A Random Jacksonville, Florida, Playground

Riverside Park in Jacksonville, Florida, is just off of I-95 and made a great stopping point on our trip back home from Florida. It has a playground and a gas station nearby. All it needs to achieve perfection is a geocache!

Riverside Park Playground

Is this safe?!?

Unsafe jumping

Safer climbing down

The trees in the park have a lot of Spanish Moss.

More moss than leaves

A second playground has bigger equipment and was even more fun.

For older kids

Deciding on which way to go

Ninja Warrior practice

A big wall

American Playgroup

While we were back in America, we visited with the old playgroup gang. The meeting was at Play N' Learn in Columbia. The store sells outdoor playground equipment for back yards and has a massive room with a bunch of wooden play sets and trampolines on display. The owners had the ingenious idea of letting kids come and play. The cost is minimal ($6 per child) for two hours of running, jumping, climbing, etc. It's cheaper than the movies! I'm not sure where the learning comes in...

J and L were in fine form hanging out with their friends even when they weren't hanging with their friends.

J loves hanging out!

L hangs out

L and some of the girls were trampolining like there was no tomorrow. I took a lot of pictures but as you may imagine it's hard to get good shots of children on trampolines. One or two came out alright.

Gravity? I don't need no stinking gravity!

L has a basketball, because a trampoline isn't enough by itself!

We parents were happy to sit around and catch up on this and that. Two hours flew by fast. After some last group photos, we headed out.

Kids with parents!

Our American Friends (Part II)

We also reconnected with our playgroup friends on the recent trip to America. The group has switched to Thursday mornings, which was no problem for us as our schedule was entirely open. We managed to go twice and see almost everybody from the old gang.

The first play date, Jacob was still a bit jet-lagged (or "jet-legged" as he called it) and just sat around watching everyone else play. Lucy was happy to hang out with old friends and play with new toys. We had a grand time on the first play date but had to leave a little bit early. My my wife had a half day of work and we set out for Virginia before all the afternoon traffic started up (which is usually 2:30 p.m. in Washington, DC).

The next week, we got together with some of the playgroup to revisit the ever-popular Pump It Up. It's a playground of gigantic inflatable climbers. We had a grand time even though they changed one of the mazes in favor of a rather tall and rather steep slide. 

New mega-slide--climb the middle, drop down the side

A favorite climber, though seemingly impossible to reach the top

Friend Zahra comes over the top

Jacob was also over the top

Lucy was inbetween

The family that climbs together, stays together!

That Thursday, we again had a wonderful play date. One nice thing for me was that two of the moms are fans of The Walking Dead TV show. We could catch up on the latest episodes. The one mom said her older daughter watched too and once came to her worried. Uh-oh, how to explain that a zombie apocalypse probably won't happen. The daughter said, "What about the animals, do they turn into zombies?" That led us parents to speculations about a spin-off series, The Clucking Dead.

We sure missed our playgroup friends and were glad to see them so many times on this trip home. We look forward to future returns!

Berry Hunters of Columbia

For the past two weeks, the local farm where we got our CSA vegetables (no, not that other CSA) last year has been hosting strawberry picking. We finally got our act together and went. Many of our playgroup friends showed up too. Here's a sampling of my berry picking pics!

Our berry picking gang, sans Zahra and Saree

When we arrived, Jacob saw a field with a white covering that rippled in the wind. He called it the ocean. I couldn't tell if he really thought it was an ocean or not. I explained to him that I thought it was another field either ready for new plants or they were trying to protect the plants from growing too early. Maybe it will be next week's strawberry field?

Lucy with Jacob's "ocean" in the distance

 Lucy was definitely the social girl, mixing with the other children regardless if they were in playgroup or not. Here she is hanging out with some older boys.

Lucy thought more about picking berries than picking boys

Lucy's berry haul

 Jacob, on the other hand, was not very social, though he did hang out quite a bit with the other boy in our playgroup. Guys have to stick together. They invented a game where someone was a fish and they would try to catch that person. Or they would check out the rocks. They did collect berries with a little encouragement.

Jacob learns the ways of a berry hunting master

When we got home, Lucy had some fresh berries with lunch. Jacob was uninterested. After the kids were in bed, I made a smoothie with fresh strawberries, some canned fruit the kids didn't want to eat anymore, yogurt, orange juice, and the only ice cream we had--butter pecan. Writing it out now, it sounds a little unsavory but it did taste quite nice. The blended little bits of pecan were unusual but a delight. I'm sure to make another tomorrow.

Thanks to Gorman Farm for having strawberry picking. We hope the farm stand opens up before we leave the country.