Time to Celebrate!

Today is the day!  We, as Americans, come together despite our differences and celebrate our great nation.  I don't know about you, but I'm ecstatic to head out to the lake and eat/drink myself to death with my family.  This year things are a bit different for us.

Usually we have a huge neighborhood party with food and swimming, but this year we are going out to my parents' boat house at the Muskogee Boat Club to celebrate with the members and our good family friends.  I am super excited to start a new tradition with my family.  With Bubba and I both moved out of the house, it's time for a change.  We've all grown up and things in our lives have changed.

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I know we are the only country that celebrates today, but every country has their own holiday of some sort.  Even if they are for different reasons, the spirit is still very similar.  We all have pride in our countries even if we don't agree with everything.

How do you celebrate the Fourth?  If you are one of my wonderful friends from other countries, what unique holidays do you have and how do you celebrate?

I leave you with some wonderful quotes I found today:

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

 

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.  ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler

 

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.  ~Robert J. McCracken

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