Red, White, and Blog

So this past weekend we ventured down to central Florida to the celebrate America's birthday with some of our family and boy was it refreshing. It's amazing how much we take for granted; when I was a teenager I remember counting down the days until I turned 18 and could move out on my own. But then, 18 comes and taking on adult responsibilities coupled with being away from Momma and Daddy doesn't seem so glamorous anymore. Now that I'm married and have children of my own I miss not being geographically close to family, I miss not being able to have Sunday dinner at that familiar dining room table at my Mom and Dad's, I miss not being able to celebrate the kids' birthdays with Nana and Papa, I miss a lot, a lot that has to do with family.

It's amazing how different families celebrate the same holidays in different ways, and yet they all have one common denominator: togetherness.

Growing up, my family would go on post (Ft. Leonard Wood) and lay down a blanket in the field, listen to the Army Band that my Daddy was the First Shirt for and eat hot dogs and funnel cake as if there was no tomorrow. Then, us kids would leave our parents to chit-chat while we walked across the street to the carnival where we'd meet up with all of our friends, dance, laugh, and have the time of our young lives. When it started to get dark we'd head back over to the field, try to all squeeze onto one blanket, and lay shoulder-to-shoulder looking up at the amazing fireworks show in the sky. When the singer performed "God Bless the USA" with the band accompanying him, I'd tear up and get goosebumps. This was our Fourth of July in the Mid-West. This was our tradition.

The fireworks from the balcony (4 July 2010)

My husband's Independence Day tradition while growing up was completely different. His family always spent a few weeks at the condo on the beach about an hour from their hometown. The six of them would spend the holiday on the water, go out to dinner, swim in the ocean, play put-put, laugh, talk, hang out with one another. That was their traditional Fourth of July Central Florida style.

Pool and Beach (3 July 2010)

This year, the hubby and I went to Indian Shores Beach for the Fourth, just like my hubby did as a kid. Except he wasn't going as a kid this year, and their weren't six family members this year. Instead, it was me, hubby, his Dad and his little brother and sister. We played put-put golf where I was amazed to see baby alligators in the middle of the course. Drake lost his ball in the water not even a fourth of the way through the game, Krissy showed us how to "get a hole in one," we laughed, we talked, we had the biggest ICEEs in existence and I drank the whole thing.

The five of us went to listen to live music all night, had dinner, played pool, ended up with the biggest tab we've ever racked up between five people, went back to the condo and stayed up for hours laughing and joking, Seth and his siblings reminisced on the good ol' days, letting me in on some inside jokes. Krissy made breakfast, then Drake did the next morning. We played chicken in the ocean where Krissy and I both ended up with a nose full of water and the boys ended up with heavy shoulders. We swam out to the sandbar, talked about sharks, then hauled-ass back to the beach after scaring ourselves with the possibility that sharks were near the sandbar. Krissy and I squealed and the boys squirmed as schools of fish tickled our legs as they swam past us, we plopped down on the sofa-bed, red-eyed and tired and took a nap that didn't even last an hour. We raced from one end of the pool to the other and Krissy beat me by a mile. We baked and baked and Dad cooked the most amazing spaghetti ever. We ate and talked and went out to the balcony to watch the amazing fireworks on the beach. We went down to the beach to light our own fireworks and laughed as we watched how puny they were in relation to the professionals' a few feet from us.

The cake Krissy and I made (4 July 2010)

Bottomline is: we had a great Fourth of July, probably the best one I've had in years. It wasn't the tradition I grew up on, it wasn't my hubby's childhood tradition either. But it was a holiday spent with family, and we did manage to keep a few aspects of it the same: we were with people we love, we hadn't a care in the world, we had togetherness.