37. Grimston Park, New Westminster

Charlotte had a bad morning.  A very bad morning.  And that meant a bad morning for mum too.  It was just one of those days when nothing went right in two-year-old Charlotte's mind - things just weren't going her way.  Mostly the problem had to do with a certain piece of cheese and it's a long story that doesn't deserve a mention in a playground blog except that it led to mum deciding that a trip to the playground was in order before things got worse.  A little fresh air and a lot of running around would do wonders!

 

If ever you have taken the Skytrain through New West, you will most likely have noticed sloping Grimston Park with its "Welcome to New West" sign.  I have ridden my bike past here a million times and I used to bring Theo here when he was a puppy to wear him out by throwing his ball down the hill.  That's not as cruel as it sounds, it was necessary!  Today, Theo took it easy in the shade - it was Charlotte who needed wearing out.  Someone was exhorting her child not to run (at the playground?!?), but I was encouraging Charlotte to exhaust herself!  Luckily there were lots of things to climb on - and then she discovered the water pump...  This kept her amused for ages as she pumped water, then tried to run around to the front in time to drink some of it as it fell.  She soaked her shirt in no time and so she was soon topless and I was soon making futile attempts to keep her sunscreened up.  She had a great time and the offending cheese was a thing of the past.  We didn't get around to finding the park's geocache, "Pleasant Park, Dirty Deed".  This cache has been in the park for almost nine years and it hadn't been there long when I found it, so I couldn't remember exactly where to look and I didn't have it in my GPS.  We'll have to come back for it in a month or so - by then the wading pool will have opened!  The park is located at N 49.12.118 W 122.56.640:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

36. Ebisu Park, Vancouver

On another warm afternoon after daycare and work, we headed out to another playground.  Ebisu Park is just over the Arthur Laing bridge in Marpole, and, coincidentally, happens to bear the same name as my new favourite sushi place in Richmond!  We hoped to grab a cache first, but there was someone sitting right where we needed to look, so we headed into the other half of the park (it's split in two by an alleyway) and Charlotte got playing.  She quite liked a little section of the playground that she claimed as her house and was soon picking daisies to decorate it.  As she played, I noticed something strange - despite the fact that there were several kids at the playground, the whole place was pretty quiet.  Why were these kids not running around and shouting and laughing?!?  How can a playground be such a quiet zone?  We often find ourselves either alone or with just one or two other kids at a playground, but it occurred to me that even when there are more kids than that, it's still pretty quiet.

We got our geocache on the way out - "Gotta Feel For It".  It's quite a tricky one with a three-star difficulty, but we were lucky and found it quite quickly.  The park is located at N 49.12.323 W123.07.964: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1



35. Unsworth Elementary School, Chilliwack

On an overcast Saturday morning, Charlotte and I set off for Chilliwack, on a mission to work on a geocaching challenge.  We grabbed a geocache that we both needed, then Charlotte was ready for the playground.  We discovered this one because of another nearby geocache - there is a whole series of geocaches devoted to playgrounds out in Chilliwack!  This one was called "Izzy's Parks and Playgrounds #8: Playground Lottery", and unfortunately we couldn't find it, even with some encouragement from a nearby store owner who knew about the cache.  I think it might have disappeared, but that will just give us reason to come back when the cache has been replaced!  I hung out at a picnic table while Charlotte played.  Playground lottery indeed - this was a great playground - three playgrounds in one, really.  Charlotte had a lot of fun hanging out on the small one, sliding repeatedly.  We checked out the big kids playgrounds too - there was a merry-go-round which you don't see often these days, but it was so safety-fied as to be quite boring.  I could barely get it going and there was no possibility of shooting off this cumbersome thing!  Some kids came by to play and they loved Theo, so he had a great time too, racing up and down with them.  A horse grazed nearby and though it felt like it could rain at any moment, it held off.  I broke out lunch and Charlotte paused for a while to eat.  When she went to play again, she took a strawberry and her cup with her and set a little picnic up for herself on a little ledge at the top of the playground and sat down to munch.  Sometimes I think that I am doing one thing really, really right when it comes to Charlotte - encouraging her to play on her own on the playground instead of shadowing her every move as many parents seem to do these days.  It made me happy to see her enjoying the little picnic that she had set up for herself, acting very independently and doing this without my involvement.  She's really getting to be a big girl!  The playground is located at N 49.06.300  W 121.59.897:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

34. King George Park, Richmond

I made a bit of a mistake today! I had physio this evening, but I thought we had time for a playground visit that didn't take us too far off our route home. We were delayed at daycare for a long time though – lately Charlotte has taken to wanting “hugs first” before she gets into her car seat. This does not mean a quick hug and she jumps into her seat – it means a long cuddle while we chat about her day and even the promise of a playground will not speed her up. Not that I want to speed her up really as it's very nice to have such cuddles, but they do cut into our playground time! I should probably have skipped the playground this time around, but I had promised...

