Rekindling our inner kids, my daughter and I crinkled golden aspen leaves in our fingers and threw them into the air, giggling as my husband filmed the fiasco. Romping in the fall foliage at Kenosha Pass in Colorado, we were savoring precious moments before she got married that weekend.

From childhood, she has enjoyed autumn. It is her favorite season. Crimson and gold leaves deck out the trees, arrayed in colorful display. As crisp mornings greet the day, we don sweaters and cuddle close. Sipping apple cider and carving pumpkins with silly faces and savoring pumpkin bread rank high on the list of fun things to do in fall.

We lived in Minnesota then, in the small farming community of Nerstrand. We resided in an old house originally built in 1890, with several additional rooms haphazardly attached on core walls. Dubbed as the “green mountain,” creaky steps dressed in lime green vaulted up to the second floor. Orange sculpted the carpet in the kitchen.

In fall, five maple trees adorning the yard transformed from leafy green to a blaze of scarlet, sienna, and saffron. Millions of leaves it seemed fluttered to the ground. My children raked up the leaves into an enormous pile in the front yard. With their cousin who came from the city, they would race and jump, sailing high in the air, kerplunking on the crunchy leaves. Giggling with leaf stems sticking out from their hair, they would do it again and again. Run, jump, collapse in glee into the pile. When she was eight, we moved to Colorado.

Back at Kenosha Pass in Colorado, we played in the leaves, my daughter now in her mid-twenties. Against a cobalt blue sky, the golden aspen leaves shimmered in the wind. Crisp air tickled our nostrils. With frost chilling the ground, we shivered, pulling our sweater vests and down jackets close against our neck. Mixed in with the golden hues, a few errant red leaves decked the display.

We crinkled the crunchy leaves in our fingers. Gazing up into the aspen canopy, we snapped a selfie, the three of us delighting in fall beauty. My daughter trekked up the trail with my husband. Tears rimmed my eyes, my throat choked with emotion. The next time he accompanied her, he would be walking down the wedding aisle, ready to release her to new seasons and new adventures.