160. Mary Avenue Park, Burnaby

We have no photos from this playground, but that's okay as it wasn't a particularly memorable one anyway.  And if it was memorable, it was for the wrong reasons.  When we first arrived, we were the only ones there, but eventually a couple of brothers showed up.  They weren't interested in playing with Charlotte at all, despite her overtures.  The playground is right next door to a school and at 3 p.m., the bell rang and the kids came pouring out.  Many of them stayed to play, but they were all much older than Charlotte and all knew each other, so no one was interested in playing with her.  In fact, one kid went out of his way to tell her she was too small to play with them and another got in trouble with her dad for pushing past her on the playground.  We decided to chalk it up to experience and went home to make popsicles instead!  The playground is located at N 49.13.009 / 122.56.127 and is point no. 160 on the map at the bottom of home page.

158. Ernie Winch Park, Burnaby

We came out to this park on an overcast evening to find a geocache starting with "E" - it was called "Ernie Winch Park Cache", appropriately enough.  After making the find, we headed over to the playground; it wasn't a lot of fun at first as there weren't many kids there and those that were there were being very closely helicoptered.  However, Charlotte soon found Apollo and Ateem to play with and they had a great time on the school bus, turning it into an ice cream truck and whatever else captured their imagination.  They thought it was great that they were aged three, four and five - it was then convenient for Owlie to be six, Riley to be seven and me to be eight!  All went well until I brought the camera out and allowed them each to have a turn taking pictures.  There was much drama and heartache over how much time each had been allowed to spend with the camera and things went downhill from there.  They made up for a time, but three very strong personalities couldn't help but clash again!  We headed out, Charlotte in tears over some transgression committed by one of the other girls.  I thought it was good for her to meet some kids who wouldn't let her boss them around!  The playground is located at N 49.12.880 W 122.56.732 and is point no. 158 on the map at the bottom of home page.

156. Jim Lorimer Park, Burnaby

Once a week, I either walk or take the bus past this playground on Gilmore Avenue in Burnaby, not too far from where I work.  I've always told myself that I would have to bring Charlotte here and add it to our playground blog - and today was the day that we did it!  It happened quite by accident; we were heading elsewhere, driving down the next main street over when we saw a train coming down the tracks towards us, way up in the distance.  As we are never ones to miss out on watching a train go by, we turned off the street we were on to see if we could find a spot from which to watch the train.  Well, I don't know if it was some kind of Famous Five-style spook train or if my eyes had been playing tricks on me, but no train appeared.  We did find ourselves across from this playground though, so we slapped on the sunscreen and headed over to play.

There were no other kids to play with unfortunately - perhaps because it was so hot, but then again, I've never seen more than one or two kids playing here.  A teenager came and hung out at the top, engrossed in her phone while we were playing.  But we had a good time; I got to take care of the ice cream shop, which made me happy as I got to hang out in the shade.  We spent a good half hour playing, before we headed out, needing a cold drink and some air conditioning.  It's a pretty decent playground that's got some stuff that's challenging for Charlotte - it's just too bad there's no one to play with!  Unfortunately, I didn't have any memory left in my camera, so I've had to use a stock photo for this post.  The playground is located at N 49.15.759 W 123.00.831 and is point no. 156 on the map at the bottom of home page.

154. Deer Lake Park, Burnaby

We were on our way home from nana and grandad's when we made an impromptu decision to stop off at Deer Lake Park.  The rhodos were in full bloom and we had a great walk through the gardens.  Charlotte had me read the plaque on every single bench we passed (kinda morbid!) and she asked everyone she met if they knew that she was FOUR - with four fingers prominently pointed in their direction.  We came across this climbing frame and Charlotte did a great job of climbing on it.  She fell off a couple of times before she finally managed to make it to new heights - but then she found herself stuck.  I had to guide her down as she was in a bit of a state and she made it safely to terra firma in the end.  It was nice to see her challenged by it as so many of the playgrounds have been scaled back.  I'll have to take her there again and see if she can get up higher next time - and more to the point, see if she can get back down again!  The playground is located at N49.14.416 W 122.58.277 and is point no. 154 on the map at the bottom of home page.

