Forth of July

I love traditions and at my house, we have plenty of 4th of July traditions. Some have died down in the past few years as cousins have gotten older and grown apart, but I still love the memories of the 4th of July. Every year we would go to my grandparents house and have a barbecue. The cousins would always swim all afternoon in the pool and best of all we would eat homemade ice cream! My grandparents had the really old kind of ice cream maker where you'd have to actually crank the ice cream around and around with a handle. Each grand kid youngest to oldest would have to take 50 cranks on the ice cream maker and then an adult would finish it off. The ice cream was absolutely delicious.

There were also A's games that we'd go to around the 4th of July to watch the fireworks. Fireworks games were always packed and everyone was excited. The wave would go around the stadium 8 or 9 times and everyone would get up during the 7th inning stretch and sing "Take me out to the ball game." When I was younger I used to think fireworks were way too loud and I would sit there with my hands over my ears. But I remember my favorite part was when the Journey song "Lights" would come on and the lights would go out and the stadium and everyone would cheer and then get really quiet. A few fireworks would go off during "Lights" and then the real show would start. The stadium would shake as fireworks went off and crowds would ooh and awweee when the smiley face fireworks would shoot off.

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays and I can not wait for the break from school and to visit Jacob's family in Boise. Maybe I'll get lucky and hear "Lights."