It was April 2nd and my mom had just gone to get the movers and got us some dinner. It was five o’clock at night and we were about to eat our last meal in California. When she came back, she gave the movers 12 inch sub sandwiches from Quiz-no’s and Wendy’s for us. I got a stuffed animal in the shape of the rat from Charlotte’s Web in my kid’s meal. The last thing I ever got from California.

I moved to Limerick, Maine on April 3, 2007. It was the spring vacation of 3rd grade. We had been living in California for my whole life and I was moving across the country, away from people I had been going to school with since kindergarten. I had moved before but our old house was only 45 minutes away from the new one in a cluster of buildings with a school in the middle, called Towngate. It wasn’t the town, but more like a “small” community inside the town we lived in, Moreno Valley. I say “small” because there were hundreds of houses all packed together, with a elementary school smack dab in the middle, about a 2 minute drive from my house. It was a nice neighborhood if you like having only a few feet from your neighbor’s house. The mall was right next to Towngate too. It was considered a small mall there but it makes the whole of South Portland seem like the Hannaford Supermarket, near my home in Maine. It was great.

It was 10:00 PM on April 2nd, and we were all being piled in the car to take my sixteen year-old brother and I to the airport. My dad was in his car behind us. We had my dog, Gizmo, with us and dad had Gadget, our other dog. We got to the airport and we were taken through the scanner. Our suitcases and dogs were put through customs to be loaded on to the plane. After we were settled in, waiting for the plane, my mom and dad left to give his car and the house plants to my Uncle Jesus (pronounced “hey-suce”). Then, they began their cross-country trip to New Hampshire by car. We waited and waited and waited to get on the plane but it was late. The plane was supposed to start boarding at 11:30 but we didn’t start until 12:30. By then my brother was exhausted, but I was as energetic as ever. Plus, I was terrified of planes taking off and our mom told us to chew gum as it did. After, the flight-attendant gave us snacks and we both fell asleep.

I woke up to see us landing in Atlanta. Surprisingly enough, the sky was pink and I could see the sun rising. I shook my brother.
“Wake up!” I hissed in his ear.
“Wherr-?” He said blinking and bleary eyed. I told him we were about to land and he looked at me grumpily and buckled his seat belt. We landed with a thump, pulling smoothly into the “parking space”, so to say. When we got off the plane and walked into the boarding room, there was a big lady waiting for us on what looked like a golf cart. She said she was going to take us to our next plane. We held on for our dear lives as she whizzed through the airport at top speed, narrowly avoiding people. We screeched to a halt.
“Get off!” she barked, as we scrambled off that death trap. She took out the keys, sat down on the bench next to us, and tucked into her Subway sandwich. When the plane came, which was a lot faster then the last one, she waved goodbye and whizzed away on her Cart of Doom. Before we left my mom had bought me a coloring book for the plane. My brother and I colored in a picture of a clown and we decided to give to my Memere for her birthday. After we finished coloring, we fell asleep.

When I woke up, we were flying a few feet over the tops of some pine trees. I panicked, but seeing the landing strip below us, I calmed down. After we landed, I couldn’t find my stuffed rat anywhere. I was about to burt into tears when a lady handed it to me and asked if it was mine. I was overjoyed and I thanked the lady over and over.

In the airport we met my grandparents. You should have seen the look on my face at the site of my grandpa with a beard! He looked like Santa Clause! After we picked up the dogs, we went to Burger King for some lunch. It right after leaving the restaurant that I saw my first moose on the side of the road near the airport. It was my first day in New England and I had already seen a moose! There was barely any snow on the ground when we got there, but then that night it SNOWED. There was a blizzard and it snowed over 3 feet that night and didn’t stop. I realized the beauty of snow that day. It was amazing, like I got the true New England experience all in one day. I decided that that was the best day ever.



I have a friend that still lives in New Hampshire and I haven’t seen her in 2 years, but thats okay because I have plenty of other friends that I wouldn’t have met if I hadn’t moved to Maine, Gilien and Faith especially. There is a lot of things that I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t moved here, like all the green and the wild life, and a lot of things I wouldn’t have gotten to do, like using the rope swing on Love Island with my friends and fishing and sitting out in the woods with the sunlight dazzling through the emerald leaves sending bright splashes of light across me and my favorite book. The mall here is very tiny, though, I mean it only has one floor! Even so, I think Maine is an amazing place and I’m very happy we moved here.