Archive for "Pickleball"
Mother’s Day 2022
Posted on June 14, 2022 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
I spend so much time at Chicken N Pickle that it was only fitting that I spent my Mother’s Day there. They had the best Mother’s Day brunch and mimosa bar!
They had various fruit juices that you could use to mix with champagne and a wide array of fruits for flavor and garnish. It made me want to throw a mimosa party at my house but then I thought of all the work to prep all those fruits and I was like, “I’ll just wait until they have another one of these.” LOL.
These were the best mimosas ever!
Here’s a picture of Huyen’s breakfast. She got the Mother’s Day skillet.
Here’s Huyen double-fisting the mimosas.
FUN FACT — When I first met Huyen a couple of years ago, I found out that I am bout the same age as her mother. Since her mother doesn’t play pickleball and I don’t have a child, we’ve kind of adopted each other. Plus, most people who see us think we are mother-and-daughter anyway so we decided to just roll with it.
We played in the Mother’s Day tournament at Chicken N Pickle and played against “real” mother-and-daughter duo Stacy and Brittney Wessley. It was so much fun! Specially since Huyen and I finally got to wear one of our matching skirts.
This fall, Huyen and I will get to play in a real tournament together when we play in the Tulsa Pickleball Classic. I can’t wait to see how many more people we can convince that we’re mother and daughter. LOL.
Until next time, GNG.
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Picklemania MMXXII
Posted on June 11, 2022 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
Our second annual pickleball tournament for the Rotary Club of Andover was a huge success. We engaged several sponsors this year that allowed us to provide shirts for our players and volunteers and just make the tournament 100x better. We decided to go with a team-style tournament this year, which meant fewer teams/players, but turned out to be way more fun because then the tournament wasn’t too serious.
Lesli Toubassi provided some breakfast power bars and cinnamon rolls from Great Harvest Bread Co. Nick Gerstner (owner of Tea Taze) provided tea. Bryce Lob provided three bottles of Una Vida Tequila. Gamma Sports gave us some overgrips.
Besides in-kind sponsors, we received monetary support from the following generous people/companies:
- PRESENTING SPONSOR — Palomino Petroleum
- T-SHIRT SPONSORS
- — Chicken N Pickle
- — CoreNorth Capital Planning
- — Expert Auto Center
- — Royal Caribbean/Sunflower Travel
- NET SPONSOR — Verity Jet
We also had a couple of teams travel from out of town to play in the tournament. One was a team that fellow Rotarian Kumar Krishnan put together. Kumar, along with Brent and Karen Taylor and Deana Holman, traveled from Bartlesville, Oklahoma to complete. They went by the team name Cucumbers.
The other team that traveled a good distance to play was Did Someone Say Unlimited Drinks? From left: David Gleason, Karly Gleason (formerly Williams), Liz Sharp, and Ian Wright.
I actually didn’t think these guys were going to make it. I got a text late on Friday night that they had a flat tire in Emporia. As it turns out, the key for the lugs weren’t in the car so they couldn’t replace the tire. They ended up towing the car back to Kansas City and changing vehicles. They made it to Wichita around 1 AM.
They are such troopers! I’m glad they made it. Otherwise, we would have missed seeing their awesome team shirts that Liz made.
I think everyone had a great time, except maybe Krystal Fosnight, who rolled her ankle in the first round of bracket play. Their team, The Experts, consisting of Tom Pham, Huyen Nguyen, and Tommy Chau had a really good shot at winning their pool also. I think they were just behind Klee Watchous and Chris Heck’s team in pool play.
Don’t worry, Krystal’s ankle is pretty much all better. She even won gold in 4.5 Mixed Doubles with her partner Hanbeen You in the ICT Classic pickleball tournament this past weekend.
As far as the tournament went, Patti Mackey made us eight medals so we could have two sets of winners. After the pool play, we divided the 16 teams into 2 pools of 8 teams each. There was an upper pool and a lower pool.
Dinkers and Bongers (from left: Ryan Kellenbarger, Krista Crawford, Chandi Bongers, and Bo Tolbert) defeated the CoreNorth team consisting of Ryan and Renae DeSantis and Dave and Lori Belew to win their division.
