My Life!

I was super pro at writing on my blog while I was gone, but have been a real slacker since being home. In all honesty, my life hasn’t been all that exciting. Mostly, I just go to work and then go home go to bed and do it all again.  I also snapchat lots, so if anyone has that totally snap chat me sometime!

See I get real bored...

However, there have been a few slight highlights since returning home. Obviously, graduating was wonderful, but I have also turned 21 since being home! I have never been a huge fan of my birthdays, they also seem to be a letdown so this year I didn’t really expect too much, which probably helped to make my birthday pretty awesome!

My wonderful sister, who has left me for Europe took me out to lunch at Maddox. Then I came home and took a nap. I think I am adding a nap to my annual celebration for sure. Rachel and I went out to Twizzle Berry as we haven’t really seen each other since returning home. She is a real busy lady and I am real lucky when she has some time for me! After this is when the real partying started. When turning 21 there are certain things you can do that you cannot do when you are 20, so obviously I need to utilize my new privileges! Haha no I did not drink any alcohol I just went to the White Owl to celebrate!

My free Birthday Burger! 

Jonny, Regan, and MaKell were all great friends and made the great trip with me! Let’s be honest I was a little afraid of the bar and we probably sat at the closest table to the door. After the bar the night was still young and I could not retire early, so we headed to one of my favorite places in Cache Valley!! That is right we headed to the Fun Park!! I think I could play arcade games forever, and will need to be travelling down to a Nicklecade soon!

MaKell and I! 

Our Wonderful Winnings!! 

Other than that my mission papers may or may not be submitted.

Ashley P! 

Graduation Nation!

Well folks, I did it!! Yep, that is right I am a college graduate! Yesterday, I graduated from the Huntsman School of Business with a Bachelors of Arts in International Business and Economics. It seems like just yesterday I was walking at my high school graduation. I wasn’t super stoked about walking for my college graduation but I am so happy that I did!

 

Me and Jonny! 

I did it! 

College was such a great experience! Freshman/Sophomore year was a blast being a Huntsman Scholar. I meet so many great individuals through that program and was able to make friends that lasted throughout my whole college experience. Not to forget the amazing experience with the Go Global Program traveling around Asia for a month!

 

Kenzie and I before the first 80s dance! 

Summer and Rachel!! 

The initial group of Huntsman Scholars! 

Us at a retreat! 

South Korea! 

China! 

All of us in Hong Kong! 

So many great friends! 

Last year, which I will refer to as my Junior year of college was such a blast! I moved out for the first time in my life and built great friendships! I most definitely held my social life at a higher priority than my school work, but hey I could do both! Cruisin’ to Mexico with all my friends over Spring Break was awesome!

 

My awesome room! Loved it! 

Halloween Party! 

Festival of Colors! 

Ice Cream with Boyd! 

Frog Hunting! 

Our wonderful Cruise! 

We love cruises! 

Shelby's Wedding

Fireworks! 

NYC with Summer! 

Niagara! 

Then we have this year! SENIOR YEAR, which was great! Mostly due to the fact that I only had to be in class for one of the two semesters and the other one I spent in Ghana, Africa!

Debra's wedding! 

Love these girls!

Road Trip to Canada! 

Alberta, Canada! 

African Wedding! 

The beach! 

ELEPHANTS! 

I loved college, but am so grateful that I am done! Now on to bigger better things! Haha, also sorry for all the pictures. I may have gone a little overboard! 

Ashley P! 

What's Next?

Wow! I am home! I have actually been home for a little over a week now, and it is so wonderful! I miss Ghana extremely, but it has been wonderful to catch up with friends and family!

 

Lunch when I got home! Love them all! 

I feel like everyone I talk to seems to have a couple of the same questions.  One of the biggest questions is what I am going to do now. As most of you know I will graduate from Utah State University, May 4, with my undergraduate degree in International Business and Economics. For a long time I didn’t have anything planned for when I returned from Africa and would graduate. I figure I would figure it out when it happened, and now it looks like it is happening. I have come to a sort of cross roads in my life.

For a while now I have been toying with the idea of serving and LDS mission. I have gone back and forth on whether or not I was going to serve. While the recent age change helped many with the decision, it seemed to make my decision harder. It wasn’t like I was going to leave any sooner and when I left there would be lots of younger people serving with me, I didn’t particularly like that idea.

However, during my time in Africa I pondered and prayed about my decision. The Lord has blessed me in so many ways throughout my life.   I feel that serving a mission is just one of the many ways I can try to repay him for all that he has done for me. So with that I am very happy and excited to announce that this past week I started working on my mission papers. I am aiming to get them turned in as soon as possible! So I guess that is a little update on my life.

 

Yay! So excited!! 

Ashley P! 

Goodbyes Suck!

It is official I hate goodbyes. Over the course of the last couple weeks we have been saying our goodbyes to all the wonderful people that we have met during out time in Ghana.

Stephen and Margaret are wonderful individuals and threw us a great going away party. Margaret spent all day in the kitchen making all sorts of wonderful Ghanaian food. It was a most wonderful feast. Earlier this week we traveled make to Cape Coast to say our last goodbyes to all our wonderful friends there.

 

The yummy food!! 

I do not like goodbyes at all. I wish I could stay here, but at the same time I miss my family and friends like crazy! I can’t believe how fast the past three months have flown by! I swear it was just yesterday that Rachel and Summer were driving me to airport!

