Birthday Festivities
Posted on December 30, 2025 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.
I thought by leaving town the weekend before my birthday I would get out of birthday festivities. I just don’t like when people make a fuss. It makes me feel bad. However, Dawn texted with me while we were in St. Louis and she insisted on hosting a birthday get together at TapNPaddles. I was a reluctant participant but it was very thoughtful of her and I appreciated it.
Here are some fun pics from that day.
Pic with Cindy and Joe Witte. My US Open travel pals.
Picture with my good friend Ryan Kellenbarger. This isn’t his first appearance on the blog. I think he made his debut as early as 2021. We’ve done quite a few things together over the years.
Picture with James Pham who I met for the first time a couple of months ago in open play. He just happened to be at Tap at the same time as my birthday pickle so he got to celebrate with us.
With Cindy Witte and Fong Witte — no relation. Actually, Cindy pronounces her last name as “Witty” and Fong pronounces her last name as “Wit” so same spelling but totally different.
With Keith Lietzke and Chris Wilson.
With Jeanette Santo, Janelle Lindeman, and Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance.
With Chandi Bongers.
With Jeanette, Monica McGehee, and Chandi.
Two of our favorite girls — Huyen Nguyen and Hannah Wesolowski. They’re so fun!
With Uyen Dang, Hannah, Senda Vu, Fong, and Tiffany.
Jeanette, Dawn Hazlewood (she’s the one who orchestrated the whole thing), and Karen Fox.
Brian with Dawn.
Me with Sandi Dobbs.
Jeanette, Sandi, and Chandi.
With Dawn and Trung Ho-Nguyen.
As much as I don’t like to make a thing of my birthday, it was nice being able to see and play with everyone.
Dawn is the best birthday pickle organizer!
She even got me a fun cake!
But I also brought cake for everyone to try. I’m weirdo who brings cake to her own birthday celebration. Anyway, the funny story about this cake is that it has been showing up on my social media feed for over a year and I’ve been dying to try it but there’s no way I could eat the entire cake by myself — not even with Brian’s help. So, when Dawn decided she was hosting a birthday pickleball party for me, I rush ordered the cake so that it would arrive in time. This was the perfect excuse for me to try and it wouldn’t go to waste because several people would be helping me eat it.
Before the birthday pickleball party on Sunday afternoon, Susie and Grant Ternes had invited us to dinner at Bella Vita. This was our first time back since they moved to their new location. It was lovely dinner but I started to get a headache.
After dinner with the amazing Terneses, Brian and I went to Barleycorn’s to watch Grandma the Band perform. I had promised our friend Kyle Starkel that we would go. Although, we contemplated not going because my headache was getting worse. I didn’t want to go back on my word though because I had bailed on coming to his band perform a few times before.
It was fun seeing Kyle in his element.
The next day, my headache was still in full force but I couldn’t bail on the pickleball party because they were having it for me. I just had to suck it up. I’m glad I did though, because it was wonderful celebrating with everyone.
That’s my post-birthday weekend in a nutshell. I feel like I got to do everything I wanted to do during my birthday and then some.
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Halloween Pickleball at the Park
Posted on December 29, 2025 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
Halloween fell on a Friday this year; however, since TapNPaddles closed early that day, we ended up gathering at Seneca Park, our old pickleball stomping grounds. It’s probably been almost two years since I last played at Seneca. Now that we have many indoor options, people are mostly playing inside rather than at the public parks. I really don’t know who play regularly at Seneca park anymore. The nets look dilapidated and the courts were full of debris. I think it was different when we were playing there regularly because the players would regularly sweep the courts or bring their leaf blowers and stuff. Though the courts looked largely neglected, it was still a great place to gather on Halloween night — at least until sunset because there are no court lights at Seneca Park.
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Good Eats, St. Louis
Posted on December 26, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink, Travel.
