Road trip days 1-5! HUGE post alert!

As some of you know we just got back from a long road trip. Overall it was a lot of fun. Before I go into the details of the trip let me list the good, the bad and the ugly. The good: Seeing our many friends and family. Eme being a angel in the car 95% of the time. Spending much needed time together as a family. Seeing many church sites. Going to Huntington Lake, a Royals game, CoCo Keys, the Omaha Zoo, and all the way yummy places to eat that we don't have here (Pepper Jacks, Quaker Steak & Lube, and Ted's Buffalo Grill top the list). Taking advantage of the fact that the places we stayed have cable (Jer and I are too cheap to get it but we love it!). The Bad: Jer having a little bit of a lead foot and getting a speeding ticket. Me being a space case and locking the keys in the trunk. Eme throwing almost everything she gets her hands on. Cheap diapers that hold like one ounce of pee. The ugly: Jeremy getting the maddest that I have ever seen him at the Manager of the Sleep Inn in Denver. My bruised up leg from my experience at Youth Conference. I will explain all the details as I go but for those her just like to read a little and then look at the pictures, there you go. So we started our little adventure Saturday Aug. 23rd. After packing just about everything we own in our car, we headed down to meet up with Jeremy's family at a lake just outside of Price. It was a fun day of playing in the muddy water and riding the wave runner (I love those things!). We also found out that by April there will be 29 grandchildren in the Stout family. So far we know one is a girl and we are kind of hoping for 2 more but anything will be good. It is a little crazy to be in a family that everyone else has kids like crazy and Jeremy and I struggle so much but it helps when the babies come along and I can get my baby fix just about anytime I want. Well the next day was Jeremy's youngest brothers mission farewell. Yep, the baby of the Stout home as finally left the nest. We are going to miss Justin and am sure he will do great work in Africa. This is a cute video of Eme being a little dare devil on her cousins four wheeler. Yes, Jeremy was very proud.
After a great family dinner on Sunday we left and headed to Denver. After Eme slept for a couple hours she watched a movie and then we stopped at a rest stop to eat a snack and let Eme run around for awhile. If anyone of you have taken I-70 from Utah to Colorado you know how beautiful it is. I can't even remember what town we stopped in but it was of course, gorgeous.

After that the sun went down so we couldn't see our beautiful surroundings. About a hour outside of Denver Eme started to get a little restless but she was still doing O.K. That is when we saw the flashing lights that everyone dreads. Jeremy was apparently going 79 mph in a 55 zone. Whoops! Of course Eme didn't make a peep the whole time the police officer was talking to us but started really whining after that. I was kind of hoping that if she cried he was give us a break but no, he wrote the ticket up for every last mile. Well about an hour later than we had hoped we finally reached the Sleep Inn that Jeremy had made reservations through priceline for. This is where a explain the ugly of our trip. The Saturday before we left we still hadn't decided if we were going to try and camp that day or get a hotel and where at. So I told Jeremy if he got a cheap hotel that we should just do that, being Sunday and all. So he made a bid for $40 and it was accepted, or so we thought. Anyway, so we get to the hotel and I let Jeremy go in while I stayed with Eme. After about 5 minutes she had had it so I got her out and we started walking towards the lobby. That is when I heard the yelling, well Jeremy doesn't really yell but he was talking very loud. Apparently what was happening was the the manager wasn't going to accept our bid even though priceline said they did because the Democratic National Convention was going on and the rooms we selling for about 5 times there regular rate. So to say the least Jeremy was not happy about this. She was refusing to do anything to help us out and told Jeremy he needed to leave of she would call the police! So that is when I starting to tell Jeremy that we should just go if she isn't going to help us. That is when she saw Eme and started feeling badly for us. Hey, whatever works right? So after a few more heated words everyone calmed down and we ending up staying there for just about $10 more that we were thinking it would be. So we finally got to our room and got Eme to bed at 12:30 in the morning. Long day! The next day we drove around and saw some of the sights while Eme slept and then we met up with Eme's birth mom. Most of you know that we have a very open adoption and keep in touch with her. We saw her for a hour in May when we were on our way to Florida but this was the first time since then. It was so good to see her and we got to meet some her family which was another added bonus. We spent the afternoon and evening with her. This is a funny video of Eme at a park in Colorado. !

Both Jeremy and I don't think the visit could have gone any better and everything was great till I went to get Eme's pjs and locked the keys in the car. So again we added some money and extra time to our trip that we didn't plan on. So we finally got on our way at about 9:30 that night and started heading towards Kansas. We had decided earlier that day that instead of camping we would just start heading towards Kansas and see how far we made it. We went till about 2 in the morning and then stopped and slept in the car at a truck stop for about 4 hours. Surprising we all slept pretty well. So the next morning we got up and drove to Daisie and Jake's place in Kansas City. After we rested for awhile we went to a Royals game.


It was a lot of fun even though we didn't get to see to much of the game because the girls we pretty entertaining on their own. The next day Jer was a trooper and let Daisie and I decorate her house while he watched T.V. and then we went to a shopping area by Daisie's place called the Legends. The girls got to play in the fountains and had a blast until they told us we couldn't anymore. After that we went to dinner at Ted's Buffalo Grill. Jeremy and I were excited to go there cause they had them in Virginia. The best thing is the pickles (yes, pickles) they give you when you sit down. Yummy!