4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. That and Thanksgiving. I guess I’m a serious American, huh?

The holiday actually started for me this year the night before on the 3rd at the Red, White, and Boom. RWandB is a 2 day festival hosted by Minneapolis Parks and Rec at Nicollet Island that includes music, food, fireworks, races, and an outdoor movie. On Fourth of July Eve (yes, that’s a thing now), the outdoor movie was hosted. Look at this crowd:

Who would expect anything less for a screening of the most patriotic movie of the 80’s:

Yesssss. Young Tom Cruise. 🙂

After a fun night of jingoism, we awoke the next morning ready to get our parade on (nothing says Fourth of July like parades, right?). St. Anthony Park in St. Paul offers a parade and festival that we decided to attend.

Lots of people lined the streets of Como Ave to see the parade.

The boy scouts definitely had the coolest float:

Someone forgot to mention to this float that today is all about AMERI-CUH:

After the parade passed, everyone followed the floats to the parade end at Langford Park:

After getting to the park. We had to do some people dog and car watching:

The park was packed with folks having picnics and enjoying our freedom in the sunshine:

For lunch, we left the park and headed to the nearby Finnish Bistro. As adorable as always, the bistro was a bit more crowded on this visit. We ordered a cold salmon salad and veggie omelet:

Delish! After eating, we headed back to the park to see the boy scouts continuing their antics:

We also listened to some jazz music at the bandstand:

Once the festivities had been thoroughly explored, it was time to head home for a BBQ that my roommates and I hosted in our backyard. The food was awesome:

Of course, no 4th of July is complete without fireworks. We biked to the Stonearch Bridge to watch fireworks there. Undoubtedly this is the most crowded spot in Minneapolis to watch the fireworks, but it was totally worth it. There were HUNDREDS (thousands?) of people, and the fireworks display was great.

Happy Birthday America. I ❤ you. 🙂