Family

Archive for "Family"

Brian’s 50th Birthday

Posted on July 20, 2024 by Ching under Events, Family.

In keeping with Brian’s aversion for leaving the country, he decided earlier this year that he would celebrate his 50th birthday in Omaha, Nebraska because he has always wanted to visit their zoo. I had heard of the Henry Doorly Zoo as being one of the top 5 zoos in the nation so I wasn’t completely opposed to the idea. I just wanted to do something more exotic or go to an all-inclusive resort like what we did for his 40th birthday. During the months leading up to his birthday, I gave several reasonable suggestions but he would not be dissuaded. At one point he was like, “You’re trying to hijack my birthday!” I told him I was simply giving him some ideas and providing options. He insisted, “You can do whatever you want for your birthday but, for my birthday, I get to do what I want.”

And thus, our plans to spend the weekend in Omaha was solidified. Omaha is a wonderful city and we had a great time. Arguably, not as good a time as I would have had if I were drinking unlimited free cocktails all day but Brian was on meds around that time and couldn’t drink anyway so we probably wouldn’t have gotten any bang for our buck as I can’t drink that much by myself anyway.

Here’s a highlight video I made of our time at the zoo.

While we were there, we found out that the Henry Doorly Zoo touts itself as the #1 zoo in the world. A title they achieved a couple of years ago and have held on to since so they have been #1 for two years running. It’s an impressive feat considering all the impressive zoos in the US alone.

The next day we went to check out Lauritzen Gardens. It’s nice but our local Botanica is just as nice and far more walkable. Anyway, I much preferred Botanica.

Anyway, I will share more from this birthday trip in my next post. For now, I hope you all enjoy the videos. Until next time!

No Comments

Adaptable is My Middle Name

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Ching under Community, Family.

Several weeks ago, I was chatting with my friend Jenny Marcos. She’s the resident pickleball pro at Rose Creek Golf Club, a fancy schmancy country club in Edmond, Oklahoma. Anyway, I found out that she leads cardio pickleball on Saturday mornings. I’ve actually been asked to lead cardio pickleball before, but not having participated in one, I wasn’t really comfortable saying yes. I’ve attended cardio tennis at Genesis Health Clubs. I’m sure it’s similar but I really would rather not take on something, I know little about and have zero experience. When she told me about her class, I naturally asked if I could attend so I could learn more about it and perhaps take some notes so I can facilitate a similar class in the future.

We picked a Saturday in June which turned out to be the same Saturday that we were driving down to Oklahoma to have lunch with Brian’s parents. We were coming down to celebrate Brian’s 50th birthday and his mom and dad’s 51st wedding anniversary. Cardio pickle is at 9 AM in Edmond so I figured we could hit it on the way down to Oklahoma City, then meet for lunch, before driving back home to Wichita. Easy peazy.

The Friday before, I texted Jenny to confirm that cardio pickle is still on and to remind her that I’m coming. That’s when I found out that they actually canceled cardio pickle for that day because she, along with several others, were competing in the USSP tournament at Life Time that weekend. I immediately told Brian the good news — that we could sleep in on Saturday morning. He was actually not too thrilled about having to get up early and driving down first thing in the morning so we could make the 9 AM class but he was being a good sport about it.

Brian told his dad who asked if we still wanted to come down for lunch. He was worried that it was a long drive just to have lunch. To which Brian responded, “I’m sure Ching has some other plans that she hasn’t told me yet. She’ll probably bring it up over lunch. She’ll go, while we are here —”

Brian shared this conversation with me when he got home from work on Friday night. I was like, “Funny you said that. I was going to ask you if we could swing by the pickleball tournament to say hello to friends and watch some matches after lunch. But I wasn’t going to wait until we were there. I had planned to ask you tonight — like right now — because the restaurant is in the same area. We would literally be two minutes away.”

If there is one thing that you should know about me by now, it is that I always have a “Plan B.” I guess another good thing to note about me is that I’m really good at flexing. Famous coach John Wooden once said, “Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.” This describes me to a tee. My life is not without hardships but somehow, whenever negative things happen (or things just don’t work out the way I’d hoped), I am really good at convincing myself that this is good thing. Finding the silver lining in any situation is one of my many talents.

