In Love and Married

~10~

Land of the Giants

Previously

"That's the beauty of it all, Bomber, you don't have to do anything, trouble just follows you" Ram said laughing hysterically. I kicked his ass and started running away from them laughing until Ranger caught up with me picked me up smiling and kissing me.

"You never disappoint Babe and that's one of the many things I love about you."

/

After the ordeal with the rent-a-cops, we went on our way to see what this place had to offer. I was wishing with all I had that it would be a lot of fun, for the sake of my Merry Men. If this is a bust, they will bury me alive.

Just after entering the park there was an area that explained a little history . The park opened in 1960 because the owner was impressed with the fiberglass dinosaur at a putt putt golf course in Florida. When we finished reading the history of the park, we headed for the area where the dinosaurs were located. First, we saw a Stegosaurus; it was a plant-eating dinosaur. It had two rows of plants down its back; he looked pretty so I took pictures with that guy. Another dinosaur called the Coelophysis which was 6 feet-tall I named him Morelli. Then I saw a Megalosaurus aka Halosaurus, I took pictures with all the dinosaurs, Ranger and my band of brothers were good-natured about everything.

After the Dinosaur exhibit, we walked around the gift shop and bought some little things for everyone back home. The purchases were mainly key chains with the dinosaur that best represented each of my Merry Men. At the back corner of the park, there were scenes of dino on dino violence where a Triceratops gouges a T Rex, and a Megalosaurus eating another dinosaur, well you get the idea. It was all so much fun.

"Well what do you all think so far, isn't this fun?" I asked with the excitement of a child. Ranger came over, wrapped his arm around me, and kissed me on the cheek saying that he enjoyed it so far. My Merry Men were posing for pictures and showing off their muscles as women were walking by.

"Beautiful, you did good on this one. I have to admit, I like this place," replied Lester. We continued walking and I spotted a couple of the rent-a-cops following us. They were attempting to stay in the shadows but it wasn't happening for them. I stopped, turned back, and headed straight to them.

"Excuse me, what did the police officers tell you back at the front of the entrance? Weren't you told to leave us alone so that we can enjoy the park?" I asked with my hands on hips and a big Jersey attitude. Ranger and the men came over to us waiting for an answer.

"Miss, we're only doing our job, we are not bothering any of you" one of the men replied. Ranger stepped up to get in his face "walk away now or you deal with me," Ranger said with a deadly voice and with very few words he had made his point.

"Yes sir" both of the guards replied in unison and then walked away. Ranger came over, put his arm around me and said "good job Babe, lead the way madam tour guide." I started laughing as I continued talking about the park.

In addition to the dinosaurs, there was a 70 foot-tall purple octopus. I sat on the head acting as if I just captured the animal and Les took pictures. We asked someone to take pictures of all of us on the octopus. There were a group of women with little kids, which I assumed were moms on a field trip, one of the women was more than happy to help us.

Always on flirt mode, Lester was talking up the women and had them giggling, the kids now wanted to take pictures with the guys on the tentacles' of the purple octopus. I was feeling a little left out because no one asked to take pictures with me. I guess my face showed my disappointment because the sweetest little girl maybe 8 or 9, same height as my niece Mary Alice came over to me.

"Hi pretty lady, my name is Stephany, what's your name?" she asked looking up at me with such a sweet smile.

"My name is Stephanie too, how do you spell your name, mine ends with IE," I answered. Little Stephany opened her mouth and said, "I spell mine with a Y."

She took my hand, walked us over to the body of the octopus, sat us both down, and asked her mom to take pictures of just the two of us. She was sitting on my lap and playing with my hair. "Stephanie, why are you the only girl? Where are your friends?" she asked so innocently.

"These are my friends sweetie, that guy over there is my husband" I replied pointing to Ranger as she waved to him. "The other guys are my best friends, but I call them my brothers, I love them like brothers" she stared at the guys waving to them.

"You are so pretty Stephanie; I hope I am as pretty as you when I grow up." She said with a slight sad face. "Oh sweetie, you are more than pretty, you are absolutely beautiful, and you will be gorgeous when you grow up." I replied with what I hope was honesty and not just a statement.

"You think I am beautiful, really? Some of the kids at school call me ugly duckling, they make fun of my hair, and they tell me I'm too skinny." Little Stephany replied with such a serious look on her face. A woman who I assumed was her mother started to walk over to us but Manny stopped her, telling her to hold on for a second.

