Kendall Ridge, Sandy Corners, and Heather Glen North

Big day of playgrounds today. Jodi was feeling sick, so we were unable to drive 1.5 hours to go to my niece's 1st birthday party. To overcome this depression, the kids and I headed out for a big morning of playground scouting.

Excited about his new bike, Henry wanted to ride it, rather than the Picolo. I was a bit hesitant, since I was planning on going pretty far today. But since his success in the Long Walk, I have learned not to underestimate Henry's perseverance. As a half baked backup plan, I left the Picolo attached, figuring we could somehow bungee Henry's bike to the trailer and he could ride the Picolo if he got too tired.

It was sunny, so the twins were looking like rock stars in their sunglasses:

Henry was happy to be on his new bike:

 

Though my view of him was more typically like this:

 

Our first stop was #30 Kendall Ridge. This was a good sized playground that the kids really enjoyed. Kate is always our climber:

She's also our only kid that has mastered the swing:

Sam likes to make noise:

Or cross this wavy bridge:

 

Henry can climb too:

One unique thing we found in this playground was a train whistle. Push up on the plunger, and it makes a pretty good whistle sound:

I thought it was cool; the kids tried it once and moved on.

Just south of Kendall Ridge is #5 Ballantrae Community Park, home of the dancing hares:

 

 

We played "find the object" in the hares--many odd things are cast into their skin.

Ballantrae also has a spray area:

 

 

But without our swimsuits, we couldn't really enjoy this. I threatened the kids with no lunch out if they got too wet. I'm not counting this one in our tally--we'll have to come back to do it right.

Next up was back near our old house with #41 Sandy Corners Park. This had a very small play area:

 

But strangely had the only effective sound tube system we've found:

 

You could really hear it pretty clearly in the other tube.

It also had a nice large gazebo area:

 

But we didn't stay long. We made one more quick stop at #24 Heather Glen North. This park had an unusual dual slide so the kids could race:

 

Sam got the jump on Henry and came out the winner:

 

It also had the only log roller I've seen:

 

which mostly struck me as a good way to twist an ankle.

I thought this step bridge was pretty cool:

After that, we headed for lunch at Five Guys, where the kids proceeded to mostly eat peanuts. Henry did great on the ride. We covered probably 8-9 miles, and he kept up (or led) the whole time, no problem. I might not be getting much use of the Picolo this summer!

Three down, 37 to go.