Making New Friends
Posted on May 24, 2019 by Ching under Things to Do.
I read an article on the New York Post recently that said the average American hasn’t made a new friend in five years. That seems so wild to me because I’m constantly meeting new people. Here’s the high level infographic that came with the article. All I can say is, these people need Zumba and pickleball in their lives!
Speaking of new friends, we got to celebrate Matt’s birthday with him and his family last month at Chicken N Pickle. Matt is one of my newest friends. I met him through a staff intramural ping pong tournament at the Y last year.
Since then we’ve played some ping pong, pickleball, and even poker together. When I first started getting into pickleball late last year, he told me about pickleball at West YMCA where he works. And then he played in a poker tournament with us a few weeks ago where he and Brian chopped first and second place.
Anyway, here’s a pic from Chicken N Pickle on Matt’s birthday.
I met Katie McKee, a local pickleball pro, that same night. I get so excited about meeting new people, I usually say “I made a new friend today!” Brian has this weird thing about friends vs. acquaintances. He would probably classify Katie as an acquaintance and he would be correct, I suppose if we get really technical about it. I my silly brain though acquaintances are just friends I haven’t had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with yet. I think everyone I meet is my friend. LOL.
Katie is so hilarious. We had just barely met and she tried to set me up not once — but twice — that same night. Michael (another friend I met through pickleball) and I were standing there waiting for our turn at the challenge courts when Katie came by and started signing Michael praises and telling me how great a guy he is and how he helped her move into her place and she wasn’t sure what was going on with us but Michael is a super sweet, great guy. I didn’t want to make it awkward for Michael so I just laughed it off and told her Michael and I just know each other through pickleball — basically nothing going on there.
When Brian came up a bit later, I made it a point to introduce him to Katie as “my husband” and she took my hand to look at my fingers because she didn’t think I was wearing a wedding ring and she was like, “Oh, it’s one of those silicone ones.” I guess that’s why she didn’t notice or so she says anyhow.
Later on, while Brian was still right there in our midst, we got to talking about Jack Oxler another pickleball pro who grew up in Wichita who now lives in Kansas City. She says he’s like a big brother to her and one of her best friends and I mentioned that I’d like to meet him next time he’s back in town. And she’s like, “Good because he needs a good girlfriend.” And I’m thinking, I think she’s trying to set me up again so I just go, “That’s great but I’m not trading my husband” and we all just laughed at the silliness of it. Anyway, I think she’s funny and would be fun to hang out with. I’ll still claim to have made a new friend that night.
Justin and Tina are two more new friends I made this year. I don’t care what Brian says. They met and played Uno with grandma for crying out loud. I think that makes them officially our friends. And, we spent a whole week with them in Costa Rica last month. And, I really like their house and their yard and I want to have move nights in their basement. For me, I consider people I enjoy spending time with my friends. Justin and Tina are, therefore, my friends.
Their dog Peg is apparently now my friend too. LOL.
Here are a few people I spend time with playing pickleball on a semi-regular basis (from left): Michael, Bill, Kathy, and Collin. I have a lot of fun playing with them. I consider them my friends.
We’re not even halfway through the year yet and I’ve already lost track of how many new friends I’ve made. If you’re someone who struggles to make friends, please find me. I’ll be your friend and I’ll introduce you to some people.
More on the topic of friends in our Facebook Live video below.
Comment on This
Outings With Friends
Posted on May 19, 2019 by Ching under Food and Drink, Things to Do.
Less than a week after we returned from our Costa Rica trip where we spent a whole week with the Dills celebrating Jay’s birthday, Jay and Brian were hanging out again. I guess they just couldn’t spend enough time with one another.
They spent the morning at shooting guns Range 54 and then had lunch at the ICT Pop Up Park. Brian was super thoughtful and brought me Uno Mas to work.
It was funny because I was in the middle of a meeting at the time and couldn’t come out to meet him but he apparently could hear me from the elevator lobby so he just gave me food to one of my coworkers who delivered it to the conference room I was in. I didn’t realize I was so loud. Yikes!
My friend Tom was visiting from Topeka so later than night we went on an outing with some of my work friends. We went to “Night at the Fountains,” a Friday night food truck rally downtown for food and drinks and then went to throw axes at Blade & Timber in the Delano District.
Our group consisted of (from bottom left) Tom, Alex, Alex’ friend Kishan, Chris, and his fiance Zacch.
We were assigned to lane 5.
Here’s a pic of me learning to throw.
Here’s a better pic of Chris and Zacch.
Tom and Alex goofing around with Brian in the background.
Another group selfie.
Here’s Brian throwing.
Here’s Chris with his bullseye throw.
Here’s Tom with his bullseye.
Brian with his bullseye.
And me with me (barely).
The concept is a lot like darts but with an ax instead. They have several different games you can play. I took pics of the instructions.
First to 50
Cricket
Axes (last player standing wins)
Blade (you call the shots)
League Match
We played First to 50 first and that took forever. You can tell from the scores who the better ax throwers are.
Tom was pretty proud of himself for winning.
After our first game took forever, we didn’t think we would have time for another full game so we just decided to each take turns throwing until we ran out of time. The person with the highest score wins.
