This weekend was definitely Epic all across Sussex County. I think when you bring Santa from The North Pole to Lafayette, it makes the Weekend automatically Epic. The big story was our Christmas music party. We made many memories all throughout the weekend that we'll never forget, that's for sure. Weekends when I can't get Awesome Girlfriend Megan are always tough, but we always do our very best to get through it together. I always miss her so much, and just countdown until the following weekend when I can see her again. I want to also include an Weekend In Picture Public Service Announcement / life hack. This happens every few weekends, where friends will ask me how come they didn't end up in my Weekend In Pictures. I then take out my phone and show them that they indeed did end up in my Epic Weekend In Pictures. When you're going through my Weekend In Pictures, whenever you see a picture, if you click on the right arrow that comes up, then you can scroll through and see all of them. Some Weekends we have 30 pictures, some Weekends are less epic and only have 10-15 (thank goodness, lol.) btw, shameless self plug, you can see all of my Weekend In Pictures as it happens if you follow me on Instagram: @SteveAllanRadio. Follow me and I'll follow you back. I'll even follow your dog.
Thursday was a huge day. We held our now annual WSUS Christmas Music Kick Off Party with our friends from Shoppes At Lafayette. This was our first time getting to hold this event at Shoppes At Lafayette, and it was absolutely amazing. At 3:20pm we had Newton High School singing Christmas Carols led by Ashley Foster. At 3:45 Father John's Animal House was able to bring my Pet Of The Week Dozer over for an on location Pet Of The Week edition. The look on Newton High School kids' faces when I told them after their performance they would get to meet my Pet Of The Week before anyone else is something that I'll never forget. At 4:20, we had Pope John Choir led by Karen Scott. At 5:05pm, we had Hilltop Country Day School led by Daniel Timmerman. Then at 5:00pm, it was time to countdown with everyone. Seeing those kids sound so wonderful singing Christmas carols in front of the enormous Christmas Tree definitely helped me get in the holiday spirit much more, that's for sure. I have included the video of me with Steve Andrews counting down until our Christmas flip, with Santa lighting the huge tree. I'll never forget everyone cheering, smiling families as far as the eye could see all over the courtyard at Shoppes At Lafayette. Huge success. Our friend John from Frederick's Fuel estimates that we had 400-500 people in attendance. He's much better at people counting than we are, so we'll go with his estimate.
Thursday night I went to Kite's in Vernon in an attempt to warm up. Despite wearing my terrific Duofold black thermal pants, I was freezing. Standing out in the cold for four straight hours can wear you down a smidge. Well worth it though! Plus I could have worn a winter coat instead of my iHeart windbreaker. Ah well. Well worth it. I had fun having some victory drinks with Jersey Johnny, Michele, JG, and Edward. They did help warm up my toes a little bit (the drinks, not my friends, I worded that weird sorry, lol.)
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Friday night I went errand shopping. This new beard was driving me insane. I don't know if I've gone more than 4-6 days without shaving. The last time I shaved was October 30th. This is all for No Shave November, where we team up with Nissan Of Stanhope and go as long as we can without shaving. A lucky listener can win a $500 gift card for participating. I'm not used to being this itchy. I purchased a beard balm for the first time in my life. It didn't help much yet. I'm told I need to grow more of a beard in order for it to work? UGH! I've definitely been moisturizing the beard area a ton more the past few days and that's been helping slightly. This is one of many reasons I never would have lasted as a caveman. Thank goodness for radio.
Friday night after my beard balm fail I went to Kite's and hung out with my besties. We had fun all night with Jasen, Brendan, Steve and Carrie. Just a wonderful Friday night with your friends busting on each other, the way life should be. My new beard came up in conversation quite often.
Saturday morning I swung by Granny's on 23 for some much needed fuel. I went with a bacon burger with at 9:30am turned several heads. When you have worked in morning radio like I did in Boston years ago, we joke that your stomach is ruined forever. Restaurants would be doing food drop offs by 7am, and we would be dining on anything, usually dinner fare. After a few years you get so used to that, nothing really fazes you with food early in the morning.
Saturday afternoon it was time to accomplish a chore that I've been procrastinating on for a month and a half. Winter clothes time! My place in Vernon is a nice, little one bedroom condo. Small, but perfect for me by myself. To accomplish the season clothes change, I need to take all polo shirts and shorts out of my dresser drawers. I then transition all of them out of the drawer and onto my bed. Then I take all of my sweaters out of totes from below my bed, and transition them into the drawers. I think the whole process took probably just over an hour. It did feel good to finally have that chore accomplished.
Saturday night it was off to a birthday party for our friend Chris thrown by his wife Christine O'Brien. GREAT party. Everyone was having fun smiling and laughing. Great times. Everyone were good sports about being thrown into my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Chris was definitely surprised too. We have similar tastes in good craft beer, so I gave him a 21st Amendment IPA 6 pack for his birthday. It's so much fun to shop for someone when you have similar taste and just go for what you would get.
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Sunday late morning Awesome Girlfriend Megan was able to sneak out and make the trek up from Hackettstown to let me take her to lunch at The Cottage in Franklin. Believe it or not I was willing to change it up and asked for a menu. Meg immediately overruled me and said "honey you love the Buffalo Chicken pizza, it's fantastic, let's just get the Buffalo Chicken pizza." I didn't put up much of a fight with her on that one. We were surprised by our besties Jasen and Brendan who saw our cars from Route 23 and swung by to say hi to us. Love living here so much. So many fun moments like that.
Sunday afternoon I was camped out in my living room watching my Patriots take on the evil Philadelphia Eagles. I alternated between sitting on my couch and pacing screaming at my television like a lunatic. I'm happy the Patriots got the win, but it wasn't pretty. Hopefully as we get healthier and get more people back our team can keep building and growing.
Overall, it was a terrific weekend. I'll never forget seeing so many smiling families at Shoppes At Lafayette. It was a magical moment. I hope you had a wonderful weekend too. Time to start planning next weekend: Stuff The Bus!