4th of July

I love the 4th of July. It's the perfect day of summer: everyone wears the same colors, everyone enjoys the warm nights, and everyone gets crazy by trying to plan the best celebration ever. Some of the my most vivid memories come from the 4th, from midnight swimming to getting stuck in a museum exhibit featuring lots of bones during a thunderstorm/power outage (it was pitch black and I was a little more than terrified). But the most interesting 4th has to be from my childhood:

Circa 1996 we celebrated at my grandma's house and we all took family pictures and my sister and I wore matching dresses. We had these dolls named Rachel and Rebekah who had matching dresses as well (which my mom made). Rachel was about the size of an American Girl doll and she had curly blonde hair and a squishy body. Rebekah had lighter blonde hair in two braids and she was a little bit bigger than a Barbie. Now Rebekah was the best doll in the world. I have no memories of her aside from this day, but for at least the duration of the day I was obsessed with her. In our family pictures my sister got to hold Rebekah (I think because she was the littler doll) and I had to hold Rachel, and I was not happy about it. I was upset and didn't want to be in the picture but my parents somehow made me sit down and hold Rachel (I think I cried a lot before relenting). But there was one thing that they could not make me do: smile. So in our family pictures, instead of making an angry face or sucking it up and smiling, I just looked passively away from the camera into the distance with a meaningless expression. Hipster child in the making.

Almost every 4th since then has been spent with my sister in some fashion, whether in our neighborhood or in DC or in Williamsburg (the first year I went to DC she stayed at home and we got rained on forever--I think that's been our only separation). So it's very strange to me to not have her with me to play cards and find overpriced food and go for a swim...I'm missing her a lot. :/

Anyway, personal and historical significance, it's just a great day of summer. There's a lot of pressure on it to be the best day ever, but random adventures make it the most fun and it's one of the few times when I support a complete lack of planning. Also, the fireworks in CW this year may have been the best fireworks I've ever seen, no pressure 2013.