Archive for "Pickleball"
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.
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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.
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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.
Danae and Jeanette are so fun.
We had a great time celebrating them.
Huge thanks to Dawn for bringing everyone together to celebrate.
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New Chicken N Pickle Shoes
Posted on May 12, 2026 by Ching under Pickleball.
Last month Chicken N Pickle gave us a pair of FILA shoes. They’re not anything fancy but I love the colors.
My favorite part about these CNP X FILA collab shoes is that they match an outfit that I already have in my closet.
- Here are some product links:
- CNP X FILA shoes
- DonaJo Move T (orange color is no longer available, unfortunately)
- Lucky in Love Shockin’ Radiance Skirt
I’ve had the outfit for over a year so I don’t think they’re available any longer in certain colors and sizes. I was just so happy that I happened to get a pair of pickleball shoes that go with them so perfectly. Thank you, Chicken N Pickle!
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Michael Cheung’s First US Open
Posted on May 11, 2026 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.
On Friday, April 17, we spent most of the day at the Franklin US Open tournament until it was time to pick our friend Michael Cheung up from the airport. Brian took the opportunity to get some stretching done at the Healix booth.
After picking up Michael from the airport and a quick check in (he stayed at the same hotel that we were staying at), the three of us went for early supper at LowBrow. We first discovered this pizza place in 2022, and returned in 2023 with mom and dad. This is our third visit here. We tried another pizza place earlier in the week but LowBrow is definitely our favorite.
They added this giant chair out front for photo ops which wasn’t there three years ago. Naturally, I had to get a pic of Michael in it.
Here are some pictures of our food.
Michael decided to order the wings, on top of getting pizza. They were fantastic but we had entirely too much food.
Michael got the Cortez the Killer, while Brian and I split the Meatfest. The wings made us full, though. At the end of the evening, we still had a whole pizza to take home between the two different pizzas.
BTW, I forgot to mention that, because Michael is a Globalist with Hyatt Rewards, they practically rolled out the red carpet for him. When we first checked in earlier in the week, this lady in front of us was asking for an upgrade and they flat out told her no. When Michael checked in, he got upgraded to a suite (despite having booked the same room as Brian and I using points) without even asking. Follow this link for a tour of his fancy room if you want to see it. They also gave him a couple bottles of water, coupons to the restaurant, and all sorts of free goodies. However, the best perk of all and the one that matters most is the free parking. Brian and I had to pay $29 per day for self-parking and Globalists like Michael get it for free. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let us transfer the car over to Michael for the last couple of days so we had to pay $29 for every single day of our stay (including our departure day, which was kind of a rip off but Brian and I just accepted our fate without complaint).
The next day, we went to the tournament early so Michael could check out vendor village before we played.
We also got to take in some games at the Zing Zang Championship Court. PRO TIP: It’s free to get in to Zing Zang in the mornings, if you want to save some money. Just get there early and stay there.
We didn’t medal but I got a pic of Michael with the podium backdrop, which had to be rebranded this year because of the change in title sponsor.
Michael and I played in our matching Lunar shirts. Thank you to Matt Nola for mine. He gave it to me when I bought my Lunar Laban paddle.
Click here for highlights from our last day at the Franklin US Open. Hands down my favorite part of our last day was getting to be part of the iconic US Open flag ceremony. We had to wait in line a long time before the flag ceremony but it was worth it. Would totally do it again next year.
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