasn’t going to argue so I just said, “Yes, ma’am.”

I didn’t want my ticket to go to waste so, on our way out of town the next morning, we gave my ticket to the drive-thru person at Mokas. I figured that even if they couldn’t use it, then maybe they’ll run into someone going to the Kansas State Fair who could benefit from a free ticket. We weren’t running into anyone else likely to go because we were about to get stuck in the car for two and a half hours.

We went up to Overland Park for the APP Dillons Overland Park Open. First, we weren’t planning on going up. I kind of toyed with the idea of going up to spectate and cheer for friends who were playing but wasn’t particularly committed. However, due to the low registration numbers, they were giving away free tournament entries to various clubs. I got an offer to play for free through TapNPaddles and also through the Chicken N Pickle ambassador team.

I could have played in multiple events for free but, because I was at the Kansas State Fair on Friday, I really could only play on Sunday. I decided to roll the dice and signed up for 4.0 mixed doubles without a partner. As luck would have it, a friend from Kansas City (Isaiah Peel) also did not have a partner so we agreed to team up. The down side for us was that we had never really played together before and we didn’t really get a chance to have any practice games. But I wasn’t really too concerned because I wasn’t counting on playing. I was just grateful that I could.

Brian and I caught another lucky break in that the Holiday Inn Express next to the tournament venue is pet-friendly so Saki could go with us. Here’s a view of the tournament venue from our hotel room window.

We arrived at the hotel early and our room wasn’t ready so Brian dropped me off at the tournament while he waited in the lobby with Saki. The concierge was nice and let him check in shortly after noon. After he got Saki settled in our room, he grabbed some lunch and then came out to tournament to watch our friends and hang out with me.

Dinner that night was at Nick & Jake’s. Credit to our friend Susie Ternes for organizing. The next day a bunch of us had to play against one another in mixed doubles. There were three Wichita teams in our division–Branden Stephenson (Susie’s brother) and Stacie Myers, Craig and Kelly Balzer, and Susie and Keith Lietzke. Then there’s my team which is half Wichita, half Kansas City.

Duane came by the tournament on Sunday.

There were nine teams total and so they divided the teams into two pools. The Balzers and Branden and Stacie were in the pool with five teams and then Susie and Keith and my team were in the pool with four teams. I was glad that we weren’t all in the same pool because I’ve actually had that happen in past tournaments. Anyway, the format was such that only the top two teams in each pool would advance into the playoff bracket. In the end, only teams with Wichita players got to advance so our four teams got to complete for medals. Wichita ended up sweeping the podium with the Balzers taking first, Branden and Stacie taking second, and Keith and Susie taking third. I think my team ended up falling short of the podium because we were only half Wichita. LOL.

All jokes aside, I had a fantastic time at the tournament. Our division started late so Brian and Saki actually drove back to Wichita without me because we had to check out of our hotel and the indoor venue wasn’t pet-friendly. I hitched a ride home with Susie and Branden so it worked out that we all finished around the same time.

The tournament was held AdventHealth Sports Park, a brand new venue in the Bluhawk area of Overland Park. The indoor sports facility also has an ice skating rink and a massive arcade. Naturally, we had to play some games before we left because the Stephensons (specially Susie and Branden) are quite competitive.

The following weekend our friend Tom Grace came to visit and we all got our nails done together: me, Brian, and Chris Townley (our usual group) plus Tom. Susie even joined us–which worked out great because then it gave me a chance to watch the Paddles for Plates benefit tournament for the Kansas Food Bank at Chicken N Pickle. And, then I rode with her to the nail salon.

After nails, Susie had Somewhere Fest. Tom, Chris, Brian, and I had the drone festival at Exploration Place but we grabbed dinner at the Monarch before that. On Sunday we had a surprise birthday party at TapNPaddles for Kelly Balzer. It was another fantastic weekend.

This weekend, I took my sister to the hospital on Friday for her colonoscopy. Her husband Adam works late so I agreed to take her. Anyway, I was documenting this occasion because I thought it was her first one. I was quite disappointed to find out this is actually her second because she had a colonoscopy before while in her 30s.

Our friend Laurie Adams came to visit for the weekend and we celebrated her birthday at Newport Grill. We got to meet her friends Lindsey and Doug, who also live in Wichita, and her boyfriend Cale at dinner.

