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6 Hudson Valley Parent n September 2019 Y our local shopping mall is filled with the buzz of last- minute shopping and the aisles of your local supermarket are littered with rejected notebooks and torn folders. You have packed away your sun hats and flip flops and blown up the water wings for the last time this season. There's a chill in the air that can only mean one thing; summer is over, and school is starting again. I have vivid memories from my childhood of being dragged to J.C. Penney's with my brothers to stock up on Arizona jeans and graphic tees. We would spend an entire afternoon in Finish Line surrounded by other tired kids and mothers desperate to find pairs of sneakers to fit tight budgets and feet that seemed to never stop growing. The end of summer was packed with last attempts at carefree fun before the overscheduled chaos of September set in while also making time to check off the summer reading that was put off until the absolute last second and a hectic blur of supply shopping. When I graduated high school, I worked at a local supermarket during the summers. In the weeks before school started, I was met with frantic parents stocking up on Goldfish, peanut butter and other staples to fill a picky eater's lunch box. The weeks leading up to the first day of school were also filled with excitement. Year after year, I was jittery with anticipation like it was Christmas Eve. I loved picking out the perfect outfit and pairing it with a fresh and clean pair of Converse. My brand new binders were crisp and notebooks uncreased. My brothers and I posed in our living room in front of the television every year for a photo to commemorate the occasion. While I posed, my brothers pouted and my mom settled for what she could get. After-school activities revved up again and our lives were once again filled with baseball practice, piano lessons, dance classes and extra- credit volunteer projects. Sometimes dinner was a cup full of Cheerios or a pepperoni hot pocket on the way from one lesson to another and it was frequently takeout. Don't let the stresses of the end-of-summer transition get to you. In between packing lunches, signing permission slips and grabbing last minute supplies off of the teacher's list, make sure you make time for family time! Sadly saying goodbye to summer just leaves room to welcome autumn with open arms. Head to your local orchard and pile onto the hayride to the pumpkin patch. Get lost in a corn maze for an afternoon of laughs and forget the chaos while playing in a pile of crunchy leaves. This fall, tune out the chaos for a bit with a new copy of Hudson Valley Parent and a pumpkin spice latte or a hot apple cider. Welcome the change of season and the new opportunities that come with it. Hudson Valley Parent is here with support for the hard stuff and fun for the times in between. Goodbye summer, hello autumn CASSIDY BRIGHTON Editor's Journal Publisher TERRIE GOLDSTEIN tgoldstein@excitingread.com Editor CASSIDY BRIGHTON cbrighton@excitingread.com Dir. of Consumer Development PAMELA PERRY pperry@excitingread.com Dir. of Business Development KATHLEEN MERZ kmerz@excitingread.com Executive Assistant LESLIE CORTES lcortes@excitingread.com Media Advisor MARY ZAK mzak@excitingread.com Cover Photography MICHAEL BLOOM MichaelBloomPhoto.com Layout & Design ENGLE PRINTING also publishers of MY TripPlanner.com family MY TripPlanner.com family Hudson Valley Parent is published monthly by: The Professional Image Marketing & Public Relations Inc. 174 South Street • Newburgh, NY 12550 Phone: 845-562-3606 • Fax: 845-562-3681 hvparent.com This publication is copyrighted by the publisher. Reproduction without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Hudson Valley Parent welcomes submissions, although we cannot accept responsibility for work submitted nor guarantee publication.