A goal reached....

On our second night at the 14er mountain climb we were having our first night camping in the woods. For some reason I remember this night perfectly. That night was what made me fall in love with that trip. We were all sitting around a campfire talking about things related to diabetes. I had my arms crossed on my knees in front of me. I remember I was facing southeast hahaha I love directions, my face was resting on my arms and I was looking up at the moon. There was no clouds in the sky with the moon as full as it could be. The question was then asked why did you want to come on the trip.  It came time for me to answer and my response was " I want to be a role model to younger kids with diabetes and inspire them to reach goals just like people inspired me".The point to this...I just had my Youth Leadership Lincoln retreat...On the retreat we met people from all over the city, we talked to each other and really got to know the people that we would be spending the rest of the school year with. In one of the group discussions a question was a raised on if anyone in the group has impressed or inspired you? A girl that I had just met that morning raised her hand...she was sitting in a rocking chair in front of me and she turned around and said "Ashlee because she has done all these things and she is diabetic". This is a girl that I would look up to and for her to say that gave me chills. I thought back to the moment on the mountain climb. I felt like I had started to reach that goal. This past Tuesday we went to a local diabetic support group. There were these two little girls one of them was diabetic and the other was her sister. They were so excited to have me teach them about my pump and both girls fearlessly put in pump sights for the first time. Which when I first did that I was hidding under tables with fear. It was so cute to see, they gave me their valentines day crafts they made during the kids class and kept asking there mom when they could see me again. It made me realize that this is what I want to do. I want to hang out with these kids so that they can grow up and embrace diabetes and not think of it as something to hate. I want them to be healthy and happy and even inspire other kids. That is what I dream and that's what I'm going to work for.....