We’ve had a crazy busy couple of days. Second only to Christmas, Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. It’s such a great holiday because we spend it with family.

Eighteen years ago my cousin [on my mom's side] was born on July 4th. So for as long as I can remember we’ve been celebrating his birthday with a big meal at my aunt and uncle’s house. Thirty-five to forty people pile in to their house for BBQ brisket, potato salad, baked beans and fruit. Thankfully they have a pretty large house. And every year my aunt makes my cousins favorite dessert; ice cream Oreo cake. This Ice Cream Oreo cake is so good. Of course there’s ice cream and oreos, but there is also caramel and peanuts. Mmm, mmm, good.

Eleven years ago, on July 3rd, my grandma [on my dad's side] passed away from lung cancer [even though she had quit smoking at least 10 years before her death]. Before she died she decided she wanted to be cremated and she picked out a spot for her ashes in a beautiful park near by. After her death we planted a tree in her memory overlooking the river in the spot she chose. And every year since then [except for one where the family went to South Dakota to visit my uncle who had been in a bad skiing accident] we have gathered for a family reunion at that park.

So these last few days have been filled with lots of family time with both sides of my family. This family reunion is the only time I see some of my aunts and uncles. So I’m thrilled to have this time with them.

On top of that we have some other Independence Day traditions.

Ever since Keaton was old enough to run we have been crazy enough to wake up ridiculously early for a work holiday and drag out butts downtown for a race. This year Keaton ran the one mile race. Skyler and Spencer ran a half mile. And Caleb ran about two blocks.

Keaton’s race was actually timed. Since my uncle is the Sports Editor at the local paper we happen to know Keaton’s time and placings before the general public finds out tomorrow. However, now I can’t remember what that time or placing is. I think he came in somewhere around 52nd out of 217 runners and 23rd in his age group, but don’t quote me on that.

Spencer took off and didn’t stop in his race. I was running with him and Skyler, but Skyler’s heel started to bother her and she decided to walk for a little bit. [I think I need to buy her new tennis shoes. If she'd stop growing so darn fast. Geez.] So Spencer beat us to the finish line.

Lee ran with Caleb and he said Caleb took off and shot out of eye sight as soon as the race started, but soon lost speed. Lee ended up having to practically drag him to the finish line.

After the race we stuffed our faces with all the pancakes we could eat at the pancake breakfast. Yummy!

When we got home we jazzed ourselves up for the holiday. Spencer and Caleb both got red, white and blue hair. Spencer actually has a mohawk so his hair turned out pretty awesome. Caleb does not have a mohawk so his hair was a little more tricky, but he was pretty satisfied with the end result.

Skyler didn’t want to be left out, but now way in heck was she every going to let me spike her hair with red, white and blue hair gel. So instead we settled on painting our nails. She and I have matching patriotic nails now. It looks pretty cool.

After dinner at my aunt and uncles, we headed downtown to pick a piece of concrete for firework watching. We got there fairly early so we could get a good view. My mom, my dad, my brother and my sister all joined us for the firework display. As usual the city did not disappoint. The fireworks were pretty awesome.

We didn’t want to burn our sparklers downtown because there are way too many people down there. Some people do let their kids light up sparklers and it always annoys the crap out of me. Sparks flying around 15,000 people just doesn’t seem all that smart to me. So when we got home we broke out our sparklers. Here I am trying to write my name with a sparkler. You can see the “Ch” and the beginning of the “r.”

Now we have the kids all nestled in their beds. And I’m beat. Do you think my boss will mind if I just crawl under my desk and take a little nap tomorrow? Yeah, she probably will. So I better get to bed now.

Hope your Independence Day was as good as ours. Happy Fourth of July!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 at 11:58 pm and is filed under In the holiday spirit. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.