There are many traditional ways we celebrate this Independence Day and most of them end with . We love sharing with our family and friends. However you celebrate yours, be safe and watch out for your loved ones.
I ran across some interesting facts about this great country that show a much more positive light than we are used to seeing in the daily news, so I thought I'd share them with you here.

We've got BIG hearts. Last year we contributed more than $144 billion and 21 billion hours of our time to charitable organizations. Nearly half of us roll up our sleeves and volunteer each year.
We dote on our Moms. America was the first country to set aside an official day to celebrate motherhood, and we make sure our moms know we love them by making 110 million phone calls home on Mother's Day and spending $615 million on candy, cards and flowers.
We are loyal and loving. A whopping 77 percent of married Amereican couples kiss good night, and 88 percent of us say we'd marry our spouses all over again.
We spoil our kids. We American spent $21 billion on toys four our tots last year - that's more than France, England, Spain and Japan did combined!
The power of prayer. Religious freedom is one of the values we hold most dear. That's why the United States is home to hundreds of thousands of churches, synagogues and mosques and to 18 major religious denominatons in addition to Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
We love ice cream. We eat more ice cream than any other nation on Earth--about 857,000,000 gallons a year. That's 26 pints of vanilla, chocolate, Rocky Road or rainbow sherbert for each of us.
Our kids are changing the world. Our children may be the most caring, dedicated kids on earth. Last year thousands of them participated in everything from cleaning up the environment to helping the homeless. Kids from 30,000 schools collected $2 million for UNICEF, and Girl Scouts sold 168 million boxes of cookies. (This information was found in Woman's World, 7-1-97 issue.)