Guess who won again.
Another group selfie.
We actually managed to convince everyone to come over to the house for a night cap after Blade & Timber. It was a great idea until the next morning when I had to get up early to teach my classes.
I thought Tom would bail on me because we were all up late the night before but he was a trooper. He did both Aqua Zumba and Zumba.
After my Zumba class at the Andover YMCA, he and I met Brian at Redrock Canyon Grill at Bradley Fair for brunch. It was going to be Doo-Dah Diner, which now has a location close to our house, but Brian said the wait was ridiculous.
We had a very nice lunch at Redrock, though.
Here are some food pics.
After lunch, I had a waxing appointment that I needed to get to so Tom went with Brian back to the house get his stuff and went on to drive back to Topeka.
That was the weekend immediately after we got back from Costa Rica. Life is pretty crazy over here. Something’s always brewing.
Until next time. GNG.
Comment on This
Our Final Day in Costa Rica
Posted on May 18, 2019 by Ching under Travel.
The day after Jay’s birthday was our final full day in Costa Rica. We originally talked about going ziplining at the adventure park next door but we were all too tired from the previous day’s festivities. We ended up taking the day as another recovery day.
Brian took the whole recovery day idea seriously. He barely left our room. He spent the day catching up on Star Trek episodes.
Justin, Tina, Alicia, and Kirk went scuba diving. Jay is a pouty in this photo because he was supposed to go with them (it was actually his idea to do it) but then he got sick at the last minute.
Here they all are being such good students and listening intently to the dive instructor. The rest of group (plus Jay because now he couldn’t dive with the others) decided to go shopping for souvenirs at Coco Beach.
I didn’t get a ton of pics because I was busy looking for deals. I did buy Brian a nice straw baseball cap. I was pretty proud of myself for negotiating it down from $15 to $12 until I found it another store for $12 because then I was thinking I might have been able to negotiate it down to $10. I also did not get that good of a deal on the shot glasses I bought for one of my Aqua Zumba students at VASA. I got a set of three cute little shot glasses for $9 but then at another store I found even better ones that come in a neat box for the same price.
My negotiation skills weren’t bad for someone whose Spanish is quite rusty. My mistake was breaking the first rule of souvenir shopping. You’re not supposed to buy from the first store you stop at. While I didn’t buy from the first store, I bought from one of the first few stores we visited. Had I been more patient and waited until we were more inland, I would have gotten better prices.
Anyway, after shopping around a bit, the guys got hungry and decided to be adventurous. Jay and Marc decided to try some Costa Rican street food.
Here they are with their meat sticks.
After our shopping excursion, we went back to the resort for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the pool.
This is pretty much what we do to reserve our lounge chairs.
My Wichita flag came in quite handy.
It wasn’t just a unique way to personalize our area but it also made our lounge chairs easier to find. There was no way you could miss us.
This is pretty much where we spent most of our time at the pool.
In between pool time and dinner, we decided that we would have a group sunset photo shoot at the beach.
This is us taking a few selfies while waiting for everyone to show up.
Here’s our super awesome group photo.
Here’s a pic that Jay took with his phone on the way to dinner.
Speaking of dinner, here are a few pics I took at the buffet.
We had such a fun week celebrating this guy’s big 40th birthday. We didn’t want it to end so after dinner we decided to have a night cap at Marc and Reniece’s suite.
This is the view from Marc and Reniece’s terrace.
A few of us hanging out in their outdoor hot tub.
The next morning… here’s one final group pic at the airport on departure day. Jay was pouty that his birthday trip was coming to and end.
What a fun trip it was, though! As a recap, here are some of our favorite group pictures…
This is the Wichita group at the Wichita airport at the start of our adventure.
A picture of our group on our way to Lake Arenal. Whee!
At the end of our boat tour around Lake Arenal.
At the hot springs…
At the pool bar…
At the pool…
We had such a great time on this trip that we’re already talking about taking another trip with the same group.
That’s our 2019 Costa Rica trip in a nutshell. #VacayWithJayJay #PuraVida
Comment on This
The Day Brian Almost Died
Posted on May 17, 2019 by Ching under Travel.
Brian and I went on a two-hour jet ski tour after our monkey-feeding adventure. Our morning jet ski adventure took us to several beaches including Huevo, Penca, Ocotal, and Coco Beach.
We started from our beach Playa Matapalo.
It was a beautiful morning for riding jet skis.
Here we are, waiting for our tandem jet ski.
We got to hang out at Playa Huevo where there are a couple of caves you can walk into during low tide. Here are a few pics.
Here’s another stop on the tour.
This is the beach where we got to hike up to a cliff to see this amazing view.
We paused at a couple of spots to admire some rock formations. One looked like a facial profile and another looked like a gorilla. And then when we were at Coco Beach, these two small islands came together to form what looked like a giant turtle. Pretty cool stuff. I didn’t get to take a lot of pics because I was afraid to pull out my phone while we were riding on the jet ski. I didn’t want to drop my phone and lose it. Plus, the water was really bumpy and I could barely hang on.
