Memoir-Memories

It was a beautiful day and the sun glistened off the lake. It was such a wonderful thing to see, and even more wonderful that I was about to be in it. I absolutely love being there at South Haven, Michigan it is my favorite spot to vacation at. I remember arriving at the lake house, taking in all its glorious features. I couldn’t wait for the rest of the family to get there. It was everything I had hoped for. This was what I had waited for every summer and this year was going to be amazing! After we arrived we quickly unpacked everything and put things where they needed to be, then got dressed to go down to the beach. Not to swim or sun bathe because we got there in the evening, but simply to take a long walk down the beach and discover our surroundings. My girlfriend (Michelle) and I were the only ones to walk down to the beach, because my mom (Cherie) and my step dad (Keith) wanted to wait at the house for the rest of the family to get there. Barefoot in the sand we walk, hand in hand we walked along the sand, just close enough to where the water reached us. I had been here numerous times but she had never been there, so this was all new to her. We had of course brought her camera down to take pictures; after we had walked a good mile down the beach and were done taking pictures we turned around and headed back the house. As we returned to the house after the monstrous flight of stairs we had to climb to get there, we were ready to see my other siblings. When we got there my step sister (Laura) had arrived along with my step brother (Ross) and his wife (Michelle). Having two Michelle’s there was kind of confusing at first, but we all eventually got it down. Of course my brother was the last to show up (Kris) and his girlfriend (Kristan). They had brought their dog (Weiland) and their Nintendo Wii for us all to play with and enjoy. That night basically consisted of everyone resting from the drive up and the eating of pizza, because for some reason that’s what we always had our first night we stayed anywhere.  The next day we began our day by getting up and eating breakfast then shortly after getting ready to go to the beach. This consisted of either lying out and catching some sun, or getting in the rather cold lake. I enjoy doing both, but I decided to help Kris and Kristan teach Weiland how to swim. Michelle decided to stay on the beach and lay out, along with the rest of the group. So Kristan strapped on Weiland’s life jacket, and walked him out to the water where Kris and I were gradually waiting for him. I felt like with me helping them teach their dog to swim made us a lot closer, because while we were both guiding him and playing fetch with him in the water, we were able to talk and communicate about a lot more things. I had always communicated with my brother, but the last 2 years we’ve become really close and this increased our closeness by an immense amount. I think one of the reasons why is because he is 10 years older than me and we never really saw eye to eye on a lot of things, but now that I’m getting older it has made things a lot more easier to talk about. I understand a lot more jokes, and even make a few of my own that he enjoys. He has actually become the person I look up to the most in life. After the beach, we went back and got ready to go into town and shopped around at all of the local shops and ate dinner at a really nice restaurant, where we then returned back home. Each day consisted of pretty much those things; going to the beach, shopping, and eating. But some nights we would have what we called game night, where one of us males would get cocky about being better than one another at something, then we would draw up brackets and have a little tournament between the family and the winner would always get some sort of prize. I couldn’t tell you the prize because I was never the winner. But this time was a combination of both basketball and air hockey. We started off playing 1v1 games of horse for basketball, then the winners would go on and the losers would go in the loser bracket which was the air hockey bracket. We would also play the Nintendo Wii some in our free time, which was always fun playing the different sports like; bowling, golf, baseball, and tennis. There were also little fun balance games that we played on the Wii fit balance board and other whacky stuff that kept our attention.  All and all when it came down to the last day when we had to start packing things up and saying our goodbyes to each other that became the hardest part. I really felt a sincere closeness to Kris and Kristan and even more to Michelle. I mean, I was already close to Michelle because we’ve been dating for 1 ½ years so we were already really close, but I loved that she was able to get along with my family and have a good time and enjoy herself. This made the trip much more fun, because I didn’t have to worry about her not having fun. She and I have been much closer ever since this vacation. Along with Kris and I, after this vacation I always try to hang out with my brother as much as I can because I enjoy his company and he’s so much fun to be around. It’s also great talking to him now because I’m going to college here at Ball State and he graduated from here a few years ago, so he knows what I’m going through.  These vacations are something I hope to continue when I’m older and have a family that way they can hopefully experience the same memorable moments I had with my family and loved ones.
 * Memories **