152. Harwood Park, Burnaby

I park near this playground every day, so it's only fitting that I should one day bring Charlotte here to play!  There's not much going on here during the week, but on this Saturday morning, the place was packed with kids playing soccer on the nearby pitches and their younger brothers and sisters were all over at the playground.  All the parents were spinning the merry-go-round for the kids - who never tired of it and required a fresh supply of parents on a regular basis to keep the merry-go-round going!  The playground is located at N 49.15.147 W 122.59.187 and is point no. 152 on the map at the bottom of home page.

148. Wesburn Park, Burnaby

Wesburn Park has become a special place for me this winter.  It proved to be the last playground adventure that Charlotte and Theo would share together.  Theo and I explored the ravine by ourselves a little while after this adventure too, after he had received his cancer diagnosis, but before he began to decline.  That outing will always provide happy memories for me.  Back in November, we had no idea what was in store for us and we had a happy time here.  We didn't spend all that much time on the actual playground itself, but instead played down by the creek.  Theo looked for rocks that Charlotte obligingly tossed in for him.  I found a geocache called "Little Ammo Can" in the rocks above the creek and Charlotte and Theo played Poohsticks together from the two wooden bridges that span the creek.  After that, Charlotte jumped from rock to rock in the parking lot while Theo stayed close, protective as always.  It was a cold winter afternoon, but we still managed to spend three or four hours here before we had to leave.  The playground is located at N 49.14.518 W 123.00.689 and is point no. 148 on the map at the bottom of home page.

147. Broadview Park, Burnaby

I had spotted this little playground while driving along Canada Way, so today we went to check it out.  It was pretty cold out, so we had the place to ourselves.  Charlotte wasn't much interested in the playground itself for some reason, and was much more into digging around in the sand.  I would have thought it was a bit cold for that, but she didn't seem to mind!  Theo chewed on sticks and things only went downhill when he decided to chew on a stick that was integral to Charlotte's master plan for the sand pit, but they always managed to work it out between them in the end.  There was a geocache just a few metres away called "In-Tree-Ging", but it has had so many DNFs on it lately that we didn't even bother looking for it.  The playground is located at N 49.15.345 W123.00.973 and is point no. 147 on the map at the bottom of home page.

142. Edmonds Community Centre, Burnaby

On an unseasonably warm afternoon, Charlotte and I set out to find "Edmonds Evergreens".  We found the cache and we also found a very awesome playground a few steps away.  It was a big one and a challenging one - there was a climbing mountain that Charlotte wasn't completely confident on at first - and it's been a long time since she asked for help with a climbing mountain. The playground was packed with kids, which is usually a great thing, but in this case, there was a pretty unfriendly vibe.  Charlotte came running back to me in tears to tell me that one of the other girls had told her that she couldn't play there and though I tried to talk her through how to handle it, she wasn't into it.  We went to another part of the playground where Charlotte crossed the rope bridge with some trepidation, only to be unable to get off when a boy at the other end of it blocked her way and refused to let her go past.  I'm not a fan of parents intervening in playground squabbles, but I had to step in in this case.  The helicopters were going beserk in their condemnation of the parents who were completely ignoring their kids' bad behaviour.  Strangely enough, we were talking to our friends who had been there too and they had a similarly bad experience.  It's so disappointing as the playground itself is amazing and not too far from our place.  We will give it another try and hopefully get a better mix of people next time.  The playground is located at N 49.12.916 W 122.55.976 and is point no. 142 on the map at the bottom of home page.

121. Graham Park, Burnaby

The days are getting to be so nice and long again!  On this Tuesday evening, we headed out after dinner to find my closest unfound cache to home - which just happens to be next to a playground!  "For Grace" is there for a sad reason; Grace was an exchange student from Korea who used to have a cache in this park, one which I found back in July 2011.  She died of leukemia in April 2013.  Her cache is no longer there as the old equipment was recently removed and the new playground installed - and now her homestay family have a tribute cache here for her instead.  We didn't get to look for the cache today; there was a family playing badminton right at ground zero.  The cache is also a four-star difficulty, so will probably require a good, uninterrupted hunt!  But Charlotte had a great time here even without a cache hunt; she especially liked driving the race car.  The playground is located at N 49.13.446 W 122.55.809 and is point no. 121 on the map at the bottom of home page.

