My Epic Weekend In Pictures, My Parents Visit - And Fix Stuff

I need a weekend to recover from this weekend for sure! My parents, Mike (Padre) and Karen (Madre) visited me from Boston this Weekend and it was fantastic. My parents have always been my best friends from day 1. I'm very lucky. We enjoyed amazing times with our friends, family, and shared many laughs. Growing up in Boston, President's Day to me just pretty much meant a day off from school on top of all the history involved. That changed for me after tmoving to a ski slope here in New Jersey. Living on Campus in Vernon, enjoying watching skiers from my deck has led me to notice that President's Day Weekend is quite possibly the biggest ski weekend all year long. Last year I coerced my parents to visit me for this so they could enjoy watching skiers on my deck with me and Awesome Girlfriend Megan. I'm so lucky to live where I do, and want everyone to get to enjoy this gorgeous sight. My parents were always teasing me claiming that I was "inventing holidays to trick them into visiting me in Jersey." That's why I sometimes lovingly refer to them as The Clowns, LOL. Last year went great, so this year will were able to make it year two of our tradition. While it was mainly too cold to enjoy watching skiers for too long, we still made many great memories.

Steve Andrews and I were joking how I was going to make it a working vacation for my parents. I have learned over the past couple years that my parents love to help fix things when at my place. If I don't have enough things for them to fix, they get stir crazy, then fix things that don't need fixing, and then I can't find my stuff anywhere after stuff gets moved. Padre had replacing my broken screen door, fixing my broken closet door, and changing my furnace filter on his agenda. Madre reorganized my closet to help me be more efficient.

Friday night, Meg and I saw our friend Bill Mutz playing a wonderful acoustic set at The Cottage. Fun times. We then made it back to Campus and enjoy yummy yummy red red wine with our besties Jasen, Brendan and Carrie. Then Saturday morning it was time to grocery shop and get everything ready. Poor Meg. She was relaxed because entertaining isn't stressful for her like it is for me. At times I was basically dragging her around everywhere while I was running around getting errands done before my parental visit.

My parents arrived Saturday afternoon, Meg and I were psyched to have our stromboli and seared ahi tuna slices ready to go for them. My parents surprised Meg with a bottle of wine, and a hilariously embarrassing throwback picture from when I was likely 8-9. You can enjoy that picture and my pants which are probably illegal in several states below. We enjoyed a great afternoon, and I even let everyone take a quick nap before seeing all of our friends at Kite's. I'm getting much more laid back and lenient in my older age. I used to have nonstop agendas for my parents trying to show them everything there is to see in Jersey. They're usually running ragged after all of my Mandatory Fun activities. The past couple of visits, I have made a concerted effort to scale things back a bit. I do live in a vacation resort, and my parents are happy to relax.

Saturday night was amazing. Meg and I are the luckiest people ever. So many of our best friends came out, took time out of their busy schedules to see my parents. We had everyone meet us at Kite's, our central spot on Campus. We arrived at 6:40pm, expecting to maybe hang around until 8ish. We ended up having drinks and laughing until 10:30pm! Lots of laughs and fun memories with our besties. As you can see, we enjoyed company from (top row) Brad, Annie, Brendan, Jasen, JG, Tyann, Spooner, Padre, Madre, Mark, Douglioso, Me, Meg, Sally, Meghan and Floyd.

Sunday morning it was time to recover and get started on my home repairs. We were able to get new pins for my closet from McAfee Hardware store which made me giddy with excitement. Not having to get them at Home Depot in Newton basically saved us an hour of driving. I kept exclaiming "Clowns, we just gained a valuable hour of daylight, woohoo!" I also drove Meg nuts by repeatedly saying that the conditions on the slopes were great and we were experience a bluebird sky day. She doesn't find it cute when I try to fit in ski terms during a big holiday weekend. I kept joking that I was so excited my family was able to be together for the holidays. We also enjoyed a nap and watching an HGTV marathon. I can see how people can get hooked on binge watching those shows.

Sunday afternoon we wanted to take my parents to another one of our home bars, The Cottage in Franklin. We ran into some of our regular buddies like Packer Fan Patrick and Tom. Our timing was perfect, it coincided with an event they were having to benefit the Veterans Memorial Cemetary. It was packed, and they had bagpipes cranked up. Bagpipes always have a way of moving us to tears, they are so beautiful. We then ran into more of our buddies like Jill and Parker Space, Dawn Fantasia, Anthony Fasano, and many, many more. We were bummed that Meg had to return to Hackettstown, but had plenty of fun and laughs with our friends. Meg insisted that I keep the party going even without her.

Sunday night, we had a very important mission. My parents and I volunteered to walk my nephew Spot. The minute we got into Jasen's house, Spot was very excited. All you could hear was his tail wagging from excitement slamming into the walls. Several times it was more of a case of Spot walking me rather than me walking Spot. Great times. We then enjoyed a round on my deck watching skiers before going in to warm up.

Monday was the tough day, when my parents had to go back home to Boston. I think I cried my whole drive back from 23 to Vernon. Then when I got back home it was eerily quiet without Meg or my parents. I had a yummy craft beer and tucked myself into bed by 9. Overall we had an amazing weekend with my family and friends. I hope you had a wonderful weekend too. Time to start planning next weekend!