Playground Tally

This summer that is coming to an end wasn't hot like last summer. We only filled the kiddie pool once and used if over the Fourth of July. Our best weather came in May and it was incredible. The perennials went wild! June was Anchorage's second wettest June on record. July, August, and September had good days and drizzly, rainy days.

Last summer we stayed at home most days because Evan was a baby and Lincoln was only 2. It wasn't fun to go to the playground with them and the older children didn't seem to care if we went or not. This summer we hit a lot of playgrounds, taking advantage of almost every nice day we had. Evan and Lincoln love visiting playgrounds. On a good day they logged two playground visits--one with me and another with their father.

I made a list of the playgrounds I (and Kara occasionally) visited with the children. I included any playgrounds that Matt took the children to that I remembered them talking about.

The list included eight elementary school playgrounds. Five are near our home and familiar to us from past summers. Two were new to us (Sand Lake and Bowman) and both of them were fabulous, but further from home. 

The children visited at least eleven different playgrounds in city parks. Their father took them to an awesome one in Talkeetna during a camping weekend. We visited two of the city's newest playgrounds (Polar Bear Playground and the Cuddy Family Park) and both were great, but get crowded. 

I know my count is a little low because I didn't start this list until the end of the summer, so I had to think back through four months of summer fun. It's good to try out new playgrounds because they often have very different equipment. The older children like bars to swing on or climbing walls. All five children like swings and slides. They also like hills to run up and down. They like being active!