Recalling some of the food we ate while we were in St. Louis a couple of months ago… The first place we tried was Truck Norris in Ellisville because it was close to both MPC Ellisville and our hotel in Chesterfield. This place originated as a food truck, which ended up getting wrecked so then they had to find a brick and mortar. Thus, Truck Norris, the restaurant, came to be.
Brian found this place while googling restaurants nearby with good reviews.
They have lots of beers on tap but are most known for their “totchos” – short for tater tot nachos, which ironically we did not have. We should have tried it but we only found out after we had already ordered our food.
Here are some pictures of the food we did have…
The next day we had lunch at a place called Ukraft in downtown St. Louis after checking out the Gateway Arch. It was highly recommended by one of the employees we met at the Arch. It was also just a short walk so we didn’t have to move our car.
I honestly don’t even remember what we ordered but we both enjoyed our meals. The chips were homemade and they gave you a generous helping. Our sandwiches and my side of slaw was good. My favorite part, however, was the brunch punch. It was alcoholic but tasted like fruit juice.
Later that evening we met up with my friend Christie Pink and her partner Travis at Billy G’s, a local restaurant chain.
Here are some pics of our dinner.
After dinner, we went to check out this place called the District which is an entertainment area with a music/event venue (the Factory), and several restaurants and bars.
We walked around and checked out a couple of places including a local brewery. It was a little bit chilly that night, which I wasn’t quite prepared for, so we didn’t get to enjoy much of the outdoor space but overall I found the District pretty cool. Will have to return to check it out over the summer or some other time when there’s better weather.
Anyway, that was pretty much the dining we had during our quick St. Louis getaway. The dining was mostly a side thing, though. Our main mission that weekend was for me to check off the St. Charles Chicken N Pickle location, which we accomplished. Five more locations to go!
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Reflecting on Another Year
Posted on December 24, 2025 by Ching under Life.
Brian kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday this year and I really couldn’t think of anything. I knew I did want to have some crab legs, though. As luck would have it, I found out about Rock & Brews Casino in Oklahoma from some friends who regularly go there. They have all-you-can-eat crab legs every Friday. So I told Brian my only wish for my birthday was to have some all-you-can-eat crab legs for my birthday and for him to go with us.
Oh, I almost forgot that I told Brian I wanted Whole Foods’ Berry Chantilly cake also and he delivered on that as well. The smallest one was still too big for me to finish by myself so I ended up sharing it with my friend Tom Grace who happened to be in town for the weekend.
Tom was in town for nails and drinks with me, Brian, and Chris Townley.
We hit the “Nightmare on Brew Street” Halloween pop-up at Nortons Brewing after our nail appointment. Their Halloween decorations were lackluster but the drinks and food at NBC are always fire.
The next morning, the four of us met for brunch at Homegrown.
Later in the month, Brian and I went on a road trip to Missouri to check out the Chicken N Pickle in St. Charles. Before that though, I also got to play at the Ellisville Missouri Pickleball Club location thanks to my friend Christie Pink.
She got her friends Monika and Monet to play with us. It was a blast!
Here are some pics of the St. Charles Chicken N Pickle. I’ve now officially visited 8 of the 13 existing Chicken N Pickle locations. It was super nice meeting fellow Chicken N Pickle ambassadors and actually being able to play in ambassador play because I hadn’t been able to make any of the ones in Wichita all year. Anyway, we had a great time and I look forward to checking out even more Chicken N Pickle locations in the coming year.
While in St. Louis, we also got to do some sight-seeing. We walked around down town and went up in the Arch. It didn’t quite live up to my expectations but we can now cross that experience off the list. LOL.
October was a fun month and Brian was super great at making all the things that I wanted to do during my birthday month happen. Here’s to another great year!
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Drone Festival at Exploration Place
Posted on December 8, 2025 by Ching under Things to Do.
We got to do some really fun things this year but the drone festival at Exploration Place was definitely one of the highlights. This is our first time attending because our busy schedules have always prevented us from going in years past. However, when I saw they were using music from Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Superman, and Harry Potter, I knew we absolutely had to go see it this year.
