The Last of Summer

After settling in from out trip to Florida, we took a family hike to Sugarloaf Mountain.  Sugarloaf was the scene of one of our worst previous hikes.  I had taken the girls and Cayenne about five years ago, and we ended up getting lost with no water, no cell service, and daylight hours waning. https://the-simpson-family.blogspot.com/search?q=sugarloaf

I’ve been trying to get the girls to go back in recent years to have a positive memory of Sugarloaf, but they wanted nothing to do with it.  In fact, our perils of the first Sugarloaf hike only continued to grow each time they told the story about our first hike.  Now if you hear it, we barely made it out alive!  

 

So, with Mark along they were more in favor of trying Sugarloaf again.  We were off to a good start.  We tried a different path and saw some cool sights, then things turned south AGAIN.  We got on a path that was a lot longer of a loop than the girls were hoping for, everyone got irritated, Lyla fell a few times, and in an effort to shorten the hike and get back to the car, we ended up getting lost again.  To top it off, once we got back to the car, Lyla evidently took her nice North Face hiking shoes off outside the car and left them there as we drove off to home.  So…needless to say, Sugarloaf is not for us.  So, when Nina asked if we can finally agree to never go back to Sugarloaf again, my answer is a resounding, YES!

 

Shortly after the Sugarloaf hike, Lyla injured her ankle in a pre-season soccer scrimmage, we ended up at the ER, and she ended up spending the better part of the next four weeks in a boot.  :(  It definitely wasn’t how we wanted to spend our last weeks of summer, but I guess if there is any bright side, at least we had finished our vacations and had made it to the start of August before the injury.  She’s been out of soccer and activity, but as of today, 9/2, she’s been given clearance to get out of the boot and start getting strong again.  She has plenty of ankle strengthening exercises to do, and she’s allowed to do some jogging, so hopefully if all goes well, she’ll be able to at least participate some in this fall soccer season.

On the bright side of things in August, we celebrated Mouse and Pop’s 50th wedding anniversary!  Pops had planned a surprise dinner for the Mouse with the whole family gathered at a restaurant, and it was a really nice evening to spend together both there at the restaurant and back at the Williams house afterwards.  We are so grateful for them and all that their commitment to each other has meant to our family.  They are such a blessing to all of us, and we are so thankful for God’s faithfulness in their lives and the impact that they have had on our family.  We only wish for many more wonderful anniversaries ahead for them.