Walking To School

Because Haley and Abby's school is only about a mile away, we try and walk to school more often than not.  It means having to get out the door a bit earlier than if we drive, but the time walking is so precious to me.  It takes us about 20 minutes and we just walk and chat and enjoy small details of God's creation that we would miss if we were driving by.  Seth has always ridden in the stroller, but he has started walking lately, which is fun.  And, when I say that they walk, I mean they run, balance, skip, hop, you name it, they do it! 

As we have been walking to school, we have developed all these little rituals.  One of the 4th grade teachers also walks to school most days, and we kind of judge how we are doing, time wise, by where we are when he passes us.  There is a beautiful church with a courtyard that we cut through.  We always stop there and smell roses and compare which colors smell better and if the buds smell better than the open roses.  There is a chain blocking off the church parking lot that the kids always run and jump over.  On the way home from dropping the girls off, Seth and I always stop and say hi to a the llama and goat that live at a house near the school.

Last year we frequently found money when we were walking to school, so this year we decided to collect it all in a jar, and see how much we have by the last day of school.  So far we have 87 cents!  Also, we are tallying how many days we walk and how many we drive, so we can look back over the year and hopefully see that we walked WAY more than we drove.  So far, so good.  We'll see what happens as it starts to get colder:)