We capped off the Labor Day weekend and the unofficial end of summer with a walk on a local hiking trail. We had a great time. The girls had a field day with all of the fallen trees – they make for great balance beams and planks from which to jump.
Chloe was our trail leader. She followed the yellow-painted trunks and kept us from getting lost. She’s already planning our next outing on the blue trail – or as she prefers to call it, the indigo trail.
We met lots of different dogs on the way. Two of them were particularly friendly, chasing Sophie around in an effort to lick her. The mutts had chosen their perfect prey. Sophie wouldn’t stop running away from them, and they just loved running after her. She refused to listen to our advice to stand still and wait for the dogs to tire of her, probably because she was having too much fun.
By far the highlight of the hike was a large tree stump that provided the perfect springboard for jumping. The girls took turns on this one – with Chloe pretending to be a bird and Sophie wanting nothing more than to imitate her sister.
Sophie starts pre-K tomorrow and Chloe starts on Wednesday. We still don’t know who Chloe’s 3rd grade teacher is going to be, which is more frustrating for me than it is for her. New school, new teacher – you’d think the district would get its act together and make sure the notification arrives before the Labor Day holiday so that kids can spend part of the weekend getting a sense of who might be in their class. But no, that’d be too logical.
Next year, I’m going to plan to take a few days off the week school starts. I think it would be less stressful and more enjoyable if I didn’t feel the job pressures of the first post-summer work week in addition to everything that needs to be done for classes.