So my son recently left for his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What was one of his last requests for a family activity before he left?

Pickleball! (That plus bowling. We did both on the same day! Fun!)

I’ve been wanting to learn how to play it so I was happy to oblige! We had a great time! This is a great activity for ages 6 and up. It’s so much easier than tennis! I’m hooked! The learning curve is much less steep than tennis. You have all the fun of tennis without the stress. I’ll be playing this again for family time!

If you want to play it without an official court do what we did. Buy a pickleball set on amazon, then go to your nearest public school playground that has asphalt. Bring duct tape with you and use the duct tape to mark the boundaries after searching online for dimensions. Just be approximate. This is not tournament play. If you have to conserve your tape, play on the playground’s basketball court and use those lines for outer boundaries, and use the duct tape to make the kitchen line. (If we had a flat driveway we would play on that but since it’s sloped that won’t work. We’d always be chasing the ball into the street, since we’re not that good at playing yet and miss a lot of shots, LOL!)

Happy pickleballing!