There were lots of upsets in the upper division. First, with the Blazing Paddles team (consisting of Heather Griffin, Mike Ellison, Noi Sourinthone, and Amy Jaramillo pictured below) eliminating Palomino Petroleum (Chris Heck, Klee Watchous, Melissa Youngers, and Lacy Waugh – not pictured) but then falling to 1 Small 3 Mediums (next picture).
The upper division champions (from left): Ian Carr, Fong Witte, Jen Reifschneider, and Ev Kim. Honestly, the tournament was stacked with amazing players and teams this year, anyone could have won but I think Palomino Petroleum was the favorite going in.
For a fun, charity tournament, this one was full of talented players which made the matches very competitive, which I think, made it even more fun for everyone. Of course, the unlimited drinks was a great draw as well. The players and spectators got breakfast treats, lunch, and pretty much all the mimosas, margaritas, and beer they could drink. Maybe that’s why Chris’ team didn’t win. LOL.
Anyway, I am so grateful to everyone who came to support our event (by playing, spectating, or volunteering), most specially these two: Brian and Jody Vinson. For someone who doesn’t enjoy pickleball and isn’t even a Rotarian, Brian was there from 6:30 AM all the way to the tear down at the end. And, Jody just makes tournaments run super smoothly. I’m so glad she was there to help me.
The event helped us raise over $6,000 toward our club service projects. Last year, we didn’t have any sponsors so we only raised $1,200. The sponsors really came through for us this year. The event was a huge success and I’m looking forward to having it again next year. Until next time, GNG.
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Pickleball Kickoff Party at Crestview
Posted on June 6, 2022 by Ching under Community, Events, Pickleball.
Crestview Country Club is going all-in with pickleball. Last month they hosted a super fun kickoff party to (re)introduce pickleball to members and unveil their newly painted courts.
They did such a great job of decorating for the party.
Here are a few pictures from the event…
Shout out to Jeff Kenworthy (DJ/KJ Entertainment) for providing awesome tunes at the party. If you have an event, be sure to hire him!
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Minto US Open Pickleball Championships
Posted on May 20, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.
Miscellaneous pictures from the US Open last month…
Pictures of Championship Court…
The bleacher seats require general admission tickets but the box seats and the bar top tables in the lounge required special VIP credentials.
You want one of these special credentials…
Here’s a better picture of the air-conditioned VIP lounge.
Pictures of everyone’s tents at the Players’ Village.
Here’s a tournament map. This is definitely the most massive tournament I’ve ever attended. There were dozens of courts, a special section for players’ tents called the Players’ Village, there’s a couple of huge tents for the vendors called the Vendor Village, lots of food trucks, live music, and so forth.
Here’s a picture of our parking pass which I kept as a souvenir. The parking fee was $5 per day or $30 for the entire week and benefited the local Kiwanis club.
Got a picture with my friend Chase Distefano who was working at the Zelus booth inside the Vendor Village.
Brian bought a ball cap at the Zelus booth.
Got a picture with my friend Tien Nguyen from Oklahoma.
I had to take a picture of the portapottys because there were super nice. The nicest ones I’d ever seen at any tournament.
There were amazing matches going on everywhere, not just at the Championship Court. You can just watch from court to court to court.
If you didn’t have tickets to Championship Court, you could also watch the broadcasted matches via the jumbo TV at the Fan Zone.
Here’s a picture of Ryan Sherry and Ben Johns at the Championship Court.
Pictures taken at the Championship Court.
A selfie with the hubs at Championship Court.
Picture of the VIP lounge inside Championship Court.
When you arrive later in the morning, you have to park at the park down the street which they’ve turned into overflow parking. The nice thing is that there is a shuttle that goes back and forth. Here’s a picture of the shuttle bus that takes people to and from the overflow parking lot.
Picture with Joe and Cindy Witte at Players’ Village.
Picture with KaSandra Gehrke at the Kitch booth.
Picture with Belinda Dettman at Vendor Village.
Picture with Joe and Cindy at Championship Court.
Selfie at East Naples Community Park at night…
Group picture with a fun crew after some rec play at the park.
Caught up with the beautiful and talented Jessie Irvine at the Engage booth at Vendor Village at the US Open.
Impressive blue dome covering the Zing Zang championship court…
The Wichita pickleball crew was well-represented at the US Open.
Karen and Janelle on women’s doubles day…
Post-medal presentation selfie with Brian…
With our St. Louis, MO pals — Christie Pink and Monica Ray…
Met senior pro and hall-of-famer Enrique Ruiz at the Fan Zone…
With Mircea Moriariu and John Sperling, a couple of really awesome senior pros.
