We Are Here!

Well, we made it to North Dakota.  We left Saturday morning and drove to Blackfoot, Idaho to stay with Jason's grandparents.  We spent Saturday night there and all day Sunday.  It was so good to see them and I think we all felt like we could have stayed longer, but apparently Jason needs to work :) so we continued our trip.  Monday we drove to Medora, North Dakota.  The drive to Idaho was old hat for us (I went to BYU-I and Jason has been going there his whole life), but after Idaho the drive was all new to me and it had been awhile for Jason.  It was so beautiful.  Most of the drive is through Montana and I think I said to Jason a hundred times "This is so beautiful", "I can't believe how pretty the landscape is."   Medora is a cute (but very little) town.  They are famous for their outdoor summer musical but it didn't start for another week so we will probably go in a few years when the kids are older.  Tuesday morning we left Medora, drove two hours to Bismarck where we loaded up on groceries etc, then drove the last two hours to Gackle.  We got in around 4:30, checked out our digs, walked around town and ate dinner at the Tastee Freeze (my favorite thing about Gackle).  The boys did pretty well on the drive.  Ollie was a breeze because he has a portable DVD player that we let him use on long drives.  Max was not so easy.  We turned his carseat forward for the first time, but because he could see everything, he wanted everything.  So he would yell "Mama" at the top of his lungs, point in random directions and expect me to figure out what he wanted (he isn't talking much yet, which is SO frustrating).  In addition he only sleep 20 minutes on our first day of driving, 1 hour on our second day, and none on the third day.  Oh well, what can you expect from a two year old?  Overall they did fine.  

 I have had two full days in Gackle.  The first day was tough.  The kids didn't have any toys or a DVD player so they were just plain bored, and I wanted to unpack and get settled but couldn't because I was attempting to entertain them.  We went on 3 walks that day just to get out of the house.  I spent some time that evening looking into fun summertime activities so we won't have another day like that.  Here are some interesting things I have learned about Gackle.

-The mail lady only goes on one route and if your house isn't on it you are out of luck (you have to get a P.O. box). If your house IS on her route, she doesn't want to get out of her car so you must get your mailbox as close to the street as possible.  The good news is that I have been told Amazon 2 day shipping does gets here in two days.  I'm a little skeptical, but I am testing it out.

-Everyone in town saw us move in.  I met 4 different people yesterday who told me "I saw you moving in".  When your town only has 350 people, everyone knows everything that is going on.  In fact, they have a section in their newspaper that is dedicated to peoples comings and goings.  For example it might say, "Joann Fletchers daughter was in town with her two children for the weekend, they had a great time together".  You better believe I plan on getting my hands on the weekly newspaper.

-The one room library hours are Wednesday 1-4pm, Friday 9-10am, Saturday 9-11 am.  But you can call the librarian if you need something outside of business hours. 

-There is no grocery store, but the CO-OP gas station has all the basic grocery necessities in case you are in a bind.

-If you don't have money to pay for something, you can just put it on your 'tab' and pay it off at some random later date. 

-Everyone talks like they are Canadian (minus the "eh"), I love it.

-There are three places you can eat in town, the Tastee Freeze (everyday but Wednesdays), Dani's Place (the bar in town) serves dinner specials on Wednesday and Saturday nights, and the cafe, but they are now only open until 1pm :(

-Thunder and lighting storms are frequent, but only last for a half hour or so and then clear up.  The moisture is very important for a good honey crop.

- Everyone (and I mean everyone) waves to you when driving.

- So far I have seen people driving around town on 4 wheelers, golf carts, tractors, crop sprayers, combines, and riding lawn mowers.

- The school here is K-12 grade, last years graduating class was 11 students. 

I'm sure I will learn many more funny things about this cute little town and I will be sure to share.  For now, here are some pictures of our journey to North Dakota.

The Flex all packed up and ready to go.

We bought the boys ugly dolls to be their traveling companions.  Ollie named his Knuffle bunny (after a book we once checked out at the library).

Ollie sleeping with his hands folded.

Riding with daddy on the lawnmower at Grandpa and Grandma Horrock's house. 

Ollie had a lot of fun with Jason's cousins, especially Charlie, he played so nicely with Ollie.

 The weather was beautiful.  Sunday evening most of the family came over for dessert.  We all sat outside and visited.

Grandpa and Grace

Monday night we checked into our hotel and ate at this yummy pizza place.  It was nice because we ate outside in this courtyard so the kids could run around after a long day in the car.

Ollie had to climb on this cool wagon.

 This is at a little diner in Medora.  We had breakfast there on Tuesday morning.  My kids usually eat right when they wake up so by the time we got there for breakfast, they were seriously melting down.

We found this cool park for the kids to play at.

Our hotel had a miniature golf course we tried out.  We decided our kids are still too young :)

 Me and Jason on the drive.  I took this pic on Instagram and the way it turned out makes it look like he is in the passenger side, haha.

 Sooooooo happy to be in ND.

 This is our humble little home while we are in ND.  It is small and cozy.  We are happy with it.  The honey house is a third of a mile from our place, which is nice.  Jason can ride his bike to work and come home for lunch.

I have been working on making a list of things the house needs, as well as stocking up on groceries.  Today was our big trip into Walmart in Jamestown (45 minutes away).  It was a pretty miserable experience.  I don't often shop at walmart so I wasn't familiar with where things were, and my list was SO long that it took me forever, and the kids were OVER it.  We survived, got lunch, and ate at this cool buffalo museum/park. We will definitely be making another trip back to see the buffalo.  At one point during our excursion Ollie started freaking out because he was literally trapped under everything in the cart and couldn't move, haha, poor kid.  We also stopped at a couple thrift stores to get some toys for the kids.  We are all stocked up now.

 This is the very beginning of Main St in Gackle.  When Jason was a kid it was quite a bustling little town with a bowling alley, hardware store, movie theater, etc.  Most of that is closed now.  This is the first summer with no movie theater :( They still have the community pool and are doing swimming lessons, so I plan to get the boys into that.  Despite the lack of things to do, I think we are really going to enjoy it.  It is so laid back here and everyone is really nice.  Life just moves at a slower pace.  I hope I can bring some of this lifestyle home with me.

This Lutheran church is across the street from our house and the Pastor lives right next door.  She stopped by and welcomed us and I can tell she is going to be a good person to know. And if we ever can't make it into our church (in Jamestown) we can join her congregation, it is a lot more convenient :)

To see more pictures of Gackle you can revisit this post from when we visited a couple years ago.