From the beginning

Well we are getting everything ready for our big trip.  We are getting so excited for this adventure!  The start of this whole thing goes back to when I was in high school.  I knew that I wanted to travel the world and that I wanted to help people especially children.  I became a pediatric physical therapist and in the process met my husband Matt who shared my desire to travel and to help people through physical therapy.  We started talking about doing a mission trip right after we graduated from physical therapy school.  We started to plan a trip to Africa, and then found out I was pregnant with our son Lucas and chose to postpone the trip.  Matt went back to school to get his PhD and we decided that when he finished school we would do our mission trip.  I got pregnant again and had our daughter Melayna while Matt was in school.  The year before he finished, we started making plans to go to Ecuador when he was done with school.  Things started falling into place and I was able to go to Ecuador for ten days and made plans for us to return with our kids.  With a lot of help from many different people, we found places to stay, places to work and people to show us around.  We have met some wonderful and very helpful people, and now here we are four days away from leaving for five months.  What an adventure we will have!