My Adventure Part I: How it Came to Be

I finally have all my pictures from my trip so I feel like I can finally blog about it! I am Just going to brush over some of the highlights and probably do it in sections or this post would be pages long and take me forever!

First let me explain how my trip to Africa even came to be. It all started when I was just a little girl. I think most children, once they learn about Africa and all the cool animals there, dream about going on an African safari. I was definitely one of those kids. And I never grew out of it. Then about 7 years ago my dad started going to Uganda to do humanitarian dentistry which turned into a huge project of building a dental school and creating outreach programs to teach children about oral hygiene. His project then expanded to Rwanda just a couple of years ago (*Note: this is the readers digest version of the readers digest version of my dad's story. It is quite incredible and deserves much better description than this. See adoptanafricanclinic.org for a little more info on my dad's latest project ). I was so proud of my dad (still am, more than ever!) and dreamed of the day that I could go with him and see his work and even help out where I could. Just a few months ago I got a phone call from my dad that went something like this:

Dad: Hey Ash! What are your plans in October?
Me: Umm... no plans other than the usual. Why?
Dad: (To my mom) She's not busy. She's coming.
Me: Where am I coming to?
Dad: How would you like to go to Africa with me?
Me: Are you serious? I would love to!

I didn't think my dream would come true so soon! I thought I was going to have to wait until my kids were all in school and old enough to fend for themselves pretty good. I had to ween Carter earlier than I had originally planned and Chris had to have no commitments for 2 weeks so he could be a full time stay at home dad for that time but it all came together and I got to go!