4th of July - a special meaning

The 4th of July has always been special to A and I (or the days surrounding it).

4 years ago, we started dating on the 2nd/3rd of July (depending on who you ask, one of us says it was before midnight and the other says it was after!) We drove down to camp together that weekend, it was my first time back since my senior year of high school the summer after A and I broke up (it was an awful week at camp, to say the least...but hubby has apologized and I let it go). We walked around the grounds holding hands and chatting with counselors we had at camp. We shared in our first kiss that weekend and decided we would start casually dating...A had a lot of growing up to do, and we didn't want things to be too serious too fast like the first time we dated.

3 years ago, A asked me to marry him on the 5th of July. I had spent a week at camp as a counselor (that same camp we visited before) and that Saturday, A and I went to the fireworks at a local park. When we got back to his house he had some fireworks he wanted to set off so we went to the backyard and he got down on one knee and proposed! We had already been planning a wedding and I kept telling him I didn't need a ring because it felt materialistic and a waste of money, but he surprised me with a beautiful ring with 3 pink sapphires!This pic was taken the weekend after A proposed. We went camping in PA. It's funny to see A's belly looking normal because he has a huge scar on it from an ulcer last year.

In 2009 & 2010 we spent the weekend camping at his family's house and enjoyed the weekend up on "the ridge" (this place gets no cell service and A is pretty much related to everyone in the zip code). It was fun, but it wasn't something I wanted to do this year.

Now that we are a family of 3, I want 2011 and all future July 4th weekends to be special. Instead of doing stuff with either of our families, we are going to spend this day as a family of 3. We're going to visit the local state park. We're going to go fishing, swimming, go on a picnic, and get ice cream. In future years I want to take our kids to the parade and go to the fireworks. These are the memories I have as a kid and I want to make these kinds of memories with our kids. It's the one holiday I don't want to feel obligated to do family stuff, because for literally every other holiday someone expects us to do family stuff (I'm not huge on family events, so this has been a huge adjustment for me).

So far we haven't had any negative feedback for skipping out on the family parties, and hopefully this will remain true!