This was a wonderful, Epic weekend with my parents I'll never forget. It's always so fun when they visit, yes I'm guilty of overstressing because my goal is always for them to have an amazing, perfect time. We'll start my Epic Weekend In Pictures with Thursday night, my first of two Fantasy Football drafts. Out of 10 people, night 1 I was picking 10th and 11th overall, Friday night I was picking 2nd overall. This means that my teams are likely going to look pretty different, which can be a good thing. Sometimes it can also be a bad thing. I'm happy that there are only two players I have on both of my teams, Chiefs Tight End Travis Kelce and Giants Wide Receiver Malik Nabers. If you're watching the Giants games, Nabers will be wearing the #1 in uniform. I'll admit that there are certain elements that make me a bad fantasy player and more of a fan instead. Over the past several years, I've really enjoyed having former Giants Running Back Saquon Barkley on my team. It's been fun to root for him at Giants games, having my friends high five me whenever he made a huge play. I'm also a bad fantasy player because I try to avoid when possible having players on my team that play in the same division as my New England Patriots. I try to avoid having players that play against the Patriots twice a year, because I'm a bigger Patriots fan than fantasy football picker. In my Thursday night draft with my Bridgewater State University friends, I was picking 10th overall and 11th. With my first pick, I went receiver. I then picked Saquon even though he's injury prone and now playing for the evil Philadelphia Eagles. To get less heat from friends, I'll say aloud that at least he was only my 2nd round pick, not my 1st. That being said, even though I feel better about it when looking that way, many who play fantasy football will quickly easily call me out knowing that Saquon was basically still a first round pick for me, because I picked 10th and 11th. I was happy with my team overall, and the experts gave me an A- Grade. I am a sports fan, and absolutely believe that jinxes are real. I cringe when I get a great grade like that. I also usually am also ticked off and offended when the experts give me a bad draft grade.
Friday night was my draft with my high school besties. I had one snafu where the CBS site on my laptop was telling me our draft started at 9pm Friday night. I was less than thrilled with it starting that much past my preferred bedtime, but figured with it being a non school night hopefully my chances were better of making it. All of the sudden, I get a text to our group thread at 6:45 asking if everyone was ready to start in 15 minutes! Yikes, it started at 7pm, not 9pm. Fortunately I was able to rush home and get my laptop fired up by 6:58pm. Made it with 2 minutes to spare, and I had the 2nd overall pick. All along I was planning on drafting the Atlanta Falcons running back, but then he got picked first overall right before my pick. I ended up getting The San Francisco 49ers Christian McCaffrey and I'm very happy with that. CBS gave me an A+ Draft Grade! These automation draft experts are killing me!
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Saturday morning I was able to run some quick errands and get some last minute shopping before my parents would be visiting me. I've had pretty good luck just getting a charcuterie board from one of our local grocery stores and having that as the spread for when they arrive. All of the sudden, as I'm leaving Campus my right rear tire light came on. It was 10 pounds less pressure than all of my other tires totally out of nowhere. I was able to bring my Compass to Mavis in Franklin, they saw the nail in my tire right away. They were able to refill my tire ensuring me I would be good to go for at least a day or so while waiting to patch it up.
My parents made it in just over four hours driving from Mansfield, Massachusetts to here in Vernon, New Jersey. They were happy with how clean my place was. I've been doing pretty decent this summer at staying on top of things.
Once my family was situated and unpacked, we went to The Irish Cottage Inn for dinner. They had a weekend special that I hadn't seen before at The Cottage. Diablo mussels. This I think was my first time ever trying mussels. They were FANTASTIC. The diablo had a good kick to it, and I love spice.
We were then able to meet up with several besties at Minerals Moonshine Tiki Bar. We had a fun Saturday night for sure!
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Sunday morning I treated my parents to taylor ham, egg and cheese sandwiches to give them the full Jersey experience. That was their first taylor ham in a few years, and they didn't mind it at all. I then gave them space, went to Mavis in Franklin and had my tire patched up. I was sitting in the waiting room. All of a sudden a gentleman randomly yelled out "Steve." His wife was busting on him asking why he would randomly yell out Steve in the waiting room there. A minute later she then asked if I was Steve Allan. She said she didn't mean to stare at me, but recognized me from all of my Pet Of The Week videos. Small world for sure!
I then took my parents to Crystal Springs Vista 180 Pool. How could I not bring them to my favorite place? We enjoyed the shade by the Tiki Bar. My Dad isn't much of a laying by the pool guy like I am, but he was able to enjoy their shaded section with us. We then went to meet up with some besties at Alias Brewery in Vernon, because we heard they had the Cousins Maine Lobster Truck there! Imagine, my family and I getting some New England flavor right here in New Jersey! I had the Connecticut Roll, and it was terrific. My parents even got a lobster mac & cheese to go for my sister Zannie! These weekends aren't the same without her when she's stuck working, that's for sure. My parents and I still worked hard to make it count.
Overall we had a great weekend. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Time to start planning next weekend! Tee It Up For The Troops and New Jersey Taco Festival and possibly going to the Giants game at MetLife? Here we go!