This might not have been our most Epic Weekend, or our most travelled weekend, but it was still a terrific weekend together that we'll never forget. First off I need to apologize for an Epic Weekend In Picture fail. We made such a big to do and joking around about how I view merely dumping a bag of prepared meatballs into a crockpot for me is like making meatballs, when in reality I'm merely cooking the meatballs. They came out fantastic. I love when my place smells like my parents house, it brings me back so much. After all that, I forgot to take a picture of the freakin meatballs. My bad!
Friday night we had a nice quiet night over at Carrie's. It was just us, along with our besties Jasen and Brendan. I brought over a couple of bouquets of flowers to surprise both Awesome Girlfriend Megan and Carrie. We all enjoyed catching each other up on our past week. Later that evening, we see Carrie crying. Meg and I became immediately concerned. Not to worry, they were tears of joy. Our boys Jasen and Brendan informed Carrie that they're surprising her for her birthday next month, and will help her fly out to see her Dad in Florida who she hasn't seen in so long due to Covid challenges the past year. We were all happy together. Life needs more happy surprises, right?
We ended up hanging out with everyone much longer than originally planned. Awesome Girlfriend Megan and I joked with each other that by 10pm on a Friday night, there would be zero chance of us getting a parking space. We immediately drove straight to our overfill guest gravel parking lot. We then counted cars on our way back, and were happy we made the right decision to not even try parking on my street in our neighborhood. At least we made one right decision.
Saturday morning, I ventured out to get Awesome Girlfriend Megan a hot coffee from Dunkin. I ordered online from my Dunkin app. I made an error with my order. I forgot to take into account the 5 minute walk to my car, the 10 minutes it took to scrape ice off my car, and then the 5 minutes at Acme to get breakfast stuff for us. Meg was very surprised to see me be gone for 30 minutes while simply going out to get her a coffee. I told her my comedy of errors. She was getting a good chuckle out of that, and would later nuke up her coffee in my microwave.
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We then went to ShopRite Liquors of Sparta, figuring they would have decent selection for our weekend fun. What in the world were we thinking going to a grocery store parking lot two days before a massive snowstorm nor'easter was predicted? We survived the controlled chaos, lots of people everywhere trying to stock up before getting snowed inside their homes.
Awesome Girlfriend Megan was my copilot, and as we went down 94 we drove by a store that we have drive by a zillion times. She casually mentioned someday she wanted to go in it, merely out of curiosity because we have driven by it all the time. On our way back from our liquor store run, I surprised her and took a left hand turn to explore the store. It was a basic consignment shop, nothing to write home about. We were just happy to finally scratch that itch of curiosity off of us.
There was some excitement on our way to the store. Right when I put on my left blinker and started to turn left, an ambulance turned on their lights and sirens, started to go more towards the middle of the road behind me. I had instant nightmares of getting driven into by an ambulance. Meg didn't understand why I was so shaken because she couldn't see what I could see in our rearview mirror. When I told her about everything then she understood. She said "you sound like you could go for a beer?" I said "thank you so much, yes I am!"
We did successful lunch at The Cottage in Franklin and gave a toast to our friends, The Space Family. Last week Fred Space passed away at the age of 92. He was always so nice to me, Meg and the kids whenever we visited Space Farms Zoo & Museum. We'll get more into that in a moment.
Saturday afternoon Meg and I were on my couch watching The Senior Bowl, which is a college football all star game featuring Senior players from all across the country. After both mine and Meg's teams missed the playoffs, we were basically scouting the young players who we help save our teams in the future. I had fun scouting. After a half Meg fell asleep for a nap.
Saturday night we had a great time with Jasen and Brendan, with our meatballs starring the night. They came out great, and I'm still ticked I forgot to take a picture of them. They look similar to the meatballs from a few weeks ago, but they were bigger.
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As much as I'm comfortable and love my cats and dogs for my Pet Of The Week, I'm definitely not comfortable among other wildlife and exotic animals. My friends Lori, Hunter, Jill and Parker have always understood that and still embraced me with great patience. The whole Space family has always been so amazing to us.
Sunday afternoon, Meg and I ran into our besties from work Shawn and Kim at Space Farms. Sunday they had their visitation so you could see Fred Space. The family did a fantastic job clearing out everything so we could honor Fred. As we are approaching Space Farms, you could see a gorgeous American Flag hung between two firetrucks.
Right when we arrived, we were greeted by Lori Space Day. She's always been so great to me, Meg and the kids. She was happy to see Awesome Girlfriend Megan, and introduce me to her husband Doug. It was great to finally meet him. Talk about feeling right at home the second you get there. Parker hugs me, and was so proud to say the local fire departments have all been helping with their amazing tributes, and that they even did all of the coordinating. Hunter Space informed me that Fred Space was a volunteer firefighter for 77 years. Unbelievable.
Parker then offered me a souvenir. It is a skull of a fox, which I now have in my office. To many, this would be an odd souvenir. For me it's much more than a souvenir. Parker always talks and jokes about roadkill. He and his family pick up so many dead deer which is a huge help for the both our community and feeding the lions and tigers at the Zoo. When Meg and I were with them a few weeks ago at The Cottage, Parker was joking about how he was grilling roadkill for them for dinner. He admitted he gets such a big kick out of informing people after the meal that they had just been given roadkill, and enjoyed it!
Parker told me that one of his very favorite things to do with his Dad growing up was collecting roadkill together. He gave me a very precious souvenir, that will always remind me of Parker's great times with his Dad. It will always remind me of great times with my Dad too. Sometimes a roadkill fox skull, can be much more than just a roadkill fox skull.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Stay safe during this Epic snowstorm. After we dig out time to start planning Super Bowl Weekend next weekend!
UPDATE: now we can let the cat out of the bag. Today, February 1st is Steve Andrews' 30th anniversary of hosting mornings on 102.3 WSUS! They asked him to temporarily host mornings, and in typical radio fashion a temporary situation turned into 30 years.
Bill Snouffer was sitting side by side with me a couple years ago when we watched Steve Andrews get inducted into the New Jersey Broadcasters Association Hall Of Fame. Today he announced that we are declaring this to be STEVE ANDREWS WEEK. Every morning this week, you'll hear many of our friends and elected official friends congratulating him. This will be fun!