Whether it means taking a few days off work to hike a mountain, or pulling a "Jackie Chan" and traveling around the world in 80 days, or even traveling to Shell City to help SpongeBob and Patrick save King Neptune’s Crown, everyone deserves time to get away and relax from those stressful weekly events.
The Annual "Kelley Vacation" is a huge deal in my family. Every August, my family spends a week with cousins and their families at the beach house in Gloucester, Massachusetts. My cousins Alana, Eileen, and Shannon, my brother Jake, and I cannot express how excited we are for our week in Gloucester every year, where we spend the week on the beach boating, along with many other fun adventures. We are not the only ones who enjoy going on vacation and no I am not talking about the parents because they enjoy it just as much. I am talking about someone who lives in a pineapple under the sea, SpongeBob SquarePants. He and his starfish best friend, Patrick, enjoy traveling around Bikini Bottom and relaxing just as much as we do. So lets take a dive under the sea and take a look at these nine moments from SpongeBob that perfectly recap my cousin's and my vacation to Gloucester this year.
1. Beach Days
Being less than a two-minute walk from the private and beautiful sand of Wingaersheek Beach is no doubt one of the best parts of vacation.
2. Rockport
I'll start off by saying how I was mind blown when I found out Rockport is a separate town from Gloucester. We visited Rockport a few times, both by car and boat. No matter how old us kids get, there's nothing better than getting new sweatshirts, handfuls of candy, and pounds of chocolate fudge.
3. Lets gather round the camp fire and--
Tell me something that is better than making some S'mores and telling stories around the bonfire with the Kelley Family? Nothing.
4. The hill
The hill we have to walk up to get to our house really is not that bad, but basically:
5. Those "all-nighters"
We are never able to stay up all night but, there some nights where we make it to 4:30 AM, the sun is starting to rise and we are just walking up the large hill to the house from the beach like:
6. Movie nights
Going down to the beach to have a bonfire is fun and all, but sometimes we just decide to stay in and watch a quality funny, or heart-wrenching movie.
7. What is a diet?
There is no holding back when it came to the amount of food we ate during vacation. We have Italian Night, Taco Night along with many other themed-dinners. We also went to "Lobsta Land," which, at first, I thought was an amusement park so you can imagine how surprised I was when I discovered it was a restaurant. They didn't have "Krabby Patties" on the menu, but their ranch dressing was really good.
8. Boating
I mean, we do not shred through the water on David Hasselhoff's back, but we do wakeboard and tube a lot on our boat, which is always a grand old time!
9. Family time
Our yearly vacations have brought us cousins so close and there is nothing that is more important to me than spending time with my family. Spending time with the Kelley Crew is the best thing to ever do. That was so cheesy, but 100 percent true. My cousins are the best people to hang out with and there are no people I'd rather spend my vacation with. The last day of the annual Kelley vacation is always the saddest day of the year (mostly because it means going back to school). We dread the day that we all have to pack up and go home. Honestly, to escape all the sadness, we just start talking about the next vacation and how excited we are.
Now, to wrap it all up, let's take a break from our pals SpongeBob and Patrick, and enjoy this Hallmark card worthy picture of my cousins and I re-creating this picture we took in Gloucester over ten years ago.
With Kelley Vacation 2015 sadly coming to a close, my cousins and I once again start the countdown for the the week ranked number one on the yearly calendar: Our annual trip to Gloucester.