Our Nashville 4th of July!

We woke up Saturday morning all ready to celebrate the USofA! We put on our red, white, and blues, and walked a few blocks down to Broadway, the heart of Nashville.

We tried on cowgirl hats, took pictures by guitars, and peeked into bars to listen to the amateur country music artists just waiting for their chance to be discovered. I loved it - totally Nashville. I always try to imagine myself living in whatever town or city we're visiting. If we lived in Nashville, I would definitely buy some boots.

At the end of Broadway street we came upon a family fun zone . . . . lots of inflatable slides, bounce houses, and ice cream. All for free. Perfect.

By this time it was early afternoon, and pretty warm outside. We decided to go back to the hotel, get on the kids' swimsuits, and head to a splash park or the fountains in downtown Nashville. But when we got to the hotel, that decision was quickly trumped by the kids . . . . all they wanted to do was to swim in the hotel pool. So, that's what we did!

In the evening, we again joined the masses and hit the streets of Nashville. We ate dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory and then slowly made our way down to the riverfront where all the big festivities were taking place. Nashville has one of the biggest fireworks show in the nation, along with a country music concert, and we wanted to take in all the excitement and atmosphere.
But when a test firework went off, we realized we were a little too close to the action. Luke did NOT like it. Leah and Annie didn't either.

So, we had to move farther away. We walked up the street aways until we came to the city courthouse. In front of the building is a huge lawn with a perfect view of the firework show. We set up our camping chairs, including the Johnson's new accordian style 6-kid couch limo chair, or whatever it's called. We had barely gotten situated when it started to sprinkle a bit. Uh, oh. Well, no problem. We'll just move up to the courthouse and sit against the doors - there's about 1 foot of overhang that will protect us if it starts to rain. And anyways, the forecast said the rain wouldn't come until 10:00. We should be good. Right after we got resituated, the fireworks started. What? Why are they starting? It's only 8:15, and they aren't supposed to start until 9:00. It isn't even dark out yet. They're kind of hard to see. Oh, well. We'll just sit and enjoy them anyways.

Well, about 5 minutes into the firework show, we understood why they started shooting off the fireworks 45 minutes early . . . .

And can you believe we actually stayed and sat there for the remainder of the show? It was crazy. It was some of the hardest rain I had ever been in. And it came from out of nowhere, like it only can in the Midwest. And let's just say, that foot of overhang? yeah, whatever. It was craziness when it started to pour . . . .Dan was frantically trying to cover up all our cameras, cell phones, etc, while Lisa was trying to keep her newborn dry (thanks to a random stranger that offered her his umbrella), and I was huddled under an umbrella with all 5 little girls crying and laughing at the same time. Ryan and Katie were loving it, wanting to dance around in the rain.

Then we had to run 7 blocks back to our hotel. The rain never let up. Just picture us running through the streets of Nashville, 4 adults, 8 little kids, 2 double strollers, laughing about how we will never forget this. We were completely soaked by the time we finally made it. The hotel staff was handing out warm towels to the hundreds of guests coming back. It was definitely a memorable 4th of July.