Happy Independence Day!!!!!

Our family tradition of many, many years on the fourth is to go to my Aunt's house in Garland for a cook out dinner and swim in her pool! It's always fun to catch up with the cousins on Mommy's side, and this year, it will be Jack's first time at Aunt Linda's! :)

My cousin Nick, is in the Navy, and won't be there, though. :( I wonder what sort of celebration they do....?

What about y'all? what are your fourth traditions???

Little piece of Independence Day trivia:

How many of y'all knew that our National Anthem has four verses??

Most people just sing the first, or maybe the first and last, but

I love singing all of them, but the last I think is my favorite! :)

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam
Of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save
The hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must,
when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto:  "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

~Frances Scott Key, 1814

This is my 2nd favvortie patriotic song! Comparing Proud to be an American,

with Proud to be a Christian!!! :)