About Last Weekend...

It's been a long freaking week or so.  I'll get to most of that in another post, but first...

The end of last week was actually pretty fun.  Carter has Friday off, and Thursday night was the Spring Fling at Carter's school.  He said he wanted to go, and then that afternoon he seemed less sure--he didn't know if his friends were going--but we had already paid so off we went.  It turned out to be fun.  There was a word scramble scavenger hunt and then we found a bunch of games in the gym.  His best school buddy Ben was there, and they ended up playing cornhole and Kan-Jam with a bunch of other kids, and then trying out the other games, like a LED-lit floor version of tic-tac-toe, this lily pad game...

You had to stomp on the lever to fling the bean bag to the lily pad.

...and this ring toss, which Carter rocked--he got all of them on!

He also did Plinko and got a winning 10 on his first disc!

He skipped giant Connect Four and a frog pond because he and Ben decided they wanted to go outside for a bit.  It was cool outside but luckily not cold, so Ben's dad and I chatted while they played with some other kids.  We'll be seeing more of them soon because soccer starts next week and Ben is on Carter's team again for the third time in four years (minus a COVID year).  They're pretty excited--I'm mostly just happy because they don't have the same coach Carter had last year!

I was agonizing about what we were going to do the next day.  I took off because I didn't want to work from home and have him on screens all day.  I thought about going to Buffalo and doing the history museum or the aquarium there, because he'd already done a bunch of his favorite things in Rochester recently, but that felt like a lot for a day.  I squeezed in a workout in the morning and then pushed Carter a bit to help me make a decision.  He wanted to eat at Arby's so we knew we had to start there.  It wasn't a super nice day, but it was just warm enough and wasn't going to rain until later.  After a while I gave up on big plans and thought about other playgrounds that had been on my list.  I realized there were at least two to the west of us that had been on my list--one was the Hamlin rec playground and the other was Northampton Park, which has a natural playground.  Hamlin had said "temporarily closed" on Google for over a year, so we hadn't attempted it, but when I found a picture of kids on the playground at a recent Easter egg hunt, I decided it was worth a shot.  I found a newer playground in the town of Sweden nearby, and then we'd move on to Northampton Park.  

Arby's ended up being fun because some Mad Libs came in his Kids' Meal and we giggled a lot as we did them while we ate.  Then we were on to the playgrounds!

Hamlin's looked really impressive--it was an old wooden one, likely from the late 80s.  It was still in relatively good shape.  There were a couple elements that were broken, and a couple round benches that once had giant trees in the middle and now just looked like mud pits (I'd have thought they were GaGa Ball pits but they also had one of those), but for the most part it was still pretty great.

Huge!

It was a bit like the one we did last fall, where the wooden structure was a giant, weaving maze of steps and platforms and hiding spots interspersed with tire accents and a couple slides.   

There were some different elements, like this chain climb...

...and these shaky, shifting suspended stairs.

Carter liked the rubbery jumping mat bridge.

We had a lot of fun checking things out and racing through different sections.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, using a small tire as a replacement for a regular swing is really uncomfortable!  After we tried everything, it was on to the next one...Sweden!

This playground was buried deep in the town park and was adjacent to a spray park.  It's a newer build with some accessible things like a wheelchair-friendly spinner and long ramps.

There were also a few cool instruments like these chimes...

And this colorful xylophone.

Carter loved the spinner, the challenge of crawling up the roller slide, and the big slides, too.  We didn't stay there too long because it wasn't that different than most that we've done, and I was starting to get nervous about the weather.  The wind was picking up a little and the rain was coming, so we moved on.

Northampton Park had a huge natural playground with tons of logs and other natural structures.  It's much like the one near Highland Park and the Lilac Festival, or the temporary one we saw at the zoo a few years ago.  This one was huge.  We liked the Indiana Jones bridge!

The playground was huge! 

This was the view from a tiny lookout tower.

There was a bench swing, so we tried it out and Carter asked me to take a selfie.  Love this kid.

There were a few different obstacles.  This one was crazy--there was one where they were all the same height (much like Carter has pushed himself to do fast at the Highland Park one), but this one with varying heights was a different kind of challenge!

This one wasn't as crazy as the bridge, but it definitely pushed us!

Somehow we made it out mostly unscathed.  I had a little bit of a sore hip from going through a tunnel and sliding on to my side--I think the mulch and pine needles inside made it like walking on marbles or something--but I'll take that over broken bones any day, as these playgrounds always bring out a different level of fear.  But they're even fun for adults and I like ones that keep me active too!  We had a really fun time.

