A Texas July 4th

Well, I suppose now that it's officially one month past the 4th of July, it's fitting that I'm finally uploading a few photos of our celebration. July 4th is one of my favorite holidays as it combines many of my favorite things: summer, fireworks, watermelon, small town parades, and Sousa marches.  It was such a fun weekend that, belated or not, I hate to let it pass by without a little reminiscing.

We started the weekend in my hometown of Paris where we spent the 3rd of July with my family. That evening, after indulging in BBQ, beans, deviled eggs, and watermelon, we went to see the Paris Municipal Band concert (as a former member, I love going to their concerts) and the Paris Fireworks at Noyes Stadium. We doused ourselves in bug spray, lugged our lawn chairs out onto the football field, chatted with old friends, and then sat back to enjoy the show. This was my husband's first time at the Paris July 4th festivities (and the first time at my high school football stadium), so it was really special to be able to share it all with him.

Once the last march was played and the last firework exploded, we made the trek back to the truck with a few more mosquito bites on our legs and with a smile on our faces. It was such a fun evening, small town life at its best.

On the actual 4th, we bid Paris farewell and hit the road back to McKinney, but on the way, we made sure to stop at a country fireworks stand to load up on sparklers for later evening!

We were invited to celebrate that evening with our neighbors and some of their friends, so we figured we would bring along our backyard games (ladder golf and corn hole), some Roasted Jalapeno Lime Hummus, and a few packs of sparklers since they're hard to come by for city dwellers. So yeah, we were the people that showed up with no kids of our own but with plenty of flammable objects for other people's kids to play with!

After dinner and fun out in the backyard, dusk finally arrived. We dragged our lawn chairs to the corner of our street, one of the guests pulled up their truck and turned on the radio so we could hear the music to go along with the fireworks, and then we waited. The kids ran around squealing with excitement until it was finally dark enough for the first firework to go off, and then everyone settled in for the show. And what a show it was! We enjoyed the heck out of it. After a fantastic finale, it was time to call it a night. Little ones were exhausted and melt downs were occurring left and right. We bid everyone farewell, and the celebrations drew to a close.

I hope everyone else had a lovely 4th of July as well! And enjoy these wonderful long summer days that we have left!