After we received orders to Spain back in February of 2011 I had thought about starting a blog as a way to keep in touch with our friends and family and as an outlet to document all of our lessons learned, travels and whatever else Spain decides to throw our way. At about a week out of from our flight I decided to actually sit down and figure this blog thing out. As I was trying to come up with a clever name for my blog my husband blurted out Touching Trees in Spain. My little family got quite a chuckle and decided that this would absolutely be the name, but we would have to preface what the title actually means. So for those of you that have not heard this story here it goes:
Back in March of 2010 my husband was returning from his year long deployment to Iraq. My husband was with a unit that traditionally flies with their own equipment which results in flying on Military aircraft. Well it seems inevitable that Military aircraft always breakdown on the return flight, but some how have no issues for that initial flight to Iraq. So, of course the aircraft has to land in Spain for one reason or another. Upon my husbands unit's landing in Spain they were briefed on a situation that occurred in Spain. They were told that in Spain the King owns all the trees and because the King owns all the trees you are not allowed to touch the trees. If you touch a tree you might just get an "extended/indefinite" stay in Spain. Once my husband returned home from the deployment and we were having breakfast the next morning he told our family this story. I thought it was just ludicrous that this was real, but it apparently was an issue since they had a briefing on the subject prior to landing. This story pretty much scarred our 4 year old daughter. She sat at the table and just sobbed and sobbed. Through the hysterical crying we could barely make out, "I never want to go to Spain", "You can't touch the trees in Spain" and this went on for several minutes and whenever we told this story to anybody else. My husband calmly sat at the table and reassured her that there was absolutely no way we would ever go to Spain. Explaining to her that there were no jobs in his field in Spain.
Now we fast forward a year or so. In December of 2010, while my husband was attending a school, he found out about this new position that was opening up in Madrid, Spain. He of course mentions it to me in passing. One of the things you learn very quickly as a military wife is that you never get your hopes up on any location until you have orders...and even then it isn't guaranteed. In February of this year we finally got our assignment and lo and behold it was to Madrid. Even now being the week that we are leaving it still seems a bit surreal. After we found out where we were headed we had to "break" it to the kids. They were not excited at all. This was for several reasons, but that story told just a year ago came back to bite us as one of the reasons why the kids did not want to live in Spain. As we tried to explain the great opportunities and adventures that lie ahead the kids still were not excited. This started a mad search for touching trees in Spain. We checked out numerous books from the library and did countless Internet searches. In all of our attempts we turned up nothing whatsoever that stated the King owns all the trees and/or that you are not allowed to touch them. I guess we will find out in just a couple of days if this is in fact a "law" in Spain. I will be sure to keep you updated on that status.
The kids have come around and are excited for this adventure, but in all military situations it is hard to leave where you are, at the time. In this instance we had been in our last location for 6 years. Our daughter was born in that location and had never moved. We look forward to this incredible adventure that awaits us in Spain and we might just touch a tree or 2. :-)
Until next time....
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