4th of July, 2025 Weekend!

The 4th so kindly fell on a Friday this year, which meant we had the whole weekend off after and this was SO NICE. (It is sort of a pet peeve of mine that a holiday which traditionally involves later night fireworks and family gatherings doesn’t naturally come with the following day off as a holiday, too! lol.)

We typically always go to my parents house for the 4th. It’s really the only holiday we celebrate at their house anymore. When I was working rotating holidays in the hospital and the boys were little, it always just made more sense for my parents to come to our house for major holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving).

But we all love our simple 4th of July family traditions at their house and this year didn’t disappoint. 🙂

As usual, we drove over after work on the 3rd. (It’s about 1 hour 15 minutes.) We dropped Charlie off at their house and then all went out for a later dinner. I saw my parents last weekend, briefly, after I picked them up from the airport, but the boys hadn’t seen them in well over a month due to their long Ireland trip. So we all caught up and this was nice. 🙂

On Friday morning, the boys and my dad had an 8:30 tee time. Asher is SUPER into golf right now and Ethan, who used to be, has apparently decided it’s not actually for him, but he went along anyway. Unfortunately it was sprinkling rain, but they reported it wasn’t a big issue and they had fun.

Ivan ran a quick errand and my mom and I drove over to their local county park. I let Charlie sniff around all the yummy smells on the fishing dock. 😉

Back at the house, Ivan and I (and Charlie) relaxed on their patio for a while and I read a bit of my book while waiting for the golfers. This was NICE. I do not tend to do that much just “sitting and relaxing” at home.

By noon or so we all headed to the 4th of the July parade. This is the same parade I grew up going to, in the city I grew up in (my parents no longer live there, but it’s only 1 town over and very close). It’s honestly nothing spectacular, but at this point, it’s mostly about the tradition. It’s your typical 4th of July parade- the high school marching bands and dance teams, local karate clubs and dance troupes perform, war veterans ride on a float, some senior citizen brass bands play, etc. Oh, and the UW Marching Band (well, a subset of it) always walk, too! That’s always a treat because they’re amazing.

Another tradition is that we always arrive early, and then buy Cousin’s subs for lunch, which is right behind the spot we always sit. This parade is POPULAR and people stake their spots out over 24 hours in advance. Fortunately my dad had roped off our usual shady spot the day before.

We ate our subs (I don’t have Cousin’s very often but now and then it hits the spot!) and hung out on blankets/ chairs until the parade started.

Around 1:00 the parade began:

It got HOT out there! The morning showers were long gone and it was very humid. That’s okay- it usually always is on the 4th of July here and I actually like it! It did make for a very steamy walk back to the car though, lugging our chairs and blankets and a cooler.

Back at the house we all just sort of collapsed for a few minutes in the air conditioning. Charlie was exhausted from his time doing, um, nothing at home. haha. (We put him in his crate since I don’t 100% trust him to not nibble on something at my parents’ house! They just got a new leather couch- covered with blanket here because I was paranoid about him scratching it or something!)

For the next few hours we just hung around. Asher had my mom and Ethan run him to a nearby fishing spot for a bit, others sat out on the patio chatting, and I played a few patriotic songs on the piano (Ethan has an old songbook that has exactly 4 patriotic songs in it, so I played those. lol!).

In the evening we had our traditional 4th of July meal- burgers, hot dogs, brats, corn, fruit, chips + Ivan’s pico de gallo, etc. SO YUMMY. (Ethan told me a couple weeks ago that he couldn’t wait for this meal, and that he likes it even better than Thanksgiving.)

After dinner, while we cleaned up and waited to leave for the fireworks, we put on the annual 4th of July concert at the Capitol in D.C. on PBS. It showcased artists from all over the U.S., including some Grammy-winner jazz artists from New Orleans, and even the original Temptations (who are… very old now!). It’s hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and now I can never not see him as Carlton. lol!

The concert leads into the big fireworks display at the Capitol while a symphony plays. Obviously it’s not the same as seeing fireworks in person, but it’s a nice annual concert that we’ve watched many other years.

Then it was time to actually go to fireworks! We are so lucky- the town next to my parents’ has GREAT fireworks and it’s SO SIMPLE and easy to get to. It’s just a quick 5 minute drive down the road to park, then a ~5 minute walk or so to the park.

It’s never overly crowded, so we only arrived maybe 15-20 minutes before the fireworks went off.

