This Weekend In Pictures edition will include travel through some states, great times creating wonderful memories with amazing friends, bowling, and of course yummy food and drinks with Awesome Girlfriend Megan to round out our Weekend. We hit Franklin, Danbury, CT, NY, Vernon, Warwick, Hamburg, Hardyston, and Hackettstown.
Friday was a very busy day at the radio station for us. Fridays at radio stations tend to be busy days when you're preparing for the next few days, but they're especially busy when a Friday is at the end of a month. Behind the scenes, many commercials end and many new ones start the next day, lots of production and coordinating goes into them. I worked at the station Friday from 7:30am all the way until 6:10pm, slammed the whole time. Light at the end of my Friday tunnel was getting to see some of my amazing friends. Nate and Lauren had me in their wedding a year ago, and I was extremely honored. Nate's been one of my besties for over 13 years, and his circle of friends have always taken me in as if I grew up with them their whole lives too. Nate threw together a terrific surprise Birthday party for Lauren, and the minute I walked through the door I heard her scream "STEVE, YAAAAAY!!!!!" I left Franklin at 6:10, arrived in Danbury at 8:01pm. The whole rest of our night included many laughs with friends. Nate showed me his very odd practice of drinking red wine in a coffee mug, which on the surface sounds disturbing, but I had no regrets after trying that. Party went until 3am, which was terrific but waaaaay past my preferred bedtime. For some strange reason, late nights hurt me more than anything else.
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Saturday morning, Nate took me out for a nice farewell breakfast, and I was in transit back to Jersey. Those drives just aren't as fun when you have errands at the end of them, right? I did some shopping at Weis, Walmart, and ShopRite, or as I call it the Franklin Trifecta. Grocery shopping, probably because I'm picky, seems like I always need to hit all of the stores instead of just one, lol. Always the way, right?
Saturday night was a fun time for some bowling! My besties Jasen and Brendan were celebrating Brendan's birthday, we came up with a plan to go bowling in Warwick. #WhatCanPossiblyGoWrong, right? We ended up playing four games, where we took turns being terrible, and at times decent. I won a couple of them, my scores usually ended up just over 100. I'm still sore two days later from all that bowling! We had a complete comedy gold moment where I attempted to be smooth and pay for their bowling, but they handed over cash to the manager at the same exact time. #EpicFail. When cashing out, the manager asked us "okay, which one of you guys is the famous one?" My buddies were more than happy to bust on me for that. Even though none of us did overly great as you can see from our scores, it was still fun to do something that we haven't done in a long time.
Not to worry, I was able to buy them a birthday drink and ice cream at Kite's for a nightcap on Campus. They even had a Stoli girl who made the night even better for us!
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Sunday morning I slept all the way until 8am, which is a rarity for me. I think I'm still recovering from our action packed Friday. At 11, I was able to meet Awesome Girlfriend Megan and her Awesome Daughter Amanda for brunch at Granny's Pancake House. I typically do a Taylor Ham scrambled Egg no cheese with pepper and ketchup, so THENCPK is how we say that in Jersey, but 11am was too late in the day for me to go Taylor Ham. You need to get that in your system much earlier than 11 I think. I went for a bacon burger with fries, medium rare, and of course loved the results.
We then swung by to see our buddies at The Cottage, where Awesome Daughter Amanda was able to enjoy a well mixed Shirley Temple, while Meg and I enjoyed a round of those Perpetual IPAs we like. Our bartender buddy Rachel, fellow Cowboys fan with Meg, is leaving on Maternity leave and Sunday was her last day for a couple of months. We had to see her for a beer before she left us to have kid number 3. Best wishes to her.
We decided to wrap up our Sunday Football Sunday at Meg's in Hackettstown. With the Patriots being on TV, we could enjoy from the comforts of home. We had fun watching the Giants, and as the 4th quarter started I said "Meg, we don't want an exciting finish. Due to NFL blackout rules, they'll of course stay with the Giants game until the very end before switching over to our Patriots." Of course, Chicago makes a comeback on the Giants forcing overtime, Meg looks over and says "oh my god Steve, it's exactly what you said we were hoping wouldn't happen. We're even rooting for the Giants, figures!" Meg came up with a brilliant idea. She streamed the Patriots game on her iPhone thanks to Verizon and the NFL App, so I was able to watch our Patriots first drive! I'll say, that picture was much better than I expected.
Awesome Girlfriend Megan planned all along to put some frozen pizzas in the oven at 5:30. I was really dialed into the game. People will try to have some conversations with me but when my Pats are on, I ignore all outside noise. Football is like my escapism sanctuary. Meg was able to fall asleep for a quick nap cuddling with me. Excellent. The problem? I didn't know that she put pizza in the oven, and she woke up from her nap at 6:05pm. Whoops! I'm battling a minor head cold with congestion, and couldn't smell the burning pizza at all. My bad! The pizza came out very well done. I should've taken a picture of it. Ah well, I wasn't that hungry anyway. Poor Meg tries so hard to go above and beyond for everyone to have a fantastic time. She was a little ticked, but we were able to move past it and enjoy Patriots winning. Woohoo. Great chill Sunday afternoon watching football with the girls. At one point Awesome Daughter Caitlyn looked over at me and said "oh wow, you really get into this." Oh yes I do. It's a curse. LOL.
Overall, we had a phenomenal weekend. I'll be going to bed early tonight, that's for sure. I hope you had a wonderful weekend too. Time to start planning next weekend!
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