4th of July Weekend

Well, it started out pretty freaking lame....  Our city has "the biggest fireworks display in the midwest."  I put that in quotes, because that's what the newspapers say, though I'm not sure I quite believe it.  Yes, Red, White & Boom is an impressive display of fireworks, as evidenced below, but I'm not sure it's the biggest....

Sorry that first one is kind of blurry, if I could have anything for my birthday it would be a new camera.  It doesn't help that it was the end of me coming off the medication, so I was having weird tremors trying to hold still to take pictures....  Anyway, since my step-dad works until 10:30 my mom didn't have anyone to watch the fireworks with, so I volunteered the big kids and myself to go with her.  We used to go downtown every year when Nick and I were together with the boys, but it got difficult when he was gone to manage two little ones, so we stopped going.  Never mind the fact that every creep, freak, hillbilly, redneck, younameit, is downtown on this particular night.  My mom wanted to watch the fireworks from Huntington Field, which is where our minor league baseball team plays.  A quick $10 a person got us seats to some freaking lame ass music and a nice downtown view of the fireworks.

It was a pretty decent time.  The big kids were acting retarded as usual, but they pretty much were able to run around and do whatever.  When the fireworks were getting ready to start, we were allowed to move down onto the field.  It was pretty cool to be sitting down there on such finely manicured grass.  I promptly took my shoes off and ran my toes through it :)

(Gavin and his air guitar)

(Kids acting retarded, see, I told ya....)

(It's like they wanna play in the band or something...)

(Umm, that's my mom.. I don't know if I've ever posted a pic of her)

(Me & the big kids, yeah, you say they look like me until you get a glimpse of their dad.....)

(Toes in the nice grass....)

After the fireworks were done, we waited in traffic for what seemed like forever, but was only like 45 minutes and dropped the mom back off at her house and the big kids back off at my house.  I went and picked up Nicole for some adult non-family time.....

We went up to my sister's bar where I was supposed to be meeting a friend I used to go to school with.  I had met him up there the night before, so I didn't know if he'd actually show up for a second round....  Turned out, he did and we all sat on the patio drinking shots and shooting the shit for the rest of the night.  When the bar closed, we all headed right across the street to one of Nicole's friends apartment where we continued to party.  I was too drunk to drive all the way home, so it was a good thing we hung out there.  Nicole had one too many shots and ended up like this:

(I like to call this her "dead to the world" pic)

I literally sat on top of her dry humping away trying to wake her up with no luck....  She was out like a light.  As the sun started to come up, I fell asleep on the other couch.  At 9am I woke up panicked because when there are kids home (even when it's just the big ones) I NEVER stay out all night.  I grabbed Nicole and we headed back to the house.

As we're driving down the road getting ready to turn into my neighborhood a car pulls out in front of me.  It's my mother....  FUCK....  What the hell is she doing going to my house unannounced at this hour of the morning?  We pull in behind her and she is spastic going on and on about her missing wallet.  She didn't even ask why we were pulling in behind her.  Sadly, the wallet was not in my car from the night before.  She was seriously flipping the fuck out especially because she had to travel  the following week.  She hurried home to cancel her cards and all that nonsense, while Nicole and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Saturday was pretty much spent lounging around in the sun working on that bad tan line with the cast and napping.  After all, I had a birthday party to go to on Saturday night back up at the sister's bar.  I took Nicole to work and headed home to get ready around 5.  I'm not sure what happened in the process, but I laid down and didn't wake back up until shortly after 9 when my phone was going off with people asking me where the hell I was.  I managed to get up to the bar shortly before 10 and the party was going on.  I only got a few pictures that night because there were toooooooo many shots flowing....

(That's Sandi on the left, it was her birthday and we were drinking lemon drop shots)

(Monica, Me & Sandi)

That picture right above could have been so much better....  Monica, the one on the left is my favorite friend of Sandi's.  She stands about 5'3" and is a little British spitfire.  She's freaking awesome.  

Sometime around midnight all of us carted Sandi out and she headed home before her train derailed.  I stayed behind with some people, which proved to be a bad decision in the end.  Let's skip the ugly details and just say that I had to go back to Sandi's house and get my car in the morning and my keys were nowhere to be found.  Well, eventually they were found laying on the passenger floor of the car, but that wasn't the worst part of the morning....  Ugh, damn shots got the best of me....

Sunday was the parade and fireworks for our suburb.  The big kids were riding in our neighbor's truck that shoots flames out of the stacks, so it was just supposed to be me & E.  I didn't know how long he would make it considering it was like 92 degrees out, but whatever.  My mom called just before we were getting ready to go and said her, my niece and my step-dad were coming to watch with us.  Whatever, we all walked over to the parade route and met up with Nicole.

(Somebody needs a haircut and wouldn't leave his hat on...)

(There, that's better)

(Princess Lili in her 4th of July best)

(The big kids in the hillbilly truck.  One's in the passenger seat and the other at the back of the truck with the painted face)

Told ya we were hillbilly as hell around here....  Anyways, after the parade the big kids went who knows where and me & E laid down for a nap.  I was a little depressed that Josh hadn't called me since we had argued all weekend while he was gone and now he was back in town.  I knew that E wouldn't stay up late enough for us to watch the suburb fireworks, so I planned on staying home all night. 

As it turned out, he took a nap from 7-8:30 and was ready to go.  We headed over to Nicole's moms  house and ate & watched fireworks there.  Josh texted me that he was sad he wasn't watching the fireworks with me and I was sad.  I went home after the fireworks, put the little guy to bed and made a drink.  After lots of trying on his part, I finally got all spiffed up and headed over to the party where Josh was.  I hadn't seen him since Wednesday.  Let's be real honest here, I looked hot, and I did it on purpose.  He acknowledged, which I said before shocked the shit out of me and we had a great evening.

Monday we laid around all day messing with the kids and getting the house picked up from the weekend.  I was happy with the way the weekend had ended and ready to go back to work.  Too much family time will kill this girl....