 

King George Park is quite a large park in Richmond – big enough to have tennis courts and other amenities and playgrounds at both ends of it. We hit the west one – just because there was parking close by. The waterpark was going at full tilt, but I managed to divert Charlotte around that for today. She climbed on the playground for a bit and then... a diaper change was in order. Stat. So I had to convince her to return to the car with me, and that didn't go over so well. By the time it was all done, we really didn't have time to go back and play some more, and that was that. She cried and cried and cried and we made it home just in time for her to go to our neighbour's place while I zoomed off to physio. We will have to make a return visit – we didn't get to check out all of the west playground, never mind the east. We'll go back on another hot day when we're more equipped for the water park! We also might need to plant a geocache here since the park, amazingly, has none of its own. The playground is located at N 49.10.976 W 123.05.365: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

33. Ryall Park, New Westminster

We were a little disorganized today and didn’t really have much planned, so we just went down to a park not too far from home, Ryall Park down in Queensborough. I used to come here once a week before I was pregnant with Charlotte to do yoga at the community centre; I hadn’t been here in a couple of years and the place was unrecognizable after a major renovation. The park was nice – a small playground for the smaller kids to play on and lots of kids there to play with. There was a little girl named Maya who really took a shine to Charlotte – but Charlotte was having none of it and every time Maya tried to follow her around, Charlotte would run back to me, plonk herself down in my lap, and look as sad as a two-year-old can look. Poor Maya.  Rejected.  I was amused by the warning sign (oops, the "Welcome!" sign) on the equipment - I guess Canadian kids are just tougher than American ones!

Eventually we moved over to the waterpark – it had been going when we first arrived, but had since stopped and there were no kids playing there. Charlotte would have been happy to just splash in the lingering puddles, but I eventually found the magic button to get things going again and soon there was water spraying from here, there and everywhere and kids were soon flocking back to it. We hadn’t really been prepared for a water park, so Charlotte was soon soaked. I took off her t-shirt and got her sunscreened up and she had the time of her life until it was getting to be nap time and I had to coax her to leave. Luckily we had enough extra gear with us that I was able to get her dried out – and she fell asleep in her car seat before we had even left the park. No time to geocache today, though there are three in the park and we only have one of them. That just gives us another reason to come back! The park is located at N 49.11.157 W122.56.541:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

 

32. Draycott Park, North Vancouver

These days, Thursdays find Charlotte and I driving straight from work and daycare in Richmond to nana and grandad’s house in North Van, where we stay the night so that Charlotte can hang out with nana the next day while I’m at work. With the days so long at this time of year, we had plenty of time tonight to check out a nearby playground after dinner. We made a return visit to Draycott Park; we had discovered this little park in the woods last summer while looking for a geocache, “Whatev’s”. We had found that cache back then, so there was no caching for us tonight – we were just in it for the playground! This is one of the loveliest locations for a playground that I have seen so far; it’s completely surrounded by trees and there are several trails providing access from different directions. We parked near the main entrance, walked past the basketball court, collecting flowers and rocks as we went, rounded a bend in the trail, and there was the playground, nestled amongst towering evergreens. It’s a very futuristic playground with silver towers curving up to the sky!

The bucket swings were on a very short chain and so Charlotte soon pronounced them “boring” and wanted to go back to climbing. The slide here is a very fast one – she insisted on holding hands to go down and I had to slow her down a bit at the bottom to prevent her from shooting off the end! Some other kids came along, three more two-year-olds in fact, and they did the slide on dad’s lap. I am so against kids sliding down on an adult’s lap and here’s why: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/a-surprising-risk-for-toddlers-at-playground-slides/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0.
There was a piece of equipment on the playground that was new to us – a kind of twisting tube to climb up or down. I admit that the thought of Charlotte attempting it when she’s older was quite scary to me – but then I thought that that was a good thing – most of the playgrounds that we have seen have little in the way of challenge to the older kids. Another mum was there with her older kids; she wouldn’t let them go on it and said that it looked dangerous and that it had something “missing”. I hope that when Charlotte is old enough to try it, I will be brave enough to let her!

