I love to get outside in the spring.  In fact, I always feel a little sad about leaving Arkansas for spring break because the weather is turning so lovely and the wisteria usually comes out while I am gone.  Frequently in the spring and fall, we go for family walks around our local lake.  Incidentally I wish I could pull an Anne Shirley and rename this lake because it is referred to in our town as Lake Number 3 or simply as the swimming lake, but no one ever swims in it except for once a year during the Polar Bear Plunge.  Neither of those names have any charm, but I guess it doesn’t matter since people always know what you’re talking about when you say, Do you want to go walk around the lake? I’ve been walking around it for as long as I can remember.  I even ran around it for a very short spurt of time in high school.  I didn’t make it for very long as a runner though.  It is only about a mile around the lake and Simon has almost reached the age that the other kids were when they started walking around it.  He only has a few more days in the stroller.  Or the backpack.

We went for a walk yesterday after dinner, and it was the first moment I was thankful for the daylight savings curse of last week that robbed us of five otherwise potentially happy mornings.  It was calm and quiet at the lake, and the whines of children being made to load up for a walk disappeared as the big kids remembered how actually they really like to walk around this lake.

To find a goose egg.
To race to the bend.
To smell spring.
Wet and muddy.
What’s that smell?
Someone said as we walked.
It’s the way it always smells in the spring.
Someone answers.
Damp, but clean.

We picked up a couple of cousins on a detour from the normal route.
Thanks for all that exercising!
One of them said when we dropped him off post walk.

It’s good to stretch our legs.

I think mine are finally waking up from their long winter’s sleep.

*A special thanks to bloggers from the north who encourage me to get outside in my mildest of winters by braving walks in the snow and ice.