Whose Lame Idea Was This Anyway

Mine of course!

Before we left for Kansas we had a 4th of July/birthday celebration on the 2nd. Kerry flew home that morning and we played all day, getting ready for the trip ahead etc. One of Kerry's co-workers owns this truck she has had it for two years and put just over 3,000 miles on it. She asked us to drive it to put miles on it and to take it on the highway. I had been trying to find a way to get a freezer for Cyd and Ken and I found a great buy, the truck enabled us to take it to them. What I didn't plan on was the real size of the truck, it was a beast.

However, Rebecca fell in love with it and wanted to drive it all of the time! Here they are all loaded up and off to buy some fireworks to celebrate with. Caleb was very cute about asking Grandpa if he would go and buy some.
Can you see the excitement? For the truck or fireworks I am not sure which.


I am not sure we would have been able to take the freezer to them if we hadn't taken her truck but it was also kind of expensive to drive across the country. We forgot to take some of the things we were going to take like a case of Nalley's Chile for Cydney, they don't sell it in Kansas, or Colorado apparently.

After they got back we had a little family BBQ and then lined up out front for our firework display. Caleb loved it this year but Spencer was a little more timid than last year.

Early the next morning we loaded up the Trailblazer, and the truck and headed for Kansas. Having made this trip a little over a month ago I knew that this day was going to be a killer. I thought with so many drivers that it would go faster and easier, wrong!

The six of us were finally on our way, Kerry, Rebecca, Rosemarie, Rachel, Cameron, and I.

The day started out beautiful as we went through Spanish Fork Canyon the morning fog was just lifting and it was so pretty. It had been raining through the night and it made me nervous with all of the boxes in the bed of the truck that were uncovered.

It was much prettier than the pictures actually turned out but I tried and we were moving pretty fast.

These two were really having fun in the cab of the truck checking out all of the features...
I was able to lay down or at least stretch out to give my hip a little relief. I had to stop in Glenwood to buy an ice bag to help get a little additional relief...

Cleaning the windshield proved to be a bit of a challenge because she has such big wheels on this thing. It also messed up the accuracy of the speedometer which we won't go into much further!

After a couple of stops in Colorado we got on the road again and it became obvious that we were not going to make it there as fast as I had thought we might, remember I just made this trip a few weeks before, what was I thinking?
As the evening came closer the clouds also came closer and darker. I had been telling everyone how fun it was to drive through Kansas and watch the lightening spread across the sky.... that is as long as it is in front of you. We finally caught up with the storm. By Russel Kansas the parking lot at McDonalds was flooding when we stopped for a break and to get something to eat. Rachel had something behind her back when we went in but I didn't discover what it was until I came out of the restroom. They had made a birthday cake out of Ho Ho's just like they had done for Kerry in his office a month earlier. It was funny and nice of them to think of me on the long and winding road. They even sang Happy birthday to me there.

Do I look tired or what?

We all hoped that the worst of the rain was over at this point but it wasn't so the video will show some of the experience. At one point we pulled over because it was raining so hard we could not see anything and the big rigs were passing us like we were standing still and it was pretty frightening. Stopping only made us a little more nervous and anxious to get there so we plugged along. We finally arrived in Overland Park Kansas at 2:00 a.m. and we still had to go to Cyd's and drop the freezer off before we checked into our hotel rooms. The box was completely worthless as we took it in and the boxes of food also fell apart as we moved them. We kissed Cydney and told her we'd see her in a few hours. I think we all crashed as soon as our heads hit the pillows and I know we weren't ready to get up when alarms went off.

But we were all so anxious to see them and especially to see and hold Nora!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mind you I was so glad we were able to be there but next time it will be a two day trip each way unless it is an emergency
We made a video of the lightening to show everyone how wild it was but it was to long to put on this blog so we put on a shorter one that wasn't as long or dramatic, it does give a little glimpse enjoy!