With a fireworks show and a picnic at the White House, President Barack Obama leads the nation in observing Independence Day.

Saturday is also his daughter Malia's 11th birthday. Twenty of her young friends have joined the first family at the Camp David presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland to help celebrate.

By evening, the Obama family will be back at the White House, where the president hosts a barbecue on the South Lawn for 1,200 military families, saluting their service to the nation. It'll all be capped with Washington's traditional Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza.

The president sets off Sunday on a weeklong trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana, his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as president.