The Bridge at Wapato Park

It's a cool long, narrow bridge, high over wetlands. Kate and I went to Wapato Park for the first time (without the camera) back in June. I had seen some pictures of this bridge but didn't know exactly where it was. We managed to find it along the back edge of the park. We thought Dad and Andy would enjoy it too, so we all went back together.



You're pretty much level with the tree canopy, and the trees are really close, too.  Parts of it are like going through a dense, leafy tunnel.



Andy takes off. Kate is always ready to chase him down.



We walked the rest of the way around the lake and ended up at the playground. Andy had some fun with this animal-mix-up board. We decided the rabbit-turtle combination should be called a harapin. (That's hare-terrapin... I figured I should explain that since we don't use the word terrapin much in the U.S.)




The kids have fun climbing around on the playground. I mostly just putz around with the camera and end up taking weird photos.

Kate spotted several people playing Pokemon Go. The park seems to be a hot spot.

I didn't get any pictures of the lake.  It's a nice walk around.  Pretty park!

Sunny Days

We have been having a lovely early Spring.  It's crazy how everything is blooming.  (Tacoma has a Daffodil Parade in April.  I'm not sure what they'll do this year--all the daffodils will be gone by then!)

We took advantage of some lovely Saturday weather at Titlow Park.



Wheeee!



Down at the beach.



Finding crabs.



What Andy does when a train goes by. They are close! And loud!

Kobayashi Park

I had never even heard of Kobayashi Park till this year. Jessica Beecher has been posting some great pictures from there, so I had to look it up.  It's pretty close to our new house.  Doug and the kids had Monday off for Veteran's Day, so we went to check it out.



"Take a picture of me being a nature dragon!"



(This amused me.)





I love the Asian details. Apparently this used to be a private house. The city bought the property in 2004, and they're still trying to figure out what to do with the building. 




It's a gorgeous park! We'll have to go back in the summer (with water shoes!)

Wildwood Park

Wildwood Park in Puyallup has this gorgeous little spot with a playground next to a shallow stream. We were out there a couple of weeks ago and loved it, so we went back with some Primary friends (from church) and took the camera.



Andy tip-toeing into the cold water.



The bank on the other side of the stream has this cool network of exposed roots (lots of erosion from years of climbing children, I'm sure). The whole place just makes a lovely setting. It actually reminded me of a cross between Korea and John Bryan State Park where I grew up in Ohio. (But without the humidity.)



Getting some help from Daddy.



Kate had a bit of seed fluff (like the kind you'd get from a milkweed plant) that she was playing with, and she was quite distraught when she dropped it and couldn't find it.





Andy, framed.

I ended up taking more pictures of the other kids than of my own. Here are a few:






We took along some lunch. I've discovered that it's difficult to get the kids to stop playing long enough to eat. Maybe next time we'll have them eat in the car.

Playground by the Sound--Open!

 The playground is done!  We took the kids over on Tuesday (the 27th).  There were still a few things that were unfinished, but they had their ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sunday as planned, and opened to the public.




I found my fish on the fence.  You may notice that it doesn't look like the picture I posted.  This is actually the back of the fish.  I was told that we were supposed to paint the backs, too, since they were going to be mounted on the slats of the fence and would be partially visible from the other side.  The back of my fish was deformed (you can see where the edge cut at a slant, on the belly) but I went ahead and did a slap-dash job on it.  (Which still took 20-30 minutes, but it didn't look nearly as good as the other side.)  I was kind of worried about this at the time, and hoped that whoever put it up would look at it carefully enough to figure out which was the right side.  They didn't.  (And the fish weren't mounted on the slats anyway--I should have just left that side unpainted!)  Apparently they were in a big hurry and just threw stuff up on the fence.  And my fish somehow got a smear of green paint on it, too.  Don't know how that happened.



I like the pine cone details and the roofs.  It was really cool to see things in progress and then the finished product. 



Bright sun!



Andy goes up the slide...



...and down!





Kate hangin' around.

I was kind of bummed about my fish, but I got to go back on Wednesday and paint a couple of orcas (not pictures--they're three-dimensional orcas), which was a lot of fun, and then I felt better.  I haven't made it back to get pictures of those.  I need to do that soon!