Last month when I did the “What posts do you want to see on the blog in June” survey, most of you selected the “More About Us (Travis & Melanie)” topic. And after gathering some suggestions on what kind of things you wanted to learn in this area, this post was born and I decided to post it on June 13th, since we “officially” got together for the long haul on October 13th, 2007. Which means that as of today, we’ve been together for four years and eight months, and as of last week, we’ve been best friends for eight years.

Memorial Day 2004 – On Memorial Day weekend we always went to the same campground, Shangri-la Campround, in Milton, Pennsylvania. In 2004, I decided to take one of my best friends, Samantha, along with. At the time we were both 15, and pretty boy crazy like any fifteen year old girl would be. On one of our walks around the campground, I spotted a group of boys fishing at the gazebo, so I started yelling things to them. (Don’t ask me what, because I honestly don’t remember) Thru this yelling we actually made friends with the group of boys who were all 13. Their names were Anson, Josh, Colby and Adam and they all went to the same school together in a nearby town. Samantha and I ended up hanging out with these boys all weekend and before we left the campground we exchanged AOL Instant Messenger screen names. Remember those days? I didn’t know it then, but that little gesture of exchanging screen names changed my life forever.

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 – We always had off of school on Monday for Memorial Day, so on Tuesday, June 1st we went back to school after the holiday weekend. This Tuesday was about to change my life. When I got home from school on this day, I did what I always did. I got home, went on the computer and signed into AOL. But today was different. A little while after being signed on, someone I’ve never talked to or met before IM’ed me. I want to say that it was the screen name DrummerBoy182 or something along those lines (and mine at that time might have been xothisromance, but I really don’t remember what either of ours were, we both had a habit of changing our screen names 29382938 times). His name was Travis and he was 13. Turns out that those four boys I met at the campground told Travis about me on the bus ride home, and he got my screen name off of them.

We hit it off right away and talked for hours every single day, we just instantly became best friends. We even talked on the phone quite a few times. Eventually though, we both realized that we liked each other, a lot. We both knew there was something there, even though we were only 15 & 13.

(December 11, 2005 – Random conversation found with Travis from my old TMobile Sidekick)

(December 11, 2005 – Zoomed In – Excuse Travis’ language.)

Time to Meet: January 7, 2006 – After talking to each other every single day, online, we decided to meet. The plan was that I was going to head to my sisters house, and then she and I were going to drive the 1+ hour drive to Travis’ Mom’s house to pick him up for the day. You think I’d be nervous as hell to meet him, but I wasn’t. I was really excited and anxious, which is completely unlike me. Usually I was terrified to do something like this. We picked him up and met his Mom and then drove off to go to my sister’s house to hangout. I instantly felt like I knew him for my entire life, I just felt so comfortable around him. We only got to hang out for about two hours before had to take him home. And my sister did take a picture of us together, but we never were able to find it again after that day. No, we did not kiss that day. :P

I managed to find this little snippet off of one of Travis’ old Xanga’s (remember those days? ha) from the day we met. I haven’t seen this since 2006 so it was quite interesting. (I did some editing and some grammar checks, he was only 14.)

(sometime in 2006)

2006 & Becoming a licensed driver – As soon as I got a car and my license I was driving the hour long drive up to see Travis whenever I got the chance. We were both still in high school at the time, as well. So imagine the drama. Travis was a “stud” in his high school, so a lot of the girls from his school were not very happy that I was around and stealing the spotlight ;) This did cause a lot of problems in our relationship though which caused a lot of break-ups and then getting back together, to break-up a week later. Whenever we broke up, I would go out and party and even took part in drug usage. We all make bad decisions when we are 17.

Summer of 2007 – We broke up “for good”, but maintained a great friendship until another girl came along. That summer, Travis got a new girlfriend and she made him promise her, that he would no longer talk to me. He did and I was heartbroken. Their relationship only last a week, but we didn’t start talking again until October 2007. During the summer months and the fall, I got more into drugs – pills & marijuana. This was a pretty dark time in my life.

October 13, 2007 – Travis entered my life again. He randomly IM’ed me and apologized for everything. (He never had a cell phone, so we couldn’t text). The conversation turned into us both wanting to be together. (Ages: 18 and 16) So, I just flat out said to him, If you want to be with me, then be with me. We’ve been together ever since. However, at the time Travis didn’t really know about how heavy the drug use had become.

December 2007 – Travis made me choose, the drugs or him. I chose him. And I’ve been clean since January 2008.

(my bedroom at my parent’s house, early 2008)

(my bedroom at my parent’s house, early 2008)

(the second time Travis came camping with me)

2008 – 2009 – During this time I lived out of a suitcase, literally. I was going to college and working at Dairy Queen, but I never slept in the same bed for more than two nights. I was either at Travis’ Dads, or at his Mom’s or we were both at my parent’s house. That time of my life was just kind of a blur, it was school, work, Travis, driving, packing, unpacking… etc.

(This was our set-up in Travis’ Mom’s basement, glamorous…)

(Christmas 2008)

(Christmas 2008)

(new years eve 2008/2009)

(family vacation to myrtle beach, south carolina – july 2009)

August 3, 2009 – Travis was about to start school in Lancaster and my parent’s house was a lot closer to his school then his parent’s houses so we decided that he was going to move in. My brother was pretty excited about this, because it was like having a brother he never had, haha.

(February 2010 – We got gerbils!)

(My 21st Birthday – March 2010)

(Dorney Park, Summer 2010)

(Fall 2010)

(Date Night, Winter 2010)

(December 25, 2010)

December 26, 2010 – We needed our own space, so we moved out into our first apartment and then Mailbox Journey was started in August 2011, so now you guys can follow along on our journey in real-time. :)

Posted on May 20, 2013 - 37 comments
 Filed Under: My Life