The O’Bezag family from Salt Lake City, Utah, had the opportunity to travel to the East Coast for the entire summer back in 2008.  The father, Ken, had a ten week work assignment for a large New York City computer firm.  His family decided they would go with him for their summer break.  The mother, June, is a school teacher, so she, too, had the summer off from work.  Erin, who is twelve years-old, was very excited when she heard about the big family vacation.  Erin realized that during this trip she would be able to see her favorite cousins, Madison and Amelia, who live in Bar Harbor, Maine.  Erin had not seen her cousins in two years, not since they came out to go snow skiing in Utah.  Erin’s younger sister, Maggie, grew excited for the trip the more she listened to Erin talk about how nice Madison and Amelia are.

“Erin, do you think Madison and Amelia remember me?” asked Maggie.

Her two brothers, on the other hand, were a little more reserved about the very long vacation.  For Kelvin, who just turned fifteen years-old, he had high hopes to get a job that summer.  He was saving up his money to buy the latest snow board since he was an avid snow boarder.  You could find him at the local ski slopes every spare moment from October to April if the weather conditions are just right.

“Aww, Mom, do I have to go for the whole summer?  How about if I stay with the Phillips through July and fly out in August to meet you?” Kelvin inquired.

Erin knew very well that wasn’t going to happen.  Georgie, Erin’s five year-old brother, was insistent that Dad was very capable of going to New York City to do his work all day by himself.  Georgie’s biggest concern was how he would get his pet lizard and pet rabbit through airport security since they both have metal cages.

After a long family meeting, it was decided the whole O’Bezag family, with the exception of the pets, would leave for the East Coast on Saturday, June 14, 2008.   School gets out on June 11, 2008, so that gave the children only two days to pack up and say farewell to their friends.

Mama said, “This is a summer you will always remember.”

The O’Bezag family had a smooth flight across the country and landed at the JFK Airport, in New York City.  The family stayed at a nice hotel near Central Park.  Dad did not have to report to work until Wednesday, so they went sight seeing.  Maggie and Georgie loved Central Park.

Georgie asked, “Can we go back to the Central Park Zoo again?”  He especially liked the lion.

Maggie kept asking, “Can we get a horse and carriage when we get home?”

Maggie was very brave when she fed the horses.  Everything was so grand to Erin.  She could not get enough of the tall buildings, bright lights and all of the people.  Much to Kelvin’s surprise, he found that he loved Time Square and all of the busy city activity.

On Wednesday, as Ken headed to work, June, Kelvin, Erin, Maggie and Georgie headed to Penn Station to catch a train to Portland, Maine.  From there, they would meet June’s brother, Uncle Harry, who would give them a ride back to his house in Bar Harbor.  Uncle Harry makes his money off the sea. He actually gets paid to go fishing and to catch lobsters.  Mom has been waiting a long time to get back home and to enjoy a delicious lobster roll.

As the family enjoyed their train ride up the eastern sea board, Georgie kept squirming in his seat as he nervously kept looking under his seat.  Momma nearly sat on Georgie to get him to hold still. All of a sudden, they heard a loud scream, and panic rippled through the train.  As it turned out, Georgie snuck his lizard into his backpack.  He was able to keep the lizard in his backpack for five days by feeding him packets of airplane peanuts and leftover lettuce from dinner.  The lizard must have had enough of the backpack because when Georgie peaked in the backpack, Larry the lizard leaped out, slithered down under and ran away under the train seats.  One of the elderly passengers felt the lizard crawl up her leg when all of a sudden, there was a big ruckus throughout the passenger car.  Finally, the train ride came to a stop, so Kelvin and Georgie caught Larry.  They used Mom’s makeup box to securely remove Larry from the train at the Portland stop.

The car ride to Bar Harbor was much longer than Erin could bear.  Uncle Harry and Mama talked all the way to the car.  He told her all the local gossip.

I kept hearing Mom say, “You’re kidding me. Tell me that didn’t really happen.”

Finally, they arrived to the water front house that was warm and cozy.  When they arrived, their car hardly turned off when Maggie and Erin jumped out of the car and ran into the house that had the sweet smell of cranberries.  They immediately ran into the arms of Madison, Amelia and Aunt Sara.  Following them, came in Mama and a sleepy Georgie.  Meanwhile, Uncle Henry and Kelvin unloaded the car.  Once Georgie finished sitting on the steps for his punishment for bringing his pet lizard, he and Kelvin had a blast tinkering with Uncle Harry’s lobster boat.  On Friday both Uncle Harry and Aunt Sara had work commitments, so Madison and Amelia took their cousins and Aunt June to their favorite place, Bar Island.

