Our Days in the City: The One About Independence Day

This is going to be a very picture heavy post. I'm just warning you now. We love July 4th. We go a little crazy. Especially when we live in Boston and there are such awesome ways to celebrate the birth of our nation. And we proudly celebrate. Because despite all of it's flaws, I do truly believe that America is an awesome place and I am proud to be an American. I love freedom and I love democracy and I love American history and the way our nation came about to be a nation. I love the heroism of so many people who bravely stood up and fought for something they truly believed in. Despite all odds. I love the stories of sacrifice and dedication. I love that those people stood up to their fears and did not let their fears control them. And I love that, despite all odds and everything going against them, the Continental Army under incredible leadership won battle after battle and came out victorious against the British Army. They were farmers and blacksmiths and shop owners. They were not trained soldiers. But they believed in a cause and they were fighting for the very livelihood of their families, and fighting for something you believe in so strongly is a powerful thing. And incredible things happened. And I love to celebrate that heroism.

This year, Kip and I received special VIP tickets to the Boston Pops concert. The concert is free and held on July 3rd and 4th and everyone stands in line for hours waiting to get a seat on the lawn with their blankets and picnic lunches. We didn't go last year and were trying to decide if it was worth fighting the crowds this year with a 16-month-old in tow. However, thanks to the USO, we didn't have to fight those crowds. The New England USO is one of the best their is, and they had some complimentary July 3rd tickets for military families that we received. The tickets allowed us to forego the lines and arrive much later than most people and still have great seats in actual chairs instead of on blankets. In fact, our seating was about 10 rows back and we arrived at 5pm and our seating was aligned with people who had arrived at 8am to claim the cherished front lawn seats! It was an awesome experience and we loved it.

This is where we were sitting, and the people to the right were the ones who had been waiting since 8am!

This is the awesome set-up at the half shell, where the concert is held every year

Lucy ate LOTS of junkfood, that was given to her by the old people sitting in front of us! They were very nice, and they LOVED Lucy. This was her first lollypop, and it was a big hit!

They had complimentary flags and liberty hats for everyone!

Toby Keith was the guest artist this year. I knew all of the songs and Kip knew none of them!

Confetti snowed down on us at the end, and it was super cool!

July 4th fell on a sunday this year, so we skipped church to head downtown and enjoy the Boston parade, which is always a really fun experience. Boston is a beautiful city with a surprisingly small town feel to it. This is really felt a lot on July 4th, when the parade begins at City Hall and marches along parts of the Freedom Trail. Spectators follow the parade around, and it stops at various locations to pay tribute to certain Founding Fathers, and culminates at the Old State House, where the Declaration of Independence is read from the balcony just as it was in 1776! In 1776, after it was read the listeners celebrated fiercely, and even tore down the horse and lion statues from the top of the House building and burned them, so clearly Boston's reputation of rioting in celebration has a very long history!

Lucy was ready to cheer on the parade of Continental Soldiers with her American Flag

One of our favorite parts of the parade is watching the Minutemen fire their muskets!

These women are volunteers with the Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes and Drums, and they were incredibly kind and incredibly talented. Lucy and I chatted with them for about 15 minutes.

This is the Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was read, and these are the statues that were tore down in riotous celebration in 1776!

After the parade we went to the Coast Guard base, where the USO had a free catered lunch and lots of games and activities for military families.

Lucy looked very cute if I do say so myself, and she really enjoyed the cookies.

She did not, however, enjoy meeting Woody

This is how she stayed for the next 10 minutes, clinging to me with all of her strength and keeping an eye out on Woody, making sure he didn't get too close!

After spending a couple of hours at the base, we came home and prepared for our evening fireworks party. We had a bunch of friends from church come over and we all walked together to Memorial Drive, which is right on the Charles River, to set up camp and enjoy picnic dinners while waiting for the fireworks to begin. We had a great time hanging out together and socializing while listening to the live Pops concert on the big speakers, and we ended the night with an awesome fireworks display!