Independence Day

I have returned!

Where have I been for four months??  Well, I've been in Vegas, and I threw a graduation party, and I redecorated our bedroom, and I threw a Luau, and I repainted and redecorated the bathroom, and I've been setting up a business, and I got hired for a summer teaching job, and I've been making lesson plans, and I was in Vegas again, and I've been busy with kids, and then my teaching job got canceled, and then I was in Vegas a third time...and now suddenly here it is, Independence Day, and I feel like the summer has been flying by so fast I've almost missed it. So it is time to write before even more time slips between my fingers.

I realized this morning that it was 10 years ago today that I was lucky enough to spend our nation's birthday in our nation's capital. What an unforgettable day it was.  It was pouring rain all day, the parades and fairs were canceled, and the streets were flooded.  I remember trying to walk through water over a foot deep before taking sanctuary in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, and I had to buy a sweatshirt at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to keep me warm - in July! The rain stopped in the evening, however, and my ex husband and I camped out on the stairs of the Lincoln Monument for hours, just waiting for the fireworks. Man. The fireworks in Washington DC - as seen from the top of the Lincoln Monument, bursting over the top of the Washington Monument - are a memory I will never forget. And I have no photos of it either, so it has become one of those memories that live solely in my mind and thus take on an overly-magical quality.  It is hard to believe it has been a entire decade since that day - since that life.  I was so young, so naive, so jaded. But I was also happy, on that day especially, and I am always thankful for memories of happiness.

Independence Day is my second favorite holiday behind Halloween. And not just because I am an over-patriotic history teacher, but mostly because some of the happiest memories of my childhood took place on Independence Day. My family was always together on the Fourth of July, we spent years taking trips to Sedona, swimming at Slide Rock, eating picnics under the fireworks. As a teenager I spent the holiday with my friends - watching fireworks, laughing, reviling in our innocence, and enjoying our own brand of independence. The Fourth of July always seemed to be a good day...no matter how awful the rest of year may have been, and often was.

As evidenced by where I was ten years ago today, my Independence Days as an adult have been pretty good too. Here's a look back at the past few years...

July 4th, 2008, in Sedona

July 4th, 2008, in Sedona

July 4th, 2009, watching fireworks in Peoria

July 4th, 2009, watching fireworks in Peoria

July 4th, 2010, watching fireworks in Peoria again

July 4th, 2013, my sweet baby girl

July 4th, 2013, my sweet boy at the Freedom Parade

Tonight will be Kennedy's first fireworks (she slept through them last year) and we are going to the street fair downtown.  I can only hope to make memories with my kids that, maybe someday, they will cherish the way I cherish the Independence Day memories of my childhood. And if not...well, at least there's usually always good food and pyrotechnics to get us through the night.

Happy Independence Day, America.