After the jet ski tour, we went back to the resort for a quick lunch and to change into fresh swimsuits. Then we walked down to the beach for Jay’s birthday surprise.
This is us waiting for the surprise. I think Jay was on to us.
Jay’s birthday surprise was a private catamaran sunset booze cruise.
Here’s a pic of Marc and Reniece (above) and our tour guide Ricardo (below).
I didn’t get a ton of pics but here are a few videos for you.
It was a ton of fun but this was the adventure where Brian almost drowned. We anchored the catamaran at a private beach were we could hang out and have fun. Everyone jumped off the boat and swam to the beach. Brian jumped last. The music was blaring and everyone was pretty inebriated so we didn’t hear Brian as he was calling for help. Thank heavens our captain, who had been showering on the side of the boat, saw Brian. He and our tour guide Ricardo came to his rescue.
I can’t really describe Brian’s experience for him because I don’t know how it felt. He did say that he was probably exhausted from the heat and riding the jet ski in the morning and had a bit of a panic attack. Brian is normally a pretty good swimmer but he couldn’t get any air in his lungs this time and it freaked him out and caused him to almost drown. Needless to say, we tipped the guys pretty good not only for Jay’s birthday but for also saving Brian’s life!
After we got back to the resort, we all got cleaned up and met for a late dinner at the buffet. I think we were all pretty tired because this was the one night we didn’t get a group dinner selfie.
To be continued…
Comment on This
Costa Rica Trip Recap Continued
Posted on May 15, 2019 by Ching under Travel.
The day after our all day excursion was our recovery day. We pretty much spent the whole day relaxing at the resort pool. On the bus ride home, our group talked about getting up early in the morning to feed the monkeys. Well, it wasn’t firmed up so I didn’t know it was happening. Anyway, a bunch of them went and I didn’t know about it so I missed out.
I was more disappointed because I was up anyway and could have gone with them had I known. I just couldn’t go by myself because Brian was dead to the world, which I thought was how everyone else would be considering how late we got back the night before.
We pretty much just spent the whole day hanging out at the resort and drinking at the pool. The pool bar doesn’t really get you drunk because their drinks are pretty weak. Brian once asked me how the drinks are. I was like, “They all taste the same except in different colors!” LOL.
We volunteered to hold the line for dinner that night. That’s something else that is a bit different with this resort. They don’t take dinner reservations. The restaurants open at a certain time and if you want want to eat there, then you just get there a few minutes early to be in the line. They take so many people at a given time so there are dinner waves. If you get there late, then you’re pretty much not eating dinner there. Your options are the main buffet, which is usually not bad, and the sport bar (yes, sport bar with no “S” at the end). Basically, if you want to try the restaurants you have to get in line and, preferably, early so you eat at a decent time.
Brian and I decided to go back to our room early that night so we could clean up and come back down early to line up for dinner. We came back down as the wild pool party was wrapping up but ended up missing most of it. It was no skin off our backs, though. Neither Brian and I are party animal types and I heard it was pretty wild (as in, women were taking their tops off and everything).
Here are a couple of pics of the pool party. It was winding down at this point.
Some of our friends hadn’t gone up to their rooms to change yet so we hung out for a bit. I ended up double-fisting mojitos before dinner.
Pre-dinner selfies at the pool bar…
We got a nice table by the beach.
I wish we could have gotten more pics when it was still light out. The sun sets really early in Costa Rica. It sets so early that they actually close the pool at six o’clock at night. That seemed really crazy to me at first. But it’s dark at six so I get it. It’s probably not safe for people to be swimming around in the dark.
So this restaurant is actually the buffet close to the pool that we’ve been eating lunch at almost daily. It turns into a steakhouse in the evening.
Here’s a pic of the menu.
Here are some pics of food.
Jay had to rush off to a poker tournament at the casino so I couldn’t get a pic of this quickly enough before he took a bite and had to skedaddle.
At least we had time for a group selfie at dinner. You’ll see several of these throughout the course of our trip.
Here are pics of the schedule at the lobby, which tells you what activities are happening at a given point in time.
After dinner we decided to go to the casino to heckle the guys. Some of the group changed into more comfy clothes. I didn’t change because I was already comfy. Tina and Brian showed up in the same shirt completely unplanned.
The crummy thing about the casino is that, although it’s on resort property, it’s not technically run by the resort so you had to pay for your drinks.
Another group selfie just ’cause.
Just me and Brian this time.
Brian and I called it an early night because we were still recovering from the day before and I was determined to get up early the next day to feed the monkeys. The guys were up late, though. Marc, Kirk, and Jay made it all the way to the final five. I’m not sure how Marc and Jay fared but Kirk took second. I thought it was impressive that all three of them did so well.
These are pics of the Monkey Bar that I took the next morning. It’s one of the landmarks on the monkey trail.
Here are some pics of the cute Capuchin monkeys.
…and me feeding them.
They really like hard-boiled eggs and grapes.
Here are some better up close pics that Jay took with his phone.
Here’s a pic of our monkey-feeding crew.
Except for Kirk and Alicia who were still in bed and Jay who is behind the camera. The next post will feature the jet ski tour that Brian and I went on later that morning. Stay tuned!
To be continued…
Comment on This
