July 4th

I don't know why but the past few years the 4h of July has been guilt ridden. Growing up I have many memories of the 4th. We would wake up and have a yummy breakfast and we always invited a long time friend of my parents Barbara Hunt. Strangely though she always brought Pistachio Salad which is made with pistachio pudding, cool whip, pineapple and marshmallows.
So the menu consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh fruit and pistachio salad. Strange I know but she brought it every year and we loved it! We then would proceed to the parade which back in the day was on main street. My Dad would go down there at six in the morn and park our old green truck and we would show up right before it started. We then would go to the fair in the park and in the evening would go and watch the fireworks and enjoy Sandies cookies and licorice.
Well my purpose in telling you this is to explain my guilt ridden feelings, you see I don't desire to do all that anymore, mostly the parade I guess and the fireworks. I like both of these things but don't enjoy the crowds and of course the preplanning. I'm not a great preplanner okay, I'm a show up and lets have fun kind of gal. But our town is huge now and its not the same as it was, where we would go and know a lot of the people ya know.
Anywho so that is why I feel a bit guilty leading up to this holiday, should I try to give my kids the exact same memories as I had as a kid? I don't know maybe.....
This year we did plan something, but for one of the first times we didn't have to work with anyone's schedules and show up here and there at a certain times. Which I think I really enjoyed because it was so relaxing and fun.
We invited some old friends, Davids brother and wife and his parents to our house for a BBQ.
We had so much yummy food and David made his famous blue cheese stuffed burgers, YUMMY!
We then played a bit of Guitar Hero, chatted and set off a lot of fireworks in the front yard of our house. Relaxing and fun! I asked my kids if they had fun and they DID so it was not guilt ridden YEH!!!