Fourth of July – sugar daddy, fireworks and strippers, oh my!

When we moved to our town 6 years ago from Chicago we were quickly amazed by the small community feel and the HUGE little parade every 4th of July. (I’ve written about it several times but a good recap can be found here). One of the things that I’ve always loved is that not only do local businesses & schools & churches make elaborate floats, but streets or neighborhoods in our town do as well (they also throw wicked block parties where the city comes in and shuts down the street).

Unfortunately, our old ‘hood was kind of lame (ok, really lame. And if you are one of our former neighbors reading this, I’m sure you would agree). It wasn’t super high on our list, but a “nice to have” item as we conducted our recent house search was to move onto a street that was more fun. More “neighborhood-y”, like our community and especially what the parade exuded to us when we first moved here. You can imagine our giddy excitement when we started receiving notes from the former owners of our new house about the planning that was taking place for the new street’s 4th of July float and block party. JACKPOT!!!

I’m not going to lie, it was quite exhausting to coordinate a move, home improvements (some planned and most not planned) *and* help out with the float, but our new neighbors understood (we closed on our new house the week before Independence day and our moving van arrived on the 3rd). The theme for the parade this year was “Sweet Song of Freedom” and our street when with the “sweet” aspect . . . our float had candy “strippers” (yes, scantily – yet tastefully – dressed ladies dancing on a candy pole), sugar daddies (Tim was selected as one of these), Jolly “Ranchers” (these were the older kids dressed up like cowboys/ranchers), the moms were dressed up and did a dance for two miles straight and little gum drops (the little kids) and some other moms – including yours truly -- rode on a float. When I first talked to the lady coordinating the costumes (because let me tell you – this wasn’t CHEAP to participate in!!) I was given the choice of dancing with the other moms or riding on the float – which meant Tim could be a Sugar Daddy. I chose wisely. : ) All in all, though, it was such a fun time. It was a great way to meet a ton of our new neighbors and everyone was so welcoming. And most importantly – when we asked what time we should be at the starting point for the parade and the guy planning it answered “it depends on how early you want to start drinking”, we knew we had moved to the right ‘hood. (For the record, most people were drinking beers and whiskey slushies at 8:30 am. while we waited for the parade to start and for our float – which was the last in the 2hr long parade – to get to the starting point. It.was.awesome. But in our defense, it was also 92 degrees – SERIOUSLY – at 8:30 in the morning, so it was all sweated out by the time the parade started).

B&K were SO so so excited to participate in the parade. And even though we were all a bunch of hot cranky pants by the time the float made its way to the parade route, it was a super fun time. I’m a little thankful that our ‘hood only enters the parade every-other year, though . . . I think we may need that time to recuperate!!!