Finally” I said when we first landed. It was a long-awaited vacation for my family in Hawaii. We had been counting the days down since Christmas and finally after a twelve hour plane ride we were here. As I walked out of the airport, the day was perfect.
“We’re not in Iowa anymore!” my Dad joked. The day was warm and tropical, and thanks to the time change we had a full day of the beach still ahead of us. So I got changed and headed down to the beach. As I went down, I noticed a yellow flag up.
“What’s with the flag?” I asked a kid who looked about my age.
“It means that there are dangerous waves today, you’re lucky though, yesterday a red flag was up and no one could get in at all.”
Not thinking much of that, I then met my family on the beach who had already settled in.
“I’m going to go get in the water Mom” I said hoping she didn’t see the yellow flag.
“Not so fast, the waves are bad and I don’t want you going out to far” she said. As I was about to nod and walk off, a local surfer actually surfed right up to us. His board was touching my sisters’ chair.
“Did you see that wave? That was the biggest one today!” he yelled and not embarrassed at all.
“Ok, I’m going in!” I shouted to my parents while laughing about what just happened to my sister. I had been swimming for about an hour when I decided to go to the beach stand up by the hotel for a cold lemonade, plus I could feel myself getting sun- burned already. As I walked by my family on the beach I told them of my plans.
“I’m getting a lemonade, I’ll be back in five” I then shook my head because my Dad was sleeping, my Mom was deep in thought with her book, and my sister had her headphones blaring in her ears. As I got to the stand and placed the order for my lemonade I saw the kid from earlier.
“These are the best lemonades.” he said with a smirk.
“Yeah, I hope so I need to get that salt water taste out of my mouth.” I responded.

As I looked back towards the beach, I saw the biggest wave of the day crashed upon the shore. Many of the beach-goers started screaming as they were drenched with water. Water shot everywhere, people were soaked, and chip bags along with drink cups had been thrown all around. People were laughing and could not believe that such a big wave just crashed upon the shoreline. Soon my order was ready and I drank it by the hotel pool. My friend was right; it just may have been the best lemonade of my life.
Meanwhile, back at the beach, my sister realized that I was not anywhere to be seen. She screamed this realization to my parents and everyone went into “panic-mode.” Obviously, my family was not paying attention to me when I got out of the water and told them I was going to get lemonade. My parents started screaming “Has anyone seen the twelve-year-old boy in the red swim suit? He is missing!” Surrounding beach-goers immediately jumped into action. Even the local Hawaiian surfer who came right up to us got his friends and yelled out, “We are going out deep to look for him!” Panic was spreading up and down the beach.
I later strolled down to the beach. Right then my Dad ran past me on his way to the front desk to call 911.
“DAD! What the heck is going on down on the beach? Did someone drown?” I yelled, knowing something was wrong. He didn’t say anything at first and just gave me a hug.
“What are you doing? I said laughingly. He then told me the story, and I couldn’t believe what happened.
Everyone in the nearby area started cheering and laughing when they saw my Dad and I returning to our beach chairs. Needless to say, my family was thrilled to see me and I got the very distinct feeling that they actually did love me as much as they often told me they did. This story is now known as the day I “almost” died throughout my whole family. And as for how the rest of the vacation went, let’s just say I made a conscious decision not to be seen again with that well-described red swimsuit!