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Happy Friday: Here is my life. Part 8

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Okay, here we go, and this is Peter talking on Fridays. After an apartment deal, we had 300,000 in the account. We had worked hard and now we were going to travel and the kids were coming with us. We booked New Zealand for all four with adventures every day for three weeks, and planned the journey from the North to the South Island with maps and in kilometres.

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Now we had to agree on how to get there. Helena researched several options and suggested a campervan. I looked at her as if she were an alien and said, DO I LOOK LIKE A CAMPER?

2 Dream holidays

We were already up to around 130,000 kronor for everything and she thought that a motorhome for 10,000 for three weeks is really good, and otherwise it will be bed & breakfast for 30,000. I gave in and we booked for Christmas. We also wanted to take the railway through Russia, so we booked that at the same time, but then we ended up in China.

We fly from China to Thailand and the kids fly from Sweden to Thailand at the same time and we meet there, great idea. Now we can have three weeks together after the railway and fly home together, cool, we booked. Now we have booked up for SEK 270,000 and it felt just right after all the work, and these were our 2 dream trips.

Tågstation i Sibirien
Train station in Siberia

Problems at school

My youngest son Billie had struggled through 2nd and 3rd grade and was not doing well. He was put in a small class with 6 children and started 4th grade. My ex couldn't cope with all this, so Helena and I took the schooling and the weeks and the ex took the weekends.

There were still a lot of problems at school. School meetings once a week, BUP and investigations and everything that goes with it. The job suffered enormously. Billie was like the sun at our house, studying happily every night and we had no idea what was wrong.

Billie pluggar hemma
Happy Billie studying at home

Russia

In the summer we travelled on the Trans-Mongolian Railway. We had also studied Russian in the autumn and spring and now we could read Russian letters. We had several days in Moscow, got off in Irkutsk and saw Lake Baikal, on the train again.

Moskva tunnelbana

We got off in Mongolia and rode and slept out on the steppe, on again and got off in China. We had several days in China before we flew to Thailand and met the children from Sweden. Now it was 3 weeks on Koh Samui and a cosy holiday. Cool round trip for 6 weeks.

Mongoliet
Sleeping in Jurta on the steppe in Mongolia
Kinesiska muren
Great Wall of China

Adventure

For Christmas we flew to New Zealand and damn how far it was. 33 hours of travel and there was that campervan at the airport when we got there and left-hand traffic, hello and hope. Completely exhausted, we found a shop and bought food, then went to a campsite, but there was no dinner because all four fell asleep and slept for 15 hours thanks to the time change.

Kajak i Nya Zeeland
Kayaking in New Zealand

NOW WE ARE GOING! All days were already booked from Sweden with an adventure every day. Bungee jumping, horseback riding, swimming with dolphins, whale watching, kayaking, rafting, seeing an active volcano, rolling around in big balls from a mountain, seeing penguins, boating in glaciers and much more in Adventure Land.

Delfiner runt oss
Define was swimming around us. What a feeling!
Familjen
Cool and the gang

Discovering motorhome life

Left-hand traffic was difficult as you went over single-lane bridges and automatically went to the right afterwards, haha. When you meet a lorry that hangs on the horn and shows the finger, you know that you are on the wrong side. This with a motorhome was really cool and to just stand in nature and live in new places, wow! Not stupid at all.

Home again and 4 changes of flight and breakfast on every damn plane. We flew back in time so there was always breakfast. During this time my oldest son Robin had met a girl and he was soooo in love for the first time in his life. Every distance we drove he wanted to sleep away the time. Something bigger was happening.

Feast

My youngest son Billie had major problems throughout 5th grade, and I continued to travel between work and school. I had no overtime jobs then and Helena and I spent a lot of time on Billie and homework in the evenings. 10 minutes of homework always became about two hours because we speculated about everything in life. My oldest son Robin turned 20 and of course we organised a party with all his friends at our home.

Robin 20 år
My son Robin 20 years old

Hallelujah

Billie started 6th grade and everything turned around. He became a ray of joy even at school and even dared to stand on stage in performance in front of others, what happiness. At the same time we inherited some money from Helena's family. IS THIS TRUE? Of course she got the money, but the money went to us. I have never received a penny in my entire life without working hard for it, so for me it felt like winning the lottery. We knew what to do with the money. BUY A CAR!

Billie
Billie performs at school and sings.

The great journey starts here

We went through the whole market and looked at several. We settled on a one-year-old Adria and the seller wanted 480,000. We said we'll give 450,000 and we'll come the next day and buy the motorhome. We went by train to Dalarna and bought our white motorhome. Immediately, my brain started working at full speed again with, how can you make this campervan? Well, here we go again!

Våran husbil
This purchase in 2008 changed our life into something amazing.

Next week: FREEDOM is born, school goes to hell for Billie again and more travelling. Now it's your turn to give me a yummy story!

Did you miss the last Happy Friday? Read the Here is my life part 7

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