It's About Time!! (warning, its a long one)

I have been meaning to (and have been getting bugged to) blog for quite some time now. So I suppose since work is a little slower today that I will blog about our trip to Missouri.

We left at 1:40am on Wednesday night/Thursday morning after we had taken a 3-5 hour nap. Aaron drove the whole time and we took his Dodge Ram truck. It was so nice! I love to travel with him! It made me miss the time I went with him in his semi truck to California last year… Anyway, we got to Saint Louis at about 8am St Louis time. We stopped at a truck stop and I got changed out of my travel clothes into some nice, picture worthy clothes, put on my makeup and put my contacts in. Then off to the Arch we went!! We are such tourists btw… We took all kinds of silly pictures, some we tried to make it look like we were leaning on the Arch or pushing it… then we went into the base of the Arch (we didn’t go up in it because we have both done that before and it was $10 per person) Aaron had to take off his belt to get through the metal detector and he felt so awkward taking it on and off in front of a bunch of people! We walked around the museum and went to a gift shop… got some salt water taffy (yum) and hard candy (turned out to be D-sgusting even though the cashier said it was the best thing in the store). Then when we were walking back to the truck we put our new candies on a bench and took pictures of our spoils… like I said. Tourists.

So then we went to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. When we got out of the truck and started walking in, Aaron accidentally dropped the camera. No big deal right? A camera falling from the hands of a 6’4” man should be fine right? Wrong. All the pictures erased!!! Needless to say we were both disappointed but since its on the way home we made the decision that we would stop on the way back to Michigan on Sunday to take more pictures at the Arch. Then it was on to the Brewery Tour which lasts about an hour. It was pretty neat. Then they give you two “samples” of beer… those are not sample size btw. I hated beer… and still do. Aaron got my sample number 2 (shhhh).

We arrived at Aaron’s friend, Brandon K’s, house later that morning and sat and talked with Brandon and his g/f Toni for a minute. Then B’s mom called. Her truck wouldn’t start. Off we went to the rescue…. The rescue that ended up taking until 2 in the morning!!! No joke!!! So that was day 1.

We woke up the next morning (Friday) and made breakfast then went to the river to ride the “rapids”! apparently this river is usually a category 4 or 5 rapid so I was a little nervous about injuring my foot. They gave me a boat sized raft so I wouldn’t knock it on anything though. We got dropped off at the top of the river and when we got in everyone commented that it seemed a little low but it should get better… yeah, it didn’t… we were pretty much walking (and slipping and falling on the slimy rocks) all the way to the end of the river… not fun. And the water was like swimming in a dirty toilet.

Later that night, after everyone washed the toilet water off, we went to sprint car and modified car races. They race on a dirt track and we had front row seats… Walked away covered in a film of dirt! But it was still fun. Stopped by a local establishment on the way home and played a couple of games of pool then went home and to bed.

July 4, Happy birthday America! We woke up and Toni made breakfast. Then we “went into town” to get some fireworks then to B’s moms to watch the boys shoot each other with said fireworks. We also shot clay pigeons… for those of you who don’t know that’s when they throw clay disks into the air and you shoot them with guns. I was showing the boys up half way through so I took a break and let them finish it off (didn’t want to injure their egos too much). We stayed there until maybe midnight then went back to B’s. At this point I was getting tired of the constant smoke and swearing and was ready to go home.

We left the next day (Sunday) at around 3 Michigan time. Stopped at the arch to take more pictures and stopped a little ways away to have one more experience. Waffle House. Would I say that I am glad that I did it? No. Would I say that the food was good? No. But now I can say I have done it. Overall it was a good vacation. The best parts for me were when Aaron and I were experiencing things together like the arch and the brewery…

I was glad to come home and get away from the swearing and smoke but sitting here at work today (one week since we were in Saint Louis) I have been thinking, my worst day traveling with Aaron is better than my best day waking up at 6am to go to work. I miss it already.

But I am grateful to be able to have times like that! God is amazing for putting me in this place in life and I could not be more thankful for my family, my wonderful BF and my more than amazing BFF (love you boo). Tomorrow is Friday, yay, then onto a relaxing weekend.