A Tennessee 4th of July

This is a bit of a story so bare with me….

Jim and I were so undecided as to what to do this year. We have had a lot of busy weekends lately and we both had things planned for next weekend so we decided to stick around the Nashville area. We expected a quiet weekend and maybe a fireworks show. Little did we expect to have a fun filled weekend filled with new friends, good food and amazing fireworks. all within our own neighborhood.

The story starts with a Facebook post from our neighborhood social committee. The post said something to the effect of “Hey if anyone wants to volunteer do shoot fireworks, we need you!” I read this and thought to myself……. “do I pretend to not see this and continue with the quiet weekend theme or do I tell Jim and see how crazy things get”? Well, I decided that not mentioning it would be denying my husband of one of his joys in life. So of course I turned to him and said, “Honey, the neighborhood is looking for people that may be interested in shooting off the fireworks. You should probably take a look at the post”. Within five minutes (it may have taken longer but it seemed immediate) Jim was in charge of the fireworks.

He had one week to source the fireworks wholesale, decide what to purchase, find people to help him shoot and organize the entire event with the neighborhood social committee.

Throughout the week, he planned and plotted and created spreadsheets and watched videos and talked to people in the neighborhood and woke up in the middle of the night. I am certain I heard him talking in his sleep saying things like “No, those aren’t big enough!”. I pretty much lost him for the week.

Then Friday came and he was able to go pick up the fireworks. He was so happy to have them in hand. He had to rent a trailer to pick them up. He got the trailer of fireworks home and I was going to help him back it into our garage for the evening. Except it was too tall to fit. By about an inch or two. So the trailer stayed in the driveway. We went over to the field where we were going to be shooting them (which was conveniently across the street from us) to start blocking off the area and planning.

One of the people that had volunteered to help also showed up. He happens to live across the street from us and his backyard connects to the field. We start talking to him (Bernie) and he calmly says, “Why don’t you let some air out of the tires and see if that would work”. Bernie was our hero for the day! Why neither Jim nor I thought of this, I still do not know. Such a simple solution but we didn’t even think of it. And guess what, IT WORKED! We were able to keep the trailer in our garage, safe and sound.

Saturday morning, our neighborhood had a 4th of July parade and afterward we started the process of setting up the fireworks. Our neighborhood is amazing and they take 4th of July seriously so we had to wait for the parade to be over before we could get any help. There was also a 4th of July mailbox decorating contest. I took a walk first thing in the morning and was quite impressed with the amount of effort put into the mailboxes. Toward the end of my walk the little kids started their journey down to the start of the parade route in their little electric cars. With the parent(s) jogging along behind them. The golf carts also started heading down. Our neighborhood is full of golf carts (although there is no golf course) and I have never seen such enthusiasm to celebrate a holiday. They were all decked out with decorations and music playing. I loved it!

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After the parade, we had volunteers show up to start placing the fireworks in the field. Jim directed and we all followed his lead. It was hot! But we met a lot of new people and we got the job done.

Throughout the day, we stayed at the field to make sure no one came to bother anything. We had people bring us food, or alcohol or just come to visit and keep us company. (are you starting to see the trend of how awesome our neighborhood is?).

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Jim gathered the volunteers about a half hour before start time and got everyone organized. I played the videographer.

People were in the back yards having parties for the event, people had brought lawn chairs into the field and set up space to watch. There were kids everywhere and even some dogs! Jim and I texted back and forth a couple times. He shot a couple “test shots” for me so I could check the angle of the camera. And then it was showtime. At about 8:45 everything started. The crowd was very encouraging with cheers and clapping. Everything went off perfect! We had two people with drones taking photos also. At the end, the crowd went wild and when I went to meet up with Jim, he was nothing but smiles.

We cleaned up a little then headed home happy. I got home a few minutes before Jim and our next door neighbors were still out shooting off some of their own fireworks. I stayed on our porch and clapped for them. Jim came home and visited with them for a bit..

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Sunday morning we were up and about getting ready to head back across the street to the field and get things cleaned up. We took leaf blowers, rakes, trash bags and oh, the ingredients for Mimosas. The Social Committee had sent out emails requesting volunteers but we weren’t expecting many. Well let me just say, we were extremely pleased with the amount of volunteers that showed up! There were people coming from all directions to help and it was absolutely amazing. People brought food and drinks and we had it all cleaned up in a couple hours.

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What an amazing weekend! The community we live in is amazing! And crazy! We met so many wonderful new friends and I look forward to many more events with them. And huge kudos to our neighborhood Social Committee! Thanks for all you do to keep us SOCIAL!

Thanks to my wonderful husband for his great pyrotechnics talents and thanks to so many others that helped. He couldn’t have pulled it off without the “team”. Gordy, Melissa, Randy, Bernie, Lauren, Jack, Aaron, Dallas, Vicki, Crocket, Andrea, Emily, Sarah, Yen, Carrie, Bobby, Chris, and so many more!!!!

This community is like none I have never been involved with and I can’t wait to get to know you all better.

And most importantly, I will never doubt whether offering mimosas in the morning is appropriate or not. I now know the answer 🙂

Love to all! and now we rest….

#TN4thofJulyLovefireworkshardworklifeisgood