"Stephany, oh my goodness, you are far from being an ugly duckling, you are beautiful and you are not skinny, your body is perfect for your height and don't let anyone ever say anything mean about your body. Now about your hair, look at my hair it looks like a bird's nest sometimes, well most of the time but I don't let it bother me." She looked up at me with a smile on her face.

"Next time anyone picks on you about how you look, stomp your foot on the ground, put your hands on your hips and say I'm beautiful and don't ever forget it, then walk away. Let me show you, Manny, Ram, Woody, come over here, and pick on me." They came over and started picking on me about my hair, saying I was too tall for a girl and so on. I showed her exactly how to act and walked away with authority.

"Can I practice with your friends?" she asked as she looked at the guys, and they came over to her, started picking on her by making funny noises and faces saying you have funny hair. Stephany copied me exactly as I showed her and the guys stood there as she walked away, she was so dang cute.

"Miss Stephany, now listen to me, if people still pick on you a lot and start bullying you, tell your teacher and mom and dad as soon as you can alright?" Ram was kneeling so they were eye level. "I don't have a daddy, he was in the Marines but he's in heaven now" Stephany replied with sadness and tears.

We all just stood there silent and I had tears in my eyes, it was so sad to see her standing there. I looked at her mom who was now crying. Ram hugged the little girl and told her that they were all former Army and Marines. She hugged him so tight she would not let go.

Stephany's mom Victoria came over to me. "Stephanie, thank you so much for what you just did for my little girl, and you guys have been so wonderful. I had no idea she was going through this bullying at school, I just assumed she was depressed because she lost her dad. "Victoria took a picture of all of us and Stephany, Ram was holding her because she still would not let go of him.

"Stephanie, are you on Facebook or twitter? I'd like to keep in touch with you." Victoria asked.

"No I don't do any of that social media, I can barely keep up with my day to day tasks" I replied laughing. "But here's my card with my contact info, feel free to email me or call. If you ever make it to New Jersey call and we can get together." I said as we exchanged business cards.

"I will definitely keep in touch with you. Ram, I want to thank you so much for being so kind to my girl." Victoria said as she smiled sweetly at Ram, I am not sure when they introduced themselves to each other, but I think someone is smitten.

Stephany came over and gave me another hug; we said our goodbyes and headed towards the remainder of the attractions. The women and their kids were behind us, it appears they would be joining us on the rest of our visit. Hmmm.

We saw a huge fiber glass cobra, I took pictures posing as if I had just wrung its neck, and the kids were laughing at us. There was a 14 foot-tall praying mantis. It was creepy looking. A birthday party room had a Cave Man and Cave Lady. Next was a 20 foot-tall King Kong that was built by the owner, so of course we took pictures.

Ranger reached over and pulled my ponytail, while Manny and Lester yelled, "No way Bomber, you're not climbing King Kong." Woody and Ram started laughing, as did the women and the kids. Victoria asked what that was about, Ram explained about Miles the Monster.

We walked over to the 60 foot-long shark, its mouth was open and had teeth, we posed on the shark, and I sat on the head and slid down looking into his mouth. Apparently, the kids all found this funny; of course, pictures were being taken. I climbed off the head, got on the ground stuck my legs in the mouth, and started screaming quietly as if I was being swallowed. Then I crawled out and stuck my head in the mouth, kicking my legs and again pictures were being taken.

I tried to crawl out but I was stuck on something. I continued kicking and screaming, everyone thought I was still playing around until Ranger realized I wasn't kidding but that I was serious. We didn't want to draw any unwanted attention. The Merry Men tried to help me get out but they couldn't reach in far enough so Ranger asked one of the little boys if he could crawl inside the mouth and try to get me out.

Luckily, there weren't many people around us so we did not attract the rent-a-cops attention. The little boy crawled in and he played around with what was snagging me, it turned out to be my hair band so he kept pulling at it until I was loose. I crawled out to find Ranger standing with his arms crossed and Lester standing with his arm on Manny's shoulder.

"Babe, what am I going to do with you?" he said smiling walking towards me holding out his hand to help me up. I stood up and tried to fix my hair. Little Stephany came over laughing at me "Stephanie, your hair is funny."

"Yeah, Stephany, see what I mean about how crazy my hair can get." I laughed as Victoria handed me a hair clip that she pulled from her bag and I pulled up my hair in the clip and once again, I was a happy camper. We were finished up with all there was to see, so we found a place to stop and get something to drink and I needed to use the bathroom.

