Beach Memories
By: McKenzie Mollica
Life is always full of memories, and I cherish each and every one of them. However, one memory in particular began a few years ago, and is built upon every year. A few years ago, my family and I went down to Ocean City for the summer. We go every year, for 2 weeks and meet new people all the time. Except for this one year, when we met a family from New Jersey that would be returning with us more than once.
When our family plans our 2 week vacation, we always plan it with the other family. We call it our “Framily” vacation because they are friends that we consider family. Their family consists of the parents, Mike and Mary Fox, and then their daughters, Stephanie and Chiristine. Where we are staying, it is an apartment complex. The owner stays in one, and then the other 3 get rented out. For our Framily vacation, we both rent out the two apartments on the bottom floor.
The Fox’s are always an amazing family to spend time with at the beach. When we go down to the beach during the day, we set up next to each other, and then we have a larger space for my little sisters to go play. They always bring down snacks, and they also provide a little extra adult supervision. One of my younger sister’s, Madeline, loves to play with Stephanie and Chirstine. They sit up in the sand, look for shells, build sand castles, and then just enjoy the fun in the sun.
After the beach, we go back and get changed, and then we’ll sit outside on the front porch so we can talk. Normally, we eat together at the apartments about once or twice during the vacation. However, this year, because of COVID, the Fox’s had made dinner twice, we made dinner once, and then the rest of the time it was usually eating out or having leftovers.
Getting to see them every year is amazing because they are from out of state, so when we go, they always tell us about awesome stories from back home. I am so grateful for getting the chance to meet the Fox’s. All it took was that first vacation for them to become family friends. Hopefully, next year when we go, COVID will have calmed down, and we will be able to go out with them a little more. I can’t wait to see what happens to our Framily vacations as time goes on.