Family Traditions – The 4th of July

When Tara and I were dating, the topic of family traditions was brought up. It was the beginning of July and she had mentioned that her family did a firework show in Vegas every year. At first, I thought she meant they have a get together where they light off fireworks they buy. I quickly learned that it wasn’t just backyard fireworks, but a legitimate show that some have called “the best show in Vegas”.

After Tara and I were married, I had the privilege of taking part in this show and have done the show 4 years in a row. It’s one of our favorite family traditions and is something we look forward to every year.

The setup

A lot of people don’t realize how much work it takes to set up a firework show. We usually will get to the park where we shoot off a couple days before the 4th and start our set up. Every year that I’ve been there it’s been over 100 degrees outside. We do our best to split up the work so that we don’t have to spend too much time out in the sun.

The 4th

During the 4th we drop the shells into the mortar tubes and make sure that the fuses are in a good spot to light. The 4th is usually a little bit more spread out as far as work, so we have some time to relax.

Lighting off the fireworks

This is the best part by far. Lighting fireworks this big is always a rush. Tara likes to joke that lighting these fireworks ruins any other fireworks. There’s just nothing that can compare to actually being the one to light it.

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The Cleanup

After we have lit all the fireworks and the firefighters have done their walk-through, we have to clean everything we just blew up. The cleanup is probably the hardest part, because you start to come down from the adrenaline rush of blowing stuff up. Putting the firework racks back in the truck is a lot of work and we usually don’t finish until after midnight. We typically take an entire day just to recover before driving back home.

This is by far one of our favorite traditions! We plan to keep doing this firework show for as long as we can. Do you guys have any cool traditions on the 4th?