Ranger, ever aware of his surroundings walked to the bathroom with me. I took care of my needs, washed my hands, and fixed my hair before joining him outside. As we were walking back, he just laughed at me. "Babe, is there going to be a time throughout this trip that will be boring or uneventful?"

"You're a smart ass you know that? It's not like I plan things or intentionally cause things to happen, you have to admit, you've laughed more on this trip then you have the entire year and it's been fun." I said with a smirk as I stopped walking and kissed him.

"Babe, you were very sweet with Stephany, we should talk about having kids of our own." Ranger shocked me when he said that and all I could do was look at him.

When we joined everyone back at the picnic tables Ranger told us that it was time for our crew to leave for the hotel and have dinner. It seemed that Lester, Manny, and Woody had made plans to go to a local bar later tonight and asked if we wanted to go along, Ranger and I both declined. We left the park and made our way to the parking lot. Ram came over and asked Ranger and I if it was OK if he asked Victoria and Stephany to have dinner with us.

"Ram, we're going to Roma's on Fairfax for dinner, I've made reservations for 7:00pm, they can meet us there" I told Ram and he walked over to Victoria, they talked for a little bit and he came jogging over to the car with a huge smile on his face.

We drove to the hotel; the men unloaded our bags as I went inside to check in. I took the room keys and walked to the dining area where they had bowls of fresh fruit sitting around for the guests. I grabbed some apples, oranges and bananas for all of us. I gave each of the guys their key cards and passed out some fruit as we walked to our room which was nice, the rooms had two king size beds and ours had one king size bed. The rooms were comfortable and spacious.

"Guys, the restaurant is about 10 minutes from here, so we'll meet you in the lobby at 6:45, it's casual. See you in a few hours" I told them as Ranger put the do not disturb sign on the door handle. They laughed and each went into their respective rooms.

I jumped on the bed to get comfortable for a nap, but Ranger had other ideas. One thing led to another, clothes were thrown across the room and the hunk of all hunks was kissing me. "Babe, enough of the touristy stuff, now it's my turn to play tour guide" Ranger said nibbling on my ear; yeah he is a much better tour guide.

After a few rounds of adult fun we both fell asleep, we woke up to the phone alarm. Together we took a shower and started to get ready for dinner. When we finished we took the elevator to the lobby to meet the guys and headed out to the car. Leaving the hotel's lot I gave Ranger the address for the GPS, and we were on our way.

Arriving at the restaurant, we could see Victoria and Stephany already inside waiting. Ranger informed the greeter that we had reservations for a table in the corner of the restaurant. We were escorted to two tables pushed together set up for eight people. It was perfect a little bit away from everyone else but we could keep our eyes on the door, luckily there were only a couple of tables occupied exactly how Ranger likes it.

The restaurant offered an Italian Greek menu. Stephany wanted to sit next to Ram so after shuffling around to make sure we had enough eyes at the door we finally sat down. Lester ordered pitchers of beer, coke, and water and asked Victoria to order a drink for Stephany. Ranger and Manny said they would order the entrees for everyone since they were most familiar with this type of food. Ranger told the man who was taking care of us for our orders to be served family style.

Manny ordered the appetizers for the group. They included Calamari, Bada bang shrimp, Greek mushrooms, and Hummus and mozzarella sticks for Stephany as well as a kid's cheese pizza as her entree. Carlos ran through his list, a family size Italian salad, large veggie pizza, a few pasta dishes, Eggplant Parmesan, Wild Mushroom Ravioli, Spanakopita, Moussaka which I guess is the Greek version of lasagna and Salmon Pomodoro. I noticed no one had even thought about a dessert, I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. "Excuse me, can we please also have the Banana foster bread pudding and Flourless Chocolate cake."

As soon as I finished ordering dessert, I received glares from the entire table, well excluding Stephany and Victoria.

"Babe, seriously" Ranger said with trepidation. "What?" I replied shrugging my shoulder. Ranger put his arm around me leaning in closer to me. "I have plans for you later, I hope all the eating you're about to enjoy doesn't get in the way of our night" he whispered softly and kissed me. I smiled turning red.

The appetizers were absolutely delicious, I especially liked the Greek Mushrooms, the moaning was evident, and Stephany was laughing her head off. Victoria kept nudging her to stop but she continued laughing.

"Victoria, its OK we are all used to this by now, we begin to wonder when there isn't any moaning going on." Ram told Victoria as he was grinning and Stephany continued laughing.

