Our 4th of July usually starts with us getting up early to run in the big race downtown followed by us filling our tummies at the pancake breakfast. Then we come home, get in to our red, white and blue garb, spike the boys’ hair with colored gel, and paint the girls’ toenails with a patriotic theme. In the afternoon we head over to my aunt and uncle’s house to celebrate my cousin’s birthday. And we end the night downtown watching the fireworks over the river.

None of that happened yesterday.

Now that my cousin is an adult and moved out of his family home there was no party. Since downtown is still recovering from the flood and there is a ton of cleanup going on there was no race, no pancake breakfast and no fireworks. And since we were to exhausted from swimming we didn’t paint our nails or spike our hair.

A little part of me is heartbroken that we weren’t able to follow tradition this year. But then another part of me is yelling, “stop being a crybaby…some people don’t even have a home let alone holiday traditions.” So we adapted.

Instead we spent four hours at the local pool. My dad, brother and sister (and my sister’s friend) joined us. Skyler & Spencer both went off the diving board and the drop slide for the very first time. Caleb spent a lot of time playing in the sand in the sand pit. I even spent the majority of the time in the water (usually I plant my butt in a beach chair under one of the big umbrellas and read a good book while the kids splash and swim in the water). It was a lot of fun.

And we still got to watch fireworks. The city had a shorter display at the local community college. It was beautiful. Even if we did have to park miles away and carry a big, heavy cooler filled with ridiculously heavy ice, soda and water up and down hill after hill until we got to the perfect firework watching spot. (OK, so that’s a small exaggeration. It felt like we were walking uphill, both ways, in the snow, barefoot…you know, except that it was only about two block with just one hill, it’s summer and we had comfy shoes.)

We may not have gotten to follow our usual traditions to the tee, but we were still all together and still had a great time. I guess it’s more about spending time with family than what you do.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under In the holiday spirit. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.