Sunday, July 5, 2009

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYONE!!!



July has always been my favorite month of the year. Just one more reason, other than it being my birthday month and the summer holiday from school, that July is fantastic. A holiday that brings together everyone to celebrate not only the Country's independence, but also family. I love Independence day because it has become another holiday to have off from work so that everyone can get together and take a break. Sure you have those (like me) who man the grill for most of the party or those glued to the television instead of mingling with the family. But when the burgers and hotdogs are laid out with the salad and corn, everyone crowds around together and enjoys the holiday as a family should. In this day and age it is not often that my whole family gets to eat together, especially as us oldest three children all in, or in my older brothers case fresh out of, college spend most of our time socializing with our college friends away from the house.

I did of course have to make time for those college friends (love you Eun Yoon!) and head out to Penn's Landing for the Super Scooper All-You-Can-Eat ice cream festival held on the festival pier. This was my first time in many years making it down to Penn's Landing for the 4th and I was not disappointed. It was crowded and parking was scarce, but if you look hard enough and are willing to walk a bit, you can find meter parking and save yourself at least 10 dollars. The crowd was a friendly Philadelphian crowd, making the most of the warm weather and delicious treats for free and sale. The ice cream event was well worth the 5 dollars spent on the entrance fee. After you wait in line and pay (the proceeds of which go toward The Joshua Kahan Fund for pediatric leukemia), you are given a spoon and free range on all the frozen treats you can handle. It was pretty packed, but nothing too overbearing, as there were places to stand and eat the ice cream or water ice. You can choose from Shoprite and Haagen Daz to Starbucks and Ben and Jerry's. The flavors vary depending on the station and my favorite has to be the water (pronounced wood-er) ice.

~Now, I will speak more on this in a later blog. But I must say now that Wooder ice, as it must be called, is in fact a Philly thing. We created it and therefore don't appreciate when people try to correct the way we pronounce it. ~

Moving on. All in all, the super scooper festival is a fantastic event to attend especially because it benefits a great cause. With so many ice cream and wooder ice flavors to choose from, why not stop by next year and sample a few. It's family, friends, and date friendly so there's really no excuse why you shouldn't stop by even for an hour.

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But this year 4th of July was otherwise spent as a family with my older brother's girlfriend's family (that's a mouthful isn't it?). The women were the cooks. The men prepared the backyard for our activities. I bbq'd. My siblings enjoyed a short respite from the toils of camp (hear my sarcasm) with the pool and basketball court. And when I finished cooking and eating, the pool was my haven for fun and games with both families. Nothing beats a hot July day that a cool pool.
And when the sun went down and it became to cold to swim in the pool, we all slipped into the jacuzzi, fitting seven of us comfortably.

We ended our 4th of July celebration with our own fireworks. And yes I did say fireworks- not those sparklers- but real pricey need to stick in a pail of sand because they're so powerful type of fireworks. The running joke is that we do the fireworks until the bomb squad comes, something that happened last year. This year however the bomb squad overlooked us and we set off enough fireworks to compete with the local township's display. Pretty fancy if I say so myself.

So sitting down to write this tiny little piece I decided family made this day such a great celebration. Even without the fireworks and all the other party fanfare, family can always throw down and make any get together well worth it.


HAPPY 4TH OF JULY FROM PHILADELPHA!!!

Also, as my 21st draws near quite quickly, I'm hoping to update this much more frequently. I have lots to say and I hope you'll enjoy reading about it!

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