First America Holiday (7)
    It's about a 4-5-hour drive to Kansas City, depending on the time of day, traffic, etc. I believe Marco and James enjoyed the drive a little more than I did. They were double-teaming me the entire time, both thinking they were little funnymen. hahaha Ok, so they were, but I couldn't tell them that! Besides seeing who could make fun of me quicker, they also both liked the same type of head-banging-druggie music. Marco was doing great with James, and kept him occupied just about the entire trip. The A's lost, but we had a good time anyway. And James, my Gawd, the child barely ever eats, but he had me buy him every damn thing that was being sold by the vendors walking around!
     We (I) drove back home to St. Louis after the game, since Marco had drank an uncountable number of beers during the game. hahaha I stopped for a while to sleep in a rest area. All I needed was an hour or so to sleep and I would be able to continue. However, Marco woke me up to tell me he couldn't sleep and I should start driving again. Hello? If he was so wide-awake then his ass should have drove! But I started the van and started driving again. I continued on for as long as I could. But my eyes were starting to close as I was on the highway. I told him that I didn't have a choice, either I pulled over and slept or he would have to drive himself. It wasn't worth risking me killing us all in an accident. We were about an hour and a half outside of St. Louis by now, so we just pulled over and slept.
    
     We arrived at my house about 6:30am and I had to be in work by 8:00am. Marco and James were originally supposed to go to 6-Flags today, but there was no way. They were both too tired. That night Marco and I were going out to dinner with Brian and a friend. I had promised Marco that I would find a restaurant that would serve his favorite food, Shoarma. It took lots of phone calls, but I finally found a chef that was willing to experiment and make it special just for us.
     While I was at work, Cathi took Marco out to tour the Anheiser Busch Brewery and the St. Louis Science Center. Jim called to tell me he was kidnapping Marco after Cathi dropped him off, to take him to Happy Hour with the guys from his work. Cool, I told him I would go over and stay with the boys until they got home, but to have him home by 7:00pm because we had plans. Well, Brian and his friend came to my sisters' house to wait for Marco to return. By 8:00pm Marco and Jim came stumbling in the front door. OhMyGawd they were so drunk!  They were both laughing their asses off telling me how much fun they had. Jim informed me that they only came home to say hi, and were going back out. Oh really? hahaha I'm glad he THOUGHT that was the plan. I told them that we had already been waiting for an hour and had reservations for dinner and had to go now. He was welcome to take Marco back out, but not until we were done with dinner. Jim decided that was fair enough and actually joined us for dinner.
     So here we were, in the middle of this really nice, quiet little restaurant, with two drunk fools talking as loud as if they were at a ball game. The waitress seemed to be amused by them however, which was good. She easily could have been annoyed and spit on their food! Dinner was definitely an experience, to say the least. But Marco did enjoy his Shoarma, so I was happy. During dinner Cathi had called to check on Jim, and decided to come pick him up and take him home herself. By the time we got home we laid in bed watching tv for a little while, then went to sleep.

     The following day I worked while Marco stayed at home. We were going out to dinner that night, and then right from dinner we were meeting Cathi and Jim at a bar for Karioke night. We showed up at the bar about 2 hours before anyone else and decided instead of sitting there waiting, we would use this gift of time to go take a nap! Jim woke us up by calling and telling us to get our asses to the bar. Now! hahaha Neither one of us felt like moving, much less going back out to a bar. The bed was so comfortable and we were so tired. But we forced ourselves to get up and went to the bar. After a few drinks we were fine. We woke up, went to the bar, and had an awesome time.
     Afterwards a bunch of us went to the gym where Cathi works so they could play Extreme Soccer. Now let me tell ya, sitting on the big fluffy mat as I drank my beer, watching these drunk fools try to play soccer was quite a thrill. There's nothing like seeing a bunch of out of shape middle aged people running around acting like 20 year olds!  Marco had a blast though, and I was thrilled that he had a chance to play.

     Finally, Friday was here and tonight was going to be the first night since Marco had arrived, that we could spend a quiet night at home, alone, with no plans at all. I was looking forward to this night so much! We were driving to Memphis the following day, but that is only a 5-hour drive, so we would have no time schedule all weekend long. Yay! Because by this time I was really starting to feel like Clark Griswald in the movie Vacation.
     While I was at work, Rhonda had called and asked if her and Dave could come by tonight to hang out with Marco and I. Dang, I wanted SO much to just have a quiet night at home, and I know Marco did too. But I also knew that with the schedule we had been trying to keep, that we really wouldn't have much time to visit with them. So I said of course, they were welcome to come over. We had already planned on stopping by their house for a couple of hours on our way to Memphis, so what the hell. I called to tell Marco that we were having visitors tonight and he sounded way less than pleased. He had wanted this quiet evening at home as much as I did. But he understood that we didn't have much other time to visit with them, so he was fine with it. The more I thought about it, I figured that if our night was blown anyway, we might as well make it worth it. So I invited Brian, Cathi, and Jim to join us as well. There is no way in hell that I am typing out my memories of this night. There are a few that I would rather never again remember anyway. (like Cathi and Brian deciding to kiss, like Marco lifting my shirt up over my head twice for all to see, or like Dave crawling his drunk ass into bed with Marco and I at 4:00am) But somehow, we all still managed to have a really good time. Lots of food, drink, laughing, and music. It had turned out well, and I was really glad they all came over. By 3:30am we were still awake and I was ready to sleep for a week.

     We followed Rhonda and Dave to their house the next morning. It was on the way to Memphis so we decided we would stay until about 1:00pm, but no later than 4:00pm. We went to a VFW Post and played some shuffleboard. Then drove the boys down to the lake so they could fish while Rhonda and I hung out and talked. When we got back to their house Marco made an attempt at riding the 4-wheeler. One word, BRAKES! hahaha We were having a really nice day. However, as the clock read 5:30pm and we were still there, I was getting a little more than irritated. I had made it very crystal clear all day that we needed to leave no later than 4:00pm. This was supposed to be a relaxed trip to Memphis, and now it was going to once again be turned into a chore. We wanted to have time to spend in the actual city of Memphis tonight. Well, that was now thrown out the window.
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