One of the greatest gifts is being outside in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). When we lived in Florida we spent our summers here (in Wallace, Idaho) and they were glorious! Warm days, cool nights, fly-fishing, camping, wading nine inches into Coeur d’Alene Lake and waiting for our skin to go numb before going any further.
Side note? I never went any further into that lake! Jamie asked “aren’t you coming in with the rest of us?” and I was all “yeah, hi, we live in Florida and this just isn’t necessary today…so, no”.
When we found out we were moving to Montana I remember reading online about the importance of having outdoor activities all year long in order to avoid the winter blues or cabin fever. We quickly introduced the kids to snow skiing and had so much fun!
Now that we live in Washington, my good friends Jill and Lesa have introduced me to two new outdoor activities: cross country skiing and snowshoeing.
Cross country skiing is a fun and challenging work-in-progress for me. I’m still working on remaining upright the whole time! Last time I was out nordic skiing with Jill I gave myself a one-fall quota and broke it (beat it?) by one. Like I said, a work-in-progress! Ha!
Today I want to share a few pictures of my first snowshoe outing with Lesa. Jill wasn’t with us on this day because she was helping to care for her grandbabies over on the other side (Wenatchee speak for the Seattle area…also referred to as the wet side) of the mountains.
We ‘shoed five glorious miles that day and the scenery was stunning. There is something absolutely magical about being in the woods in the winter! It’s so peaceful and serene. The thick blanket of snow quiets everything down so that the only sounds are water rushing down the nearby river and the crunch, crunch, crunch of us walking along.
I cannot wait to bring Jamie and the kids on a snowshoeing adventure! They got new sets of snowshoes for Valentine’s Day so we will head out very soon! I’ll let you know how it goes!
The Gyde Zoo 
If I could make a scarf out of that lichen I would. My all time favorite color. Love those ice circles. Natural occurrences are so artistic. Once while at the beach in Oregon I noticed large circles in the sand around all the grasses. It looked like crop circles. Finally I realized that the wind had bent down a blade and swirled it around in a perfect circle to carve out the sand like this. Really cool looking.
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It is such a wonderful color! I bet those sand circles were incredible! I think it is so important to slow down and really see our surroundings ❤
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