My Epic Weekend In Pictures: Graduations Are Memorable - And Work!

I need a weekend from my weekend! I know I'm sorry, I also get annoyed when people say that. This weekend was certainly a memorable one we won't ever forget. There were definitely some fun laughs along the way, that's for sure.

We will start my Epic Weekend In Pictures with Friday morning. Friday morning in Sussex County a wonderful annual tradition happened with our local law enforcement officials doing their torch run to support Special Olympics. This one is very near and dear to my heart. My Dad (Padre,) is a recently retired Lieutenant Corrections Officer who was on the force for 35 years. I have some good friends on the force both in Jersey and in New England. I always think about my dear friend Luke. I have known Luke for all of us 16 year old life, he's next door neighbor and friend to my parents. Luke has autism, and is one of the most amazing friends I have ever known. Even though I've been here in Jersey for 7 years, every time I go back home to visit my family and I hear Luke say "HI Steve!" it means the world to me. Luke's parents, Jill and Joe are our friends, and amazing. Every December I try to time out my vacation so I can take a long weekend, visit my family and New England and embark on an important mission. Luke loves marching bands. Every December Luke leads my family and now the neighborhood on a march with instruments. We call ourselves The Walnut Street Marching Band. He loves recording our march on his iPad and then watches it judging how well he did all day long. I'm absolutely a proud member of The Walnut Street Marching Band.

Thank you so much, to all of our local law enforcement teams. Not just for my shirt to honor, but for what you do every single day, all year long.

Friday after work, it was time for a much needed massage. I went over to Vernon and saw my favorite massage therapist Elaine. She is the best massage therapist I have ever had. She helped get out so many of my knots from stress, her medical style is almost an art form. Her number is 973-534-7478. You can definitely tell her I recommended you. She's fantastic.

Then after that, I went home, drank two vodka seltzer drinks and was in bed by 9:30pm. Definitely not the most Epic of Friday nights, but that's okay, I knew we had plenty of work to do.

Saturday was a big day for our family. Future Stepdaughter Hailey just graduated from Rutgers, and Future Stepdaughter Amanda is graduating from Hackettstown High School. Between eldest Future Stepdaughter Caitlyn having her baby shower next month and everything else happening this summer, it was definitely the best decision to do a combo Graduation party. Earlier in the week Meg asked me to be at her place in Hackettstown by 7:30am. As we got closer and closer realizing all the work we had to do, she bumped that up to 7am. With it being such a big day, I was nervous all night about oversleeping. Talk about insanity, I woke up every single hour worrying I was oversleeping. My alarm was set for 5:30am Saturday morning. What time do I wake up during weekdays? 5:35am. I don't stress all night about oversleeping for that yet this I did. Go figure.

By 5:58am, I was on the road. Leaving Campus (Great Gorge Village in Vernon,) attempting to take a left turn onto Route 94 I noticed the paving crew hard at work. After a couple of minutes they warned me while the road wasn't technically closed, I wouldn't be able to use it for quite a while. Yikes. I took a right hand turn then pulled over to turn on Google Maps. In my 5 years of being with Meg, I have never made a right hand turn off Campus to go see her. I relied heavily on Google Maps, which had me go to Mountain Creek, take the left onto Sand Hill Road and basically be parallel to 94. I never didn't know where I was, but stuck to Google Maps trusting their recommendation would probably be quicker than the way I knew. I still made it to Hackettstown by 6:55am!

Then it was on our way back on the road to Meg's Awesome Mommy's place in Pipersville, PA. Pipersville is about an hour southwest of Hackettstown, approximately 2 hours from me in Vernon. Road trip times! Then from 8am-12pm, the pressure and intensity was on! Meg learned that while I can blow up a balloon, I cannot successfully tie a balloon. This was probably a glitch in the party preparation, as they blew up approximately one gazillion balloons for this, give or take. I like how boys parties usually apparently don't involve balloons, lol.

Awesome Girlfriend Megan is like me fiercely competitive and a perfectionist at times. When even decorations don't go perfectly like she wants, it's not a fun time. To be fair, I'm totally the same way. I sold myself as the gopher. Whenever anyone needed me to take out the trash or run and go get something, I did it. I did successfully hang one congratulations inflatable onto the entry archway at least.

I think everyone had a great time at the party. Terrific job on the grill from my future brother in law Kevin. He's quite the grill master. Meg's Awesome Mommy Rita and Pop were terrific hosts. They were so supportive. The kids had a fun pool party. We'll take those wins.

I think we got back to Hackettstown by Midnight after all the festivities and cleaning up and traveling had happened. It's honestly kind of a blur.

Sunday morning I had one more big mission: to bring back pickles to Sussex County. I promised my dear friend Artie that I would bring him pickles from Kilhaneys The Pickle Store in Hackettstown. Can you believe we have a store that sells nothing but pickles? Their owner is a good dude, who honestly remembered me despite me not being there since the pandemic. I was so happy to get my jar of full sour pickles (so good!,) and Artie's Spicy Garlic Pickles. I met up with Artie at The Irish Cottage Inn in Franklin. Of course there were several jokes about my pickles being made. These spicy garlic pickles had a gooood kick.

I then spread some of my pickle love over to Tiki Bar at Kite's on Campus with Natalee and Dave. They loved my original full sour pickles. So refreshing! I then went home after sharing my pickles with all of Sussex County (LOL.)

After a long weekend, I was in bed very early last night and probably will be tonight too.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Time to start planning next weekend!