It was a dreadfully hot day and my brother Cory and I were at the swimming pool. I was just getting ready to do an amazing double back flip for my first time! When I took my hard potential board snapping bounce, I thought to myself as I flew like a plane into the air, I’m finally going to land my double back flip! I soar into the air and right as I complete my first almost professionally done flip I hear a man’s voice yelling my name, CODY! I turn my head to look and as I do, I lose all control of my spin and fall flat on my face and stomach. When I barely pulled myself out of the water I looked up and saw my dad standing there at the edge of the pool waiting to help me out. That looked like it hurt, he said! It did, I said.

My dad helped me out of the pool and we walked over to the burning hot cement bench. We put my towel down on the scorching surface of the bench and sat down. Of course my dad was wearing jeans so it didn’t bother him as much. We talked for a while and then he told me to go back to swimming with my friends he was just going to find Cory and then get his swimming trunks on. So I walked over to a group of friends and told them that I was going to attempt the double again. So I slowly walked up the ladder to the board and crept my way to the edge of the board. As I was standing there at the edge of the board I looked down at the water only for it to be looking back up at me with a smirk on its face! The waves swaying back and forth quietly whispering to me “you can’t do this, you’re going to fail”. I listen to the waves for a while and then I finally clear my mind and turn myself around on the board, so that I am facing the ladder.

Once again I leap into the air and come back down on the board as perfect as can be. I spring off of the board and backwards soaring through the air again and finish my first flip. I am about to finish the second one and the water is closing in on me! I look at the water and it says to me you’re not going to make it! I feel this urgent feeling in my stomach and as quick as possible I flip my head as hard as I could backwards and I landed the double backflip! I shot to the bottom of the pool and slowly floated myself back to the surface. When I finally reached the surface I was out of breath and saw all of my friends, dad and brother, and even people I didn’t know were watching me and I felt really good about myself. I swam to the edge of the pool and once again my dad helped me out of the pool. We got up and went and also sat down on the hot bench again. We sat and talked for a while and then Cory asked us if we wanted to go on the new slide with him and of course we both said yes. So we slowly but surely strolled along the side of the pool on our way to the huge red monster they call a slide! We arrive at the bottom of the slide and we wait in the line for what seemed to be a year! Oh and when we finally got to the slide stairs, it felt like another year just climbing up those puppies! We were sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for the life guard to tell us that we could come up. She told us that we could come up along with a whole bunch of rules that she is supposed to tell us when people get to the top like keep your feet on the slide, keep your head down, and the number one rule only one person at a time. Well you see when my dad is around we don’t seem to follow much rules so my dad went first and pulled me down with him. I reached back just in time to snatch my brothers leg and drag him along as well. We were in a big group when we first started going down but now we are all split up and we are all flying like birds down the slide. We whip around the curves and glide along the water as we shoot out of the end of the slide! First me then my dad and last my brother. We all stood up out of the pool, and water fell off of us like water out of shower head. We climbed up the ladder to the pool and went and got dressed. We walked out of the pool and got into my dad’s new suburban. My dad asked Cory and I if we were hungry and if so where we wanted to go eat at. We both said yes we are and we all agreed on subway because it was the closest and it’s the best thing Webster city has. When we arrived at subway I jumped out of the car as fast as I could. We, my brother and I were going to have a race to the door so we both took off running as fast as we could. It was a close race but I still won. I opened the door and held it for Cory and then after he went in I stayed there and held it for my dad as well. We walked inside and I ordered first and I knew exactly what I wanted. I had been waiting for at least a couple weeks now to try the new Meatball Sub. After we all ordered we sat down at a table and started eating. I took one bite of the sandwich and it was like heaven! It was the most delicious sandwich I had ever sunk my teeth into. After we were all finished eating we left and we were on our way to my mom’s house to pack and get ready to go to my dad’s. When we got there I went upstairs along with my brother and we packed. When I got down stairs I saw my friend Tyler standing there with a suit case in one hand and his phone in the other. I asked what he was doing here and my dad had told my mom to call a friend and ask if they would like to come with. I was so excited and shocked at the same time. After all of that commotion were gave our goodbye hugs and kisses and off we were. As we were driving we