I hope you had a wonderful Christmas week! I'm very happy after spending a wonderful week with my family. This Epic Weekend In Pictures will be a little lighter on text and heavier on the pictures because My Epic Weekend In Pictures started Christmas Eve, ie Tuesday night. Tuesday morning I hit the road with a goal of making it back simply by Christmas Eve Tuesday night. I had the full day off from work, and was on fumes anyway from a very busy November and December. In the radio world, you're so blessed to be able to help many especially during the holidays. If you work in radio, this means working longer days, and most weekends during both November and December. Lots of work, but then you get to see so many smiles and happy tears for those you're able to help. Even though you're pretty tired both physically and emotionally, it's a great reminder to help get in the Christmas spirit. I'm so proud of all the help our radio stations and people were able to accomplish.
Our Stuff The Bus food drive broke records in pretty much every single way! Our 10th annual Pay It Forward campaign with Franklin Sussex Auto Mall awarding 12 local families going through tough times win $500 gift cards was great and inspiring. Our 2nd annual 12 Strays Of Christmas was a huge success. Several of our pets were adopted, and hopefully more of them get new Furever Families very soon! I'm so very proud we were able to pull off our 2nd annual 12 Strays Of Christmas. This never would've been possible without support and help from many. Thank you!
Christmas Eve Day I was able to see my family by 3pm. My drive was probably around 4.5 hours total instead of the 4 without any traffic. Not bad at all during a holiday week I'll take that. Success!
I was so happy to see my family. We were also able to see my Uncle JDawg Jeff, Aunty Soup Sue, Jill, John, and their now 1 year old daughter Jocelyn, or as we call her "Baby J." Baby J was born on Christmas Eve last year, and she's grown so much it's been really fun to watch every few times a year I'm able to come home and see her. Then, Jill, John, and Aunty Soup Sue gave me a Batman Tumblr! I can't wait to start utilizing that for sure. I could see it being very helpful when we go golfing a few times a year too, I always notice my friends enjoying their Tumblrs while golfing. It'll definitely stay much colder than my Poland Spring water bottles I attempt to bring. I know. Many golfer friends are probably saying "Steve, yet another golfer rookie mistake." I don't claim to know what I'm doing at all on the golf course, ever...but I always have plenty of fun with friends.
1 of 13 2 of 13 3 of 13 4 of 13 5 of 13 6 of 13 7 of 13 8 of 13 9 of 13 10 of 13 11 of 13 12 of 13 13 of 13
Christmas Eve we were able to continue our fun annual tradition of Padre reading to us 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. I even talked one of my besties into reading that for her two under ten year old daughters as a new Christmas Eve tradition and they loved it. While we read from the book, I helped my bestie cheat and sent her what I found on Google.
Speaking of online, did you see the new updates to our iHeartRadio App? I'm loving the new Preset Feature, where you can put your favorite iHeartRadio stations, such as 102.3 WSUS, 103.7 WNNJ, and 106.3 The Bear all as Presets just like on your car radio! I'm absolutely loving it.
My sister Zannie gave me a fun Patriots Bluetooth Speaker Cooler Bag. She was so thoughtful knowing I love going to a couple of New York Giants games at MetLife Stadium with my friends every season. I'm not tech savvy at all, but after a little while was able to figure it out! My sister unfortunately got called into work late and wasn't able to see the nice presentation I had setup for her on Thursday. Friday, however, she was able to see how I could play our iHeartRadio stations right on my iPhone and cooler bag, while we were all together in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Technology can be pretty cool sometimes!
1 of 15 2 of 15 3 of 15 4 of 15 5 of 15 6 of 15 7 of 15 8 of 15 9 of 15 10 of 15 11 of 15 12 of 15 13 of 15 14 of 15 15 of 15
I had a wonderful Christmas with my family! I am so lucky and grateful whenever we get to see each other. We have so much fun laughing and busting on each other, the way life should be. We even often help each other out with simple everyday life hacks given our experiences here and there.
I had a great time going to Gillette Stadium Patriot Place and Wrentham Village Premium Outlets. I even ran into a dear friend Kristin, who grew up in nearby Norwood, Massachusetts and we had never met until a couple years ago here in New Jersey where she lives too! It was so much fun running into her (totally out of context,) and her sister at The Wrentham Outlets. We were sharing fun family stories, and how we were all out shopping to give our families a break from us while we were visiting back home.
Saturday on my drive back I was still undecided whether or not we would be going to the Giants game. Their last home game of the season had some history riding on it. The Giants would have been the first team in NFL history to go 0-10 at home. There were 3 airplanes hired by angry Giants fans to fly negative messages voicing their frustration and displeasure with Giants ownership after this lousy season. Fortunately for the Giants hopefully saving some embarrassment, the FAA actually had to cancel the flights because of clouds being too low.
By the time I was on my way back to Jersey, bestie Artie told me he wasn't going to the game. I said "Artie, if even you're not going, I'm definitely not going now." I was happy to watch the game, being dry, avoiding the morning downpouring rain and just go to The Irish Cottage in the afternoon. I had fun with friends there, while we watching the NY Giants pull off an upset! The Giants had their best game all season, even scoring more points in the first half, than they did during the 3 games I went to see them combined! I made it home just in time on Saturday to see my Patriots with their expectedly dreadful second half. Ouch. At least we have our guy, the Quarterback I wanted all along in Drake Maye. Hopefully next year we can actually build around him a bit.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Time to start planning next weekend!