By Audrey Hackman

Near the beach, great view, what’s not to like? Cracked mirrors and chipped paint apparently. Our new house is by the beach, but the furnishings are a little old. For instance, my bedroom is nice, but in the past the cabinet in the closet got wet, and now it looks like a poor paint job. It’s not bad though, and we have a big day of cleaning ahead of us. I’ve heard the beach is great for swimming, and although it looks a little rocky, I have high hopes. I got a room with a lot of cabinets and shelves, which I love because I love organizing. Charles got a room with a desk for his computer, because he likes to play Fortnite, and Maria has teddy bear curtains and a mini cute chair. One thing that’s different from home is there are no screens on the window. I don’t usually like the windows open back at home, but my room gets hot at night and there’s no fan. So, I must leave my door open at night. Mom didn’t like the pictures they put up, so she was looking for some cheap paintings to replace them. However, the house has a lot of good things. There’s a ton of fruits in our backyard that we’re welcome to pick, including grapes, lemons, pineapple, and more. Me and Maria are hyped about this, dreaming of going out and picking plants, then putting them in a big bowl on the counter to snack on. We also, back in the states, used to find this special type of edible clover and eat it. They tasted like lemons. I was excited to realize that they were here too, and all over the place. I went shopping with Mom yesterday, and I got a bunch of cool stuff. Mom was looking for stuff for the house. Then, today Mom made the whole family go on a beach walk. I wouldn’t be complaining if it wasn’t pouring rain. I would say we walked for around an hour. But we got to check out the beach. It was low tide, so it wasn’t very pretty. There was mud everywhere from high tide. However, the beach has got a TON of cool, big, whole shells. It’s pretty cool. We also got to check out me and Maria’s hike to school, which seems way too long. I’m not excited.

                One thing about the house that is kind of cool is our water. We drink water that’s filtered, but we shower and clean dishes with water that came from the roof. The water drips off the roof into this big basin, which leads to our tap water. It also means that I can’t take long showers. I LOVE my long showers. It’s a bummer. When we first checked out the house with the people there, I saw this big jet bathtub and I was like O MY GOSH! The people said we couldn’t use it because of the water. Big bummer.