In 2006 the fourth of July fell on a Tuesday, which meant four day weekend! Wooooo! Meredith and I kicked off the festivities by heading out to my parent's house in NJ.
Saturday, July 1st

We didn't get to my parent's place until later on in the evening. We kicked it with my fam for a bit and then everyone went to bed! I wasn't tired, so I called Tim, Scott, Reminay and Erika. I got there around 1am and we decided to hop into Tim's boat (the SS Farley!) and take 'er for a spin on Lake Hopatcong (The largest lake in NJ is in my hometown).
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Captain Tim preparing to shove off!
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Check out how totally lit up Scott was. Hahaha.
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We ended up taking the across the lake and docking at an awesomely shitty bar called the Tidal Wave (which, if you're a long time reader, you'll remember as the bar where 2001's Midget Madness took place!). Yeah, that's right - there's a lake in my town that has bars that you can go to BY BOAT!
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Awww, yeah Tidal Wave!
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This is the only picture I took inside the bar. (The locals in this part of New Jersey are easily spooked by magic devices like digital cameras, so you gotta be careful).
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tidal wave
Sunday, July 2nd

Here's Meredith the next morning totally not believing me telling her that by going to bed early she missed the opportunity to travel to a bar by boat. Hahaha.
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We decided to hit the new IHOP that had recently opened in my town.
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Meredith and the bottomless carafe of coffee.
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The place was packed with some BIG ASS people. But I guess that's to be expected at a restaurant that serves motherfucking funnel cake for breakfast. (Holy shit, how insane is that?)
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Hmmmm! Which one of the four different types of syrups to use?
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Afterwards, Mer and I headed back up to the lake to do some tubin' off the back of the SS Farley!
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Scott went first. Ready?
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Go! Tubing is really fun - but it's sort of scary because you can't do anything to steer which leaves you completely at the mercy of the boat driver, in this case, Tim. It's an unspoken rule that it's the driver's job to make the rider eat shit.
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Typically, the driver will start things off mellow, but the longer a rider manages to hold on, the worse the driver will make the ride. Here's Scott about to get whipped over the wake at 30 MPH.
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A few minutes later, Scott rolled over onto his back (because when you're on your stomach and you get bounced really hard it totally hurts your back) and his ride ended, oh, about .5 seconds after this photo was taken.
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Meredith went next!
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Tim gave Meredith a nice ride without too many sharp turns and she managed to make it through her ride unscathed!
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Reminay went next.
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Tim gave her a little bit of a hard time (they are married, afterall)...
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...but for the most part, he went easy on her.
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I went next. I started out kneeling on the thing trying to show off...
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...then I realized that taunting Tim probably wasn't a good idea and laid down hoping he hadn't seen me.
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I managed to hang on through some pretty hairy bumps...
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...but eventually Tim got the best of me and I ate major shit.
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Post-tubin' relaxin'.
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After we were done tubing, we took the boat across the lake to the beach to meet up with Erika and the kids. Abbey and I went swimming.
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Later that afternoon, we all piled into the Jentzen family minivan and got a lift all the way around the lake back to our car. Here's Meredith, Erika, Liam (in the back with his kindergarten graduation hat on!) and Abby.
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Monday, July 3rd

The next morning, we got up bright and early and drove down to my parent's little shore house in Beach Haven West. After dropping off our bags, we grabbed some towels and headed to the beach on Long Beach Island.
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Awwwww.
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Later that night we rented some movies and called it a night early. (I think we were in bed before midnight!)
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Tuesday, July 4th

Tuesday afternoon, my dad wanted to take us out for a ride on his boat. Here Big Skip guiding the boat out of the dock and heading towards the bay.
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Meredith and my mom showing off their flyswatters. Coastal NJ in the summer is plagued with greenhead flies. They bite during the day and it hurts like HELL.
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Armed and dangerous. Usually, I try my hardest to be a "live and let live" kind of guy. But I draw the line at sentients that seek what entomologists call a "blood meal."
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Die, fuckers, die! I swat you to death!
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We anchored in a shallow part of the bay (away from the flies) and Meredith and I took a swim!
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The water was brown-green and pretty.
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Headed back to the house.
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Big Skipper "large and in charge" at the helm.
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Homeward bound.
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Later that evening, Meredith and I took the train back to NYC and made it over to Sarah's apartment just in time to go up on the roof and catch the beginning of the fireworks!
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Ooooh!
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Ahhhhh!
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Grant had also spent his weekend at the beach and was showing off a pretty, pretty nasty sunburn, which he was pretty excited about because it gave him a chance to flex his calves...
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...and back. Check out how you can the areas he failed to cover with sun block. Ouchy.
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Same thing happened to Meredith. She apparently missed around her side-boob and armpit and ended up getting horribly burned in just that one spot.
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Ouchy never looked so pretty! So, I have a ton of other pictures of fireworks, but who cares about them when there are...
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...pictures like this. Hahahaha. OMG, man Ellen Stagg really is a broseph trapped in the body of a buxom blonde. I love how she's even using two fingers to pretend she's "spreading the pink." Girl's hardcore RAW.
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Hahahah. Happy 4th of July!
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