Bikes and Parks=Happy Kids

Nice day out, so a bike ride and park play sounded especially nice for all involved. We understand there aren't very many of these types of days left, so we strapped the kids up and took off to find some nearby slides and swings.
This one was straight down Hawkins about 2 miles and there was no one around. Kids had the whole place to themselves and took full advantage.

Little Mae is my big park player. Unfortunately, at the last park, they had a big kids stairs thing that curves at the top and you have to walk on top of the bars to get to the main jungle jim part...you know, where the kids can fall through and catch a limb on the way down....that she saw the big kids going on and without hesitation climbed up and over. Thankfully, she didn't fall or even slip a bit. I was standing next to her with my hands under the bars in case her little body fell through, but she did great. And was equally successful the subsequent 2 or 3 times she tried it. She's a little fearless which is fear-inducing to her mom at times with the stuff she comes up with. Little 2 year old trying to do everything the 4-6 year olds are doing is not a relaxing day at the park. But she's steady-footed and sure-minded.

Brenden follows the leader.

So much fun the first time around, this was repeated several times.

Then they moved onto the swings, and Kyleigh actually started to catch on to the leg pumping coordination.

All my kids.

My camera was being slow in the action mode, so I had to follow him with the camera to somewhat catch an action shot.

He and Kyleigh both love this invention. (It may be because Trent will push them really high. My little pushes are no longer sufficient. I have to get them really going. But their squeals are really fun to hear when they get going high).

Time to go home. I think it was almost 5 miles round trip and we made it under 30 minutes. This was before the STOMP bike tour so I was anxious to see how long it would take us and we figured about an hour, which is what it came out to be (almost...we made it under an hour) :) Kids do real well in the bike trailer.

Cobblestone laid by the first settlers of the area. Maybe?

Ready for round 2 already?