Part of my fascination with sailing comes from the movies. Namely Captain Ron (yes, I said it--I liked Captain Ron) and Fool's Gold. They make me want to hold a massive garage sale, put my mementos in storage, and spend a year floating around the Caribbean. What about that doesn't sound awesome?
Speaking of awesome, here's today's bonus prize. You get to sail away with your choice of either HOW TO RUIN A SUMMER VACATION, HOW TO RUIN MY TEENAGE LIFE, or LEAVING PARADISE by Simone Elkeles.
Here's the blurb for HOW TO RUIN A SUMMER VACATION:
How does a fashionista teen end up on a farm in the middle of Israel with her estranged father? Oy, vey doesn't even come close to describing it.
Moshav? What’s a moshav? Is it “shopping mall” in Hebrew? I mean, from what Jessica was telling me, Israeli stores have the latest fashions from Europe. That black dress Jessica has is really awesome. I know I’d be selling out if I go with the Sperm Donor to a mall, but I keep thinking about all the great stuff I could bring back home.
Unfortunately for 16-year-old Amy Nelson, “moshav” is not Hebrew for “shopping mall.” Not even close. Think goats, not Gucci.
Going to Israel with her estranged Israeli father is the last thing Amy wants to do this summer. She’s got a serious grudge against her dad, a.k.a. “Sperm Donor,” for showing up so rarely in her life. Now he’s dragging her to a war zone to meet a family she’s never known, where she’ll probably be drafted into the army. At the very least, she’ll be stuck in a house with no AC and only one bathroom for seven people all summer—no best friend, no boyfriend, no shopping, no cell phone…
Goodbye pride—hello Israel.
So Amy's not too keen on her unexpected summer plans (but things turn out okay, I promise). What about you? To enter today's contest, tell me about your best summer vacation ever.
Mine happened the summer between my two years of graduate school. I had to do an internship for my program and ended up getting a sweet gig at the very last minute. I was the site manager for the Never Summer Ranch, an historic dude ranch on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. The job included on-site housing in a 1950's cabin. I was ten miles from the nearest visitor's center and the nearest town. I had electricity and running water but no land line and no cell service. I was just me and a slew of elk and moose. And every morning I got to step outside to the smell of pine and the towering Rockies overhead. It was magical.
SAILING CONTEST
Answer this question: What was your best summer vacation ever?
PRIZES
(1) copy of OH. MY. GODS. or teaser of GODDESS BOOT CAMP
(1) copy of your choice of HOW TO RUIN A SUMMER VACATION, HOW TO RUIN MY TEENAGE LIFE, or LEAVING PARADISE by Simone Elkeles.
Enter below and check back tomorrow (and the day after that and the day after that) for a new contest. Winners of all contests will be posted on August 25th.
And don't forget the other contests:
Gold Medal Contest
COOP 1 I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE by Stephanie Kuenhert
COOP 2 CRUEL SUMMER by Alyson Noel
COOP 3 HOW TO HOOK A HOTTIE by Tina Ferraro
COOP 4 REVENGE OF THE HOMECOMING QUEEN and TWISTED SISTERS by Stephanie Hale
COOP 5 SHRINK TO FIT by Dona Sarkar and VIOLET IN PRIVATE by Melissa Walker
COOP 6 LULU DARK CAN SEE THROUGH WALLS by Bennett Madison
COOP 7 ZETA OR OMEGA? and THE NEW SISTERS by Marley Gibson (writing as Kate Harmon)
COOP 8 YOU HAD ME AT HALO by Amanda Ashby
COOP 9 THE SPECIALISTS: MODEL SPY by Shannon Greenland
COOP 10 SLEEPLESS by Terri Clark and INVISIBLE TOUCH by Kelly Parra
COOP 11 HELL WEEK by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Hugs,
TLC
36 comments:
Hmmm. My best summer vacation? This is a tie between the trip my family and I took last summer to Mexico (first time out of the country) and a small trip I took two summers ago with my best friend to Washington, D.C.. Both trips were awesome.
Mexico was a new experience and my favorite part was climbing the Mayan ruins, which was on my list of things to do before I die. So I got to accomplish a life long goal at 19! After a week, though, I tired of the sun, drinks, and beaches.