were listening to music and messing around with my dad. Now after all of that horsing around we eventually got tired and all fell asleep besides my dad of course. After about thirty minutes of sleeping we all woke up when we arrived at his house. It had been a long time since I had seen my dad’s house and it is a lot different than it was a few years ago. It was now a humongous blue monster with brown shudders and roofing. The yard of my dad’s house was huge, perfect for rough and rowdy football games. We drug all of our bags into the guest’s rooms and then headed outside to see what everybody else was doing. My dad and my uncle were outside playing catch so we all three went out and joined in. After we were all done with that we all went back into the house and into our guests’ rooms. I was asleep by 9:30 so I’m guessing that they were all asleep at least by ten. I was the first one to get up the next morning and I went into all of the rooms and jumped on every single bed. After we were all up we went into the kitchen and helped my step mom Laura fix breakfast. We ate and off we were down to the creek behind my dad’s house in the woods. Walking through the woods we saw plenty of the wildernesses! We saw all kinds of animals and bugs and different kinds of trees and plants. As we neared the water I could start to see that the water was really clear. We baited our polls up and casted them out we all shared this big tree that had fallen a few years back when I was here. It looked like it was from the dinosaur ages if you ask me. We sat and talked to a while and all of a sudden I had a bite! It wasn’t big but I knew the difference from the current. I pulled a little to see if the fish would follow for a chase and it bit back I waited a little bit and it bit again so I yanked the poll backwards and hooked the fish. I started to reel but right as I did the fish took off swimming and it was too powerful I couldn’t reel! I held on to the poll as it doubled over and tried my hardest to hold on as long as I could. It finally died down but still really strong. I relentlessly reeled as hard as I could and finally got the fish to the bank. We dragged the fish up on the bank and it was an airy grey fish with fins that looked like a bed of knives. The shape of the fish’s body was different then I had ever seen in Iowa, It was circular headed and a pointy body. We threw the fish back because we had no use for it and headed back to the house. When we reached the house my dad was grilling steak and chicken and making potato salad! I loved my dad’s potato salad with a passion! It was easily my favorite meal at my dad’s house. I have liked it since I was a really little kid and never stopped. I told Tyler that he is going to absolutely fervor this meal and he said that he agrees.so to pass by time we went outside and played some more catch and raced each other. When the food was done we went back inside and sat down at the table. I grabbed the biggest piece of chicken and steak and took 3 scoops of potato salad. Right now I was in such a good mood that I thought nothing could go wrong, until the very next day when we were out on White Bear Lake on our boat. My brother was walking along the edge of the boat to see if there were any fish at the surface to see. Well as he was walking he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going he ran into my foot and fell off of the edge of the boat into the water. I jumped up out of my chair at one hundred miles an hour. We were traveling at 64 miles an hour so there was no way for us to slow down at that instant. Just then it hit me, hit me like a homerun baseball just out of the ball park. Cory can’t swim! We finally got turned around and I could not see my brother anywhere. My dad, my sister, and I all jumped in at the same time as fast as we could and searched for him. Nobody could find him until I looked over to a big patch of weeds underneath the water and there he was struggling, caught in the tight grip of the weeds. I plunged down into the water and released him from the death grip of the weeds. I am a very powerful swimmer so it wasn’t as hard as you think it would be to swim a 210 pound boy up the edge of the boat. Once I lifted him onto the boat my dad jumped up on as well. Now my dad has taken quite a few CPR classes so he knew exactly what to do when he got ahold of Cory. He flipped him over so that he was on his stomach and couldn’t choke on the water. He then pushed on his lungs three times and gave him mouth to mouth. My brother wasn’t doing anything and everybody started crying. Just then he coughed up the water and started breathing again. Everybody quit crying and ran over to him and hugged him and kissed him. I walked over to him and said what were you thinking dude? He said that is the thing bro, I wasn’t thinking. We both laughed and then the whole family laughed. My dad and I helped him up and sat him down in the chair. I sat down in the chair next to him and tossed my line out once again. We didn’t catch anything so we went back to the dock. We carried everything up to the house and then Cory said something. He said that whole experience is going to change me as a person and change my whole life in general. Cory grew up to be a successful young man and a famous author. His first book was about this little boy that about lost his life, but thinks to his loving family he is still here today to write this story.