The Fourth in Review

I think Fourth of July is one of the best holidays, can I get an AMEN!?  I love it, I do.  Handsome and I watched the fireworks from land this year, which is a first for our married life.  Here’s the run-down:

2007:  I thought for sure that Handsome was going to propose this night.  I mean, after all, he knows I love fireworks, and we went with a group of friends and my family to watch, and again, we were approaching that 5-year mark which was the deadline (sort of a crap-or-get-off-the-pot kind of moment).  I did my hair, practiced my smile, and was super sweet and happy all night.  The fireworks were wonderful.  The lack of a diamond was not.  That night, when I got home, and after I had wept to my Mom about how Handsome was never going to ask me to marry him and I’d have to move to SC all by myself (She later laughed at me because this *LINK TO STBOT2* had already taken place), I resigned myself to just enjoying dating and decided not to worry about engagement.  I mean, 5 ½ months (the time left before the deadline) was a long time.  Maybe it would be Christmas.  [FYI: it was 15 days later]

2008: We had moved to SC about… 6 days prior to the fourth of July.  We didn’t know anyone, or where to go to watch the fireworks.  So we started driving to a place called Easley.  We were following Rhonda’s directions (Rhonda being the Garmin; her name changes frequently) and couldn’t figure out where to go.  We finally pulled alongside the road, and saw a few overhead, then drove home.  When we got home, there were some neighbors of ours shooting bottle rockets at the as-yet unfinished apartment building across from ours.  We talked with them a little, then went inside.  Apparently they weren’t done with us, because in the morning, there were blue and green stains on our front door and porch.  They had been trying to get us to come back outside by throwing smoke bombs at our door.  Welcome to SC.

2009:  For the first time, I was one of those people.  You know, the ones actually out on the boat?  All my young life, those people were the ones who had the river house and the boat and knew how to water ski and had beautiful hair and 8 bathing suits so they didn’t have to repeat while on vacation.  Me, well, I stood on the bridge and watched them, wearing my only bathing suit and feeling sure I would more closely resemble a rock skipping on water than a graceful skier, were I ever to be pulled behind a boat.  But in 2009, I got to be one of those people.  Seriously, that’s all I could think while I sat up in the seats on the bow and basked in the sun, enjoying the wind from the speed of the boat racing over the waves.  That night, we donned life vests and floated in the water to watch the fireworks.  It felt like everything our forefathers had fought for was realized in that one moment.  Fourth of July perfection.

2010:  For the second time, I was one of those people.  This time, the day was hot and fun, we swam and jumped and played in the water.  The night, however, was chilly, so we watched the fireworks from inside the boat.  It was still glorious.

And that brings us to the present.

2011:  This year, Handsome and I hung out with friends and their parents (who are also friends, Holla!) and chilled in the lake and ate delicious food.  Later we headed home and on the spur of the moment, decided to watch the fireworks show from one of the dikes that hold back the lakes in Clemson.  We thought it would be packed, but it wasn’t.  We brought Dukas too, which was a nice addition.  He did fine, once he realized that he did not, actually, need to defend us from the battle taking place in the sky.  The show was really good, the level of chill (as in, relaxedness/amount cooler than other people) was high, and it was great.  The only thing that could have made it better was if we had driven home in a topless Jeep.  Not to be confused with riding home in a Jeep, topless.  That’s not okay.  You can get arrested for that.

What about you?  What’s your favorite Fourth of July?  Do you have any traditions?  Special food(s)?  My only regret is that I did not make any s’mores this weekend.  That’s a major fail in my book.  The only way to recover from such a fail is to eat a lot tonight.  At least, that’s my reasoning.

Gorging myself on 50% off marshmallows,

TFW