This was definitely a fun summer weekend. I had as much fun as the weather allowed us to at least. There was fun with friends, more grilling adventures, not fun chores such as finally cleaning my oven. Ugh! Thursday night I was able to have some Happy Hour / Guest Appreciation fun with my coworkers at Industry in Sparta. It was needed after my Pet Of The Week scratching me a few times drawing some blood. I put my blood sweat and tears into this Pet Of The Week literally! Friday I had fun going out to Kite's at Minerals with besties Jasen, Brendan, and Spooner, plus our favorite bartender Kevin. I then ran into my friend Kristen, who does such a great time running PupStock at The Sussex County Fairgrounds every August. She was helping out a wedding and making everything beautiful, just like Kristen always does. Jasen and Brendan were very interested in the ladies there who were dressed up as flight attendants. Kristen informed us that she hired them to perfectly fit the wedding theme. The boys were very happy to learn an answer to that mystery. I barely noticed them, yet the boys were nonstop curious and intrigued by the flight attendant costumes. Good comedy gold with best friends on a Friday night. I then had an early, quiet Friday night in watching shows on NFL Network. I know. I'm quite the wild child...not. LOL.
Saturday we can call it as "Steve vs. his oven." I think the oven is winning! Long story short, a couple of months ago while cooking my smoke detector went off. I really hate when smoke detectors go off, never want to make any of my neighbors nervous by hearing that. Shared dwelling living. I was cooking one of my Cape Cod Cafe frozen pizzas following the directions cooking at 450. When Madre and Padre were visiting me, they told me that even their old oven used to set off the smoke detector when cooking anything that high of a temperature. My oven is probably 40 years old I'm betting. They could tell while visiting that my oven was definitely clean. I still wanted to clean it more just to say I gave it everything possible. I bought a good oven cleaner product a few weeks ago and finally put it to work Saturday. I sprayed the foam oven cleaner product on there, and followed instructions giving it over 90-120 minutes to dry. I then went through not one, but two wet sponges to try and get all potential film off of it. My friends gave me an A for effort. My parents have told me that it might be best for me to have my living room slider door open to just my screen. That's an acceptable solution this time of year, but not the other 9 months a year when it's too cold outside to do that. My oven was already clean, but I scrubbed it even more. Yes, you can insert jokes about it being clean because I seldom actually use it. Believe me, friends have been busting on me with that all weekend.
Saturday night I had another fun grilling adventure with clams and flank steaks. Believe it or not, this was the first time I tried grilled clams. I had never even had them before in my life! I love New England Clam Chowder, and have enjoyed clam cakes. It was definitely plausible for me to like them, but you never know until trying it. I loved it! We did a Sauvignon Blanc white wine for the sauce, with lemons and butter. We forgot to add garlic that would've made it even better, but these clams were fantastic in the sauce anyway. The marination on flank steaks was terrific keeping them juicy, and I grilled them to be a perfect medium rare. Redder is better!
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Sunday my main goal was to hit up The Vista 180 Pool at Crystal Springs. It finally stopped raining for a little while, and we wanted to make the most of it! I had such a great time with besties Shawn and Stacy, plus Christine and Carrie. That is definitely my Heaven on Earth Happy Place! The gorgeous views of the infinite pool, Wild Turkey Golf Course and the valley beyond it, just are amazing. I always find so much peace and happiness there. I might be Norm from Cheers when it comes to The Vista 180 Pool. I laid out in the sun for 60-90 minutes or so. With it being my first time out in the sun basically all this year due to weather, I was proactive and put on sunscreen SPF 30 and lathered myself heavily in it. I did a great job of that apparently because you can't even tell I was relaxing poolside yesterday at all. All good. We still had a great time with our friends. After getting home, I strategically turned my oven on without cooking anything in it to test everything. I had my living room slider open with the screen door, and the oven vent fan on too. I was on the phone with Padre telling him my process. I could see a little tiny bit of smoke / steam in the oven probably from the oven cleaner, despite all of that scrubbing and drying I did. Of course this was the quickest goodbye ever to Padre when the smoke detector started going off again. I was furious, or fuming if you want to make a pun.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Time for me to start planning next weekend. It's not just Father's Day Weekend, this Saturday I'll be at The NJ Food & Beer Festival at Crystal Springs. That's definitely one of my favorite days all year. #WhatCanPossiblyGoWrong? ;)
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