PICTURE BY ALLENG, FOUND ON FLICKR

Do you ever have a picture in your mind how you’d like a holiday to unfold? What you’d like to see happen? I do- I think we all picture the iconic “holiday” moments and hope that we have them, in this way, these moments help us have memorable holidays. One of the best 4th’s of July I’ve ever had was last year. We were at the beach and we had my mom and her family (they lived there) and our good friend’s from Atlanta, were with us. We had a great big cookout. The boys handled most of it for us and we just assembled the plates and drinks. We ate outside on big picnics tables. There was much laughter and talking around the tables that evening.

As the light began to fade from the sky, we decided to hit the beach for the fireworks. We drove up the way a bit, hunted for places to park and found our spot. We dragged the kids and blankets and cameras out and settled in. As we waited we chatted and had to entertain the kids – they we antsy for the fireworks.

Finally full dark and the fireworks started, we chatted with our friends and sat there admiring the fireworks. C fell asleep, R loved the loud bangs, La was in awe. It was amazing to be there – to deal with the pains of parking, walking, entertaining kids – for the 20 minutes minutes of seeing the fireworks over the water. It was spectacular and a memory I’ll always have.

One that I hope gets repeated! What made it memorable was not the place, but the people. It was magic hanging there with our friends watching the show.

What was your best 4th?