Well this was certainly at times quite an Epic Weekend In Pictures. I spent as much time outdoors as possible trying to take in all things Fall. I shot a corn cannon for my first time, suffered through a painful football Sunday, enjoyed Crystal Springs Fall Music Festival, and had some laughs with friends along the way. We will start this Epic Weekend In Pictures with Thursday. Thursday afternoon right when I wrapped up doing my Adopt A Pet Of The Week, I headed on over to Lentini's Corn Maze Farm in Newton. Last year was my first time there, and I was psyched to return. Whenever I go to do a Facebook Live video, I always try to map it out loosely in my mind. The team at Lentini read my mind immediately, showing me their fun and different things from last year. One thing led to another, and I shot my first ever corn cannon. You can see that fun video at the bottom of this page. Their corn flavored ice cream was fantastic. I ate probably half of the cup, but that was honestly more than I should have, given my later plans for the evening. While there may not be a first time for everything, there is certainly a first time for many things.
Over the past several years, one of my besties Sally, has led a Thursday night Body Pump class at Minerals Sports Club. I've seen her absolutely fall in love with this class. She has always wanted me to join her and I've always had plenty of excuses to not do it. The 7pm starting class time is later than I prefer. Back when I ran more, it was always preferable for me to work out in the morning as opposed to night time. While I have always loved doing my Facebook Live class video workouts, that's to the extent I normally enjoy classes. I usually prefer to just be running by myself trying to kind of tune away from the world and just think about running. That being said, I know I need to do much more than just running to get back into running. Life north of 40 is such a great time, said no one ever, LOL.
Trying to get healthier, now was the best time for me to finally join Sally and her friends at Body Pump class. I was definitely nervous, and my stomach was shaking a little bit after that ice cream. As we know ice cream isn't the best pregame meal before going to the gym. I pulled up one video of Body Pump on YouTube earlier in the day to try and mentally prepare for what might be coming my way. Thank goodness, Sally and classmates were all very patient with me. I could actually see myself liking Body Pump. That is one hour of a workout that will kick your caboose! It reminds me of some resistance training with cardio basically. I have a loooooong way to go, but most agree I had a decent debut for my first time ever doing Body Pump. I did as light weights as possible so that there wouldn't be anything stopping me. My goal was to survive and maybe even have a little fun along the way. I'm happy to say that both of these happened. I might not be there this week, but I could see myself back there for Body Pump in the future.
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Friday night was a nice low key night with friends JG, Steve and Ed at Moonshine Tiki Bar. Our friend Ashlynn promised to keep Tiki open for us until 7ish, and we enjoyed a breathtaking sunset. Even though you couldn't see the sun, this might go down as one of my top ten favorite sunset pictures I took. It was nice to hang out with friends and just joke about minor challenges in everyday life. Even little things like "oh you have trouble sleeping too sometimes? Oh maybe try this ____."
Saturday morning when I woke up my legs felt like they were on FIRE from Body Pump Class. Friday morning my legs, hips and thighs definitely had some soreness for sure. Saturday morning the soreness increased much more than I was expecting. I went to the hot tubs at Minerals Sports Club for over an hour stretching out my legs. It was just what the doctor ordered for sure!
Saturday afternoon time for our first ever Crystal Springs Fall Music Festival! Several of the bands I had seen before throughout my time here, but believe it or not, this was going to be my first time ever seeing The Nerds. Everyone was busting on me "how have you lived here in Jersey for over 9 years and never seen The Nerds?" Basically over the years whenever they have been playing a show up here I always had a schedule conflict.
Despite the weather, we had approximately 2,000 people there under the tent loving the fun, live music. It rained hard throughout the morning, but only sprinkled on us a few times while we were under their massive tent. My friend Ray did a great job organizing this event. Despite the cold weather, I had a fantastic time. It was fun seeing so many friends there too!
Sunday UGH. I tried to enjoy football Sunday at The Cottage cheering on my Patriots in what seemed to be a must win game. 34-0? We lost just as bad as we did to Dallas last week? Oh my goodness that was absolutely painful. Giants fans I think our games were eerily similar. My fantasy football teams both did awful too!
Most of my weekend when not being dragged down by football was pretty good lol. Thank you for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Time to start planning next weekend!
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