Washington was my first trip without any adult supervision (oh wait, I was the adult!!). It was just be and my awesome friend walking around Washington in 110 degrees...an ungodly heat (advice: never walk national cometary in that heat. NEVER). But we had so much fun and felt so free (it was also my first time there).
So yea, I don't know which trip is better...they tie in my book. Lol.
My best summer vacation would probably be going to North Carolina. My family and me stayed at this really pretty resort near a beautiful lake. It had been the first time I'd been to North Carolina and I had an awesome time. I can't wait to go back!
My best vacation that I ever received of my 15 years old living is Disney World! It was a long and tiring trip from Ontario to Florida but nonetheless it was worth it! It took two days by car to get there and two days to get back.
I've only been to two of the theme parks there, magical kingdom and epcot but it was simply amazing! So many new and different things!
faked_sugartone at hotmail.com
last summer i was lucky enough to visit france, italy, and malta.
i liked nice of france and loved rome of italy and erice of sicily. we were definitely the ultimate tourists- we went sight-seeing nonstop. i would get sooo sore. but i didn't mind so much. the beauty made up for it.
since i went with a group of strangers, i missed my friends a lot. next year, i'm planning on going to england, and this time i'm bringing the friends with me =)
When me and my family went to Michigan. My Dad's side of the family lives there and we went there one summer for a family reunion. My sister and I had so much fun meeting and hanging out with our cousins
The summer before I started high school my family went to the beacch for maybe a month...I knew it was the last summer I wasn't going to be doing summer school or school or something, so I purposely made the most of it :)
My favorite trip would have to be this past summer when i went to belguim. I stayed with my aunt and helped her take care of her baby. It was really cool and fun.
I guess it would be when we went to beach before my eighth grade year I think. I dunno, why I would pick that... but that's the only answer I can think of.
It was just peaceful and pleasant, long before anything horrid happened. Plus my grandparents were there with us... that one week, was pretty close to peaceful as I can get.
;{
my best summer vacation ever was when i went to acapulco, mexico, it was sooo amazing i loved it and had a great time there!!
lc_intocable at yahoo.com
My best summer vacation ever? So tough because I never have had a real vacation lol. I guess my first trip to San Diego will work. It's beautiful there and to see seals in the wild at the beach was really cool. Plus it was the first trip I ever went on with my boyfriend and meeting his parents. :)
my best summer vacay was probably a few years ago when i went to DC and Virginia for a couple weeks for a leadership program and then hung out with my very cool aunt for the rest of it :D
Mountains, mountains, mountains. New Mexico, Colorado, and in particular, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The most amazing place on earth. Period. :)
My favorite summer vacation is a tie between my 8th grade trip to DC and NY and one of my trips to Korea to visit my relatives.
Grace L
My best summer vacation was last summer when I went to visit my friend in Sacremento. I hadn't met any of her friends, and I met a few and they were awesome and there was lots to do where she was. It was quite fun.
My best summer vacation would be when me and my sister had the house all to our selves! We would have endless movie marathons. One day would be all the movies starring Reese Witherspoon or another day would have a different genre and etc. (The only down side was having to prepare food, although we did get creative with peanut butter, bread and yellow cheese)
It's not much but I LOVED that summer. Now my sister and I look remember fondly about those summer days not having to worry about summer assignments or SAT prep and etc. Ahh how I miss the good old days.
To be quite honest, I almost always have pretty lamesauce summer vacations. But, I did have a pretty awesome summer last year. I spent the summmer doing amazing in swim (at least by my low-standards), having a lifechanging experience at camp, and actually got out of the house to hang out with friends every once in a while. Definitely a great summer.
A week in Cancun doing nothing but laying on the beach, reading, occasionally going for a swim, and spending time with friends and loved ones.
Best summer vacation? Well, I guess it would be the one when my family and I went to Disney World! We stayed on the camping grounds and it was really fun! I love Disney World!
this week!
I've been lucky to get to take a lot of fun trips over the years. Probably my favorite summer one was eurorailing with my best friend!
