LAKE ST. JOHN — For five youngsters, Labor Day is all about making a splash.

Sisters Sarah Grace Stewart, 3, Emily Stewart, 9, and Allie Stewart, 13, and friends Hadley Henry, 9 and Ben Foster, 9 — all students at Cathedral School — spent the last vestiges of summer vacation sliding into Lake St. John. The sisters are the daughters of Kristie and Butch Stewart.

They each took turns dipping an old laundry detergent bucket in the lake, and dumped the bucket onto an aqua blue slide bolted onto the backyard dock. Then they hurriedly climbed the slide ladder to cannonball into the lake below.

Allie Stewart performed most the bucket duties. Why?

“Because she thinks (the lake) is gross,” said younger sister Emily Stewart.

“I just don’t swim in it,” Allie said, shaking her head as she peered into the bucket of lake water. “Look at it! It’s gross!”

Allie said it seems school starts earlier and earlier every year, and Labor Day weekend is an opportunity to relax and regroup before classes kick into high gear.

“I went to Ole Miss (for Saturday’s game) with my dad and friend, and we tailgated in the Grove,” Allie said. “And today, I came up here.”

As Allie swung her younger sisters into the lake, Ben Foster, said he could not remember the events of this past weekend. All he knows is that it was action-packed, evidenced by a wasp sting on the right side his chest.

Once Ben catapulted himself into the water, Sarah Grace Stewart hesitated to leap from the dock.

“Will you jump with me Sarah Grace?” Ben asked.

“If you catch me!” Sarah Grace exclaimed.

Nearby, Tracy Henry, Hadley Henry’s mother, looked on as the children continued to perform water acrobatics on the dock.

“I don’t do water sports,” Henry said, laughing. “I just watch the kids swim.”

The Henrys purchased a house on Lake St. John in July, and have spent every weekend there.

“We just love it out here. We love the lake, we love riding in the boats and we love fishing,” Henry said. “It’s beautiful, and there’s always something going on.”