Balloons, Parades, Friends, Family, and Fireworks!

I love the 4th of July! My family would agree it is as big as Christmas around our home.  
For 20 plus years we have been up at 5:30 am on the 4th we head to Fox Field so that we can walk around as they inflate a field full of hot air balloons.  


There is something quite magical in the air as the first balloon launches with the American flag high in the air against the back drop of our mountains and the sun rising... not to mention the Star Spangled Banner being played over the loud speakers.  It just starts the day off perfectly.  

We then enjoy a pancake breakfast provided by the local veterans.  

 If truth were told I am probably the one that enjoys the parade the most.  I love cheering as the local high school bands go by, I love the jets flying over, the boom of the cannons as the parade starts.  The kids running around diving for candy, the veterans that go marching by and how the crowd rises to our feet with hands on hearts, the floats, the noise, ahh, I love it all!

Our little nephew loving the firetruck and all it's bells and whistles

Neighbors, Friends and Family, does it get any better!

From here we usually pile back in the car and head to the local theater to see the summer block buster, this year it will be Spiderman.  The coolness of the theatre is perfect after sitting in the sun for 3 hours.


Then it's time to go home and put some hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill eat our selves sick and then head outside for the parachute fireworks.

These are the fireworks that should be let off during the day, they have army men attached to parachutes that we launch and then the neighborhood kids run and around trying to catch them.

We then all crash in the family room to watch Independence Day with Will Smith and nap during the heat of the day.  We need to prepare for the long night of fireworks ahead.


This has varied over the years, some years we head to Stadium of Fire and some years we are the 'Neighborhood of Fire', setting off our own mass amount of fireworks.  


I am so grateful for the freedoms we enjoy, for this wonderful country we live in, for the men and women who have gone before and those who are serving us today.  


I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!

You have to love a nation that celebrates its Independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.

~Erma Bombeck

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty"

~John F. Kennedy