This weekend my goal was to get a little bit of rest and relaxation after my parents visited me here in Jersey last week. At times I did accomplish just that, but not too often. My Epic Weekend In Pictures just kept growing by the minute it seemed. It was a great reminder of how lucky I am to have so many wonderful friends. Friday night started with some terrific friends at The Irish Cottage Inn in Franklin, then I met up with besties Jasen and Brendan over at Kite's. It was great to see bartender friend Kevin who is so sweet, and my former colleague Corey with his brother Kevin. We all had a wonderful time catching up together. Good, quiet low key night all while trying to beat the rain. We were able to successfully beat the rain, even though the skies were dark for a few hours. The heavy rain only happened overnight into the next morning. Every summer we use words on the radio like "scattered," and "isolated," for showers, because it really depends on where you are and when. In Vernon I bet we had almost 2 inches of rain. My friends in Hackettstown seemed to get just under 1 inch.
Saturday morning I was able to successfully pick up and drop off some shirts. I'm very happy this load was only 3 shirts, whereas last week was 12. It feels great to be more caught up with that stuff. It's just like car problems, they don't go away and fix themselves. Saturday afternoon I was able to make a quick pitstop at Savioli's Raviolis in Franklin. Usually once a week I get my plain roast beef sandwiches from them with their delicious bread. It's probably the best roast beef sandwich I've had in our beautiful area. How can I not at least surprise a friend with some raviolis when Raviolis is literally in their name? I bought one buffalo chicken ravioli, and a shrimp and scallops ravioli. The gentleman at Savioli's takes great pride in their food. He glowed when I checked out with these two raviolis, happily bragging that those are their two best ones. That made me even more excited to surprise my friends with it. Saturday night was a quiet, but fun night grilling. My friend had just purchased cedar planks that I had never grilled with before in my hobby. I was definitely intrigued. We grilled garlic shrimp, salmon, cod, and asparagus. Everything we did came out fantastic! The grilling was honestly a team effort, since I'm still a little rusty, and more experienced with my electric grill vs. gas grill. I'm still ready to swim away after all of the delicious seafood we grilled. It felt great to eat extremely healthy too. We tried the raviolis, which I think is my first time ever trying that. I just don't like pasta. These were great ones for me to try, because I love buffalo chicken (too much,) and shrimp and scallops. I tried the shrimp and scallops, and don't like the shells it turns out. My friend promised me there wasn't any cheese in them either. Even though I didn't like the ravioli, I'm happy to have tried it and now know for the future. If there was a ravioli for me, that would have been the one.
1 of 6 2 of 6 3 of 6 4 of 6 5 of 6 6 of 6
Sunday morning I was able to get some errands and clean up some things around my place. I did breakfast and hate to admit it took me at least 25 minutes to get bacon bits out of my teeth! Ever have one of those days where nothing you do to try and get stuff out is working? I brushed my teeth, flossed repeatedly, did Listerine mouthwash, and then brushed my teeth again! After probably 30-40 annoying minutes it finally got out and I honestly felt like a new man! Once you know it's there that will be quite the annoying problem. I then did a lap at Maple Grange Park in Vernon, where the wind was intense. Even though I was wearing my Under Armour white hoody, that wind was still freezing my Caboose off! It was great seeing so many people having fun with both baseball and softball games happening there at the same time.
Sunday afternoon let the parties begin for sure! My first stop was in Vernon to see my bestie Carrie's grandmother Gigi celebrate her 90th birthday. They have all always made me feel like I'm part of the family with them. I've had a great time celebrating Mother's Day, Easter and several other holidays with all of them. It was great to have that family fun party for sure. Then after having a beer with them 50 minutes later, it was time for my next stop. Off to work bestie Shawn's place for Ruby's going away party.
Ruby is Shawn's niece, but also like another niece for me. Tough to believe I've known her for over 10 years. During the summer we have fun together relaxing at Crystal Springs Vista 180 Pool, and the next month won't be the same without her. We won't be feeling bad for her though, Ruby is studying abroad in Italy! We had a great time doing selfies on Shawn's deck with the gorgeous views you can see from there. I've joked in the past that Shawn can even see Russia from her house. While that wasn't possible due to the partly cloudy conditions, we could still almost see High Point Monument, which you can see from there on a clear day. We had a great time. It was entertaining watching my Stinnett ladies, Shawn, Stacey and Ruby all trying very hard to make pasta for everyone. Even though they did much better than I ever would have, it was entertaining watching them trying to figure everything out in real time.
On to the next! My dear friend Paul Marino told me about how his sister in law and brother in law were playing in a band at Lamp Post. At this point, that's only 10 more minutes away from where I was at Shawn's place.
All 3 of my parties ended up being in Vernon! Each one was comically only ten minutes away from the next one. I joked with friends about hitting a Vernon Triangle Trifecta of some sort. It was almost like a pub crawl for me. I'd go to one party, have a drink with my friends, hang out, catch up, and then go onto the next party! It was fun. I had a great time with Paul, Paula, Artie, Margie, Donna and Tina. The band Kootz were a terrific classic rock cover band.
My Epic Weekend In Pictures was pretty busy, and fun too. Overall it was an action packed fun weekend. Time to start planning next weekend!
1 of 5 2 of 5 3 of 5 4 of 5 5 of 5