My flight leaves Accra tonight. I hopefully will be landing in Utah at 10:50 PM Friday!! I can’t wait to see all my family and friends! See you all soon!

Ashley P! 

Elephants!!

How can you go to Africa and not see any elephants? We decided that seeing elephants during our time in Ghana was a must. After some research we learned if you want to see Elephants you go to Mole National Park. Excitedly we started planning our trip to the north to see our elephants.

In all honestly Rachel is the one who pushed this trip forward. Her dream was to touch an elephant! We all thought she was a little crazy, but I decided to hop right on board with this trip. After making some phone calls we got the important aspects of the trip booked and set out.

Our trip started Monday night, when we left our home for the past three months Abomosu on the midnight bus. It was bitter sweet saying goodbye to Abomosu, there will also be a place in my heart for Abomosu. After arriving in Accra we took a small nap before setting out on our long journey up north. We has reserved ourselves seats on the “luxury” VVIP bus that left Accra at 3 PM and would arrive in Tamale at around 4 AM. Needless to say we were all super stoked for the travelling!

 

Rachel and I stoked for the bus ride!

After arriving in Tamale in the middle of the morning, we set out on the task of getting to the park, which is approximately 3 hours away. This is the part that I may not have researched as well as I should have. You would think it would be much easier to get to a National Park than it was. However, eventually we made it to park. Once again we realized our lack of research as there was a swimming pool that we didn’t even know about.

Our first elephant sighting came that night from the viewing area by the hotel. Wow, I have seen elephants in a zoo before, but seeing them in the natural state was an amazing experience. We were excited for our safari hike the next morning, hoping that we would be able to get closer to the majestic animals.  

Lucky for us the elephants were out and about when we started our morning safari hike! There were at least ten of them and they were so so so close to us! We were not going to miss an opportunity to get our picture taken with them. Here are just a few of us with the elephants!

 

I was just a little happy! 

Elephants! :) 

Us with our tour guide, Moses! 

Stoked on life! 

There were also a number of other animals that we saw, but I have to say that the elephants were my absolute favorite! We saw some crocks, antelope, warthogs, and a few monkeys! Wildlife is so much more amazing without the zoo cages.

Our trip up north was superfast, as shortly after our safari we set back out to Tamale in hopes of making it there before 4 PM to catch our bus back to Accra. Luckily, we were able to and rode the bus back. The trip was short, but the elephants made up for the crazy travel time!

Ashley P! 

3rd Wheel

Sometimes I like to be the third wheel. I mean honestly it is usually pretty entertaining to basically be a fly on the wall on someone else’s date. Lucky for me this last week I had the opportunity to be the 3^rd wheel! So first I would like to thank Rachel for allowing me to go on her date with Bernardo!  

I was pretty anxious to see how a date would work in Ghana, I mean would it be the same or different? I was not sure. Let me give you a rundown of this wonderful date. First, off we got to go into Accra, which is always happiness. Unfortunately, we did not get any pizza on this trip which is what we normally do in Accra. Before the date officially started we played lots of card games, which is a great way to pass time here in Africa.

For dinner Bernardo took us to a super nice restaurant which sort of had American food at it. So he obviously gets a gold start for that. Actually Bernardo gets a gold star just for letting me come along to be honest! Mostly during dinner I just people watched, as there were lots of expats having dinner at the restaurant. I didn’t want to interrupt the dinner conversation.

After dinner we went to the MOVIES! Yay! I miss the movies so much! We went to Jack the Giant Slayer. I had not really seen previews for it before I came, but the movie was actually surprisingly great. Also I got to check going to a movie in another country off my bucklist, which is great.

When we got back to the office where we spend the night when we are in Accra, I politely excused myself to bed so I wasn’t present for the whole date. Hopefully before I come home I can go on a date of my own and will not have to be the third wheel again. All in all I would say that date went pretty well. I wish I would have taken a picture of all of us but I forgot…next time though I will for sure!  

Ashley P! 

Transportation

Let’s be honest, one of my favorite things about Africa is the transportation. It is always an adventure and a half when we want to travel anywhere. Whether we are taking taxi, tro tro, or bus we have a good time.

When taking a taxi here, it is a little different than the other places that I have travelled to. Here, they stuff the taxis as full as possible and don’t leave until they are full. This leads to lots of cramped rides. Taxis are fine for short distances, but they are no good for long distances. Usually they put four in the back seat and two in the passenger seat.

One of many taxi rides. 

Tro tros are my favorite form of transportation here. Basically you can get a tro tro to where ever you would like to go. They are kind of like fifteen passenger vans, that they just pack full. It is normal to have three or four people on each row, but it is not unusually to have five or six at times.

And this my friends, is the beloved tro tro! 

Buses are not my favorite, but are acceptable when travelling long distances. Buses are much slower than taxis and tro tros as they stop more frequently. However, they are also a lot cheaper than the other options.

Enjoying a bus ride. 

I almost forget about the best part of travelling here. There are various taxi, tro tro, and bus stations that are filled with vendors. So while you are waiting for whatever mode of transportation you have chosen to fill up, you are swamped with individuals trying to sell you all sorts of goodies. Mostly, I just wait for the food vendors to come around. We can purchase delicious popcorn or plantain chips to hold us over for the travel ahead.  Also these vendors will stand around at traffic lights or toll booths.

Ashley P!