Have you seen Tina?

Let's talk about Tina. If you've never been to Hillside Park you probably don't know about Tina. "She" carries a bit of history with her and is worth checking out. Being a piece of the Elk River junk yard Tina is recycled car. That's right.... a great big hunk of metal. We found Tina lurking in the woods and she's waiting for you to find her too!

Hillside is a great looking bike park with trails flitting off this way and that way. The kids were having fun watching bikers fly around the curves and hitting tricks on the trails. They were a little intimidated by the trails, but seemed excited for the day that they too could try their pedals at going around the curves!

Hillside Park is the last park in Elk River. We have now seen, been in and/or explored every last one of the 44 parks in town. It's been quite a ride and the kids want to try again this summer. I haven't started crossing them off the map "yet" but will when I hang up the phone on this blog post. We've got a good start this year, but it will take some ingenuity to stop by them all once again.

In the meantime... we've been hiking through Woodlands Park (one of our favorites). It's busy with visitors this spring. Loads of walkers, runners, bikers, rollerbladers. Just an overall lovely place to explore. Not sure how we managed it, but we ended up on a trail we hadn't seen this year. Beautiful as ever and so much fun to explore.

And then there is Hudson Park. The park that had dozens of visitors the day we stopped by. In fact, the gals at the park were giving me the rundown as to why it's the best park in town. We had a 45 minute 'layover' and had a chance to play on a beautiful afternoon. Apparently all the other mom's thought it was a good day to play too! Can't help myself from picking weeds when we stop at the parks... it really bothers me when they are poking out of the wood chips.

The boys were having monkey competitions on the firemen's pole at this park. Little did we know that they can climb from the ground up. Sometimes their strength amazes me. I kind of felt bad when the other boys were trying to follow their lead and didn't have the strength. Brought me back to school when I was the only one who couldn't do pull ups.

Anyways, I can see already that keeping up the blog with every park visit might just be near impossible. We are just having too much fun! Perhaps over the next few weeks I'll be more disciplined. If not... you will have to rest assured that we are tromping around the area enjoying all that the city has to offer.

75 in March? Today was a twoffer....

It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo beautiful outside today that we just couldn't resist. So, making early work of it, we stopped for story time at the library and loaded our car with books and cd's before heading out for the day.

Stopping by the office for mail, going through the mailbox and filling up the gas tank were only small disruptions on our way to the park.

The kids were thrilled to enjoy their first picnic of the season! A small lunch, some swing time and climbing on the Highland West Park jungle equipment was worth the effort. There were so many smiles and much laughter as we played together.

It was dentist day so our outing was cut shorter than we would have liked, but we will be back another time. Highland East has a nice walking trail that we will wander at some point so we will visit again!

After going to the dentist we rewarded our day with an ice cream from Sweet P's and a visit to River's Edge Park. Okay.... so there were a few things in between like a trip to AT&T and the store.

We don't get to River's Edge nearly as often as we like. It's a beautiful park overlooking the Mississippi and the kids like playing on the rocks. Today they enjoyed rolling down the hill (knoll) over and over again. This is one of the busier parks as folks come and go, but it's worth the stop with a camera in hand. Later this summer we'll stop back when the fountains are running and maybe for a concert.

Love us a little adventure! How about you?

Visiting Meadowvale Heights Park

Meadowvale Heights Park was in great form today for our visit! The kids were so excited that they drew maps of the park they wanted to visit before we even left the house.

This is one of my favorite parks in Elk River. It reminds me of Sherwood Forest because of the way the playground equipment is set. It's almost like a hideaway with complete view of passerby.

The playground is really geared towards children a bit older than mine, but we still have plenty of fun in the tall tower! There are also five slides on this playground which the kids love love love.
After a brief play we like walking the trail. It heads through a small woods to a prairie setting. It's the perfect size trail for the family. Far enough for everyone to enjoy and short enough to keep the attention of the little ones.

Today the children were given the camera to try their hand at photography. LOVE! They took some creative photos. I'm working on an album just for them.

My only beef about parks in our area? There is a real lack of parking. I don't always like parking on the road and it feels weird when the neighbors are watching... but it won't stop me. For now? We will enjoy our spring in the parks because we can!

A Visit with the Birds!

A beautiful spring day in Minnesota brought many many families out of doors. Lions Park was full of precious folks enjoying the overly warm March weather... walking, biking, sloshing in the mud and playing around.

By total count however, there were hands down more geese playing in the park than people. Swimming in the pond, hanging out on ice bergs, sloshing in mud piles, playing in the baseball diamond and seeming to be having a picnic... the geese were completely into the day.

Not much different than the geese we enjoyed and sloshed around the puddles, enjoyed hiking around the park and played and played on the playground.

This is the kind of day that makes spring hopeful and real. It's the kind of day that is soooooo nice that you just cannot stay inside. And, if you do stay in... you itch to get out!

Not long after our visit with the birds was over the boys were asking to get out again so we headed out for a walk. Why not? After all? It's the perfect weather for outside enjoyment.

Keeping with Tradition... Meadow Park

Meadow Park is one of the smaller parks in the Elk River area. But, size alone does not constitute how much fun a family can have! On Tuesday we headed out to the park knowing that it would likely be our last "snow day" of the season. It just seemed fitting that we should enjoy the snow hill one last time before the snow left us for the season. And what a choice it was!

Our treks up and down the hill were filled with soggy wet sloshes, but the the snow was perfect to compact into a slick icy runway for sledders and young snowboarding wanna-be's (my son included). I am amazed even on the short hills how well some of the young ones can stand up on their boards and make it safely to the bottom.

Seriously wet in the 50 degree weather, but chilly due strictly to the fact that so much snow had turned to ice water... we had fun! We played with the neighbor boys out in their t-shirts, shorts and tennies. We watched as children biked up and down the street enjoying the coming of a new season.

This little park has given me more than a couple decades of fun (though it wasn't a park then - just a hill) and will continue to give families and children memories for some time to come.

My one wish for this small park would perhaps be better play equipment. It's settled with two swings, but routinely carries 5-6 youngsters. With some ingenuity and creativity I am certain that there would be a way to create a rocking playground for the area children and families to enjoy.

I also think that a picnic table or park bench would set nicely in our small park as we have many older walkers through the neighborhood during the daytime.

It's our start to our 2012 parks and recreation season! Are you with us? We are ready for some fun!!!