This Weekend was epic for certain. This weekend involved Teeing It Up For The Troops in the rain, seeing my family back home, Awesome Girlfriend Megan and I celebrating my best friend's wedding, and a serious scare to another one of my best friends. We started in Vernon, New Jersey, then traveled to Mansfield and Foxboro, Massachusetts, then up to Maine, New Hampshire, Mansfield, Connecticut, New York, finally back in Jersey.
Friday was one of my favorite days all year, when we Tee It Up For The Troops at Crystal Springs. Even if your golf game is off, you feel such a sense of pride when you see American flags at every single hole. One of my many failed New Year's resolutions was to practice golf more this year. While I'm absolutely terrible at golf (I'm happy when I actually hit the ball,) it's always such a zen feeling when you're surrounded by beauty in nature everywhere. I love driving by Wild Turkey on my way to work and taking it all in, enjoying the face I live so close to golf courses. My dear friends Shawn, Mark, and Dominic were absolutely fantastic. I feel like we had a great day with many laughs from beginning to end. We did best ball scramble, and a couple of times we ended up using my shot! I was psyched. Overall my performance was lousy per usual, but we had a fantastic time Teeing It Up For The Troops. Then, Shawn, Mark and Dom were so sweet. The foursome ahead of us were slow, and I was now running behind schedule. Knowing I was in a time crunch driving back up to Boston visiting my family, they all volunteered to let us skip our last two holes. This helped us stay on schedule tremendously. Awesome Girlfriend Megan was so sweet, knowing how much I love this event, volunteered to drive us back up to my parents in Boston after a long day of golf in the rain. Even though it rained on us, we still had a great time. My parents had pizza and beer from home ready for mine and Meg's arrival, just after 10pm.
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Saturday: ROAD TRIP TIME! Before we made the family road trip to Maine, I sneaked Awesome Girlfriend away for a quick road trip to Gillette Stadium. We are SO excited for football to come back into our lives. Awesome Girlfriend Megan is a devout diehard Dallas Cowboys fan, and she also supports our Patriots as well. We love going to Gillette just getting the football vibe, and with it being before home opener, everyone was ready. You could feel the tension in the air! Then it was back home to see my parents, Madre and Padre, and Wicked Awesome Sister Suzanne. We decided to carpool and all of us take the journey up together. First stop in Maine was a clam hunt that must have a license to print money. They are always busy, and open year round! Meg and I did some clam chowdah, and a couple of burgers. Excellent pick by Padre.
We then made it to our hotel in York. I immediately fell in love with the views. Our veranda was overlooking the street. We had fun relaxing killing two hours before the wedding, then looked up and said "okay, shuttle bus is here in 10 minutes every get ready to rock NOW!!! I was able to be bus monitor and made sure everyone made the shuttle. This was a major victory for me, I wanted to contribute at least something to my best friend Chris's wedding day. We've been best friends since we were 10.
Chris and Kayla wedded almost 2 years ago, have gorgeous twins who made an appearance at the wedding, and are fantastic friends. I knew Kayla was IT the second I met her. We have always clicked from day one. I also have never seen Chris happier. I had writer's block writing in their wedding card, they make me so happy. All I came up with was "you know that feeling, when your best friend you grew up with, gets to marry the girl of his dreams, have beautiful kids, and live happily ever after? Best feeling ever." Kayla was an absolutely gorgeous bride. Their wedding was amazing. Ceremony was excellent, efficient and funny, honors done by Kayla's brother Jason. They even had lobster rolls during cocktail hour! Impressive! I'm so proud of Chris and Kayla not only being great parents, but also still taking care of me too. Relationships are hard work. At times when I make a mistake and upset Meg, Chris will pull me aside and say "Steve don't worry, just say you're sorry. We've all been there, trust me. It'll be okay." Chris, Matt the best man Lambalott and I have been best friends especially since we were in high school. They have always been my bros from home. To see them both be great Dads and husbands has been a wonderful thing to see. Even though I don't get to see them even a fraction of how often I want to see them, the second we text each other or hang out it's like no time has ever even passed.
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Sunday we left our hotel with slightly heavy heads from plenty of celebrating at the wedding. Everyone loves a wedding, right? Great times. We then ventured off to a candy store called "Yummies." Meg was like a kid in a candy store. Her face lit up as this is by far the largest candy store she has ever seen in her life. Why was she so happy? So she could buy treats for her Awesome Daughters from Maine. That's classic Meg. I think she bought one thing for herself, with her total purchase ringing in at just under $30! LOL. We then went to Cisco Brewery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and had an excellent Indie IPA. We all listened to a ton of the Patriots game on our car radio together. Meg and I didn't get to see much football in person, but still enjoyed our time together. We left my parents at 3, got back to Jersey just before 8:30 last night.
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Sunday morning, we were alerted by my Aunty Donna of a major scare that shook us to our core. JDawg, my Uncle Jeff, who's been best friends with my Dad since they were 8, and my Godfather / Best Friend my whole life, suffered a heart attack this weekend. He woke up Saturday morning feeling awful having trouble breathing, drove himself to the hospital. Thank god he did. He was transferred via ambulance to a Rhode Island Hospital. Thank god he went to the hospital when he did, and we'll be with him every step of the way during his recovery. Big reminder that whenever you're feeling bad, please go to the hospital / doctor! You are important to many people. Thoughts and prayers to my Besty. He wouldn't let anyone notify my family, because he didn't want to distract us while we were in Maine for the wedding.
This weekend was epic, with a roller coaster of emotions. Next weekend Meg and I will hopefully be much more tame. Overall, we got to celebrate the marriage by two of our best friends. Great time with many amazing friends and family, and long term JDawg will hopefully get better and stronger. Our weekend was wonderful, I hope yours was too. Time to plan next weekend!
Me, JDawg and Meg with one of our buddies at a recent St Patrick's Day Party!