Weekending - Hello Monday!

 

Another weekend, another "just barely won", another beautiful fall weekend, NEVER, ever taking these repeatable times for granted!!

Linking up with Sarah and Holly this Columbus Day morning :). I have the day off but keeping it on the down-low since, well, I feel like working on the government's calendar gives us a lot of holidays that others don't get :/. NOT complaining, just keeping it quiet.

LOVE these busy friend-and-family filled weekends (all my kids were under the same roof Friday night but nothing to "prove" it except the joy of waking up to a full house). On Friday I decided I wanted to bake 

and I'm so out-of-practice of baking and blogging that I never put my "after" picture out!!  These are pumpkin bars that we have been making for over a decade - back then they wouldn't have lasted 24 hours, now we have two GF people in the house, a bride not eating sugar, and two boys that aren't much into sweets.  I took them to the tailgate - they were the only sweet, and still brought a dozen home.  Oh well.  I do miss baking/cooking - maybe it's something I'll find a purpose for later in life.

This is random, but Friday we went out shopping for a chair and ended up with a Christmas Tree!

Our last one was so old we threw it away in January. . .many years we go without a tree (really!) but I'm feeling festive this year I think - ha!  It will be a busy December with the wedding kicking the month off but this will be my inspiration :)

Becuase my tennis was canceled Friday evening (it was going to be chilly to play outside anyway) we made a fire and watched The Great British Baking Show on the deck. Perfect night for it!

I finally called it a night about 10:30 - Robert and Ellie were stuck in traffic and the next morning I got up and Laura was here too!  I told my family Tailgating Saturday kind of felt like a holiday - I was up early making cornbread and breakfast, the house was full, the chili had been on the Treager all night (no pictures - the chili was compliments of Stephen), and Game Day music was playing!!

Our friends were all here by 8:30 a.m., trucks packed, mimosas-to-go, and we were off!

Connie got us great spots on top of the garage right outside the stadium - plenty of room to set up and welcome friends most of the day.

Look at that beautiful sky at 9:15 a.m.!!  An afternoon kick-off is the BEST for tailgating I think.  We had decided this year NOT to go to the game - this was enough sunshine and festivities. . .we packed it up after kickoff and headed home to watch the game from the comfort of our living room.

This is all I got - ha!  Unloaded and ready to set up. . .just was NOT on my picture game at all.  Last year it was all scenery and no group shots - this year remembered the people and not the set-up.  Oh well.

The VJ's usually join us but they could not this year so we did this all on our own. . .this is our third year going to a game together - and we marvel at this  friendship that only started 3 summers ago!!

"The Girls" with the only daughter (almost!) that showed up for the day - Laura was there for a bit but didn't get a pic :(

And our Ohio friends made it down again!!!  That is her son in the picture - the reason they know UT is on the map ;)

It was a full, fun day.  

Tom did take me to see the Vol Walk and the Marching band go into the stadium and Ellie joined us :)

Tom and I got home a little after 5 p.m. - the rest of them did not roll back in until 9-ish??  It was a LONG day for all - glad we all went to bed with another "W" in our pockets.

Awww. . .look at these two in the crowd :)

  Alabama in Tuscaloosa next week.  Stay tuned. . .maybe I'll be blogging from a winner's seat next Monday???  

I'm in our state 7.5 40+ women's USTA state tournament so that will be my focus!!

Yesterday was Connie's birthday celebration!  Susan and I did our gifts for her out in the parking lot (it's how it worked out - she didn't have to haul her loot far!!) - my "choose once" gift this year for most my friends is a plant - this was one of the fun things Susan got her:

Seriously, what a great gift!!  Along with a candle that was called "It doesn't smell like my 30's anymore" - ha!  

We even got Stephen to show up but Connie has those pictures and she's back in school today after a FULL week of celebrating so I'll pick them up off of FB later this week.

You can't really see how bad the damage is here (except for the spare tire on the back) - Connie started her weekend Friday night damaging her car and slashing a tire in the parking lot of Rural King :(. She didn't see the metal stakes stacked on the passenger side of her car and drove too close!  Ugh.  Hate that for her.

Other traveling friends were her birthday brunch too - this was her cool gift, teacher-to-teacher:

Yes, we passed it around and tried to fill it up for her :)

We ate at a new-to-us place, The Flying Biscuit - would recommend!

I try so hard to keep my phone away, then afterwards wish I would have gotten that picture :/. They had a lot of neat murals on the walls. . .food was good too. 

From there we headed to Top Golf - it was the first time for Tom, Michael, and Eleni.

Again, pictures will eventually be posted on FB - I had to leave early to get a practice in with my State team. . .but we had fun while we were there!!

I had picked up a cake for her at Nothing Bundt Cakes - I sincerely LOVE these cakes!!  No one there had had one before, so it was fun to introduce them to the deliciousness of them.  I got the small one and it was more than enough.

And this was random and fun - we ran into soccer parents from our Cookeville days!!!

What a huge surprise - I don't think we've seen them for 10 years or so - our daughters played together for years and years.

They are all grown up now, both turning 25 this month!!

We ended the weekend pretty much like this. . .here Tom's watching a video Susan sent - if you were ever a Bob Newhart fan, you should watch it.  She figured this would be Tom if he were a therapist!!

Here is a great article she shared this weekend too, written up on her and her business partner in the town they've put their business roots in:

I'm so proud of my friends and their accomplishments!

They have a podcast also - Beyond the Couch

Here Radar and I sit, at 6:40 a.m. - Tom and Erin just walked out the door to go "engineer" and "account".  I'll head to the PB courts at 9 since no one will be waiting for me to log in at work this morning :)

Hope it's a great week for everyone! 

Let me know YOUR weekend highlight(s) in the comments :)

Love,

Jenni