From Dayton To Dubai!!!

 *Yay! So excited to blog about my exciting adventure! First let me say this was SUCH a wonderful trip! I had the best travel companion and we had a wonderful time! I was able to skype my family every night so it made the distance seem not so far. And big kudos to my wonderful husband for taking care of everything while I was gone! Its good to know I was missed! Seriously when you put yourself out of your comfort zone...JESUS is so much closer!!! I had the best week with my children before hand treasuring moments and storing up hugs and kisses...

 Teary face at the airport...I am SO thankful for the husband God gave me! How many wives are lucky enough to go to Africa for a week and a half without their family! We have the same vision...so he let me go knowing that he himself will be going back soon...Looking forward to the day our WHOLE family can get on the plane together and go love together.

 Can I say that the flight to Dubai was FIFTEEN HOURS! Yes...so imagine, if you have never flown across the Atlantic...you probably sleep seven to eight hours in a night??? Well imagine sitting in a tight seat between strangers and they may or may not smell like B.O. and they may or may not do weird things the durance of the flight. SO thankful for the movies, my mp3 player, Tylenol pm and my neck pillow and blanket! We were so thrilled to finally be in Dubai! What a beautiful city! Burj Khalifa, known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest manmade structure in the world, at 829.84 m (the tower above) We didn't visit it just passed by it.

 beautiful hotel!

 So when we got into Dubai we were shuttled to our hotel. And it just so happened that we were put in the wrong hotel :/ we were a little annoyed because we had booked an Arabian tour that was picking us up in an hour at another hotel! We got everything worked out and got our rooms we had enough time to get a shower and get freshened up for our Dubai adventure. Rachel had been twice before on this adventure and she wanted me to experience it! What a fun evening!

 We had a guide that drove this jeep for the evening. We rode with a couple from Australia and a couple from Japan.

 They let the air out of the tires to go through the sand.

 The sand is SO cool!

 beautiful beautiful! We had quite the wild ride! It was fun but if you get carsick it would not be for you.

 Ahhhh so exciting to be in Dubai in the dessert! So different then anything I have ever seen! It was so quiet and peaceful.

 camels :)

 We watched this little show where the bird would  fly away and then come back

 sunset over the dessert

 there was probably 40-50 jeeps on this tour...they took us to several different places in the dessert and then we ended up at this encampment for supper.

 It was amazing! SO COOL to be out in this beautiful dessert

 Henna tattoos

 how fun! They lasted about a week

 camel rides...so fun!

 We got to hold the bird

 My beautiful friend! We sat down on pillows by little tables just like the Arabian culture...to eat our supper

 I was a little cautious of the food, but it was good! Three kinds of meat and rice...

 And then the belly dancer...she was good! It was an enchanting night! So beautiful to see the stars clear out in the REAL dessert... :)

We had some money exchanged in the airport...kind of interesting to see the different kinds of money...I never did learn about the exchange rate...probably because I was to busy trying to figure out Birr the next week. After our tour we headed back for a restless night. Our plane headed out to Addis the next morning at 10 am and I was SO excited to be finally be heading back to one of my favorite places in the world!