My Travel Story

I've decided to lay out for you my traveling story.  Or, my childhood.  But I thought I do it a little differently.  I've decided to let my playmobiles do the telling.  Playmobiles have been my traveling mates from the start.


I began in Alaska.

(Moose)

I've already introduced you to my family, but now you can meet then face to face.  Here we have Dad, Mom, Marry Poppins (the oldest) Batman, Dory, and our puppies, Sammy and Ally.  Gato our cat existed here too, but she didn't get in the picture.  And that's me in there.

I was born in Iceland.

I don't really remember much about Iceland, being a baby and all, but I imagine it was sort of like this.

Then we flew away to the fearsome land of Alabama.  I've been told that on the plane I sang a boisterous song about puppies and annoyed everyone.  Except the nice old people, who applauded.  Sounds about right.
I spent my babyhood in Alabama, so of course, life was pretty stressful.  I did gymnastics with my siblings (minus Hobbs)  And was completely in love with my teacher, Ms. Lora.  I told children that Santa wasn't real and crushed their dreams, I made friends everywhere I went (mostly the playground) and wrote them letters which they never wrote back to. I took a bath in the sink with Dory and almost got killed by my baby sitter, my favorite book was An Alligator Ate My Brother, and Dad got us a puppy.  Every four year old's dream.  Unfortunately we had to give him away when we moved.  My babyhood tragedy.  (In this picture, you can see us doing gymnastics. Including the pets.)

We sailed away to the magical land of Germany.

(Sammy and Ally are in this picture, next to Dory who is fishing).
Just before we landed, I was forced to sit next to an awkward nerd guy, away from the window.  The flight attendant thought I was his daughter.  It terribly frighting.

Germany is where I spent most of my childhood.

 I loved it.  I learned German (I could say "Was?"  which means, "What?")  I took ballet and did one performance.  On performance night, I learned I had to wear make-up.  After seeing Marry Poppins and Dory in make-up, I started crying, begging mom on my knees not to let them put that goop on my innocent chubby face.  They forced me down and did it any way.  I was more frightened of my face then the stage.
I was finally aloud to take horse back ridding with my older siblings.

I loved to play with dolls and playmobiles, I loved Kung Fu Panda and Peter Pan, and I still made playground friends and got their addresses so I could write them.  I had a group of real friends from church and other groups we were involved in.  I loved them with a passion, but didn't realize it until we moved.  I even had my husband chosen from the German lot.
The amusement parks were a big part of the Germany fun.
Although, I was very excited to move back to America.











While Dad and Batman were in America house hunting, Mom told us that she was pregnant.

 

I spent my further time making a travel journal, telling all my friends that I was moving to America, where we would have a farm and goats and horses and kittens and stetsons.  We may even be done with school, forever.  We would just listen to John Denver and have hoedowns and party for the rest of our life.  Marry Poppins even wrote a two part series about our perfect life in America, and won first prize in a writing contest.  (She won a Tinkerbell book, which made me extremely jealous)
I spent my last day with my best friend, Marry, at an amusement park on a very cold day.  It was then that my excited moving jitters began to get dampened.






Then we moved.  It was longer then I expected.  From the long wait in the ticket office, to the actual trip around America.  It was a wonderful trip, I wish I remembered where we drove through.  I know we went through New York and saw the statue of liberty, which I loved.  I mostly sat in the back of the car with Batman, coloring and drawing, and having tickle fights.   If you've never had a tickle fight with Batman, just know that it's painful.  We spent a good chunk of our life in a trailer.  I shared the top bunk with Marry Poppins, tormenting her throughout the night.  Ah, the good 'ol days.

I had never experienced home sickness before.  I wanted a room, I wanted my playmobiles, I wanted a back yard, I wanted friends.  We did listen to a lot of John Denver.  I thought the country music would add to the perfectness of America, but instead I listened to Take Me Home Country Road  and felt worse.
But we reached our American dream house at last.

It was a decent sized house in the city, with windows facing the houses two inches from each other.  (So my farm dream was coming to a close)  But when we first drove up to that house, I ran out of the car and hugged the porch rail, so excited to be home.
The inside of the house was destroyed and trashed, but after a few months of sleeping on the cement, we got a carpet and a wood, and I finally got my playmobiles back.  I had my own room for a while, and fell into lonely depression and moved in with the older girls (to Marry Poppins dismay).  We joined Tae-Kwon do.  We hunted around for a church.  We joined a book club which had a girls club that we tried to join.  I hated all the people there, and brutally let them know. I still made playground friends, but I made more enemies then anything.  It was there that Sammy and Ally died.  Home was feeling less and less like home, and I found myself crying for hours and praying that God would take me back to Germany.
It wasn't all bad though.  We built a fort in our back yard and hid in it to 'scare' Dad after his run.  We got a yellow lab and named him Teddy Bear.  And Calvin was born, which was the best part.

I had dream that we moved into a house in the mountains with seven acres, and a long porch around the front.

I told mom.

We found the house.

We moved.

We've stayed here sense.  

We got a life.  Like, seriously.  Before we lived here we took a stereotypical homeschooler test, and we passed with flying colors.  I'm thankful to say that that is no longer the case.  I found friends, real ones, not just playground friends (although I still make playground friends). I picked up the violin.  I was in my first real play and decided I wanted to be an actress.  We continued Tae Kwon do.  We found a church.  I finished my first novel with the encouragement of my homeschool group, and I basically started chipping into my talents with the help from my inspiring friends.

Our dear Gato passed away, and Teddy Bear had to be given up for adoption.  But we also got Say-Say our dog, our cats: Loki, Mulligan (Moo-Goo) and Wallace, The Princess (my chicken) and Zar Nickolas Benedict Cumberbatch the 2nd (my salamander). 

Here is a picture of us today:

Well for one thing we're all taller.....Well for one thing they're all taller.....

We've lost some dear family members.  My Princess, Zar Nickolas Benedict Cumberbatch the 2nd, and Mulligan all moved on from our home, never yet to return.

We also received a new member of the family, my little sister Boofer.  It's strange to think that throughout me and most of my siblings lives we've been traveling and having adventures, and Boofer's gonna have a completely different kind of adventure.  I'd like to say that she missed a lot, but that's not necessarily true.

Side Note:  DO YOU REALIZE HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO MAKE THIS???????????  I HAVEN'T SPENT SO MUCH TIME WITH MY PLAYMOBILES IN YEARS!!!