It was still SO HUMID out and a perfectly clear, still evening with no breeze. Ended up being great for fireworks viewing! But whew, it was muggy and still in the mid-80s after 9 pm.

I also love these fireworks because we can sit so close! They literally go off right over our heads.

Going to fireworks is a long standing tradition in our family. I always went as a kid, and I don’t think we’ve missed many years with our own kids (I think maybe just 2020?). It’s definitely something we always try to do on the 4th.

(Actually, historically, for many years- ever year since the boys were probably ~5 and 6 years old or so- we used to always go to the downtown Milwaukee lakefront fireworks on July 3rd, and then the local fireworks show on the 4th. Sadly, they stopped doing the lakefront show last year!! 😦 We miss it. It was always a favorite tradition for all of us, especially the boys. I guess they’ve now transitioned it to a drone show, which does not seem as appealing to me, but maybe we’ll have to give it a try some year.)

From 2016 on the Milwaukee lakefront!! The boys would have been… 6 and 7 here! How cute were they?!

This year the local fireworks were great though, as always:

Afterwards we went home and hung around chatting, etc until too late! Normally we then do sparklers before bed, but I guess we forgot. The boys used to love them… sadly, they don’t find them “quite” as exciting anymore…

On Saturday the 5th we had to head home. Most years it’s a work day for us (on a weekday), so we traditionally have to get up at the crack of dawn and drive home early, etc. It was amazing to NOT have to do that this year!!

We took a slow morning and spent a long while on the patio. Asher/my dad/ Ivan went over the driving range for a bit. I took Charlie on a longer walk.

Walk time:

We did have to pack up and drive home before 12:00 though, since Asher had a 12:15 work shift at the pool. Ethan also had to work at 1:30.

I personally felt weirdly tired/ wiped out! I think all the outside time and heat and humidity did me in. lol! After unpacking the car, I ended up taking a short nap, which was good because we had plans to go to Iván’s soccer game + family party at 4:00.

I accompanied Iván to his game. (People had set up their chairs under some trees in the shade, which was nice, but WAY too far from the game! It was a bit hard to see…. oh well. I didn’t want to be the weird one going and sitting away from everyone else…).

I sat by his friend’s wife. I sort of know this friend from years ago, but I had never actually met his wife. They are both Mexican and she was super nice. A friend of hers also came to the game, along with her very cute little dog. She is from the Dominican Republic and also was super nice and we chit-chatted throughout most of the game.

After the game (they won!), we ate- everyone had brought dishes to share. We had signed up to bring some drinks and ice, so we wouldn’t have to worry about cooking, etc. 😉

It was a fun and very diverse group- mostly Mexicans, but also some Central Americans and a couple guys from Uruguay and Argentina.

Unfortunately, I had my eye on the radar:

This big storm blob was definitely moving right at us. No one else at the party seemed to have, um, looked at the radar 😆and everyone seemed oblivious that it was supposed to storm… I suggested that maybe the grills and food should get packed up… 😉

It did indeed start to rain right as expected, around 7. It was a bummer, as I could tell Ivan definitely didn’t want to leave yet!! Some of the guys stayed under a tree in the rain and kept drinking their beers, ha. That is dedication to the party!

We ended up leaving- I know, I’m such a party pooper. lol. At least we got the game + the food in before the rain came.

Sunday was a much needed chill, reset day. Cleaned up the house, Ivan got groceries, and I did a bunch more work on the storage room. Ethan and Asher both worked, I went to the gym, etc. Seriously, every weekend needs to be at least 3 days. 🙂

It was a really wonderful holiday weekend for us! I love our 4th of July family traditions. 💗

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful that both boys got excellent scores on their AP exams. The results came out yesterday. (I had forgotten all about it, but the boys were anxiously waiting to see their results posted on July 7th. They both did amazing! They were both super happy.)

Side note: The news was particularly horrific this weekend with over 100 people and children now confirmed dead in the Texas flooding. I saw many other devastating stories too, from car accidents, to a little girl killed when a sand hole she was digging on the beach in Florida with her brother collapsed and buried her (this was actually from last year, but I just saw it), and an 8 year old boy being critically injured after falling 20 feet while hiking in Hawaii, among others. It is gut-wrenching and terrifying and at the same time makes me appreciate what we have right now, while we have it. I mean, you just never know when life will abruptly change, and that is so scary. And sad. Sigh. Clinging to these happy memories and am so grateful that we are still all here to make them right now! “We’re only passing through…” 😥