Today was our annual-ish “Park Day.” We did this two years ago, and decided it should be a yearly event, but last summer was so hot, we never got around to it. Today was absolutely beautiful, so we got out of the house for some playing (at eight different playgrounds!), and a picnic!

Park stop one was at Creve Coeur Park. We found three different playgrounds at this one location (and one of them was a complete surprise, even to me!).

Playground one had a splash pad (or sprayground, or spray park…whatever you want to call it!):

Turkey tried to get Ladybug under this bucket before it dumped, but she’s pretty scrappy, and wouldn’t stand for it!

Chickadee wasn’t too sure of the swing at first, but she warmed up to it pretty quickly!

Ladybug got right to work on her monkey bar skills, which she practiced at pretty much every park we went to:

Moose liked these “rock, paper, scissors” spinners:

We also saw some evidence of the storm damage from over the weekend:

Playground two, still at Creve Coeur Park, with some completely different equipment.

This is also where we stopped for our picnic, since they have a fantastic pavilion:

It had an amazing view of the lake:

Playground three, again at Creve Coeur Park:

There was a cool braille alphabet and puzzle (which was on the back):

Plenty of new stuff to climb:

And a slide built for three, which was great for races:

We drove past the lake before we left, and saw just how flooded it is right now:

The fourth playground we went to was at Faust Park. This was one of the most popular stops we made!

More swinging:

Then Chickadee got to try something other than swinging:

Turkey loves rock-climbing walls:

After a stop at the mall (that was for me!), we went to Central Park in Chesterfield, which is always a favorite.

Even more swinging:

And bouncing:

We drove by “The Awakening,” which is always kind of weird to see.

And the fairly new Amphitheater, which looks really nice!

Playground six was pretty small, because it’s just a little park adjacent to the North Pointe Aquatic Center in Ballwin, and yet it was surprisingly popular with the children!

What I learned today? My children would rather climb on top of the monkey bars than swing across them!

Something else Chickadee could do:

The tire swing was a lot of fun!

This dog statue was very cute:

The seventh place we visited was Vlasis Park in Ballwin, and it is one of the best playgrounds in the area (I think), because there’s just so much to do.

Everyone wanted a turn riding next to Chickadee’s little sidecar…she was very amused about the whole thing.

We found another sprayground (even I can’t decide what I want to call them!). I’m always the most fun mom at any park, because I play in the fountains, too!

One last stop, at another playground we used to frequent way back when Moose was a baby: Millennium Park in Creve Coeur (back where we started):

All parks should have signs like this!

They’ve added a lot of stuff in the years since we were there last, including yet another spray park:

There’s a bonus playground 8.5 here…it’s within sight of the main playground, unlike the ones we played at at Creve Coeur Park, which are spread out quite far apart, so I don’t count it as a whole other playground. Still fun, though!

Bunny had fun with the telescopes and binoculars at every park that had them!

It was a great way to spend a beautiful day…hopefully, the children sleep well tonight!