Triple Park Friday

This morning James took this awesome picture of Peyton flying his Iron Man Kite. Peyton loves his kite so much that he doesn't even care if it's windy enough to fly, he'll bring it out anyway. Usually he just lets the string out about 10 feet and runs around the backyard with it trailing behind him. So the fact that we had a little breeze today was an extra-special bonus and Peyton was thrilled!

And since it was a nice day, Peyton and Ella and I decided to go find a new park. We have a bunch parks in our city, so I got out the map and let Peyton pick out a new one. Last summer, during our first year in Iowa, we played at a lot of parks, but we still haven't seen them all. Honestly there are certain streets you can drive down and see 3 parks within a 2 mile stretch. We have A LOT of parks. It's really neat and I feel very lucky.

So here we are at Park 1:

Peyton on some sort of tree thing that I couldn't figure out. Are you supposed to climb up? Down? Who knows?

Ella showing off her new rock-climbing skills (never mind the angle of the ground, I don't want to ruin her self esteem):

This park had a zip line! Peyton hasn't been on one since we were in California and he was really excited! He went on it about 50 times. Ella went on it once and was done with the nonsense of it all.

We had been at Park 1 for about 45 minutes when I suggested we go find another new park. The kids were all for it so we hopped in the car and went exploring.

Here we are at Park 2:

This was a giant fish, so I guess those are fish bones for the kids to climb up. It's really steep, so of course Peyton and Ella loved the challenge. But I liked it because there was nowhere for them to go if they slipped because I could stand right behind them.

And an alligator/crocodile type of thing to climb or go down. I still don't know what's going on. I wouldn't care, but I don't want to be THAT parent. You know, the one who lets her kids break all the park rules when there are little kids around. THAT parent drives me nuts. I'm also not a fan of the parent who let her 5 kids (ages of about 2 to 8) run around the park while she sat in her air-conditioned car in the PARKING LOT! What the heck!?! If you are one of THOSE parents, I'm totally judging you. Follow the rules! Watch your kids! Do it! DANG! Whatever, I'm moving on.

Look how cute!

Okay, this has got to be one of the coolest things about the parks here. There are trees and nature and sticks and stuff. We looked over and saw a little path at the edge of the park so we went to investigate. We found a little creek and heard some beautiful birds and it was like we walked into another world:

And look how close it was to the park! Can you see the play set off to the left behind Peyton? So freakin' cool!

We were getting a little hot so we decided to go home and jump around in the sprinkler to cool off. And by a little hot, I mean about 75 degrees, but Peyton was "SO HOT MOMMY! I'm getting hotter just watching you drive! Can you turn on the heater?" Obviously, we're still trying to teach him the difference between the air conditioner and heater. But when you have winters like we do, and you are 5, it's easy to think that the Happy Button is always going to be the heater.

As we got closer to home, we changed our minds and decided to hit one more park. This one is in our little stomping grounds and we've been here a bunch of times. The path to the park is an obstacle course made up of picnic tables:

And interestingly, neither of the other two parks we played at today had swings. And swinging is Ella's favorite thing ever:

Now there can be peace in our family. Ella got to swing.

And then we went home and played in the sprinklers and had nachos for dinner and made Rice Crispy Treats for dessert and it was a beautiful day.