MY FIRST SUMMER GETAWAY

After 2 years of spending summer at home, we are finally free to go to other places for vacation. I’ve been wanting to go to the beach, but because we live in the mountain side of Cebu, my father would always say that it’s too far for us to travel.

“Start packing your bags because we are going to the beach this weekend.” Mama announced over dinner. “Yahoooo!” I felt like a wolf howling in victory. “I hope it has lots of sand, because I want to build sandcastles. The last beach we went to only had rocks.” Jenny, my younger sister said.

“Oh, don’t worry, it has a wide beach area. There will be a lot more sand than you can imagine.” Papa assured her.

That night, Jenny and I decided to pack our bags together. “We should have a list of the things we need to bring. That way, we won’t forget anything.” I suggested. She took a pen and started writing. She didn’t know some of the spelling, so I taught her.

“Wow. This is a long list! Anything you still want to include in the list?” I asked her. “Nope, just

those.” She grinned. I gave her the go signal to start packing. I got our plastic mat from behind the cabinet and our water jugs from the kitchen.

I’ve been imagining myself reading a book on the sand under an umbrella, so I made sure to put my favorite book and our pink umbrella in the bag. “Kate, I can‘t find most of the things in the list.” Jenny said. When we asked Mama about it, she laughed and said that she had already packed them.

It was still dark when we left the house going to the beach. Because I slept during the entire trip, we had arrived when I woke up. The place was so beautiful. The sand was like sugar. It was so white and fine. The water was a combination of blue and green. There were colorful floating tubes on the water and brightly-colored flags lining up the shore.

“Who wants to go beach camping?” Papa asked as he threw something in the air which landed as a spacious tent on the ground. “Woah! That was like magic!” Mama said as Jenny and I carried our things to the tent. The next think I knew, I was under the shade, lying on the mat with sand around me and reading my book while Jenny was busy building sand castles around our tent.

We all didn’t want to go home the next day, but Mama promised we’d be back soon. I can’t wait to tell you about my next summer escapade.