On Saturday, I ran the first InPickle Nation mini tournament of the fall season (which was a little tricky as I had a couple of no shows–thankfully, Pam Browning and Branden Waldschmidt who were already there playing in Harvey’s ladder group agreed to stay and play to complete our group). Laurie and Branden got paired for bracket and took second.

Brian and I met Adam and Jenni at the movies after IPN. Jenni got us tickets to watch the Forgotten Island, a Disney animated film based on Filipino folklore. It was the first time Brian and I had been to the movies in nearly 10 years and it reminded us of why we quit going. We should be good for another decade. LOL.

All jokes aside, the movie was really good. We laughed. We cried. We were thoroughly entertained. Highly recommend you go see it. I think it’s especially relevant because there were many Tagalog words used in the movie and Brian had recently learned some of the words through his Facebook reels.

Today, we’re chillin’ at home watching Championship Sunday. Watching pickleball tournaments on the TV is one of my favorite ways to relax after a busy week.

That pretty much catches us up. Until next time!

No Comments

Laurie’s Last Visit to Wichita

Posted on July 17, 2026 by Ching under Food and Drink, Pickleball.

This is a late post but here are some pics from our friend Laurie Adams’ visit to Wichita last month. Laurie came down to play in the IPN mini tournament at TapNPaddles and got partnered with Harvey Self and won first place!

I ended up taking third place with Deanna Agpoon.

Afterwards we stopped by to check out Gilley’s grand opening open play.

Senda Vu and Lena Quach were running the show.

Kyle Rinck happened to be there.

Then we went home to pick up Brian and take him to dinner at my favorite pizza place — Piatto’s.

The pizzas were delicious as always.

Walked over to Hopping Gnome after for drinks so we could get stamps on our Wicked Brew passports. I was on antibiotics and couldn’t drink so I donated my drink to Laurie. Worked out perfectly.

No Comments

2026 Picklepalooza

Posted on July 4, 2026 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.

This year’s Picklepalooza fundraiser for Senior Services of Wichita and the Wichita Cancer Foundation took place on Friday, June 5, at Chicken N Pickle—where it’s always held.

Since my usual partner, Chris Wilson, was out of town, I recruited Denver Smith to play with me. Last year I teamed up with Zach Nguyen for the same reason, but he was unavailable this year as well. Denver had played the event with another friend last year and really enjoyed it, so asking him to partner up seemed like an easy choice.

A few months later, though, my plans started to unravel. Ongoing back issues forced me to withdraw from several tournaments, and by the week of Picklepalooza I was already questioning whether I could compete. Then came my ER visit that Tuesday, which was the tipping point. I texted Denver and told him to find another partner because I wasn’t confident I’d be able to play.

Ironically, after IV fluids, a blood transfusion, and a handful of medications, I felt remarkably good over the next few days and probably could have played after all. But everything worked out for the best. Denver teamed up with Sam Adedire instead—and they went on to win the competitive division. Honestly, I’m not sure we would have won it if I’d been on the court.

Denver and Sam in action; and with Denver’s dad in the photo above.

And winning it all.

Here are some more fun pics from the event..

Awesome volunteers checking players and guests in for the event.

Mom and dad watched last year but got to play in beginner division this year.

We got to enjoy a delicious lunch at the “Be Amazing” room.

So grateful for the opportunity to be involved with this event, even though I didn’t get to play this year. Hoping to be part of it again and actually play next year.

No Comments

Missing Out Because of Back Issues

Posted on June 12, 2026 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.

InPickle Nation returned to Wichita a couple of weeks ago with their Under Armour Championship Series the Dink Minor Leagues MiLP v3, three-player team tournament. You might remember the team tournament that I played in a couple of months ago when our friend Jim Tsen was in town.

This is a similar event, backed by the Dink Minor Leagues, but the teams consist of only three players or the same gender instead of four — two men and two women. The game format is the same – rally scoring to 21 – but matches consist of only three games so there are no singles dream breakers.

I was super excited to play in it so, when it was first announced back in March, I grabbed a couple of friends (Anna Le and Chanell Nguyen) and got us signed up with “Whatever” as our team name. Our team name is kind of a joke because when we were trying to come up with ideas for team names, both of them were pretty much like “Whatever is good with me.”

