Project #walk365 {June}

June. June was the big move month. June included a 5-day trip from Nebraska to Idaho by way of Yellowstone National Park. June had us sleeping somewhere new every few nights! June was "uncharacteristically" hot!

Our whole family walked together in Scotts Bluff National Monument and each of the two days in Yellowstone.

We walked during our lunch break on the last leg of our trip to Idaho, then tried to get out and take walks while we stayed in a trailer in the church parking lot waiting for our house to be ready.

Then we went to camp meeting in Washington. The kids and I stayed busy walking places around campus, and taking frequent breaks to flex our muscles and watch ladybugs on our knees. After camp meeting, we moved into our house and I took a full, intentional week off from walking.

Once we got a little settled, I started going for walks again. The small pictures above are on my two routes from our house. The larger picture is something I'm proud of, though my kids walked better than I did! We went to the local ski resort, Schweitzer Mountain. We took the ski lift up to the top of the mountain and walked the 2.5 mile trail back down. It was super hot, we had no water, and the trail was rocky and steep, but we did it!

Even with a week off, I walked 23 miles in June bringing my year total to 218!

Roadtrip Recap {Yellowstone}

This summer our family moved from Nebraska to Idaho. It didn't take much to realize that we would be silly to NOT stop at Yellowstone!

We started out on June 1st and only travelled as far as Ogallala due to a late start doing a walk-thru of our Nebraska rental with our landlady.

The next day we traveled north through Nebraska and stopped at Scotts Bluff National Monument.

We ate lunch, took a short walk and a few pictures, then got our National Parks Passport stamped before continuing on to Thermopiles, Wyoming.

Day three brought us through more beautiful Wyoming country and Yellowstone!

This is our second time at Yellowstone in three years. You can see pictures from our last visit here and here. Both times we've stuck to the main road and made stops to take short walks and see the big attractions. We have plans when the boys are a little older (and now that we live closer) to go back for at least a week with a trailer or tent and see the back country.

We saw herds of bison and elk and a scraggly wild sheep. We walked to a waterfall and had our picture taken with a moose. :)

We stayed in West Yellowstone, MT, where there was plenty of posing with the wildlife (statues) and headed back to the valley for Day 2.

We took a walking tour of a plethora of geysers. It was stinky and hot! We enjoyed the colorful pools and were startled by one geyser erupting right as we passed by!

We ate a picnic lunch by a river and completed our driving tour of Yellowstone. We exited at the North gate and drove to Billings, MT, that night.

Montana is beautiful! We had a hard time finding a motel that night for some reason, but made sure the boys got to swim for an hour before bed. They love swimming! We knew sleeping in motels for a week and driving all day--even with stops to take walks and see wildlife in Yellowstone--was hard on our kiddos and made sure they got that evening swim every chance we could!

As we traveled through the rest of Western Montana and into Idaho, the scenery just kept getting prettier! We kept wondering if this was really true, that we were MOVING to this beautiful area and wouldn't have to leave in a few days. And in the time since (it's been two months) we still feel the same way! We're blessed to live in an incredibly beautiful part of the country.

Just to fill in the gap, we didn't have housing lined up for our first few nights in Idaho. We thought we might be waiting up to 6 weeks for our rental and we were tired of motels! Thankfully a church member volunteered their trailer for us for as long as we needed it. They even pulled it to a place where we could stay for free and have running water and a full bathroom to use. As it turned out our rental was available in just five days! Read more about the rental here.

Have you been on any road trips lately?

Our Idaho Home Tour {Before}

We had the hardest time finding a place to live in Idaho. At first we looked into buying a place but decided to wait a year (or more?) before committing to a certain area or neighborhood. The rental market here in rural, small-town Northern Idaho is very small and you wouldn't believe the YUCK Gary and I saw in some of the houses we toured.

The house we ended up in is one I originally didn't like. It's hard to live in a rental and not be able to change the parts you hate! We didn't seriously consider the offer at first because it's next to a highway, wasn't going to be available until late July (we moved here the second week of June), and we weren't able to see the inside of the house when we were house-hunting in May.