I had the idea to grab Slurpees on the way home since I wanted Carter to try the vanilla one I liked so much the previous week.  We stopped at the closest 7-Eleven but they only had three flavors (how dare they?!) so we headed back out in the direction we came from to go to the giant Speedway we had passed earlier.  Sure enough, they had it...and we very much enjoyed our afternoon snack!

The weekend was pretty uneventful after that because the weather was terrible.  It was cold and rainy.  I did make progress on a couple household things, including doing an overhaul of Carter's clothes.  He's grown like a weed over the past year or so, so I dragged up the remaining medium clothes, sorted through them and discovered that most of Jacob's stuff won't work because it was team/lacrosse/year-specific.  I pulled a few things and set the rest up for donation at this point.  It's not really worth keeping them around if they don't work for hand-me-downs for us, let anyone else, you know?  But I pulled in what would work, re-did his summer PJs with new t-shirts and shorts he likely wouldn't wear in public, set up a few things to be handy for when he grows a little bit more, moved his closet shelving down a notch so his shirts have more room, and pretty much have him ready to go for the summer.  That felt good.  I'm still struggling to get back to Carter's toys and his room, and I know Jacob has too-small clothes in his room that need to be packed away.  It all feels like a lot right now but it needs to get done at some point.

Carter and I went to the Knighthawks game on Saturday, which ended up being a tough (but meaningless) loss.  He seems to be enjoying lacrosse right now, which is ironic since it was right around this age when Jacob started shunning it.  The playoffs start this weekend in Buffalo, and while it kills me inside a little, having them lose would be much easier for everyone right now.  Not only would ongoing playoffs jeopardize the whole St. Louis trip plan, but it would also stress out Craig and cost the team a ton because he'd need to book local hotel rooms for the weekend that the PGA Championship is in town, which is nearly impossible and/or prohibitively expensive.  We also really need him home right now because of some things Jacob is going through, and trust me when I say that it would bring down Jacob's aggravation level considerably if Craig's job wasn't butting into things.  The odds of them winning against Buffalo are probably slim, but of course that's usually when some miracle occurs, when it's least convenient.  It reminds me of 2018, when the Knighthawks were just so-so all season but made it into the playoffs and proceeded to knock off their first two opponents (including the top seed).  Against all odds, they made it into the championship series, which meant Craig had to miss Jacob's first lacrosse tournament weekend.  I'm just waiting for that to happen again,only this time I'd have to manage a trip to St. Louis instead of Syracuse.

As I said, it's been a long week for reasons I won't get into in this post, but we do have some big stuff coming up.  Buffalo this weekend--technically for the playoff game but more for a change of scenery-- Carter's first orchestra concert Tuesday, and his soccer starts next week as well.  He'll miss the first practice because of his concert but will make the second one Thursday.  Games don't start for another couple weeks, which is probably good because we're just emerging from the worst weather pattern ever.  That cold and rain that arrived Friday night stuck around for almost a week!  It didn't clear until later Thursday.  It's extra hard this time of year when you'd like to be out enjoying the tulips and the flowering trees and already had a taste of good weather.  I had a mental block about wearing sweaters and boots in May, but the weather wasn't allowing for much else.  The yard is a mess because it had a lot of growing time since it was decent enough to get out there and clean it up.  Everyone just seemed to be dragging mood-wise because it just wouldn't let up.

 

Work has at least slowed down a bit.  I can actually think and get through my to do list for a change.  It won't last but I'm appreciating it while it lasts, especially since my attention has been divided this week.  Jacob has a month left of school and Carter is getting into the stretch run as well.  I can't believe we're already to this point.  Next weekend is the one-year anniversary of Carter's and my Kennywood trip which is both mind-blowing and sort of sobering.  It was such a gorgeous weekend and we had such a blast, but I can't believe a year has passed already.  He's SO ready for our Darien Lake season to start, and pretty much wants to do every park we can this summer.  I'm trying to manage his expectations, but it's not easy...Cedar Point and Waldameer in Erie are on his list, and he wants to do Kennywood again.  There's an off-chance we could do Hersheypark, and I have Canada's Wonderland (a youth group favorite I haven't been to since I was a teenager) on my list if we make it up toward Toronto.  We'll see.  And then I have Jacob angling to go back to Disney, just for a few days and just to hang at the resort.  Oy.  

Stay tuned for the post about what's made this week so tough.  I need to work through that one for my own sanity.  Let's just say it's been a throwback to almost 10 years ago, and I'm not sure which one is worse.