Ever since I was very young, my family and I would plan to take some sort of vacation every summer. Whether it was to a city, the beach, or just an amusement park we would always be so excited. Summer has always been my favorite time of year, plus we wanted to go somewhere extra warm so we could be outside as much as possible. In July of 2019, before the coronavirus hit, my family and I decided to go to North Carolina and rent a beach house! My aunt and uncle, cousins, parents, brother and his friend, and a few of my friends all went as one big group and stayed in Emerald Isle.

It was the beginning of the summer after sophomore year and my friends and I were counting down the days until we left. Right after school got out, we went shopping for beach clothes, towels and swimsuits, our favorite snacks, cool sunglasses, and so much more. My family has always been prepared for a vacation no matter where we go, so we got big totes of all of our necessities, that way we would only have to buy a few groceries when we went down there. By the end of June, we finally bought everything we needed, packed up our suitcases and loaded our cars, and took off!

As we arrived it was almost 100 degrees outside! We immediately went to check into our house, but since we had to wait for their staff to clean it from the last visitors, we decided to go to a restaurant, get something to eat, and cool off. After that, we finally checked into the house and unpacked all of our stuff before heading to the beach. Our house was three stories high with a hot tub, pool, and a great view of the ocean from above. Over the course of the whole week we played family games, went out to eat a few times, took nice pictures on the boardwalk, got very tan (but got bad sunburn), caught crabs at night, stayed up all night laughing, and even went to an aquarium nearby. Overall, spending time with my family and friends, and doing all the fun activities in the nice, warm weather, this was definitely one of my favorite vacations, and one that I would never forget.