Taking a walk

This year, Ottawa had one of the rainiest Septembers ever recorded.

(It turns out that wearing shoes that have holes in the soles in the rain? Not such a good idea - unless you like wet socks.)

October has been nicer, though. In fact, as soon as the calendar changed, it got sunnier.

This turned out well, because tonight we took the Sparks on a hike in the greenbelt.

We had done this last year, and the girls who had been in our group last year were excited to do it again.

Taking 5 & 6 year-olds on a hike is pretty entertaining. Everything is new to them - fungus, pine cones, tall trees, fallen leaves.

We have a smaller group this year, and that totally changed the feel of the hike. It was a much better experience for the group.

We ended our hike at dusk, so just before we got out of the woods, it was starting to get dark - and yet some of them would have happy to do the hike again.