Charlotte got right into the wood chips, picking up handfuls and putting them in her hair. Agh! What to do – may as well just take a picture! But then she put them in my hair, so I had to tell her that was naughty and I didn’t want her to put wood chips in my hair. So she didn’t – but Owlie did! She told Owlie off for being naughty – and I had to tell her that no one was allowed to put wood chips in my hair, neither her nor Owlie! It was back to nana and grandad’s after that – we hadn’t planned a bath night, but one was necessary after this particular trip to the playground! The park is located at N 49.20.281 W 123.01.451:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

31. Salishan Park, Blaine, Washington

Lately, I have been doing a solo gas run down to Blaine on Mondays – the price of gas these days is ridiculous and it’s worth the drive to fill up in the US. Things got a little off schedule this week and I ended up going on Tuesday – which meant that Charlotte was along for the ride, which meant that we would check out our first international playground! We parked near the geocache, “Salishan Park Revisited”, but it didn’t reveal itself immediately and I really didn’t get to search, Charlotte was in such a hurry to get to the playground! We had a good time here – there was a brother and sister duo, Gwen and Jack, who were very chatty. Jack asked Charlotte if she wanted to play with them and she just beamed as she said “yes!” Jack was about five and Gwen was about twelve, so the playing was a bit lopsided, but that didn’t seem to matter. The playground had something new for us – a step to climb up on that wobbled – hang on tight, so you don’t fall off! Charlotte needed help on and off, but she liked it. There were picnic tables nearby for the mums and dads to hang out while the kids played and it was in a quiet, residential neighbourhood without too much traffic whizzing by. The park is located at N 48.59.265 W 122.44.726:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

30. Stevens Mini-Park, Ladner

Today was both Pete’s birthday and Mother’s Day – of course we had to go out to celebrate! After a lovely day at the Reifel bird sanctuary, we stopped to pat some horses and then stopped at a small playground we have driven by many times before, Stevens Mini-Park. It is indeed a mini-park, just a fenced off area with a few pieces of equipment in it, but when you’re two, you don’t really need much! The slide here was pretty good – it had steps that were easy enough to climb, but it was quite a tall slide – tall enough that it took Charlotte a while to build up her courage to go down it. She also loved going on the seesaw with dad, and of course, no trip to the playground is complete without a go on the swings. Robins, mourning doves and chickadees all flitted through the park as we played. Some of the houses around here are amazing; check out the gigantic one behind Charlotte on the seesaw!  There is no geocache near the park, but there is a great power trail along the dyke just to the south. The park is located at N 49.05.207 W 123.06.020: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

29. Cates Park, North Vancouver

 

Last night, Charlotte had her very first solo sleep-over at nana and grandad's.  She had been such a good girl that she deserved a treat when I went to pick her up this afternoon - and nothing is more of a treat to Charlotte than a visit to the playground!  Since we were in North Van already, we picked a North Van park - Cates Park.  The playground is on a rise overlooking Burrard Inlet - it's a very pretty spot, though the weather was turning chilly when we got there.  First thing that happened was that we found a credit card lying on the floor in the bathroom - couldn't find an owner for it though.  The playground here is a pretty decent one - there are two parts to it and we didn't even get around to trying out the smaller one.  Charlotte had fun climbing, though she wasn't into sliding this time around.  We met a little girl named Danica - that was the name of the amazing nurse who helped deliver Charlotte, so it's one of those names that has very nice connotations for me.  We spent lots of time here until it got too cold to keep going.  There is a cache not too far away, "The Cates Park Cache, but we didn't get around to looking for it - I don't think it was very Charlotte-friendly anyway, going by the description.  Maybe next time!  The park is located at N 49.18.152 W 122.57.373: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

28. Thompson's Landing Park, New Westminster

It was another warm afternoon after daycare and we headed to a park not too far from home, down in Queensborough.  We spent some time looking for a cache called "Rabbit Hole" - or at least I did.  Charlotte was too busy blowing dandelion clocks.  I never did find the cache; it was getting a little overgrown and may be one of those that are best found in the winter.  This park was pretty underwhelming.  The map shows it as being right on the banks of the river, but it's not visible at all.  Instead, it's the highways that dominate - just to the west is the off-ramp from the East-West Connector to the Queensborough Bridge, and right above is the highway itself, making its way to the Alex Fraser Bridge.  It's noisy to say the least.  But there is always a silver lining - Charlotte enjoyed watching the traffic helicopters that came by from time to time, keeping an eye on how things were going during the afternoon commute!

 

The park features the usual playground equipment - nothing too exciting here unfortunately.  Charlotte did like the big glass bubble; she was a little hesitant to reach out into it at first, but soon realized that it was safe.  The park is located at N 49.10.624 W 122.57.366:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1