Becoming traumatized, feeling terrified, an unusual event occurred on the most exciting two-week vacation that consisted of my first time at the beach, Universal Studios, and Six Flags Magic Mountain. However, with great people and memorable moments, the issue vanished and created one of the best vacations of my life.

After many hours of being in a car, we arrived at California at around 6:00P.M there. California excited me with the fresh air of Rancho Cucamonga and the amount of greenery in the city. The next day, we went to Laguna Beach, California, over an hour southwest of Rancho Cucamonga. The “1,000 Steps Beach” part of Laguna Beach, consisted of two-hundred nineteen steps making the trail from the top area of houses to the beach itself. Walking down the steep steps, created fear of us falling.

Reaching the bottom and finally touching the sand, I looked across the horizon where the cloudy sky and the ocean kissed. The beautiful scenery brought tranquility and my problems vanished. The waves moved forward towards the sand and back creating a relaxing sound. With the puffy clouds in the sky, they moved through the atmosphere and created gaps where the sunlight came through. The gorgeous ray of light shined through the ocean making a scenery look unreal.

I approached the ocean for the first time, and the sand felt so smooth running through my toes. Once I arrived at the water, the rather cold waves washed off the sand from my toes and shivered me.

The next day, everything changed drastically when something unusual incident occurred. When the morning arrived, we planned on meeting a friend of Stephanie, a friend of my mother who came with us on the trip, in San Diego, California. Driving for more than two hours from Rancho Cucamonga to San Diego, we encountered traffic along the way. Finally arriving at her friend’s house, I heard dogs barking from the backyard of his house. He then welcomed us to come inside, and released his two big pit bull dogs from the backyard, to come inside. Both dogs seemed too scary to even touch. Although the act of friendliness that makes pit-bulls such great pets, a violent tendency to attack people with little to no warning occurs often. Her friend told us that one of the dogs contains an irregular disease, which makes the dog act violently to new people. However, both dogs looked the same. Later on, after getting settled into the house, me and Zayden went outside to the backyard to pass time with one of the dogs.

Zayden, with a tiny bladder that makes him use the restroom frequently, went inside to use the restroom. While I waited for him, the dog acted weird. I stood up to go inside but the dog seemed to be angry at me. With me not knowing what to do on whether to run or sit back down and not move, I feared of getting attacked. So, I slowly walked to the back door to go inside. When I took the first two steps, the dog ran towards me and tackled me onto the ground. The dog punctured my left arm with its teeth. The sudden pain rupturing through my arm, I tried to push away the dog, but the unbearable pain made it hard to do so. With me yelling in pain, I busted out into tears. Fighting off the dog, reaching for the door, the pain worsened. After a painful couple of minutes, I opened the door and yelled for help. Everyone ran to me and forced the dog away from me. My mother rushed to see what exactly happened to me. I struggled to answer questions of how I felt because the pain made it hard to speak. The look of wanting to kill someone on my mother’s face scared everyone who was there at the house.

After a couple of minutes, the pain in my arm caused extreme difficulty to move my hand. My mother, the kids, and Stephanie rushed me to the emergency room of the nearest hospital. The nurse placed me into a room about twenty minutes after and the doctors asked a series of questions concerning the incident with the dog. For the first time, I wore a cast and that felt very weird for me and everyone because my brother gets more involved in accidents. The following day, I spent the Fourth of July greatly with my family and friends. As well as the following week, I went to Universal Studios and Six Flags Magic Mountain!

After a long, fun fulfilled, and chaotic vacation, this trip taught me a valuable lesson. In the moment of true happiness and tranquility, the possibility of negative things interfering with that moment tends to affect us in many ways. In the long run, good people that surround and make you happy, make life simpler and pure, and your desire to live life to the fullest, all interconnected in the foundation of a more satisfied life. No matter the conflicting and negative moments that occur in your lifetime, great people stick by your side and will make life more fulfilling.