davejenbarnes

That means that all the parks and splash parks and pools are void of preteens running rampant once again.  I took the boys to the splash park across the street from our neighborhood (just far enough away not to be walkable) two days in a row and actually remembered to take a camera with us this morning.  I’m sure I would have gotten great pictures yesterday as they did more playing and less hanging on momma, but I did manage to get some of James that I like.  Lowell wasn’t into being photographed and always had his back to me…

And I think he looks like he has wings here…

You’d never be able to tell that we have storms in the weather forecast for today.

David and James and I took a nice afternoon stroll through Round Rock’s Memorial Park after some lunch. We were both really impressed with this one. There were lots of trees and a playground that boasted two play areas (one for ages 2-5 and the other marked for ages 5-12) and a swingset with 2 big-kid swings and 2 baby swings. The playground area was surrounded by shade trees, picnic tables, and park benches. Although James was more interested in running to the water than playing in the playground area, he did get to enjoy a lengthy and relaxing swing in the swingset. One thing that is often overlooked in parks/playground areas is parking and this park has plenty of parking.

We will be returning to this park frequently and hope to remember to actually take our camera along on one of those future visits, so watch more more about this park to show up in my park review category.

This morning, James and I visited the Kensington Park playground in Round Rock. It’s located here and isn’t all that far from where we live, though driving somewhere is certainly not James’ favorite way of getting anyplace these days.

The playground is wooden and is marked for ages 5-12, though I doubt I could find a 12 year old that would like it. The actual playground is kind of small and has a metal staircase, a wooden bridge, and a shiny metal slide, all in one straight line. There is a little bench/picnic table built under the slide and a place where a tire-swing would go if it weren’t missing. There is a swingset nearby but only has two big-kid swings. Kind of far away from the playground is a rolling plastic thing that I remember loving as a girl but it didn’t look all that exciting to me now. The playground pit was sand. This was James’ first experience with sand and I think he loved getting dirty. There are no shade trees in the vicinity of the playgound and bathrooms are completely missing. Parking is streetside and there’s a bit of a walk to get to the playground from the street, though the trail is paved and quite nice. There are two water fountains nearby that provide a perfect place to rinse off a sandy binky.