As you know, I have been plagued with all sorts of health issues not the least of which is my back problem that started a little over a month ago, so I didn’t even get to play. But that’s not the half of it. Our team went through so many replacements and substitutions that no original team members actually played come tournament day. We truly lived up to our “Whatever” team name. LOL.

You wouldn’t believe it if I told so I just had to chart it to explain just exactly how wild this roller coaster journey has been.

End of March, we formed our team with me, Anna, and Chanell. Shortly after, Anna’s daughter Sophia is diagnosed with leukemia and so she asked to withdraw. We ended up picking Monica McGehee as replacement.

While I was at the US Open in Florida, I heard from Chanell. She also has to withdraw because our friend Angelynn’s wedding is at 1 PM that day. Obviously, we’re not counting on getting eliminated early so that was a definite deal-breaker. Anyway, I found out that Jen Refschneider’s (aka Chef Jen) DUPR rating had dropped below 4.6 and she was eligible to play in our group. Texted her immediately but didn’t hear back for a couple of days.

I was looking at the team rosters and found that Katie McKee (who was originally interested in playing DUPR 15 level with Molly Spring and Greta Siemens) registered to play in DUPR 13 with Jen Tiano and Susie Ternes. My next text was to Molly because I knew she was interested in play and no longer had a team. I did hear back from her right away so, at this point, our team now consisted of Molly, Monica, and me. I eventually did hear back from Chef Jen and she said she was available if I still needed someone. We had already picked up Molly so we no longer had a vacancy on our team but the division itself still had one team spot left. Jen who was interested in playing, asked me for Jill Reyes’ number, and now the two of them were trying to form a team.

In the meantime, Molly, Monica, and I grabbed Fong Witte as our fourth for a practice session and that’s when I realized that there was no way that my back would hold up to a full day of playing. I couldn’t barely muster finishing one game. We asked Fong if she was available to play on that day and so then it was decided that she would take my spot.

Another team finally entered and took the final opening so DUPR 13 was full up. Chef Jen and Jill’s team didn’t get it in time. Tami Racine, Krista Crawford, and Huyen Nguyen (aka my first pickleball daughter) were also trying to enter but there was no spot for them either.

I did find out later that Cindy Egan ended up picking Chef Jen to replace Megan Nighswonger, who had also gotten invited to Angelynn’s wedding. Susie Ternes had to replace Jen Tiano due to a knee injury and ended up grabbing Jill, so in the end, Chef Jen were both able to play — just on different teams.

A couple of days before the tournament, Molly told me that her father was throwing a surprise retirement party for her mother-in-law that same day and so now she had a conflict. Anyway, I knew that Huyen wanted to play because she was part of a team that couldn’t enter due to our sold-out situation, so tapped her to replace Molly. In the end, team “Whatever” consisted of Huyen, Fong, and Monica — none of whom were original team members. Wild is an understatement.

The event was super fun and the ladies really showed out. We filled all 12 courts with 24 teams in the morning. There were 8 teams each competing in DUPR 9, DUPR 11, and DUPR 15.

Take a Chill PLL (Parrish Gumeringer, Liz Ellison, and Laurie Newton) took down DUPR 9 division.

Soy Milk (Uyen Dang, Senda Vu, and Abbie Welu) took down DUPR 11 division.

We’ve Got JoKeS (Jill Reyes, Katie McKee, and Susie Ternes) took down the DUPR 13 division.

Be Like Water (Khan Pham, Doan Nguyen, and Michael Cheung) took down the DUPR 11 division.

JKS (Branden Stephenson replaced Jason McCutchen, Keith Lietzke, and Saif Khan) took down the DUPR 13 division.

The men started at 11 AM, as the ladies groups were winding down. Despite there being very few mens teams, I think they still had a good team. There was great competition overall.

Of course, I was there all day to assist with the tournament and support Duane with whatever he needed so it wasn’t like I completely missed it. I was bummed I couldn’t play, though. Playing is way more fun than spectating.

Special shout out to our official Regina Pinkston who came to hang with us all day.

No Comments

Pickleball Birthdays are the BEST

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.

I had missed Danae and Jeanette’s birthday bonanza because we had Banana Ball tickets. Thankfully, our friend Dawn organized a pickleball gathering in their honor and I was able to make that one.

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.