Trails and a School Bus

Ari's favorite this was running the fence line anytime a car or truck went down the lane to the neighbor's house. His favorite thing to chase, however, was the school bus that came twice a day. I think he had it timed because on weekends during the school year he would start pacing about the time it would have arrived. Over time, he created trails - along the fence line, looping back around the pine trees next to the house and back down to the end of the yard. He also had trails through the woods because he had another route to run when he was running around the whole yard. One time I counted how many times he did the loop and then calculated it and determined that he ran about 3/4 of a mile in the time it took the bus to get the kids and come back the lane.


 

Summer of 2009 update:
Ari's health started to deteriorate with the onset of a brain tumor which cause him to not be able to run like he once did and the trails were growing over and disappearing. One day I decided to clear them out an mow them. Not only did I do the ones in the weeds along the fence but found the ones through the woods and did those also. Everytime I walk those trails, I will remember Ari who carved them out in the first place by running until he could run no more. Below is a slideshow of them as we walked one Sunday evening.

Update.... September 1, 2009

Due to Ari's ups and downs with seizures most likely from a brain tumor and his inability to walk, I never thought he's be around the first day of school this year much less be in good enough shape to play with Brita while waiting for it to arrive the first day of school. The first event was the arrival of a dump truck and it's departure, then the kids getting the bus and then the bus itself! At the end of the series of pictures, Brita is so warm from running that there is steam coming from her body. It was a cool morning with low lying fog and at first I thought she was kicking up sand but then realized it was following her everywhere!


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