While this year was certainly different, I think we can all agree bring on 2021 please! Normally during a New Year Eve, Awesome Girlfriend Megan and I would be attending a small gathering at one of our friends places. This year we kept it even more low key. It was recently brought to my attention from my dear friend Artie that New Year's happens in Ireland at 7pm on New Year's Eve because they're in a different time zone than us. 7pm New Year? Sign me up for that. Even I can easily stay up and make that one! Meg and I did a cheers with some of our friends at The Cottage in Franklin ringing in the Irish New Year. Any chance to move onto 2021 even sooner we figured, the better!
After that, Meg and I just hung out with my future stepdaughters playing card games. Very low key. Some of my answers to "Would You Rather," horrified the girls. They likely won't stop busting on me for my silly answers anytime soon. We then counted down to Midnight, but then wanted to still watch the ball drop. We then turned our phones into streaming mode so we could count down to Happy New Year, even though we all knew it was really 12:03 by then and we were well on our way into the New Year.
Saturday morning we had a low key morning in Hackettstown. We then took the kids out to lunch at Marley's Gotham Grill for some excellent wings. In 2020, I wasn't able to go out to wing places as much given the new challenges they have all been facing. While I still could live on buffalo wings and looooove a good spicy kick, my tolerance for spice isn't what it used to be before 2020. Meg and I were on the same exact page and at the same time said "No Nuclear wings for Steve." LOL. I did Hot BBQ and Hot Garlic wings. The Hot Garlic wings were okay, but the Hot BBQ ones I would recommend more. They still bring plenty of heat.
My friends from home Chris and Matt in New England always joke "never ask Steve for a restaurant recommendation, he usually only gets the buffalo wings anyway!"
All the kids had a great lunch. Success. After lunch, time to venture back to Vernon and relax on Campus. We then ran into a couple more of our friends while we were out at restaurants. Meg and I had quite the lofty New Year's night goal: relax, stay in and watch College Playoff Football.
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Success. Awesome Girlfriend Megan and I had a wonderful time watching College Football Playoff games. With the goal for all of us to scale back indoor gatherings with friends, recent weekends together Meg and I have found ourselves trying to stay in on Saturday nights. For us what's the only thing on TV at that point which we both enjoy? Football. We have gotten much more into college football this year. We also have several dear friends who are diehard fans of teams involved with the playoffs, so that also makes it more fun for us to watch the games knowing each play will make our friends upset or happy. Especially when our friends have teams that are playing each other, it's just like when we're all battling each other in NFL games.
Awesome Girlfriend Megan enjoyed a stout from Bog Iron Brewery up in Norton, Massachusetts. This was the beer that I successfully brought from New England to Jersey, along with a quart of clam chowdah from Geno's in Mansfield, Massachusetts. I was very happy to surprise Meg with all that. My parents are so amazing and always help me put together a cooler bag for Meg. They love her so much and are always so happy to help me. They also know that I would always desperately need their help to pull off these missions. My Aunty Donna even gave me a thermos that we can start utilizing for more chowdah for Meg. We will take the victories for sure!
Day after New Year's, time for some errands. Meg and I went to the UPS Store in Sparta to return one of my broken Direct TV receivers. It's been broken for a couple of years. I don't usually watch tv in bed that often anyway so it really wasn't bothering me that much. The fact that I was paying for it and not getting anything really annoyed Meg. Meg worked it out with Direct TV, where they sent me a new one, and I had to send back the broken one to avoid a $150 fee. Yep, this trip to UPS Store is well worth it! They were slam packed but friendly and helpful. My process of returning the broken receiver was painless. We'll take that win.
After that, Meg and I were ready for a beer. We went to Mohawk House to get a gift card for one of our best friends, and then enjoyed a beer. Bartender Paige was our waitress. We asked her for recommendations on their IPA's. She came out with two samples. One of them, I liked and Meg didn't. The other one, Meg liked, and I didn't. Perfect. We knew what we were getting for our round of beer while picking up the the gift card. Success.
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Welp Welp. Saturday night the weekend was starting to wrap up. Meg and I had planned to do a Football Sunday at The Cottage in Franklin, with Meg's Dallas Cowboys - New York Giants game now suddenly having playoff implications. We tend to do our sad Sunday farewell beer there anyway. As Saturday night progressed, the Sunday snow forecast worsened, consistently. I didn't want Meg out after our farewell beer during the beginning or peak of a snowstorm. Sometimes the roads are toughest the first hour of snowstorms. We came up with our plan for Meg to unfortunately leave earlier than the usual 1-2pm. She would be leaving at 9am to beat the snowstorm altogether hopefully.
She left at 9, and by 9:30 it started snowing on her during the 54 minute ride from Campus in Vernon to Hackettstown. By 9:45, one of her windshield wipers broke. Just one of those helpless feelings when you wish you could be out there trying to help. Not that I would be any help fixing a windshield wiper, as we know I'm useless with anything mechanically involved whatsoever. She made it safely home by 10. Then by 11, the snow stopped. Go figure. Man plans, God laughs. If we had waited it out when it was supposed to peak, we would have been fine. Ah well.
I stayed in watching football Sunday on my couch eating leftovers. It was good for me to have a low key day, stay in, go to bed early so I could fill in today for Steve Andrews on our 102.3 WSUS Morning Show. Overall we had a wonderful weekend. I hope you had a terrific, safe and healthy weekend too. How onto 2021 are we? Thank you for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures every week. Time to start planning next weekend!