Not having attended before, we really didn’t know what to expect. Even though it was just the two of us going, I purchased a carload pass to guarantee our parking. We also paid for seats so we didn’t have to carry portable chairs. We weren’t sure how that worked exactly but they had a pretty good system. Each seat had an attached lanyard with a plastic pocket. You wrote your name on cards and then slid it in the plastic pocket to claim it (see photos below). So if there’s a card, that means the seat is taken. You just had to look for seats with empty sleeves. We went on Sunday (the final night of the show) and several seats either had missing lanyards or missing plastic sleeves. Brian had this idea to sit behind seats without lanyards or sleeves because, in theory, people couldn’t claim them — because, how would they right? Well that didn’t really work because people figured out quickly, those seats were open because they obviously couldn’t be claimed, and they were sitting on them anyway. LOL.
Oh, funny story. Before claiming our seats, Brian almost got into an altercation in the parking lot. Brian was trying to back into a parking stall. This guy was standing next to a nearby vehicle either vaping or smoking (I couldn’t remember which) but just basically standing there. As Brian is backing the car, he decides to finally walk to the event site. He basically walked into the path of our car as we are backing and then has the audacity to yell, “Watch where you’re going, asshole!” Brian couldn’t just let it be so then he rolls down his window and chirps back at the guy, “I can see you!” So then the guy turns around and comes back like he’s going to do something. They exchange some more works, which I can’t remember now, but I remember Brian saying something like, “Way to ruin a good evening.”
Anyway, we don’t even end up parking in that stall because at this point Brian is paranoid that the guy is going to come back and slash his tires. He just gave us a sort of unhinged vibe so maybe? Anyway, Brian find a parking spot much further away from the original spot he was trying to park in. We get our cards and claim our seats but we also want to leave our stuff while we walk around to see the new Ice Dinosaurs Exhibit inside Exploration Place and see the drones at the staging area. Brian is like, “Hell, no. We are not leaving our stuff here.” He was worried the guy would mess with our water bottles and such. I’m like, “You know, if you didn’t get in fights with people, you wouldn’t have to worry about them jacking with your stuff.” LOL. Sometimes we create our own problems. I did finally convince him to leave the backpack with our beanies and blankets (which we brought in case we got cold later in the evening) but he insisted on carrying his water bottle with him.
I took some pictures of the drones at the staging area. I believe they used over 400 drones in the show this year, which is even more than last year. They also used 80 or so for the test flight. It’s basically a calibration run but also an opportunity for spectators to move to a better viewing area if the original spot they picked wasn’t great, which was actually the case for us. More on this later.
Brian was totally geeking out over the drones and spent several minutes talking to one of the drone pilots. I can never remember if they’re called pilots or engineers. Brian had so many questions and the guy very patiently answered them all.
Here are a couple of pics from the Ice Dinosaurs Exhibit inside Exploration Place. They also had a light show in the dome, which was fun, but of course not quite as cool as the main event.
On the way back to our seats, we perused the abundance of food trucks. We had dinner prior so we weren’t hungry but I got to indulge with some halo-halo from Kusina Ni Cheska for dessert. It was delicious! I don’t get to eat halo-halo often so it’s always a treat.
The Nailbiters, a cover band consisting of high school kids from Derby, performed as people were assembling. It was really impressive watching young kinds play music from before they were even born so brilliantly. They were fantastic.
During the test flight, we realized we did not have the best seats for viewing. I decided I wanted better seats so I went on the hunt, while Brian remained in our original seats. I told him I would text him to come over if I found better seats for us. I wasn’t really paying attention because I never have beef with anyone but, it turns out, the new seats I found were directly in front of the guy that Brian almost got in a fight with in the parking lot. LOL. We didn’t say anything and he didn’t say anything. It was good that everyone had moved on and we all enjoyed the show.
An awesome string quartet performed the accompanying music that was perfectly timed to the magnificent drone formations. It was really well done and we highly recommend this event. Definitely a must-see when they return next year.
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