These pictures really do not do the tournament justice. To say that the Minto US Open is the biggest party on earth is an understatement. It’s like a cross between a pickleball tournament, music festival, and trade show that is attended by thousands of people – players and spectators alike. It is a truly massive event that every pickleball fan must experience at least once. I am completely hooked and am looking forward to going every year from here on out. So excited for next year!
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Lucky in Love at the US Pickleball Open
Posted on May 19, 2022 by Ching under Outfits, Pickleball.
Earlier this year I got accepted into the Lucky in Love brand ambassador program. I’ve known about the program for some time because I am a huge fan of their clothes. I have spent probably thousands on countless Lucky in Love outfits. They really do make excellent quality clothes that hold up well.
Anyway, they mostly outfit tennis players — in fact, the application asks for your current ranking — so I had never bothered to apply before. However, earlier this year, I thought, “Why the heck not? The worst thing they can do is say no.” So I answered all of the questions and, for current rank, I just put “NA, I play pickleball” instead. I clicked the Enter button and sent my application into the void.
A few days later (this was around February), I received a message via Instagram asking for my address and my sizes because they were going to send me a couple of outfits from their new collection. This was the best news I had gotten in a really long time and I was super excited.
It wasn’t long after that when I received my first box…
They sent me the cutest pieces from the “Playing in Paradise” collection.
Here’s a link to the blue cami top and here’s a link to the red ribbed henley tank.
They also sent me a couple of matching skirts: the playing in paradise skirt (which is super cute, with its pleated tiers and colorful print, and is my absolute favorite because it’s so much fun to wear) and the blue and white versa high low tennis skirt. Since all four pieces are from the same line, they all mix-and-match and coordinate really well.
Right before the US Open, they sent me another box of stuff along with the note below. I was going to be at the open for seven days and now had enough Lucky in Love outfits for every single day I’m there.
I kind of had to mix and match pieces in order to stretch all of the outfits but I made it work. I wore Lucky in Love every single day that I was at the open except for on Friday when I wore Chicken N Pickle gear.
Since I am also part of the Chicken N Pickle “sponsored athlete” program I have to give them some love as well. Above is a picture of me with Chicken N Pickle and Electrum Pickleball pro Patrick Smith, who is one of my most favorite pickleball players of all time. He is outfitted by Neptune Athletics.
Here’s a picture of me and my women’s doubles partner Erica Lopez in our matching animal instinct skirts.
Here’s a picture of me wearing my stuff from the “Playing in Paradise” collection with ChiChi (middle) and Marina (right), taken at the Lucky in Love booth in the Vendor Village at the US Open.
I stopped by the Lucky in Love booth each day to show them that I really did bring and wear all the stuff they sent me. In the picture below, I paired the animal instinct tank with my black Lululemon hotty hot shorts because Erica and I had already planned to wear our matching animal instinct skirts on another day.
I got this visor for free when I bought something at the booth and I absolutely love it. Not only does it go with everything but the message printed on it is one that is positive and a great reminder for us all.
On another day, I wore my Lucky in Love animal instinct bralette tank with my spark ruche skirt which has a subtle shimmer. I just love it! Marina is wearing the exact same skirt in this photo.
This next photo was taken that same day. The two handsome men in the picture with me are the Dawson father-and-son duo: Callan (left) and Steve (right). Mom, Jennifer Dawson (not pictured), is also an amazing pickleball player. This picture was taken either right before or right after one of their men’s doubles pro split age matches on championship court. I am such a fan girl! LOL.
Here’s me and ChiChi with outfits from the “Playing in Paradise” collection. Here’s a link to the tank that she’s wearing. I already linked to the blue cami top above but, just in case you missed it, I just linked to it again.
Anyway, these clothes are so fun, comfortable, and easy to wear. They are great quality and perfect for wearing on and off the court. I am so grateful to be part of the #theluckyfam. If you love their clothes just as much as I do, you can be part of the family too. Lucky in Love was nice enough to set up a special discount code for the Wichita Pickleball crew. Shop directly from the Lucky in Love website and use ICTPICKLE20 to save 20% OFF your entire order.
Remember to let me know what you bought in the comments (perhaps I already have it or, if not, I can get it also) so we can be matchy-matchy!
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