july 4th

happy independence day!

so far, i have celebrated the day by working on the inpatient service at the hospital and a 2 hour reverse triathlon workout (run, bike, swim). now i'm sitting in my filth typing...boy, i love america.

during my swim i was thinking about what we used to do as a family. dad's b-day is the 3rd, so many times we did the birthday/independence day combo. when we lived in jackson, mi we spent a lot of 4ths with my aunt rachel and uncle tom who lived outside south bend, indiana. it always was a lot of fun. there was that year that rachel tripped and dad's cake fell on the new carpet...that was funny!

i also had two holidays in the swamps of florida during high school. it would have been near the completion of the first 2 weeks of boot camp....(you think i'm kidding) and i was about ready to head to Europe (the 1st time) and Africa (2nd). at that point, you are pretty tired and you smell horrible...humidity, obstacle courses, and bucket bathes doesn't make one beautiful...Teen Missions did do it up big for the 4th though. we had watermelon, burgers, and hot dogs (you must finish everything you took) and of course fireworks across the pond. it was always fun. od course, it helped that you knew you were leaving soon as well!

college 4th of julys were primary about trying to work at st. joseph hospital so i could get double time and a half. 2.5x of not a whole lot is a little more and working holidays let me have more adventures during the school year so i gladly worked.

i honestly don't know what i did in grad school the first year...probably took an anatomy test and went to six flags. we'll say that was the plan since we did that quite a bit! the second year of grad school we went to the shore of lake michigan and watched the fireworks. i was in the middle of my ER rotation and it was intense!

this is now my second 4th in houston....crazy. i have been here nearly 2 years total. last year april, ryanne, and i went to the "fireworks over texas" show. i guess it is the biggest land based fireworks show in the country. it was fun...we walked there and on the way back we walked through the worst part of houston by mistake...oops. there was a lot of heckling and derogatory addresses....it makes a great memory though!

have a great day.