Special Day - Fourth of July

What are You doing for Fourth of July?
How will you and your family celebrate Independence Day? Do you take time to remember why the day is special? Maybe you display your flag and show your spirit with red, white, and blue apparel. Celebrations consist of many different events from attending parades, carnivals, and fireworks displays, to camp outs, picnics, and parties.
Some people have huge celebrations while others have quiet events at home with family or maybe just a few friends. What is your favorite way to celebrate Fourth of July? Is there a year that you recall that was particularly special or exciting? Please share your ideas to help inspire other readers. There isn't much time left before Independence Day arrives!

This year, my family is going camping. I'm excited but a little nervous. We have a friend to house sit and dog sit and we won't be too far from home so we could actually run home in an emergency if we had to. Still, I'm a tad nervous about camping. This is going to be our first 'real' camping trip as a family. We plan to be out on the lake for several days.

My kids tease me that living in a camper isn't officially 'camping,' but it's as close as I get (I'm not exactly into 'roughing it'). No sleeping in a tent for this gal, but I'm sure we'll still have fun fishing, swimming, going out on the boat, watching fireworks, cooking over the campfire... the kids could frankly care less about other food; they just keep reminding me that we need stuff to make S'mores. Lots of S'mores.

Some friends from my husband's company are also going to be out at the lake with their families, so we've planned to do things with them as well. We are going to take turns entertaining the whole bunch at our various campsites and spend at least one day out on the boats.

We were out at the lake with some of these folks for Memorial Day. Last time we just spent the day, but it was a great time so we decided to extend our stay this time around and a few others plan to join the bunch of us. It should be a lot of fun and the local Chamber or Commerce puts on a terrific fireworks show, which is even more beautiful when reflecting off the lake (we've been there a few other times for the display).

That's our plan. So, what are your ideas for celebrating Independence Day?