We’re the McKinley Family – Libby, Matt, Claire, and Reece!
What we’re doing:
Traveling the country (continent?) to explore new places and experiences. Learning along the way.
Why we’re doing it:
Because, why not?! Adventure! The unknown. Not following the ‘norm’. Expanding our circle. Experiencing the places where history took place. We’ve been thinking about it for years. We only get to live once!
Background:
Both Matt and I spent a number of years moving around a lot after high school/college (before we met). After meeting, we settled in Colorado Springs – going on 18 years now. Claire and Reece have only ever lived in our current home. We love our Colorado Springs community – people, landscape, neighborhood, school, etc. – but we are excited to expand our horizons and explore what’s around us in new ways! So we decided a year of traveling, adventure, learning, and connection is what we needed!
Where We Usually Find Adventure…
Backpacking
Our family enjoys backpacking together. We have gotten out on at least one trip a year since the kids were 5 and 7. Always a fun and challenging time.
We’re hoping to head out on several backpacking trips this year! Let us know if you want to join us!
Travel
While we usually make a couple treks to Michigan each year (where Libby’s family lives), we also try to get out and see other places. Most recently we’ve been around Colorado, to New Mexico, to Mexico City, and to Michigan (of course).
We’re looking forward to exploring new areas, seeing new things, and meeting new people!
Around Home
Not all our adventuring is far – a lot happens in and around Colorado Springs. This picture is from a hike at Section 16 where we went out to watch the moonrise. Recently we went on a hike with our neighbor looking for shapes/figures in the rock outcroppings at Palmer Park.
We’re going to try and find the adventure in the day-to-day this coming year.
Expectations
As we prepare for this year, we are doing our best to take things as they come. We know that we can count on things not going to plan. And we are learning how to be OK with that. The kids’ art teacher always quoted Bob Ross and called mistakes “happy accidents”. We’re trying to see them that way as well. There will be a steep learning curve this coming year, but we think it will be valuable in the end.
Tagline – “Preparing to Make Mistakes”
The tagline for our website (see the footer) is “Preparing to Make Mistakes”. It plays off the expectations we have for the year – as mentioned above. It also has another little story from the past year to go with it. Read on…
As some of you may know, I (Libby) enjoy playing the piano. Few outside my family have heard me play much in the past 20 years, but last year I decided to volunteer to accompany Claire’s school choir for a performance at their school. Accompanying is very different than playing for fun. The song goes on whether you mess up or not. The piece wasn’t particularly difficult, but even after lots of practice, I would still make mistakes and get behind. Realizing I couldn’t just go back and correct my mistake while the choir continued on, I then got out the metronome. Practicing with the metronome kept me moving through my mistakes. It dawned on me that I was practicing to make mistakes.
Instead of practicing for perfection, I was preparing for the inevitable mistakes and how to push past them. We are going into this year with the expectation that we will make mistakes and things will change. Here’s to learning the larger life lessons that come from the challenges we will be facing. Follow along as we prepare to make mistakes!