113. Eastburn Park, Burnaby

A geocache called "Eastburn Park" had made its way to the top of my "closest unfound cache to home" list, so I was anxious to go by and make the find.  Today was a bit chilly, but it was a nice day for the playground that was just a few metres away from where the cache was hidden.  The cache was soon in hand and then we were free to play!  There were no other kids around today, but Charlotte and I had fun anyway.  She would climb the stairs, I would help her across the zip line, she would climb some more and take the big slide down to the ground again before running off to do it all over again.  They even had an old-school seesaw and Charlotte had fun running back and forth across it - holding my hand of course!  The playground is located at N 49.13.307 W 122.55.738 and is point no. 113 on the map at the bottom of home page.

110. Robert Burnaby Park, Burnaby

It's been a while since we visited a new playground, so the first weekend of spring seemed like a good time to go and try a new one!  The weather wasn't supposed to be good at all today, but it started clearing up in the early afternoon, showering on and off.  We "parked at the park" to Charlotte's complete amusement and she ran down the hill to the playground while I sorted out Theo.  Another little girl came by with her parents, but they both stuck so close to their daughter that there was no chance there for making a new friend.  Shortly after they left, another mum showed up with her two kids, one older and one younger than Charlotte.  Charlotte played nicely with them and all was well.  The little boy, Donovan, climbed up on a piece of equipment and couldn't get down again.  While his mum was helping him down, little Capri took off like a shot.  She didn't look much older than a year and she probably didn't need to be high up on the equipment on her own, so I ran down and stuck close to her until her mum was ready to turn her attention back to her.  It was really nice - she thanked me for helping and it was pretty awesome - just a couple of mums looking out for each other at the playground, just like it should be.  I played pirates with Donovan for a couple of minutes and then Charlotte said she was ready to leave.  Only she didn't want to go back to the car, she wanted to go over to the nearby hill to go roly poly, roly poly!  The hill is a steep one, perfect for tobogganing on the rare days when there's enough snow to do so.  Charlotte tipple-tailed all the way down it - four times!  It took about a dozen tipple-tails to get to the bottom, so she probably did about 50 tipple-tails in a row and I don't know how she didn't get dizzy!  She would have gone again if I hadn't convinced her it was time to head home and change out of her wet clothes - the grass was still soaking wet from all the rain we've had lately.  There are a dozen geocaches in this park, but none of them showed up in the GPS today; we've already cached out the park!  The playground is located at N 49.13.907 W 122.55.728 and is point no. 110 on the map at the bottom of home page.

87. Burnaby Fraser Foreshore Park

What a beautiful sunny day for an afternoon at the playground!  Only it wasn't a whole afternoon at the playground - it was much too cold for that.  The playground at Foreshore Park is designed like a boat, in keeping with its location on the river.  As Charlotte played, she was continually stopping to watch the tugboats going this way and that up the river.  She told me that she loved this playground and it really was just right for her.  I was freezing, but I managed to convince her to leave without a meltdown - by promising her a trip to the swimming pool!  There are lots of geocaches along the shoreline; the FFT series runs by here, though Charlotte and I have already found the ones near here.  The playground is located at N 49.11.510 W 122.59.911 and is point number 87 on the map at the bottom of home page.

81. Norquay Park, Burnaby

I knew there was a park around here somewhere...  We drove along Kingsway until we spotted it - "There's a playground, there's a playground!" cried Charlotte.  As soon as we arrived, one of the kids asked Charlotte if she wanted to play hide-and-seek with him.  Of course she did!  Unfortunately, she wanted me along at all times while she did her seeking, but I did manage to hang back a little bit.  The kid really latched on to her and they built sandcastles together for a bit too.  Charlotte had a lot of fun on the slide and was able to do without me for quite a while to climb and slide with the other kids.  She needed my help for balancing and jumping off things though - and then it was time to go.  Oh the tears!  She melts down so rarely now when it's time to leave the playground, but this one was epic and took a long time to subside.  Does she not know that the end of the year is quickly approaching and we still have 20 playgrounds left to visit?!?  She really needn't worry that we won't be back at a playground again very soon!  The park is located at N 49.14.266  W 123.03.069 and is point #81 on the map at the bottom of home page.

