62. July 4th, 2010 Picture.

To celebrate the 4th, I went down to my Uncle Paul's summer house in Hull and spent the day drinking and eating on his wrap around porch overlooking the ocean.  I could honestly do it every day for the rest of my life.  Ratty and I headed down in the morning, and stopped off to buy some beers and snacks for the fam.  We got to Hull just around 1pm, and settled in for a great afternoon.  It was me, Ratty, my mom, Uncle Paul, Susan, Rich, Uncle Bill, Aunt Andrea, Kathie, Maeve, Olivia, Aidan and little Rich.  We had a such a great afternoon!  We went swimming, who knew Uncle Bill was a FISH?!  He literally swam for hours, floating on his back and doing laps around me.  No joke.  

We sat around talking, drinking, grilling, eating and laughing.  Absolutely perfect.  My uncle Paul made the most amazing steak tips for dinner, and the ice cream truck came around for dessert.  The aunts and uncles moseyed on out around dusk, after watching the most incredible sunset, but we kept the party going until midnight.  There were LOTS of fireworks, and since we were right on the bay, we could see them happening in Boston, Cohasset, Weymouth and Hull.  The next door neighbor had a ton of industrial fireworks, most definitely illegal, and he started setting them off on the beach in front of the house.  They were pretty spectacular, right in our faces, but then they starting getting too close for comfort and we were concerned that just one could set the house on fire.  I mean, it didn't happen, but it COULD have.  I am so my mother's daughter.

I actually took a lot of nice pictures, some of my family sitting around chatting, watching the fireworks and down in the water, but those are long gone.  I'm not too broken up about it because the BESTEST photo ever still exists.  This one photo must equal about 1,000 other photos in my head, because I don't care that I lost a few months worth, but if I lost this I would be DEVASTATED.  Like, cry myself to sleep on a sopping wet pillow devastated.  Here's why:

Here's a picture of Ratty hitting golf balls into the bay.  Look closely to Ratty's hands.  Do you see the club?  Nope, now look in the air.  This is the BEST PHOTO EVER!  We were all taking turns hitting balls, and I snapped this right as Ratty was swinging, thinking I'd get a good action shot.  What I got was SO MUCH BETTER!  The second I saw the club go flying into the water I literally collapsed into hysterics on the ground.  Ratty quickly turned, looking for someone to tell him it would all be okay, but we were too busy laughing to console him.  It was awesome.  I didn't even know I got this picture until a little while later.  Once I found it, we literally passed the camera around every hour on the hour and cracked up again and again.  My cousin Maeve zoomed in on Ratty's face and the club, which just made it all seem more ridiculous.  I cannot believe I got this picture.  If I tried 1 million times to get it, I bet I couldn't.  Just the way the club is positioned, against the blue sky, it's amazing.  If the club had been about 3 feet lower you wouldn't have been able to see it because of the houses in the background.  It is literally the most perfect shot.  You can see the panic sweeping across Ratty's face as he realized that he lost my uncle's golf club.  This picture is currently set as my work computer background.  I chuckle every time I see it.

The rest of the day was pretty much dedicated to making fun of Ratty.  Heck, emails are still going around with comic strip characters sending golf clubs into the water.  Rich forwarded it to my family, his wife's family and it made the rounds to his co-workers.  I added it to Facebook where it quickly racked up comments and likes.  A-mazing.  We even went down to the beach with flashlights, hoping to find it as the tide was going out.  It was so frustrating because we could not find it, even though we knew it should be right there.  Thankfully my uncle Paul found it the next morning at low low tide during his walk on the beach, so all is well!  Ratty is now allowed back in Hull.  Although he will never ever live this down.