{"id":285,"date":"2021-07-01T03:36:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-01T08:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/?p=285"},"modified":"2025-01-21T02:21:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T08:21:45","slug":"our-family-fourth-of-july-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/our-family-fourth-of-july-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Family Fourth of July Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celebrating Under The Stars<\/h2>\n

Independence Day isn\u2019t just about fireworks and barbecues, though I like both of those aspects of the holiday. It commemorates a time when the 13 original colonies fought for their freedom from British rule to form the budding democracy of America. Despite nearly two and half centuries of growing pains, I feel honored to live in the United States. I was afforded an opportunity to pursue my dream of becoming a physician and to serve the Northern Virginia community.<\/p>\n

I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, which is at the northern most tip of the state. For 10 years, I worked each summer for our small town\u2019s Department of Public Works. I had a blast with this job. My work included a wide range of jobs: paving roads; painting all of the different town buildings including the police department\u2019s headquarters; driving a wide range of different town trucks; scuba diving to find the leaks in our town\u2019s monstrous swimming pool; prepping the baseball fields for games; cutting all of the town fields with ride-on tractors; and helping get the town set up for our yearly Fourth of July fireworks display.<\/p>\n

It was then that I became, and continue to be, a lover of all forms of fireworks. Our town was small and the budget for fireworks was also small; however, the 15 minutes of fireworks were always amazing to watch with my parents and five siblings. I remember hearing that even our small fireworks display cost $20,000 back when I was only 15 years of age. <\/p>\n

When I was older, and training in ophthalmology in New York City, I still thoroughly enjoyed watching the fireworks, but this time from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan with a view of the New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty.<\/p>\n

My family and I have continued to enjoy the fireworks, so popular during July 4 celebrations, but now it is often with a bunch of scouts camping in the western part of Virginia. I love leaning back and being surprised by the colors and booms as the fireworks envelop the sky. It all makes me feel like a 10-year-old kid again!<\/p>\n

As we emerge from this pandemic, I hope we can all take time to enjoy simple pleasures and be reminded of how lucky we are each day. I have recently started devoting 10 minutes each night before going to sleep to close my eyes and pray and see how many things I can recall from the day for which I can be thankful. I mentally walk through the entire day, and it always makes me smile to remember the blessings. It also helps me end each day on a positive note. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Thank you to my immediate and extended family, to my friends, and to you, my patients, for giving me so much to be grateful for!<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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Celebrating Under The Stars Independence Day isn\u2019t just about fireworks and barbecues, though I like both of those aspects of the holiday. It commemorates a time when the 13 original colonies fought for their freedom from British rule to form … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eyeplasticmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}