This is me and Melissa..before Nickapalooza kicked off!

Her story, like mine, has been one with lots of tears.  Several years ago, Melissa lost her mom to cancer.  This loss was made even more intense because just a week before her mom lost the earthly battle and went Home, Melissa's younger brother and only sibling died unexpectedly of a heart attack while in his early 20s leaving a wife and young son.

Melissa, though brokenhearted, has pressed on in her faith and chosen the road of laughter over the road of bitterness.

Melissa's sons Michael and Evan were friends of Nick., and she serves on the board of Nick's foundation.  One day in January, she called me and said, "I have an idea.  Let's do an all-day Christian music festival in Carter County for the foundation!"  Nick LOVED Christian music, so it seemed like a perfect idea!

We decided this was something that would take a lot of planning, so we planned to kick-off our first Nickapalooza in the summer of 2010.

Somehow, though, in the months that followed, our conversations kept going back to Nickapalooza.  We thought, "We'll just do a little one-band kick-off this summer to get it going."  But before we knew it, we had 12 bands, a perfect date that the fairgrounds were available (7-11), and friends who were willing to help out!

I have to be honest.  There have been moments along the way that have been overwhelming.  The past two weeks have been very hard emotionally for both Melissa and me.  The devil just couldn't stand the idea of an entire day bringing glory to the God of our Universe and the God of our city (by the way, thank you to Britt's band, for singing this song on Saturday!).

I have so much to tell you about Nickapalooza!

I am thankful to tell you that because of the efforts of many, many wonderful people, the day went off with very few hitches!

Well, other than a few torrential downpours late in the afternoon!

The picture below is my foot and Melissa's foot at about 1 a.m. as we waited for Live Fish to load up their sound equipment at the end of the day!!  (Melissa's foot is the beautiful one with red polish on her toes..mine is the one that looks like it could be Fred Flintstone's!)

But I'm happy to tell you that we both survived and made it to church this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll share lots more about Nickpalooza tomorrow, but I wanted to give you a little background first!!!

If you want to order a Nickapalooza t-shirt, just email me at tammynischan@yahoo.com and give me your mailing address and your size!!, (They're white like the one Olivia is wearing below- the grey section sparkles!)  Thank you Dave Bennett and Chris Huddle for your hard work at designing and creating these t-shirts!  They were a huge hit!!...T-shirts are $10 and all profits go to Nick's foundation!  

I'll be drawing for a winner of a free t-shirt this Friday at noon!  Post a comment here to enter the drawing!!  Thanks for praying for our day!!  I have lots of other friends to introduce you to in the days to come!!

Oh, I had to let you know that Marble is much happier since Olivia got home from church camp!!!  They napped together this afternoon!  Notice Olivia's gloves!  She is allergic to cats, so she thinks this will help her sneezing!