The photo that I took was at one of the lakes in South Carolina when we visited for Christmas. Usually my family stays home for the holidays but this time we went to South Carolina for a specific reason. My cousin joined the Air Force after he graduated from high school,l and he was located in South Carolina. When my mom and her siblings lived in Bolivia, they always spent Christmas with my grandparents. When they moved here and moved far from each other, this became more and more difficult. Christmas is not only important to my family because it’s the holidays, but it’s also my grandfather’s birthday. My mom and her siblings swore that they would always get together for Christmas because our family needs to be able to spend time with everyone, since my grandparents live in Bolivia and fly down for the holidays. When we found out that my cousin couldn’t come back to California for the holidays, we didn’t really know what to do. We knew there was only one option and so we flew over to South Carolina. We got to eat Christmas dinner together as a family.
That solved the temporary problem, but what about next year? My cousin is going to be sent out to another base and we don't know if we can fly over again. So all of my family and I pushed that to the back of our minds and just explored South Carolina together. We were touring the area when we came across this lake where I took the picture. For me this is what best represents investigations because there’s the literal sense that we were exploring South Carolina but there’s the other reason. My family had to explore all of the options to get us together for the holidays. My mom, my uncle, and my aunt had to book tickets, rent a house, and find out how to get my cousin there. They had to investigate and explore every option to get us to see our cousin and they succeeded. That’s why I’m not worried about next year because if there’s a way to see my cousin for the holiday, my family will find it.