Due to our office being painted and me temporarily losing my office, this Weekend In Pictures will be a little bit more brief than usual. Thank you for understanding!
This weekend we celebrated my Dad's birthday. Padre aka Mike had a great weekend, and I enjoyed celebrating it with him and my family. This weekend had some activities that were usual for us, and some were definitely special.
Friday night I relaxed at Minerals Tiki Bar with besties Jasen and Brendan. The weather was gorgeous and we were absolutely loving it. That combined with putting up my Out Of Office email was wonderful. I was very excited for my long weekend back home seeing my family. With my current car situation being a rental while my Jeep Compass is getting fixed at Franklin Auto Body Shop, I wasn't sure until late in the week that my trip would still be possible. If my mileage was unlimited, I could go back home. If my mileage wasn't unlimited, I probably wouldn't be making it back home. I called up Enterprise and they confirmed my mileage was unlimited and that I could go home. Success!
Saturday morning I let the painters into our iHeartMedia Franklin building, and then was on the road by 7:20am. I made it back to Mansfield by 11:20am 4 hours door to door, that's as good as you can do. I'll take that win!
I made it just in time for my first ever chicken coup party. Our next door neighbor Luke was throwing a celebration party for their chickens they have had just over a year. You might remember my friend Luke how my family started joining his parade many years ago. You can see the fun Disney surprise from a couple of Christmas holiday parades ago by clicking here.
Luke and his parents Jill and Joe know how to throw a party, that's for sure. I couldn't even believe the large circus style tent they rented for this extravaganza. The second I got out of my rental car, hearing Luke yell "HI STEVE," is always beautiful music to my ears. He was psyched my family was able to join his party. I was psyched to meet mutual friends who have also been friends with Luke for several years. The weather was definitely idea for a chicken coup party. Again, you read that correctly. We had a party for 5 chickens. :)
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Saturday night we were able to go to Geno's in Mansfield for dinner. I haven't had New England Clam Chowder in several months and was craving it. I did a fantastic clam chowder with just a house salad after that. That was definitely all I needed. The New England Clam Chowder in New England - nothing compares to it. Am I biased? Well yes, but still! It's so good!
It was great enjoying time with my family in a low key atmosphere, much more low key than the wild chicken coup party. We were then surprised when our bestie Jill showed up with her daughter Baby J. That dinner time tends to be a bewitching hour for her we've been warned for a few months. We urged Jilly, we don't care! We want to see Baby J! She was fussy at times, but all good. It was our first time seeing her since Saint Patrick's Day and we were psyched. All in all a great Saturday night.
Btw, yes, the pollen in Mansfield, Massachusetts was intense. At times all you could see was massive clouds of pollen blowing by us.
Sunday it was time to get ready for my Dad's birthday party. They made the decision to go low key with a pizza party, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. While Padre was fielding happy birthday phone calls, I went out and got 20 pounds of ice. After we started loading up one cooler, I quickly realized that we could use another 20 pounds of ice. All good. Everything is usually close by to where my parents are. It was a fun childhood home to grow up in for sure.
Sunday so much of my family came over for the party. Grammy, (also known as Captain Chaos,) Uncle Dan, Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Buck, Aunt Peg, Konrad, Uncle Paul, Aunty Donna, Matt, Brandon, Sophie, JDawg and more! We had a great time catching each other up on everything going on in our worlds. It's really amazing when you have a family that is so close. We just like to have fun, and laugh. One of our comedic highlights was how my Uncle Paul left his cell phone at home, like normal. He explained that with family being around with their cell phones, he didn't need to also bring his. While busting on him for this, I remembered his outgoing voicemail message that was a hilarious awkward voicemail. I then intentionally called his cell phone just go play his voicemail message on speakerphone for everyone to bust on him. I'm very happy that he was "available," (word he hilariously used in his outgoing voicemail message,) to get a few good laughs with us.
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Monday I did goodbye lunch with my parents at Fitzy's in Plainville and hit the road. My allergies were awful, I knew eating was going to be unlikely. I only ordered a house salad because I didn't want to waste anything. Surely enough, even trying to eat the salad I got sick. Between allergies and pollen, it just wasn't fun. We always have our goodbye hugs and tears. This time while there were tears, we were all coughing and sneezing. At least it made us laugh a little bit while we were saying goodbye. I made it home after approximately 4 hours and 15 minutes. Not terrible.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. I hope you had a wonderful weekend too. Time to start planning next weekend!