heymae

Redneck 4th of July

7
Jul 2009

Every year for 4th of July we hang out here in Chico and then head over to the Chico State Campus to watch the fireworks after the Baseball game! This year we had our whole day planned out, Chocolate Chip pancakes for breakfast, hanging out at One Mile in the morning, Lunch at home, Swimming in the afternoon, BBQ for dinner and then staking out our spot for fireworks and playing Yahtzee until it got dark. We have really been trying to save money until I get more daycare kids so this seemed like the perfect combo for a fun and cheap 4th of July! Plus, I was really looking forward to a day of family fun, it feels like we have all been so busy lately that we havn’t had much time to just hang out as a family.

Well on Friday night I was checking out the schedule online for the next days events when I saw that they were not having Fireworks after the Baseball Game this year!! NOOOO! This ruined our whole plan! It does not feel like 4th of July without Fireworks! I started looking for ideas, still trying to keep us in our budget which meant we couldn’t go far. I found out a neighboring town was having its first ever Heritage Days celebration, once I started reading the events, I knew this was right up our alley. There was a Miss Teen competition, Lawn Mower Races and, the final deciding factor that made it impossible for us to not attend, A Strong Man Competition!! And it was only $5! Needless to say we were VERY excited about this change of plans!

Now, I am not sure I am even going to be able to craft into words the EPIC-NESS that this 4th of July was. I am going to try. We arrived at the fairgrounds and found a full blown carnival, complete with rides and carnies. Now, Zane had done some chores to earn some extra money for the day, and of course he immediately wanted to play carnival games. I tried so hard to talk him out of it. In my opinion the games are over priced, the prizes suck and the carnies can be really really pushy. Zane would listen to none of my reasoning and I watched reluctantly as he handed over $5 of his hard earned dollars to try and throw a softball into a tub. I don’t think I need to tell you how that turned out. I did learn a valuable lesson though, sometimes it is best to just let your kids experience something themselves than trying to explain to them why it is going to suck.

Luckily there was no time for Zane to be too disappointed. We had a Miss Teen pageant to get too. Now online the pageant said it started at 4, turns out they were only off by 2 hours. We sat in there waiting for it to start while 3 local girls spent 2 hours taking turns singing every Taylor Swift song ever written! Don’t get me wrong, the girls had great voices, but a person can only take so much broken hearted teen girl music before they start to lose their minds. We decided to check out the rest of the exhibits while we waited for the real Pageant so start.

Now the flier advertising the event boasted 19 total booths. I must say they did not disappoint. I am not sure this counted as a booth, but Zane and Ian thought this Helicopter was pretty awesome. You could even sit inside while it gave a real flight simulation. This simulation involved an older man standing at the back of it and moving the tail up and down. It was pretty sweet.

After that we were able to view a Family Christian Band I can only describe as “Duggar-esque”. They sang about Jesus for 6 hours. I am pretty sure he was pleased! There was also some slip and sliding for the kids:

And Zane learned how to rope a calf made of Hay:

Here is a Pic of Ian and Rachel having a blast while Zane was slip and sliding!!

And them continuing the Party while Zane learned to Rope:

Those Two are Party Animals!!
Here’s one of me and Zane in a Wild Horse Race, it got pretty intense!

My horse was giving me trouble at the end, Zane was just able to squeak by!

Finally it was time for the Pageant to begin! Now we had already scoped out the competition and with help from the Event Program we each picked the girl we thought would take the crown. Now, this was a serious competition. There were 5 judges and the show opened with a song and dance number involving all the girls and patriotic hats. There was immediately a stand out girl, the only one smiling. Now I have never been in a pageant, but from the movies and TLC documentaries I have seen, I do believe the girls are supposed to look like they actually want to be there. Apparently only one of the girls was aware of that fact. Each girl gave a short speech on what being Miss Teen would mean to them. For some of the girls, it really did not mean much. The girls left the stage to change for the Talent Portion. This is when we met Mr. Ambassador 2009 ( We had already met Mr. Ambassador 2002 when he awkwardly grabbed the mic from one of the girls earlier and told us that even though it had been SIX YEARS since he was on that stage, the moment was still clear in his mind as one of his greatest moments EVER…..). Mr. Ambassador was introduced and we were told he would be gracing us with his AWARD WINNING Michael Jackson Montage Tribute Dance. Now, this guy knew he was the Shit. The only way I can describe his tribute was Napoleon Dynamite meets Middle School Talent Show. It was amazing, especially at the end when he dramatically jumped off the stage and landed in a sort of half kneeling pose. I really think he should of won the whole pageant.

The girls performed the usual pageant line-up of talents: A Cheerleading Routing, Sign Language to a Disney Song, Ballet Dance, Singing Over the Rainbow and Reciting a Poem. Yes, Reciting a Poem. Sadly, at this point we had to make the hardest decision of our lives. The Strong Man Competition was starting, which meant we had to leave the pageant early. Missing the Question and Answer portion, or Extemporaneous as it is called in the pageant world, was one of the hardest moments of my life, But I could not miss ridiculously muscly men moving tires. NO WAY.

The Strong Man competition was only part of the show, there was also Lawn Mower races. These were amazing! We saw lawn mowers doing wheelies, which is never a bad thing. The announcer was hilarious, constantly comparing the weight of the lifts the Strong Men were doing to the weight of his Ex-wives. When they reached 700 pounds, he stopped out of respect of course. Here is a picture of Zane after the underdog was able to carry something like 200 pounds 50 feet:

I think his expression pretty much sums up the entire day!
After the Competitions ended the fireworks show started and it was THE best fireworks show I have ever seen. The grand finale went on so long that I couldn’t even clap through the whole thing and had to take a break. The entire day was exactly what we needed. As I sat there snuggled in Ian’s arms and holding Zane’s hand watching the beautiful fireworks while Rocky kicked around my Uterus I was overcome with a feeling of gratitude for my growing little family and all the Love and Joy that they bring to me. I am grateful to live in a country that allows me to be Free to express my views and opinions. I am a very blessed woman.