Fourth of July 2008

I love the Fourth of July. I'm usually at my lowest stress level of the year (yay for summer!), so I feel like I can really relax and enjoy myself. It's a holiday that doesn't take weeks of preparation, but usually involves friends and family, food, and just a general good time. I'm also embarassingly patriotic. I admit it, I cry when I hear Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American". I'm not a huge fan of the fireworks that people shoot off at home, and was thrilled that we managed to make it through the holiday this year without any. Although some sparklers would have been fun.

Anyway, this year Granda (Stewart's grandmother and my former roomie) decided that she wanted everyone to get together at the property on the Chipola River, and did a fair amount of threatening to make sure that everybody came. Stewart's dad is one of four boys, and when all of them with their respective families are there, it makes for a pretty big gathering. I had a great time, especially since I adore Stewart's cousins so much! I love my cousins but they're much older and live far away, so we're not as close as I wish we were. Stewart's cousins on the other hand, are all relatively close in age and grew up together. I really enjoy spending time with them and their spouses; they're people we'd want to hang out with even if we weren't related! Here are some pictures from the day.


*Running update*
I almost forgot, we did our first "long" run on the morning of the Fourth. We ran for 20 minutes without stopping! I'm pretty happy with that, since just a few weeks ago we were only running 90 seconds at a time. Yay for progress!