“We absolutely love going to Bar Island and looking out from the summit,” said the girls.

They biked down to the water’s edge, and from there they walked on a twelve foot wide and a half mile long sand bar.  The sand bar is even wide enough for car to park on it, especially at low tide.  They got there when it was low tide, so the sand bar was very wide, long, and had a good hiking path to the Island.  When we got to the Island, they were excited for their brisk twenty minute walk to the summit.   Erin and Madison were the first to reach the summit with Georgie and Kelvin not too far behind.  Not far behind them came Maggie, Amelia and Mama as they enjoyed the beautiful views that could only be seen at this island.  Mama especially enjoyed the hike because she could look over the ocean side and see where she grew up.

“This view is as beautiful as I remember when I was your age,” said Mama.

Maggie suddenly noticed that there was no one left at the summit except for them.  She was whining to Mama, and finally Mama said, “Maggie, go ahead and head home, and we will catch up to you.”

So off Maggie went running ahead of everyone back to the sand bar.  Georgie decided he could not let Maggie get there first, so he took off running after Maggie.  Meanwhile, everyone else was casually walking back to the sand bar.  When Maggie and Georgie got to the sand bar, they could not believe what they saw.  Well, at first, they thought they ran to the wrong place because it did not look like the same place they just came from.

Erin said, “We must have taken the wrong path!”

It was the same, but looked much different because the tide came back in and covered up the sand bar.  They looked at each other completely scared and at the same time said, “The sand bar is gone. We are stranded…What are we going to do?”

They thought for a minute, then realized they needed to go back and tell everyone else the problem.

Georgie and Maggie found everyone else about halfway back to the summit as they were walking back home.  They explained the problem, but no one was very concerned.  Mama especially was not very concerned because she remembered this happening when she was a little girl many, many times.

Mama explained, by telling everyone, “It will be OK. The sand bar is still there.  It is just covered by the rising tide.  The water might be up to our knees when we try to walk back, but stay balanced, and we can get back to the other side just fine.”

When they got to the missing sand bar, Mama gasped.  She mumbled to herself, “This is different than I remember when I was a kid.”

It was different, probably because of the big storm, a Nor-Easter off the coast with very strong winds.  It was dangerous because of the howling winds and unusually high tides it was causing.

Finally, Mama said, “We need to cross now, before the tide gets higher and the storm gets worse.  Everyone, hold hands very tightly and carefully walk on the sand bar.”  Then, she gave one more very important instruction, “Do not let go of each other!”

So off they go onto the sand bar holding hands.  The water was up to their waists, colder than they expected, waves swooshing against them and the wind blowing.  They had to keep squinting their eyes, so the water would not splash in them.  Kelvin was first, then Mama, Georgie, Maggie, Amelia, Madison and finally Erin, all holding hands struggling to cross the half mile sand bar.

They were doing just fine until Amelia screamed, “I just got bit by a lobster!” She began to cry.

Everything began to go wrong. Mama was excitedly telling Amelia that everything would be OK while the biggest gust of wind and waves hit their backs.  They all fell in, and Georgie got swept away by the waves.  Kelvin decided he had to save his baby brother, so he swam to rescue him.  Meanwhile, Mama was able to get everyone else back on the sand bar in the waist deep water.  They were still holding hands and were able to make it back to the other side safely.  Kelvin and Georgie were floating together in the deep water trying to get back to the sand bar.  Kelvin, though he is a strong swimmer, could not swim against the wind and waves. He never gave up trying.  Suddenly, Kelvin and Georgie heard a very familiar sound.  When they looked around to see where the sound was coming from, they saw a boat coming to their rescue.  It was Uncle Harry!

Kelvin and Georgie were both screaming, “Over here, over here,” and waving their arms.

Uncle Harry saw them as he was returning from his lobster fishing trip and scooped them out of the water.  He wrapped them up in a warm fuzzy blanket and told them they were the funniest looking lobsters he had ever caught.  Surely, this is a summer the O’Bezag family will never forget.