Making the most of Summer’s final days

BY

Spencer Massicot
Teen Columnist, The Friday Flyer

This Summer has gone by really fast and there isn’t much time left before I have to jump back into school and homework. So far this summer I have been going to practice for the cross country team at Elsinore High, swimming almost every day, and helping plan an end-of-Summer trip to Las Vegas with my parents.

On the first day of Summer vacation, I invited all of my friends over for an end-of-year party and it was a lot of fun. We played games, went swimming in my pool and had a huge water balloon fight all around my house. We had pizza and cake and everyone had a good time.

I go to cross country every day from 7:30 to 9 a.m., and on some days, we will go until 10:30. On a regular practice, we start off with a warmup run that is usually somewhere from a quarter mile to a mile. Following the warmup, we stretch and then we do our regular run for the day, which for freshman is usually two to three miles.

After the run, we do core exercises and drills. On days when we go until 10:30, we go into the huge weight room at the school. We do all kinds of different machines and different kinds of dumbbell exercises. The older kids on the team are all really supportive and they want the freshman to get better. I have really grown a lot as an athlete throughout this Summer from being on the cross country team.

The weekend before I go back to school, my parents and I are going to Las Vegas and staying on the Strip. I have never been there before so I am really looking forward to it. We have been planning this for a long time. We are staying at the Luxor, which is a big pyramid and Egyptian themed. At night, the top of the pyramid lights up and it can be seen from outer space.

We are going to tour all of the different hotels on the Strip so we can see the themes and attractions inside the hotels. I love to plan things, so I made a huge list of all the stuff we can do and I made a binder with a bunch of information I found on the internet.

Spencer and his friends spend the day at a local paintball park. Photo provided by Spencer Massicot.

I am really excited to see all of the iconic Las Vegas features. We are going to ride the roller coaster at New York New York, see the fountains at the Bellagio, see a pirate show at Treasure Island, see the Eiffel Tower at Paris, and look at the gondolas at the Venetian, the largest hotel in the world.

On a recent Saturday, I was invited to a birthday party for one of my friends at a paintball park. It was a night game, so it was dark when we were playing and it was really cool. I have only been paint-balling once so I’m not very good. It was really funny because, when I showed up, my friends all had special gear on and I was just wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

My friend Riley was having the party and his dad had a vest that was padded. He gave that to me to wear, but of course, I got hit everywhere besides the vest. At the end of the night, there was literally no paint on the vest at all.

All of the adults who were playing with us were taking it so seriously and we were just there to have fun. They kept telling us where to go and, if we went to the wrong place, they would get all mad and frustrated and it was really funny. During one of the games, one of the older people on our team came up and just started shooting me a bunch of times until he realized I was on his team. I have the welts to prove it!

I loved the maps, which were all different themes like an old western town or the site of a plane crash. We all had a lot of fun and I’m glad I went. I really enjoyed it, so maybe I’ll go back sometime and play.

I am really sad that Summer is almost over, but I still have a little bit before I have to go back to school and I am going to enjoy it. I will have an awesome trip with my parents and some time to see my friends. I am glad I have done a lot of stuff because I will remember this Summer before high school for a long time.