It was June 8 (I know the blog is super far behind). We didn’t have to get up early. Instead, we had a nice leisurely drive down to Oklahoma City. We met Brian’s parents at the P.F. Chang’s and had a lovely lunch. BTW, while we were there, we saw that they were building a Fogo De Chao (which is probably open now) so our next celebratory lunch or dinner will probably be there. I love the whole Brazilian churascaria thing but I just can’t justify going unless it’s a special occasion.

After lunch we went to Life Time to cheer for our Wichita pals. Also go to see some Oklahoma friends who I hadn’t seen in a long time because I’ve been on a tournament sabbatical. But I realized that, just because I’m not playing, doesn’t mean that I can’t come watch and cheer for friends. It was wonderful to see everyone. I even got to see Gene Click who moved to Texas from Oklahoma about two years ago. He just happened to be there as well.

Gene wasn’t the only surprise of the day. Famous pickleball pro Chris Haworth was also there watching friends play.

And, even though I didn’t get to do cardio pickle with Jenny, at least I got to see her and watch her play.

And I got to see some of my favorite Oklahomans — Kumar Krishnan, Josh McAllister, and his girlfriend Mackenzie Wood.

And Danny McAllister, patriarch of the McAllister pickleball dynasty.

And the lovely Deana Holman.

Sure, the day didn’t turn out as planned. It actually turned out better!

No Comments

Highlights from the Past Few Weeks

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Ching under Family, Life.

It’s so weird not having grandma send me reminders to write a post. If I haven’t written anything in a while, she usually sends an email asking for an update. May her soul rest in peace.

Here are some pictures from our employee appreciation event at the ballpark earlier this month.

I got six tickets so Jenni and Adam came out and brought a couple of friends.

Shortly after this, Jenni and I met up at Vita Bella for some Filipino desserts.

Golly! This place is cute!

They even have a fun photo wall.

So many options to choose from!

In the end, we both got halo halo and then Jenni got some other things.

Jenni’s taho.

Jenni’s turon.

I guess that is all for now. Check back next time. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I post another update. Until then, have a great summer!

No Comments

Goodbye, Grandma

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Ching under Family, Life.

Brian picked up grandma’s ashes from the funeral home yesterday. It reminded me of how I haven’t written about her passing. Honestly, it feels weird writing on here knowing she won’t be reading it. Grandma was literally the only person who ever read this blog. At least until the last year or so when Brian decided it wasn’t worth fixing her computer anymore each time she messed it up because she couldn’t see, anyway. I actually think that’s why her computer would get messed up. Brian had set it up so she had large icons on the desktop that she could just click on and easily open things like her email and our blog, etc. I think it got to the point where she could barely see and was clicking on the wrong things and then she would get lost and couldn’t figure out how to get back to where she needed to be. Every time this happened, she would call Brian in a panic because she thinks she’s “broken” her computer. Brian would be there almost every other day just resetting everything back to normal so he finally was just like that’s it – time to let the computer go. He was like, “I’m just going to tell her it’s broken to the point it can’t be fixed.”

Grandma loved sending (and receiving) emails. And she enjoyed reading this blog. Her face would be an inch away from the screen just to read the text but she did it anyway. She liked to keep up with what Brian and I were doing – what fancy parties (before COVID) we were attending, what food we were eating at various restaurants – and I think it helped her stay connected with the outside world given that, due to her age and frailty, we couldn’t just take her out to a restaurant on a whim. We could only take her out on special occasions. And, when I would post her pictures and write about things we did together, she really enjoyed reading those recaps. When I get completely immersed in pickleball and mostly wrote about tournaments and games and other pickleball-related things, she would tell Brian that she felt that I played pickleball too much. Grandma was never one to beat around the bush and she always would tell you what she was thinking.

Every year since grandpa passed away, there would be whispers of “I think this might be grandma’s last Christmas with us” or “we need to make this X-holiday special because it might be her last one” and every year she would prove us wrong and make it to another holiday and another. This last year was a little different, though. Grandma fell and hurt herself around Thanksgiving and spent the weeks leading up to Christmas in rehab. Her only goal was to recover in time so she could spend Christmas at our house. While she achieved this goal, we were all very concerned that this would be her last Christmas with us – more so than ever. She barely had enough strength to hold herself up in the chair while we exchanged gifts. Brian and his dad struggled to get her in and out of the car when they picked her up from the home to bring her to our house. In fact, they both made a point to say that we wouldn’t be taking grandma out anymore. Instead, we would come to her for the holidays so she wouldn’t have to be transported (which proved to be quite an ordeal, specially this last time).