Then we got desperate! We kept in touch with the landlord and were super surprised when he called us in early June to say the house would be available in less than a week! What was supposed to be a 6-week stay in a borrowed trailer turned in to just 5 days!

Needless to say, we were pleased with the house when we saw the inside. Considering some of the filth we had seen in other properties, we were impressed with the cleanliness of this place and knew that the landlord would be a good one. While we don't like brown 70s paneling or brown 80s carpet, we know we are living in a safe place and we're very comfortable here. The highway is loud but not dangerously close, and the yard is very big with apple trees, maples and pines--perfect for little boys.

While it's not a house that we love, we are very content here. The main areas are all unpacked and just need their pictures taken so I can show you! Stay tuned!

Project #walk365 {May}

I know. May? Why bother? Well, cuz it's important to me. And I want to share.

I started walking shortly after New Year's Day. My original goal was to walk 365 miles in 2015, an average of one mile per day. I knew winter walks would be hard. I knew summer walks would be challenging. I knew we were moving but didn't want to let myself off the hook, so I added the additional challenge of walking every day. I think January was a week old before I started and I made it to May before it got derailed.

May in Nebraska is beautiful. There were so many pretty flowers, lawns and gardens to enjoy in our neighborhood!

May included Gary's graduation and a houseful of guests. That's when I inadvertently skipped a day. It was after 9, I was exhausted and finally sitting down after a busy day and realized I hadn't gone for a walk. :( I picked it up again after that and finished the month strong.

After graduation, we started packing up our house, then drove to Missouri to spend time with Gary's mom and leave the kids with her while we flew to Idaho to look for a house. Gary walked with me each day while we were gone! Some of the walks on driving days were pretty short, but I was intentionally walking!

We spent the last week of May back in Lincoln finishing our packing and taking the last few walks. In all, I walked 35 miles in May, bringing my year's total to 195!

Baby Girl's Nursery {Moodboard}

I'm just a little bit thrilled to be dreaming of all things PINK. For me though, I prefer pink as an accent color. Here's what I came up with as a starting point for our baby girl coming this December.

Baby J's Nursery by ellie1005 featuring Circo

My main goal in putting this room together is to keep it simple. I'd love to go all-out and create this perfect baby girl oasis that can easily grow as baby does! But we're renting with plans to buy in the near future, and baby's room is tiny! 

We'll see how things progress. For now it's fun to imagine the pink and lace!

Have a great day!

10 Big Updates

Wow! It's been a long time! And a lot has changed. I'll fill you in on more details later, but I wanted to share our big news!

1. Gary got a job as a full-fledged pastor!

2. Gary graduated with a degree in Theology.

3. Each of our boys had a birthday!

4. Gary and I spent 5 days without the boys (first time ever) looking for a place to live.

5. We moved to Idaho!

6. We took a very scenic detour to Yellowstone on our drive West.

7. We moved into a new (rental) home.

8. I'm still doing my daily walks.

9. We're going to have another baby!

10. And IT'S A GIRL!

Now that we've made it through all of these changes, I'm hoping to get back to regular blogging. Obviously there's a lot to share!

Thanks for reading!

Project #walk365 {April}

I'm way behind in blogging about my walks, but I'm happy to report that I'm still walking! Even when life gets crazy, the weather is bad, I'm super tired or don't feel well, I still walk. That's an accomplishment I'm proud of!

I'm not going to take the time and recount my impression of or mileage for each walk here. If you'd like to follow along, you can join me on Instagram at gibsongirl365. I do want to point out the beautiful spring we had this year! It seemed prettier than last year, but maybe it was because I was out in it more, looking for it!

My goal for 2015 is to walk an average of 1 mile a day, hence #walk365. So far I'm keeping well ahead of my goal. In April I walked 42 miles, my best month yet!

I even managed to walk every day while our family flew to another state for business with my husband! Yes, I logged mileage in the airports, but Gary was keeping track on his Vivo Fit and airport days were over two miles!

My second goal is to walk every day, and I kept that this month. Yay me! In fact I've gone something like 14 weeks without skipping a single day!

As the weather warmed up during April, I found myself taking kids to the park more often. Hey, it's a mile and a half round trip, they get to burn some energy and have fun, and I get my walk in!