76. Lyndhurst Park, Burnaby

Charlotte and I went to claim my free Grand Slam at the nearby Denny's – I won't let my birthday go by without a delicious Denny's breakfast, even if I have to have it for dinner! We found a Harry Potter-themed cache hidden in a tree near the playground, “Floo Powder – Thanks for the Magic”, and then we headed over to play. It was already starting to get dark, I had a nasty cold and I still had to pack lunch for daycare tomorrow for the first time in a month – so we didn't stay for long. Still, Charlotte had a good time repeatedly climbing the ladder and sliding down the slide – all by herself, she would have you know. We had some tears when it was time to go, maybe because we only stayed such a short time.  It's been ages since she had a meltdown over leaving the playground. We don't have any pictures of this outing as I had left my camera in my jeans pocket – which I had changed out of following a sandy, muddy, wet outing to Barnston Island earlier today. The playground is point #76 on the map at the bottom of home page.

63. Maywood Community School, Burnaby

Today, we discovered a great little park with a wading pool that would have been perfect for this hot afternoon. I started getting us out of the car, but realized that Charlotte's swim diaper, which is usually under the stroller, had been left at home. Poor Charlotte was so disappointed, but I promised her a different playground instead. It took her a while to get over her disappointment, but when we finally found the playground at Maywood Community School, she was finally over it for good. There were lots of things to explore here; she even did a little rock climbing, though it was a little bit much for her for now. A couple of other kids came by after a while, but they were with their dad and he kept them pretty occupied. Charlotte was a little disappointed, but what else is new? I'm so tired of these parents who don't allow their kids to just play and to learn social skills on the playground. I can't understand how they fail to see how abnormal it is.  Charlotte still managed to have a good time, though it wasn't my favourite playground; there was a fair amount of garbage around and it just had a bit of a dodgy vibe altogether. I didn't have a working GPS at the time we visited, so don't have the co-ordinates for the playground, but it's no. 63 on the map at the bottom of home page.

62. Meadowood Park, Burnaby

With another blazing hot day ahead of us, we hit today's playground early.  We picked this small neighbourhood park in Burnaby because it had a cache in it.  We were in the shade at first, so Charlotte played happily; the little picnic table inside the smaller climbing frame was a nice touch.  Theo had a good time here too as he was able to climb part of the way up the big climbing frame, returning Charlotte's hat to her when she dropped it overboard!  We went to look for the cache afterwards, "Meadowood Park".  It was a little bit off-trail and so we left the stroller behind and started looking.  It was just the right amount of off-roading and climbing over things for a two-year-old explorer!  We found the cache without too much difficulty, then played some more before the heat sent us back into our air-conditioned car.  The playground is located at N 49.15.812 W 122.56.004 as is point no. 62 on the map at the bottom of home page.

43. Maywood Park, Burnaby

This is just a small park, out of our way on the way home from Richmond, but not too far from home. There were lots of kids playing when we arrived and Charlotte enjoyed climbing and sliding, as usual. The igloo was cool (no pun intended!), but Charlotte wasn't up for attempting to climb it. Which was just as well as a half-eaten ice cream was dripping from the top of it! Charlotte invited me to her “house” and I went for a visit. On the wall were some “cave drawings” - a puzzle in English, French and Spanish. Charlotte didn't have the best time here as there were some big boys who were playing pretty rough – one of them accidentally kicked her in the head as he went running by. I asked Charlotte if she wanted to go find the geocache instead, and to my delight, she said “yes”! So off we went to find “mayday” and Charlotte loved climbing around in the bushes and then going through the swag in the cache. We picked some flowers and had a good time! The park is located at N 49.13.468 123.00.443:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1



41. Burnaby Heights Park, Burnaby

After Friday evening dinner at nana and grandad's, Charlotte and I hit a new playground on our way home.  This one is the northwest corner of Burnaby, not too far off our route home from North Van.  I was so thrilled when we arrived.  Here was a playground teeming with kids, and a relatively small number of adults hung out on the sidelines.  Some of these kids must be, gasp, here on their own!  The air rang with the normal, happy sound of kids at play, the noise I had recently realized was so often missing from our playground visits.  This is what a playground is supposed to be!  Charlotte even came running back to me at one point to tell me she had made a "new friend, new friend!" 