Our next holiday would have been Easter. I was already thinking of how we would bring Easter to grandma this year instead of our usual brunch buffet at YaYa’s. Alas, it was not meant to be.

A few weeks before Easter Sunday, Brian got a call from Victoria Falls requesting hospice care. They said grandma was fine but they just didn’t have the staffing to fully provide the care she needed. Hospice would provide that additional assistance (to move her from the bed to her chair and bathe her stuff like that).

When Brian went to visit grandma on St. Patty’s Day, she was still talking and everything. On Monday hospice told Brian that grandma didn’t get out of bed so they requested that a medical bed be ordered so she could be moved to it instead. The medical bed was delivered on Wednesday and Brian went over there on his lunch hour to get the bed situated. At that point, grandma could no longer form words or communicate. Brian said hospice told him she hasn’t been able to speak to anyone since Monday.

On March 21, Thursday, hospice called and asked us to come because they didn’t think grandma would make it through the night. So we skipped dinner and spent most of the evening there. The soonest Brian’s dad could come up is Saturday so I told Brian I hoped that grandma would be able to hang in there at least until his dad could say goodbye.

The next day, I asked Brian for an update and he said there was no change to her vitals. Later that day, the hospice nurses said she started talking again. It was the darnedest thing. I was thinking, wow — she really is hanging in there, waiting for Brian’s dad to come. On Saturday afternoon, March 23, at around 1 pm, we got a call that she was gone.

Grandma would have been 102 had she made it to her birthday in June this year. It feels so strange now that she’s gone. She used to asked me to end all my posts with GNG for “Good Night, Grandma” and I don’t know if you’ve noticed that I hadn’t been doing that of late. I stopped shortly after Brian took her computer away so you won’t see GNGs at the end of posts going forward. She’s no longer here to say good night to, so I guess it’s time to bid her farewell. Goodbye, grandma.

No Comments

Thanksgiving 2023 – All’s Well That Ends Well

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Ching under Family.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already but earlier this year, my childhood friend from the Philippines moved his family (consisting of my friend Manny Miranda, wife Jenny, and daughter Aria) from San Diego to Wichita. They’re starting to meet more people but, prior to moving to Kansas, they didn’t really know anyone here besides our family. Mom and dad don’t typically host Thanksgiving because that’s not really a thing that we do I managed to talk mom into hosting Thanksgiving this year to commemorate the Mirandas’ first Thanksgiving in Kansas.

It was originally planned as a Thanksgiving dinner because Brian and I always take Brian’s grandmother to brunch at YaYa’s for Thanksgiving. I say always but really it’s just been the past several years since Fresh Market closed because that’s where we were getting our Thanksgiving whenever we’ve hosted at our house.

Anyway, grandma ended up falling and hurting her hip the Saturday right before Thanksgiving, and subsequently had to have hip surgery. She’s been recovering at Regent Park (and Brian has been visiting her there everyday) since the hospital released her. That meant she couldn’t go to brunch. A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Brian and I realized there was no reason for the two of us to go to brunch since we mostly just do it for grandma so then I asked mom if we could move Thanksgiving at her house to lunch, which is what most people preferred anyway. Jenni had another Thanksgiving to attend so she couldn’t have made dinner but she could join for lunch.

I’m glad it worked out and that we could all be together. It was great catching up and finally meeting Manny’s family. Brian actually met them on Mother’s Day weekend but that was the weekend I was playing APP Cincinnati so I missed out. Here are some pics from Thanksgiving:

Everyone is so busy with their own lives (and many hobbies) that we don’t really have the opportunity to get together as much as we should. It took the opportunity to invite Jenni, Jenny, and mom to my first class back at the YMCA (I didn’t go back after COVID so I haven’t taught for the Y in nearly four years) and Jenny and mom actually came. Jenni ended up getting busy with some other things and bailed. I also had a couple of other friends I invited who came and provided moral support for my first class. Andrea even led “Todo el Mundo” which is one of her “signature” songs back when she was teaching Zumba as well.

It was nice to see some familiar faces, specially since I don’t have a regular Zumba group anymore. I’m hoping to build a new Wednesday night Zumba family at West YMCA. Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday are enjoying this wonderful Christmas holiday season. Maybe at some point you’ll be able to join in for Zumba. Now that I am back, I’m there every Wednesday at 6:30 PM.

Hope to see you all soon!