Independence Day is my favorite holiday. It combines all of my favorite things: eating grilled food, drinking homemade Arnold Palmers, shooting off fireworks, playing with sparklers, friendly games of cornhole and wiffle ball, parades and festivals. I mean, what’s not to love?

Every year, for as long as I can remember, my family celebrates at my aunt and uncle’s house in Kentucky. I think one year we stayed in Ohio, but my uncles nearly got the police called on them when they were shooting off fireworks. I was hiding under a picnic table with my cousins.

Not that shenanigans in Kentucky are any better for us; people are just way more chill about explosions down here. And the cops are usually watching the (technically illegal) fireworks shows. As long as no one complains and no one gets hurt, no one gets shut down.

Of course if you’re setting off bottle rockets and roman candles on a packed neighborhood street and one of those little whirlybird fireworks go spinning down the street bouncing off cars, you may want to pack it up and go inside. (Not that anything like that has ever happened at one of my family’s parties.)

These days, so many of my aunt’s neighbor’s put on their own fireworks shows that we don’t really need to set them off. This year, we sat in the backyard craning our necks to see fireworks through the threes on four sides of us, before taking our camp chairs to the front yard to watch the big show. There’s always one neighbor who outdoes all the rest, and he didn’t disappoint this year either. By the time the sun fully set, the streets were so full of smoke it looked like a foggy morning out there.

And yes, we looked like a bunch of goofballs camped out in the front yard. We didn’t care.

Check out this year’s “Best of” compilation below.