Summer vacation ends

Region

Related Photos

Kaylee Kuhr, 5, watches her brother, Kelly, 7, climb out of a tire at Kid's Kove park inside the Grand Traverse County Civic Center. The children go back to school Tuesday. Record-Eagle/Lindsay VanHulle
Chase Adams, 6, left, and his sister, Aliyah, 9, play with the water table at the Great Lakes Children's Museum in Elmwood Township. Their mother, Rhonda Adams, said they are preparing for school to start Tuesday by going to bed earlier each night. Record-Eagle/Lindsay VanHulle
From left, Kevin Rula, 9, Wioletta Marczuk, Marta Marczuk, 12, and Konrad Rula, 12, all of Chicago, listen as Josh Keller, top right, and the band Who Hit John?, of Kalamazoo, perform Friday at the intersection of Cass Street and Front Street in Traverse City. "This is our last vacation trip of the summer," Wioletta said. Kevin, Marta and Konrad will begin school after Labor Day. Record-Eagle/Keith King

September 6, 2010

By Lindsay VanHulle Record-Eagle The Record Eagle Mon Sep 06, 2010, 07:36 AM EDT

Traverse City — BY LINDSAY VANHULLE

lvanhulle@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Carter Schmidt can’t wait for first grade.

He is so excited, his father said, that he has been counting the number of nights that have to pass before he will wake up on the first day of school.

“My friend Oliver, he said in first grade you get your own crayon box with your name on it,” said Carter, 6, who attends Eastern Elementary in Traverse City.

“It’s fun moving up from kindergarten.”

The leisurely pace of summer break will end Tuesday when thousands of local children return to school. Some already are returning to their “school night” bedtimes. Others intend to soak up every last second of vacation before the first bell rings.

Carter sped his bike around the skate park at the Grand Traverse County Civic Center. He visited the park several times this summer, along with the beach, the library and Michigan’s Adventure amusement park in Muskegon.

Aliyah Adams, 9, stayed a week with her grandparents this summer. It was her first big trip away from home.

She spent a morning last week at the Great Lakes Children’s Museum in Elmwood Township with her siblings and friends.

Aliyah is ready to start fourth grade this year at Cherry Knoll Elementary in Traverse City.

“I get to see my friends, and I get to learn about new stuff,” she said. “Every second you have something to do, unlike summer, where you have nothing to do so it goes by slow.”

Her mother, Rhonda Adams, is easing her children into the school routine by setting bedtime closer to 8 p.m., instead of the 10 p.m. schedule they kept this summer.

The weekend looked cooler and more overcast than earlier in the season, when Briyana Kibby and three of her friends swam away the days.

Even with the threat of rain, they played an impromptu game of baseball Friday at F&M Park in Traverse City. None of the four said they were ready to go back to class.

“I’m just excited to see my friends, but then I don’t want to do the work,” said Briyana, 13, an eighth-grader at Glen Lake Community Schools in Maple City.

They could count the number of remaining vacation days on one hand, so the older children weren’t going to let bad weather force them indoors.

Kenny Kocevar, 12, a seventh-grader at Traverse City West Middle School, was sure of it.

If they had to, he said, “we’ll swim in the rain.”