“Mary, be more careful when you pour that water- you might make our sandcastle fall!” I say as my sister carelessly throws water into the moat of our sandcastle, splashing my cousin Suzanne (who everyone calls Zanne) and me. We try to work as fast as we can before the water dries up, making drips and moats and turrets for the wall. We make a huge sandcastle like this every year, but it’s always different; some years it looks like a palace or maybe a pyramid or a castle from a fairy tale. I love walking down the beach with my family, looking for shells, doing cartwheels and back-handsprings on the way. I love getting half buried with Zanne and Mary to look like mermaids. But most of all, I love making sandcastles at the beach, with the salty-fresh breezes and the warm sand between my toes.

We decided that we were getting kind of hot out there, so we walk back to the house we rented for an icy-pop. Zanne, Mary and I have been known to eat a whole bag of those fruity-flavored, sticky, sweet-smelling things in one week when we’re at the beach! That’s quite an accomplishment because there are a lot of those skinny little popsicles in one bag. Mary picked a red one, Zanne chose a yellowish-orange one, and I grabbed a blue one. Always at the end of the week we are stuck with the green, the light yellow, and the white popsicles.

When we got back, most of my family was passing the Frisbee to each other in the water so I sprinted straight towards them because my mom almost never goes in. I don’t really like to get into the freezing cold ocean very much, but I can’t miss swimming with my mom when she actually gets in- only once or twice a year! Susu, my grandma, just watched from the sidelines. I dive into a huge wave, feeling the cold water tumble over my head. Every time while I’m in the middle of jumping into that wave I always think, “Man, now it’s too late to stay dry!”, but I have so much fun boogey-boarding and making up new tricks and games to do in the waves that I soon forget all about it.

Near the end of the day, we check our crab traps and we usually have a few crabs. Zanne, Mary, and I put on our flip-flops and crocs to explore the back in low tide. The sand is mushy and gushy, and our feet sink down into it when we step on it. Avoiding the shallow water, we jump back and forth from little island to little island. As the tide goes in, we pick up our stuff and get ready for dinner- it’s Aunt Ashley’s night to cook and that means Chicken Tetrazzini!