Explosive 4th...erm...3rd!

Got up just before 10 am this morning.  About 12:30 pm, Manda called me to ask a favor.  lol  She wanted to know if I could pick up her friend, Missy & her 7 yr old daughter to bring over.  They live just a few streets over from me so of course I said yes.  :-)  I picked them up at 1:30 pm, we stopped to get ice & then headed over to Manda's.  From there, we caravaned out to Dan's folks'.  Jeromy & his family met us coming out of Manda's community so they followed Manda & I followed them.

The day was pretty slow paced, relaxed & laid back.  I think there ended up being close to 100 people out there!  It was massive!  haha  We basically all sat around, chatting.  Tons of kids there, running around everywhere.  Babin had his 2 dogs.  Dan's sister had her dog & his parents have 2 dogs.  One of Babin's...Cletus...is a hound mix so most of the day was spent yelling at him or chasing him cuz he'd take off chasing the chickens!  ROFL!!  People were in & out of the pool.  They also had one of those inflatable water slides, too.  I got in the pool but you couldn't have PAID me to get on that damn slide!  :-p

Everyone started eating around 4:30.  It was SUPER hot!!  And I just knew, that being in the direct sun allllll day...I'd be a freaking lobster!  :-p  Turns out though...I really didn't get much of a burn at all...just tanned!  WOOHOO!!  I NEVER tan!!  :D  I guess cuz I've been out so often this year already, I've got a good base so I'm not burning as much now.  That's just awesome!  ;-)

Dan & Babin spent like $700 on fireworks.  These things filled an entire table!!  HAHA  Around 7 pm, they started setting everything up.  They already had a wooden platform out in the field (they do this every year!)

They started setting them off around 8:30ish.  Everyone moved out into the field to get a clear view of the sky.  Most were sitting on the ground or in chairs.  It was fantastic!  BUT...it didn't last long before disaster hit!!  ACK!!!  They had several mortars lined up on the platform.  One got set off & somehow the next one that was to go off fell over.  That set the ENTIRE platform alight!!!!!!  OMFG!!!!!

See the ACTUAL explosion here:

The 1st few seconds, everyone thought they were just doing a big show...til we realized what was actually happening & then we all jumped up & started running farther back...not knowing where these things were going to shoot/land!!  All of the babies & kids were crying.  It set the platform itself ablaze.  A section of the field caught fire, too.  Once they were done exploding & the fires were put out, we found out that Babin had gotten hit in the stomach with one of them.  It burned the bottom half of his shirt off & one of the EMTs there guesstimated that he had 2nd degree burns.  His mom took him to the ER.  :/  Dan got hurt, too.  He nose-dived off the platform & hurt his leg.  But everyone else...though shaken & scared...were ok!  This explosion took out about 180 mortars...over half of their stock!!  Once things calmed down a bit, Charlie set off the remaining ones.  The Finale paled in comparison to the middle!  :/  I left about 30-45 minutes after everything was over.  It's a 30 minute drive from there to my house.  My heart was STILL pounding when I got home!!  :-(  Talk about a freakishly scary night!!

Once I uploaded the fireworks pics to FB, I took a shower to try to calm down.  After my shower, I called Lee.  She was seeing the pics & video on FB just about the time I was calling her.  It scared her that I'd been in danger...she made me promise never to go out there again.  lol  ;-)  The bad part of all of this is that these guys do this every year & every year they have some sort of mishap!!  ACK.  lol  Nobody's really gotten hurt til tonight though.  :/

It's now almost 2 am.  Talking to Lee has finally calmed my nerves a bit so I think I'm gonna lay down now.  :-)  Just...WOW...what a day!!  Heh...it could've been SO much worse though...I think that's what freaks me out the most!  Bleh...we're all lucky...even Babin.  He could've died!  :-(