We finished our dinner everything was so scrumptious. I have to say my favorite was the Moussaka; I am going to have to ask Ella to make some I hope she can. Stuffed out of my mind, I was so glad I chose a simple dress to wear otherwise; I would be unbuttoning my jeans.

There were a few conversations taking place at the table and I managed to hear Ram and Victoria making plans, they were going to hang out at the pool when we got back to the hotel and Lester, Manny and Woody were talking about going to the bar but we only had the one car.

"Hey boss, how about we drop you and beautiful off at the hotel and we take the car to the bar?" Lester asked wagging his eyebrow. Ranger laughed and threw the keys to him. I actually wanted to swim in the pool for a little while.

Ranger settled the bill leaving a substantial amount for a tip and we left and drove back to the hotel. Ram rode in the car with Victoria. Lester dropped Ranger and I back at the hotel.

"Boys, behave yourselves, we don't want to get a call in the middle of the night to come and bail you out of jail." I said pointing my finger and trying to sound like a mom.

"Us get in trouble, sorry but our name is not Plum." Woody replied sarcastically. "Ha, my name isn't Plum either smart ass, its MANOSO, or did you forget" I said laughing as I walked away sashaying my hips.

Ranger, Ram, Victoria, Stephany, and I got into the elevator and headed to our rooms, where Victoria, Stephany, and Ram could change into bathing suits, I had no clue when they planned it all.

"Honey, how about we go to the pool and swim for a little bit."

"We can do that Babe that way you can swim off all that food, and dessert you ate, you'll need energy for later." Ranger said wrapping his arms around me, then he slapped me on my butt and I got out of his arms and put on my bathing suit. Ranger looked at me a little funny after I had changed.

"What's the look for?" I asked him. "Nothing, your bathing suit is a little prim and proper, it's cute" he replied smiling.

"Well I figured since we would be at Disney which is family oriented, I didn't want to wear anything too skimpy, but don't worry there is something you'll like for the beach" I answered.

We went down to the pool to find it completely empty; we jumped in and swam a few laps. I was trying to beat Ranger, but he was not going to have any of that. I was behind him so I decided to get under the water and sneak up on him.

I swam quietly under the water until I reached Ranger and grabbed his package, as Grandma Mazur would say; he was a little surprised, dove under grabbing me. I tried to get away but he was holding on too tight. We wrestled with each other for a little bit and came up I got loose and swam away, he chased me and caught up with me. I was laughing hard while screaming and next thing I see Ram running into the pool area, "Bomber, boss are you OK?"

"We're OK Ram" Ranger replied, leading me to the side so we could get out of the pool. The peace and quiet was about to end as Manny, Lester and Woody walked into the pool area, grumbling.

"What's wrong with you three?" I asked.

"Ah the place was full of plain Jane types, totally not our thing, if you catch my drift" Woody replied as he jumped into the pool. Manny threw in a beach ball that was sitting on the side and we all played volleyball. Victoria was keeping her eye on Stephany and Ram would go and talk to her every now and then. There are definitely some sparks going on there.

After about an hour or so of swimming and playing in the water, I walked over to the shallow end but Lester grabbed me and pulled me under. I acted like I couldn't breath and made myself go limp, he took us up and carried me out of the water, kept slapping my face saying "come on Beautiful wake up, I'm sorry", he did that a few times and I lifted up my head and kicked him in the stomach shoving Lester back into the pool.

We all started laughing and Ranger picked me up, wrapping a towel around me, "come on Babe, let's go upstairs, let the youngins play. Men, gym time 0630" we said goodbye to Victoria and Stephany as we walked out towards the elevator.

When we walked into our room, Ranger pulled me up against the wall trapping me inside him arms. "Now Mrs. Manoso you've been a bad bad girl during this trip and I have no choice but to punish you" he said sternly with a wolfish grin on his face as he kissed me.

In the midst of his kisses breathing heavy, I replied, "Mr. Manoso, I have been a very very bad girl and I deserve all the punishment you have planned for me."

/

A/N: Thank you all so much for the reviews and for following the story, hope you enjoyed Stephanie's shenanigans at Dinosaur Land.

What do you think is going on with Ram and Victoria? Hmmm, very interesting.

Next stop, North Carolina, who knows what she'll pull during her NC trip, one can only imagine.

And of course, my story would not have the pizzazz that it does without the magical touch of Susan Peters, THANK YOU SO MUCH...