the first fall weekend

We played hard this weekend thanks to the first breaths of fall in the air. Its been cool enough to have the windows open all day and cloudy enough to keep the sun from heating things up but without a single drop of rain: a pretty perfect early fall weekend. Yesterday we hiked new-to-us trails in a nearby town (much closer than heading to the Smokies and dealing with tourist traffic, thankfully) and accomplished around three miles. Jake hiked on his own for about a mile until we stopped on the top of a hill for lunch, and then he napped in the backpack for the remaining two miles. I was so proud of his perseverance. We sandwiched him in between Deric and myself and I loved watching him follow Deric up the trails. He constantly stopped for sticks and rocks, but that was no surprise. There was one really steep hill that was a challenge for Jake and despite tripping and falling twice, he powered through and made it up the hill.

We also saw a deer run across the trail right behind us, and the deer and his two falls are the highlights of the trip in Jake's mind. I know Deric and I won't forget the sheer amount of spiderwebs we had to bat out of our way the entire time. We both had to carry sticks and constantly wave them around (a la Harry Potter;)) and yet we still both got numerous spiderwebs to the face. And they weren't teensy spiders either. Gross, but memorable.

 This morning we started the day out with waffles and then visited a nearby park with a newly built playground. Jake usually finds a 'circuit' of sorts that he can run on a playground--in this case, up the rock wall across to the slide, down and back to the rock wall--and runs that circle until he's worn out. After the playground we went on a walk through the park and stopped for a while at the biggest puddle Jake's probably ever seen. Every leaf and stick in the vicinity got thrown into the puddle, followed shortly by Jake himself. I was pretty surprised when Jake jumped right in and never even commented on the feeling of wet shoes and pants. I asked him how his feet felt and he smiled and said "Good!" I loved watching his little smile as he splashed through the puddle. (All of this made easier on me by the $1 "play shoes" I found yesterday at a consignment sale, just in time for hiking and puddles!)

We spent the afternoon working in the garage on his play kitchen and then enjoyed homemade crab cakes for dinner at some friends' gorgeous log cabin wayyy out in the woods. It was the kind of weekend I could go for every weekend!