*+*July 4th*+*

When most people think of family holidays, their minds usually think of Christmas and Thanksgiving first, birthdays might follow as a close second, then Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Spring Break bring up the rear because these holidays revolve around weekends. July 4th is like a floating holiday people take at a more convenient time. For me, July 4th has always ment a great time with family and an excuse to play with fire!
July 4th was always my third favorite holiday after Christmas and my birthday. My parents would take us on two vacations every Summer as a child. One would be a week in Texas visiting my Dad's family (which I always enjoyed as well) and the other was July 4th in Atlanta visiting my Mom's family. My mom has two older brothers and both of them would bring their families as well. Everyone brought fireworks because you could not buy fireworks in Georgia but you could set them off. There was always a ton of fireworks! On other nights my cousins and I would spend hours collecting as many lightning bugs as we could. One year, a neighbor of my grandparents I had become friends with invited me to join her flag twirling group and walk in the Dunwoody parade. I was super excited and my mom bought me this great red, white, and blue dress to wear. The only drawback was I had to take a nap before the parade! Another year, my Aunt took all of us and our cousins to Stone Mountain to see the laser light show and the fireworks. We brought blankets to sit on, a cooler for cokes, and snacks. We had such a great time, we decided to go again another year! Unfortunately, those trips were retired as all of us kids grew up and with the passing of my grandparents.
Last year, my sister invited Mark and I to go with them to Thunder on the Mountain. If you have never been, its an awesome display of fireworks around Vulcan. Nothing like Stone Mountain, but still pretty great! We had a fantastic time that night with my sister, brother-in-law, my neice and their friends.
This year, we did not go anywhere and it was great! I loved being able to relax and sleep in a bit. All we did was go to the pool for about an hour, eat at Dreamland (of course we had to have BBQ!) and watch the fireworks display at Lenox on tv!
To this day, I am always excited about the forth because of all the great memories I have of my family and my childhood. I look forward to having kids and getting together with family to form many new memories!