In the year of 2012, as a family, we had made big plans. We planned on going to Maryland in the summer. This was because we have a brother named Zack who lives there with his girlfriend and daughter. This wasn’t a very hard decision for us to make because we missed them!

Through the whole school year we were all so excited for summer, not only because it’s warm, but also because this was the first vacation we had together in a long time. When the time came we all packed up our things. Our bags bulged out from so many clothes that we put in, even though we knew we wouldn’t need all of them. We took our big red Suburban because we needed the room for all of us, considering we would be sitting in that same spot for close to 24 hours. In the way back was Chloe and I, next up was Ashley and Sophie, and in the very front was my mom and step dad, Dave. As we hopped up into the car, we all grabbed the things we would need like, snacks, blankets and pillows. We also had portable D.V.D players, so we could watch movies and waste some time on the way there. As we all sat down we were really excited then settled down as we drove further and further. As the time went on, we calmed down a little and started to watch some movies. Chloe and I watched The Beverly Hills Chihuahua’s, which we have watched before, and loved the movie. Then after a while Ashley, Sophie, Chloe, and I started to sing the National American University song. After a while our parents told us to stop because of one reason only, we had been singing that song for about an hour straight. We then stopped at a fast food restaurant to eat; we all got out of the car and stretched out, it felt so good to straighten my legs. After we all ate and were comfortably full, we got back into the dreadful car where we had to sit again for what seemed like forever.

We all ended up falling asleep, but it was a very small space and we were all tucked into separate corners. I ended up waking up in the middle of the night, from being sore and sleeping in one spot for a long time, I stretched out the best I could, looked out the window and saw lights everywhere. When my eyes focused I realized where we were, in Chicago! It was a place I have always wanted to see. It was a full moon and the sky was filled with stars, it was beautiful. I saw this water tower that looked like a rose, it was red and had a lot of details on the petals, and the moon was shining off of this giant rose. After we had gone through Chicago I settled down to go back to bed.
The next morning we stopped for breakfast and bathroom breaks, then headed back out to the car. On the way there we had to stop a few times because we had to pay tolls every so often. When we finally got to Maryland, we had to go to our campsite and set up. When we got to the camp site there was a playground for the little kids who were camping, so they could have something to do. There was a little souvenir shop and a little farther down the road was the campsite. There were so many trees, it was very pretty. When we saw our campsite it was smaller than we expected, we couldn’t fit both of our tents in the spot we had got form them. We talked to the manager and he graciously gave us a bigger spot.

We got settled in and set up the two tents we had, one for the parents, and us kids got the big tent. After we got set up, we went to Walmart, where Zack was working to surprise him. It was a very special moment because we hadn’t seen him since three years before this day. Zoey, Zack’s daughter, was almost one at the time so she was still sleeping in cribs, and just learning to walk. We met Zack’s girlfriend and Zoey in Walmart, and then went to find Zack. He was really surprised/confused at the same time. At first Zoey cried when she saw us because she was overwhelmed but then settled down.

When it got later, we decided to go out to eat. We ended up eating at this place called “Frank’s Pizza”, when we got there we wanted to order a pepperoni and green olive pizza, but they didn’t have any green olives, so, we just had a pepperoni pizza. After we ate, we went back to Zack’s house and spent time together then headed back to our campsite. When we got to our site, Dave started a fire and we all just sat around the fire and had more family time. We took our cameras and put them on a self-timer and we all did jumping photos. That night it was hard to sleep because of all the bugs making noises.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the campsite and realized that there was a hole in our tent. We went into the tent and saw that the animal crackers we had left in the tent had been eaten. So overnight there had been animal in our tent with us, but it was ok because we had cots. We had no clue what happened, but we had to fix the hole so we put a towel over the whole and it seemed to work. Had to stay at the campsite for a little while because Zack had to work. We took a walk on the trails, my mom and Ashley were farther up than the rest of us, and then we heard a terrifying scream that sounded like my mom’s voice. We all ran in fear toward her to see what had just happened, it turned out it was just a little snake that my mom thought was an Anaconda. After we all laughed at how my mom thought a little garden snake was an Anaconda, we headed back to our site for a little while longer. Then we went over to Zack’s house. After he was done at work, we played with Zoey, watched “Walking Dead” and ate sandwiches. When dinner time came, we went to “Frank’s Pizza” again and we brought green olives with, so they could put them on our pizza, and they did! We got the pizza to go, and we ate it at Zack’s house and watched movies the whole time. We decided that we would sleep over at Zack’s, because it was our last night there, and the four of us kids slept on the futon and our parents went back and slept at the tent.

That morning was one that we didn’t want to come, we wanted to stay in Maryland for a while longer but we couldn’t. Our parents came and picked us up from their house and we went and picked up all of our camping supplies and packed them away. We went back to Zack’s house to say our goodbyes and headed back on our long journey home. We talked about our experiences and how much fun we had and then the rest of the time we all slept, we were all exhausted from not getting so much sleep.

This trip was very fun but even though we ran into a lot of troubles, but, that is what makes it so interesting. It was so nice to be able to see my whole family talking and having family time. You have to treasure these moments.