Red, white, and blue upon a birthday cake

The Fourth of July is an all-American holiday.

That may sound overly obvious. But I don't mean that it's a holiday about America, or a holiday celebrated only in America--rather, I mean that the Fourth of July is woven into the fabric of American life. If you're American, you celebrate it.

As I read historical documents, it's interesting to see how big it was for nineteenth-century Americans--even though, or perhaps because, the Declaration of Independence had been around for less than 100 years. It was bigger than Christmas.

While Christmas is a much bigger holiday now (and maybe even Halloween is as well), the Fourth of July is still a significant cultural phenomenon. Consider all these popular songs that mention the Fourth of July:

• "Victorious" by Panic! at the Disco
• "Remedy" by Jason Mraz
• "Firework" by Katy Perry
• "Sam's Town" by the Killers
• "Boot Scootin' Boogie" by Brooks and Dunn
• "Born on the Bayou" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
• "Saturday in the Park" by Chicago

...and others that are less popular or that have obvious titles (like "Fourth of July" by Fall Out Boy and "Independence Day" by Martina McBride).

Occasionally you see viral Facebook posts or things telling you to call it Independence Day, that "Fourth of July" is unpatriotic or unappreciative. But I disagree. "Fourth of July" has been the more popular term all along, and it is what our culture calls it. The fact that we can simply call it a date indicates how important it is to us as a country. "Fourth of July" is the more American term.

If you read this blog, it's common knowledge that I only eat seasonal sweets. But not all seasonal treats are equal, and I have divided them into different categories. Categories 1 and 2 are my preferences:

• Category 1 items are things that are themselves iconic to the holiday, like jelly beans or candy corn.
• Category 2a items are other things flavored like those in category 1, like candy cane shakes or gingerbread Pop-Tarts. 
• Category 2b items have a unique flavor, but the flavor itself is not seasonal. A current example of this is America Mix Skittles, which are various red, white, and blue berry flavors--the berries don't have to do with Independence Day, but the mix is only available seasonally. Another example is mint shakes at St. Patrick's Day, because mint has nothing to do with Ireland, but green does.
• Category 3 items have festive colors or shapes, but once they're in your mouth, they're the same as their non-seasonal counterparts. A donut with festive sprinkles is on the low end of category 3 (but on the high end of deliciousness).
• Category 4 candies have a seasonal wrapper, but once the wrapper is off, they're not seasonal. They count, but they're my least favorite category.

My dad's birthday is near (sometimes on) Memorial Day, my mom's birthday is near Independence Day, my niece's birthday is near Pioneer Day, and my sister's birthday is in there as well. I've often had patriotic cakes for these birthdays, but this week I decided that I didn't want another category 3 cake, but I wanted a category 2. The only category 1 dessert for Independence Day is Bomb Pops (or other brands of red, white, and blue popsicles), so I found a recipe online for a Bomb Pop cake. It was a lemon cake with cherry and blue raspberry Jello in it. It was OK; I like regular cake more.

 (To be perfectly honest, the only reason I'm telling you all this is so I could use the post title. I've wanted to use it for years.)

I've been trying to get my nephews to be like me, so this week I took Preston (11) and Nathaniel (6) trail running. They couldn't run the whole time, as they get a lot of side stitches, but when they were running they were fast. They had fun.

For part of my Fourth of July celebrations, I participated in North Salt Lake's annual 5k again. I've gotten quite slow, and I don't know if it's because I'm older or because I've adapted to trail running and steep hills. Since I wanted to go faster (it's a race, after all), my goal was to make it under 27 minutes. Which is very slow, but it's fast for me, and I barely made it. But it's OK, because I used to be fat. Also, even though I didn't win any prizes for speed, they had a raffle, and I won a prize from that! I picked out a patriotic beach towel. Franklin (8) for some reason gets a great kick out of saying "You won a towel!"

Then my nephews wanted to find fossils, so my family went to a wash in Spanish Fork Canyon to find shell fossils. It was very similar to a Jurassic formation I visited in Spanish Fork Canyon in 2013, but I really don't know how old it was. I'm kind of sad that I'm realizing that I'm really not a geologist. But we found lots of aquatic fossils. 

This is a tree and a nephew, not a fossil. In case you couldn't tell.

Then we went to North Salt Lake's annual fireworks show, which is impressive for just a little city. But my parents didn't come, because my dad had had caffeinated soda earlier in the day, and it made him feel quite ill last night, so much that they had to go to the doctor. Caffeine abstinence FTW!