Hello Monday - first weekend of 2026

I love a full weekend (but not rushed) and people to celebrate - this weekend had a bit of it all which meant that Monday hit HARD and I'm a day late getting this out.  Still doing it, though, because the first weekend of the year is worth celebrating as is the people we celebrated :)

I'll link up with Holly & Sarah and their new graphic for the year -I love something fresh and new - I asked my coworker if she would update the logo for the monthly leadership series that I do at work and she came through with something new too!  I think small changes are important to transition and mark time without necessarily changing the purpose.  

My Friday started with this picture on my "feed dogs alarm" (my screensaver rotates so I never know what I'll see when I look down):

Week One of the new year, listening to The Favorites on a cloudy, 36-degree morning.  After a fairly busy Friday work day (maybe it was the two days off for the holiday??) we headed to Jet's to celebrate Lorna's retirement!!She has been looking forward to this for awhile now and last week was IT!!!  We met her 8-9 years ago playing Friday night tennis - I think about half the people in the picture have been together that long.  Tom and I stopped playing regularly 5-ish years ago, although I still go once in awhile as a sub.  We try to make it out to dinner with them once a month - the pizza place they go to every week was the place that hosted this party :). Her fiance showed up - he isn't much of a "crowd" person so that was really special.

Lots of fun gifts - and now to join retired life with many of these friends :)

A late night for Tom and me, but an excellent way to kick off two more days off :)

My alarm went off at 6:15 Saturday morning so I could join my pickleball friends (one of which organized most of the above party) for our regular 7 a.m. court time.  We had 22 people show up - this time last year I think we were lucky if 8-10 came out to play that early.  It's my favorite time to play, for sure.

The tree came down Saturday :(. Sad because it was pretty and I enjoy the season but it's nice to have the space back in the living room too.  I didn't put as many ornaments on this year - this year I did it alone and ran out of steam - but still a fair number!!

All my bells. . .a collection that grew organically plus my MIL gave me some when she finally got rid of all her "big" Christmas things a few years ago.  

Packed up for another year - the box with the red bow is the one Jerry made for me to hold my walnut baskets :)

We also got the house ready to have people over and took Radar to the park - as you can imagine, with sunny 50+ degree weather in January, it was a bit busy!

Our friends started arriving around 5 - our plan was to work on our summer trip to Germany and my birthday trip to KY over the course of the evening.

Connie gifted me with a beautiful necklace for Christmas with all my kids initials on it.  And pictures were in SHORT supply - we had work to do!!!  I did snap some "everyone has already served themselves dinner" pictures - we did the flank steak and shrimp, everyone else contributed the sides. 

Plus there were appetizers (an amazing crab dip from Connor's!!), sweets, and wine.  No one walked away hungry.

This is all I got - as you can see, hard at work with computers open and notebooks ready :). One of the couples had already left (the ones that put together that retirement party the night before - plus they played pickleball most of the day!) but we stayed on, working through logistics for flights, additional time in Europe, places to stay when we do the Bourbon Trail next month. . .and then three of us decided on a possible weekend to Anna Maria Island at the end of the month.  We'll see :)

It was a late night (!!) and those still standing all live out-of-town - I think Tom and I were probably asleep by the time they made it home.  And advantage of hosting!

Sunday we went to church and headed straight to Chattanooga to celebrate our newest Bell - Ellie :). Her birthday was Monday so we had planned this to spread things out a bit.  She chose Urban Stack - that was the first time we had been there.

Erin met us there as well as Robert's former roommate and groomsman Noah.  After lunch we headed to Coolidge Park to get some sunshine and exercise (NO pictures - living in the moment!!) and a stop at Clumpie's - I think the "real" reason people agreed to my "I want to take a walk" suggestion ;). AND they agreed to a picture there too :)

Erin and Noah peeled off and Ellie and Robert invited us back to their apartment to show off all their domesticity and wedding gifts :). They (Ellie?) has done a great job putting things up and decorating. . .can't believe I didn't even take a picture of the television stand, which was their Christmas gift from us.  Oh well - I did get a picture of the scoresheet at the end of our round of Spades:  

They beat us!!  It's been a LONG time since we've played and Ellie just learned so they were probably even teams.

And that's a wrap on the first weekend of 2026 :)

It was a perfect blend (for me) of people, activity, and being productive.  Tom will tell you he's still tired ;)

I look forward to checking in on other bloggers and seeing what everyone else has been up to and how they are starting the new year.  We've got a couple college football games to watch this week and nothing (thankfully?) on the calendar this weekend.  Busy workweek ahead, though, so the weekend might come as a relaxing reprieve.

Love,

Jenni