She practiced climbing on the rock wall - she doesn't get very far on this yet, but it's great that she tries.  She went down the small slide over and over again, but insisted that I hold her hand each time.  Eventually she discovered the helter-skelter and she was on her own for that one - I couldn't reach her hand whether she wanted me to or not!  She was a little cautious the first time and sent Owlie down to test the waters - but soon she was fearlessly launching herself off down the ramp, crying "Again, again!" as soon as she got to the bottom.  I had to boost her up the first step, but after that, she was able to pull herself up to the top to begin her ride down the helter-skelter all over again.  She played till the sun started to go down and then reluctantly agreed to head back to the car to head for home.  She always seems to be comforted by the fact that there will always be more playgrounds for us to explore though!  There are no geocache in this park - always a surprise to find a park without one!  The park is located at N 49.17.270 W 123.01.237:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

39. Riverway Sports Complex, Burnaby

Today we hit up the Riverway Sports Complex in Burnaby, a place we drive by often on our way home from work and daycare.  This is a huge complex with baseball diamonds, a lacrosse box and soccer pitches.  It didn't seem promising, but rumour had it there was a playground there - and there was a cache for us to find too.  The playground was underwhelming to say the least - hardly any taller than Charlotte and mostly used as a stretching post for athletic types.  But Charlotte announced that she loved it, and if she's happy, I'm happy.  She played, she ran around on the grass, and all was well.  Until, from out of nowhere, some kid, perhaps a five-year-old boy, raced at her out of nowhere and attempted to grab from her the pen she held in her hand (which she had in turn pinched from me).  Charlotte was at quite some distance from me at that point, all by herself in the middle of the field, and this little incident has stuck with me.  The boy was old enough to know better - this was no toddler scuffle over something that one wants because the other has it.  And to fast forward this scenario a few years...  Am I reading too much into this?  Because part of me thinks that this kid's parents need to keep an eye on things.  A bigger boy willing to attack a smaller girl as she is on her own...  Seems to me that there is something there that needs to be nipped in the bud.  As it happens, his mother did see what had happened and she shouted at him "Alex, no!".  But it was perfunctory, it was light, and she went back to her baseball game.  For Charlotte's part, I was proud of her - she screamed at him, refused to relinquish her pen and came running back to me.  Good for you, my girl, for sticking up for yourself.

 

Charlotte played for a long time, then we went to look for the geocache.  There are actually three caches in the complex, but we went for the one closest to the playground, "The Fastest Game on Two Feet - WLA Champions".  As we approached GZ, Charlotte called out "Geocache, where are you?", much to my delight.  My little girl is becoming a geocacher, just like me!  She loves to make the find, but she still doesn't like to put the caches back again and seem to think she should be able to take them home as a souvenir.  The park is located at N 49.12.331  W 123.00.051:  https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1

19. George McLean Park, Burnaby



We had a very Saturday, with a trip to the pool in the morning and a Whitecaps game in the afternoon.  It was perhaps a little too busy as we just took it easy on Sunday and stayed close to home.  We did take a little bit of a detour on our way to nana and grandad's though so that we could get a cache in a playground we haven't yet visited.  Of course we got the cache first - Arbor Harbor.  Co-ordinates seemed a bit off, but the name of the cache gives away its hiding spot and it was a pretty quick find.  After that, it was time for Charlotte to go and play!

It was a bit of a strange playground - not your typical one by any means.  Charlotte didn't think much to the giant saucer swing because she couldn't go very high in it, though it was kind of fun to have mum join her in it so we could both swing together.  The slide was just as strange - no steps up to it at all, but instead a slope that was steep at the front and more gradual at the back, perched atop a carpet of some bouncy, grippy substance that makes it possible to climb up the steep part like Spiderman.  Other than these two pieces of equipment, there was just a sandbox and a water feature for the summer.  All in all, we were a bit underwhelmed by this park!  It's located at N 49.14.099 W 123.00.887: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?hl=en&authuser=0&mid=z7IAXiVD2wGY.ke14vi-3MYtI&pli=1