My mom woke me up early in the morning on the day we moved here from Connecticut ten years ago. It was not as difficult of a move because I was still young, but I remember the seven-hour car ride with my little brothers (six and eight at the time). If we were not entertained with our music and car games then our mother would have to listen to the constant bickering and the cries of “mom, tell him to get his stuff away from me,” and “are we there yet,” for seven hours, as we were all closely confined to the seating of the station wagon. When we arrived, it was not all bad because we had moved close to one of my mom’s old college friends who also had children close to our age; we became friends fast since we really did not know anyone else. We had many people helping us move in to our new house, both my mom’s college friend and friends of hers, but it still felt like a long and exhaustive day. By the time we moved, summer was ending. It was almost time to start fourth grade in my new school where I made many new friends, some of which I am still friends with today.

The most recent family vacation took us to a house on a lake in North Carolina. We rented a house for ten so that another family, friends of ours, could join us there a few days later. The car ride was a short three hours; and when we got there, we were excited to look around the house. Unpacking and settling in took about an hour and it was getting close to dinnertime. My little brother (at the time 17) started campaigning for a swim in the lake before dinner. I was hesitant, but sure enough, we all soon headed down to the dock. We all jumped in (my brothers, my dad, and I) and my mom was last. After she finally decided to hold her nose and take the plunge, she came up screaming, “ah my foot!” We all thought she was just overreacting, until she climbed up the ladder with blood pouring out of her foot. My dad immediately reacted, “Call 911!” so we did. The ambulance arrived and bandaged up my moms foot and then my dad drove her to the hospital for stitches. They arrived back at the lake house early that morning (around 2 a.m.) very exhausted and my mom with eight stitches. Thus concluded our first day of family vacation and we all headed to bed.