149. Crash Crawly's, Coquitlam

My company hosted a kids' Christmas party at the amazing Crash Crawly's.  I never did figure out if Charlotte had a good time or not!  She played on the climbing structure - with her hands over her ears the whole time.  She rode the miniature train - with her hands over her ears the whole time.  The only time she took her hands away from her ears was when she needed them to emphasize a point with Santa.  She talked his ear off and made sure he knew exactly what she would like to see under the Christmas tree.  The indoor playground is located at 1-1300 Woolridge Street, Coquitlam and is point no. 149 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.

146. Quayside Park, New Westminster

It was a sunny day, but a cold and blustery one, when we finally headed down to the boardwalk to explore Quayside Park and pick up my two closest unfound caches to home, "Riverside Walk 4" and "Quick Tour of Riverside Walk".  We walked down to the riverfront, Charlotte riding in her stroller - even though that was supposed to be later, if she got tired.  We found our geocaches first, then went back to the playground to play for a while.  By this time, Charlotte was feeling quite cold - but she refused to put her coat on, silly girl!  We played for a little while before heading to the Quay for gelato - just what you need to warm up after playing outside on a cold November day!  The playground is located at N 49.11.894 W 122.55.350 and is point no. 146 on the map at the bottom of home page.

145. Lower Lougheed Park, Coquitlam

I first discovered this tiny neighbourhood park long before Charlotte was born; I was looking for a place to hide a geocache and found this tiny little green triangle on a map.  The cache didn't run all that long before it was muggled and there is no cache in the park at the moment.  Perhaps I should re-hide something smaller and trickier - the old one was a large cache hidden under a bridge.  We were in the area today and so we stopped off so that Charlotte could see the park too.  She played for a bit and took Owlie for a ride on the back of her airplane.  There were no other kids there and it's a noisy place as it's right next to the highway, so we didn't stay for very long.  The playground is located at N 49.14.355 W 122.53.215 and is point no. 145 on the map at the bottom of home page.

144. Queenston Park, Coquitlam

How can it be that I didn't take any photographs here at this amazing new playground?  We have been trying to meet up here since the summer with our friends Andy and Khanh and their kids Avery and Kayden, but something has always come.  Finally, today was the day!  It was a nice mild day and the playground was full of kids.  There was so much for the kids to do - little things for little Kayden and bigger things for Charlotte and Avery - and enough that they will continue to be challenged as they grow.  It's a lot like the playground at Garden City with its "foam" steps set into a "foam" hill.  The slide is huge and was a little much for Avery for now, though Charlotte loved it.  They also played on the net that stretched from the top of the hill to the bottom - they really had a blast!  We'll have to go back here again soon, for sure.  The playground is located at N 49.17.869 W 122.45.233 and is point no. 144 on the map at the bottom of home page.

143. Whatcom Falls Park, Bellingham, Washington

We found ourselves in Bellingham on International EarthCache Day - and therefore, in need of an earth cache.  We took a detour up to Whatcom Falls Park to find "Go Chasing Waterfalls".  The falls were pretty skimpy as we still haven't had much rain, but we enjoyed exploring and Theo had a swim in the pool at the base of another waterfall further up-river.  There was a small playground near the parking lot, so we stopped there for a while so that Charlotte could have a play.  She made a new friend and they spent a long time chasing each other around and around until Charlotte took offense to him saying that he could faster than she could - and that was that.  Silly Charlotte!  Challenge him to a race next time!  The playground is located at N48.45.097 W 122.25.712 and is point no. 143 on the map at the bottom of home page.