Southport is home of the NC 4th of July festival, and since moving here, we have yet to experience a complete one. In 2019, we were here as travelers and they had to cancel the fireworks because of a thunderstorm. In 2020 and 2021 it was cancelled due to Covid. There was lots of anticipation leading up to this year’s festival. The festival actually runs from July 1 – July 4 and has events in both Southport and Oak Island. Oak Island always celebrates on July 1 with their birthday fireworks and beach day. We were unable to attend any of the beach day activities because it fell on a weekday and we were working.

My family came into town Friday evening so that we could all take part in the festival events. We ordered pizza and hung around the house playing games and getting settled in for the holiday weekend. The weather forecast was a little questionable so our plan was to partake in some of the festival events in town on Saturday, have a beach day on Sunday, and parade, fireworks, and possible beach time on Monday. Saturday morning I woke up early so that we could go get the kids registered for the kid events. I checked the weather only to find out that overnight Tropical Storm Colin formed out of nowhere. We soon found out that ALL events for the day were cancelled because of potential winds and heavy rains. Plan B went into effect. We went to one yard sale that was going on and then we spent the morning going to thrift stores in Southport and Oak Island. The sun did come out for a bit in the afternoon, at least long enough for us to walk around downtown for a bit and to stop and get some ice cream. We came back home and grilled chicken, played some games outside, hung out, and then played some new games that I got inside.

We woke up Sunday to a beautiful day. So after some breakfast, we packed up some coolers and stuff and headed for the beach. The water was rough (actually had someone drown while we were out there) but the weather was perfect and the kids had a blast. We headed home after a few hours to get ready to go watch the Firefighters competition that was supposed to have been Saturday morning. It was nice but really drawn out. It didn’t really keep the attention of the kids for the whole thing so we left a little early. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner and played an interactive trivia game on the tv until we went to bed.

Monday…the 4th of July! My mom and I got up and out about 6am to go find a spot to put some chairs to watch the parade. Some people had already put their chairs and tents out the day before. We were able to find a really nice spot that was easily accessible and pretty close to home. After getting the spot, we went back home and made breakfast. Afterwards, we packed some snacks and a few more chairs and headed to the parade. It was a very enjoyable parade even though it rained on us a little bit. My dad and Scott stayed home to watch it. Turns out our house is on the very tail end of the parade route. Mikey and I gathered our chairs and took them down to the waterfront to leave them to secure a spot to watch the fireworks that night. Later in the afternoon a few of us went down to the waterfront to see the Sunny Point fire boat spray red, white, and blue water and we took a tour of the old jail. Once again we packed some snacks and a cooler and headed down to the water to watch the fireworks. Having never seen them, I wasn’t 100% sure where they would be fired from but I had a conversation with a sheriff deputy and we picked our spot. Well, he didn’t give the best advice and our spot could have been a lot better. Oh well….this year was a learning year. We now know a lot of things we should and shouldn’t do in the future.

Now for the worst part of every holiday…the taking down of all the decor!