4th July Weekend/ 250th birthday of the the USA

The festivities of the holiday weekend and last weekend of our trip didn’t turn out as planned.

Friday was spent watching sport, and we watched Australia end their World Cup journey. As it was our last night with no plans, we headed to The Table Orleans at the Hickory Inn. It was a lovely dinner and Brandon and Inara both enjoyed their prime rib dishes.

Afterwards back at the house, as the weekend of celebrations have started all over the town, the kids got to enjoy a kids pack of fireworks that mom decided to get them.

In Arkansas you can buy and let off fireworks anywhere. The kids pack had poppers, snakes, sparklers, cherries, chicken, silver fountain snappers, flash bang, smoke grenades and tank. Pretty much there was noise, some sparkling and lots of smoke. The neighbors down the street had a massive party (yearly event) and had an hours worth of massive fire works right in the front yard. It’s very loud and a bit scary so close.

While we we were doing our fireworks,
Mom tripped up the garage lip and fell on her knee. The pain was unbearable and we couldn’t move her so the night involved an ambulance, firetruck and emergency room visit.

I drove behind her, and a few hours later she was sent home with morphine, a brace, and crutches. To get her into her jeep she needed to have her legs hanging out that window.

While we were at the hospital, the kids and Josh watched the neighbourhood fireworks from the safety of the car.

Sat, 4th of July was pretty low key as mom can’t do much and needed rest. Mom was originally going to drive Brandon to her friend’s Carlos house (40 min away) as she organised Carlos to take him fishing bright and early, but she couldn’t, so Josh drove him. He had a great time and they caught 12 fish with Brandon catching 2 Bass.

As like the rest of the week we had tennis and soccer on the TV all day. Kids played on screen, played pool, pinball and whatever they could do to keep them busy.

The plan was to head to Roger’s old town and go to the Ozark Folk Jamboree as mom got a table for us all but we were all a bit tired from the night before. We weren’t going to go but at last minute after our stop at Sonic for dinner we drove by and stayed for an hour or so and listened to the local music.

Afterwards we got home and finished the fireworks in the driveway. There were fireworks all over the area being let off. Lighting and thunder joined the noise and lights so it felt we were in a war zone.Read more