My best vacation. I think it would have been when I went to Jamaica. It was so nice there. It was beautiful and the resort was amazing. I had the time of my life and it's one vacation I'll never forget!
you know, I dont think I've been on vacation in the summer. I've been to Hawaii in October, visited my granparents twice for christmas and went to disneyland in April. The only real vacation in the summer I guess is a road trip my brother, my mom, my mom's very pregnant golden retriever and me going on a road trip from California to Minnesota for a family reunion. That was pretty fun. To bad my dad didn't come.
My best summer vacation was a pretty crappy three day Chinatown bus trip to Canada. It was great because it was the most recent bus trip with my whole family. My parents are busy and can't afford to take time off. And the trip was in 2006, I haven't been on a plane since 2002, when I was seven. It was great, but I don't remember much.
My favorite summer vacation was the first time I visited Miami Beach. I was about 6 years old and had never seen the ocean before. Even though we visited Disney in Orlando, nothing can replace my memories of my first walk on the beach, digging for shells, and pretending to run away from sharks!
I've never really been on a vacation. All the traveling I've ever done has been through Tae Kwon Do. Most of the time is spent practicing, conditioning, or trying to find a Walmart to replace something I forgot. Once I got to go to Hawaii with a really good friend for a tournament. We took surfing lessons and hung out on the beach the entire time. It was a lot of fun.
My favourite vacation would probably have to be when me and my family went to Malaysia for a month for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary! It was really cool because I met all of these extended family members for the first time- my grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts...! It was so cool getting to know them! It was a gigantic family reunion- they even cordoned off the road so we could put up marquees on the street for their wedding anniversay party, lol!
~Lucy D =)
Oh it was when I went to Cairo with my family & young boys. They were so intrigued with the Pyramids especially after watching on Discovery channel how experts could not figure out the magnificent Pyramids. Yes they managed to get into the Pyramids & they have not stopped talking about their adventure.
delimared@gmail.com
Best summer vacation? That would have to be the summer when I got to go on a road trip around the country and see some faraway relatives. I love geography, so seeing all the different places was so fun!
My best summer vacay would have to be when my family and I traveled to Puerto Rico and stayed with my grandmother. We got to see awesome beaches, we got to ride a boat with a seethrough bottom at night to see a special kind of microrganism that lives in the water there and lights up at night. It was really cool, the boat men even drew a pail of the water and throught out across the bottom of the boat so everyone could touch it and see their hands glow and still not be able to tell whats making it. We also were taken into the forest to find hidden pools of water so clear you could see the bottom and dived off of huge rocks. We also got to see where my parents grew up, their schools and hangouts, and went to some museums and drove all over the island learning our heritage. And of course we went shopping=) It was so much fun and now plan to take my husband soon.
Well, I think going canoeing for a week was pretty good, at least for my recent summer vacations!
Oooh. I love this question because I've just had my best summer vacation ever. It was the first summer in 15 years (since the summer before I turned 16) that I didn't work during the summer. I spent 5 weeks in Mexico with my sis. I went to Cuernavaca to help my sis (who'd lived in Cuernavaca for the past 2 years) move back to the States. My gosh I had a wonderful time! We went salsa dancing, spent time in Acapulco, etc. It was relaxing for me...I didn't do any work for the first time in a loooong time! We had so much fun, that my sis and I are thinking of buying a condo in Cuernavaca as a vacation home. I'm definitely going back. I think my favorite part of my trip was getting to enjoy and appreciate the scenery...gorgeous!
My best summer vacation ever would have to be the summer of 2007. On May 31, 2007 my baby brother Junior was born. I got out of school on June 5, so I basically got to spend every waking moment with my newborn baby brother for 2 1/2 months. I watched him, helped showered him, played with him, did everything you could think of with him.
Ah, he's so adorable. :)
my best summer vacation was when I went to Disney world when I was a kid it was the best thing ever especially because I was a kid and to me everything about Disney world was simply amazing and out of this world
Tink122595 at hotmail .com
The one I just returned from the end of July. A cruise to Alaska.
Best Summer vacation--Flagler Beach, FL every summer the last week end before school. Followed by a day at St. Augustine. We were always allowed to bring a friend & it was a blast.
Thank you,
Susan B.
sbussey AT windstream.net
I actually don't get to go on "vacations" but one summer, I witnessed a beagle having puppies.
GirlwiththeBraids
(Adayla S.)
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