Jefferson Park!

Last weekend we actually had nothing on the calendar on Saturday....that hasn't happened in months! The kids were dying to go to a park, but Michael was totally wiped....later we found out he had a sinus infection and that's why he was so fatigued. While Owen and I sat in the recliner together searching for a fun park to go to. We didn't really have too much luck. The boys...Jack joined us were quite certain that the park had to meet their requirements. After a good half hour of searching I finally dawned on me that my friend Jen just posted pictures of her kids at an awesome park in Seattle. We hadn't been looking north we'd only been looking south of our house. I found on the park on my phone, brought up the pictures for the boys and it was settled...we were heading to Jefferson Park! 

I had no clue this park even existed and it's HUGE!! Like SUPER HUGE!!! It's actually built over the top of a water reservoir. It seriously has everything. Skate park, tennis courts, driving range, golf course across the street, huge open fields to set up volleyball nets or an easy up to have a BBQ, play structures, two ziplines, two big slides that end at a sprinkler area, covered pavilion you can reserve and you have an amazing view of the city. 

One of the kids prerequisites is that the park had sidewalks for them to go around and around on with their scooters. Of course this ended up being the thing they did the least! 

  

I asked Zeke if he wanted to take his helmet off, but he said nope. He certainly was the safest kid there! 

There were so many different fun challenging things to do at the play structure area. 

Climbing the rainbow ladder! 

My cute boys are still so light they couldn't really move the seesaw very well so I ended up standing in the middle and moving it for them....man that's a workout! 

This thing was hilarious....I was trying to show Owen how to hold onto the chain rope and step on the foot holds and then pull himself up to the next level. He did fine on the first and second ones and then he freaked out. I told him that he was closer to the top than the bottom and then I helped give him a shove. When he got all the way up he didn't want to us these monkey bar type things to come down so what did he do.....he just jumped! Seriously child!! 

Taking a rest from all the playing! 

Ella was so excited there was a climbing wall that she could do! 

Cute cheeser! 

These kids really did have so much fun...climbing....

swinging...

sliding...

navigating...

challenging...

overcoming...

and balancing on all sorts of fun contraptions! 

This is Ella's go to outfit! She loves this black tank top of hers. The funny thing was later on at the park we saw a girl that was maybe 5 years older than Ella in the exact same outfit! I almost asked her to pose for a picture with Ella, but then figured she'd probably think I was a weirdo!

This thing is the craziest thing ever. It's one of those buckets you sit in and then from the weight of your body and the way it's positioned it just keeps spinning and spinning. When we first got there this was Ella's first choice of what to play with. Michael and I were sitting on a bench a little bit away from her so we could keep an eye on Zeke riding his scooter and see the whole play area. We were watching her going around and around and around and around. Poor thing could not stop herself! She didn't even cry out! Michael ran over there and stopped her and her head kept leaning to one side...she was so dizzy! She's had issues in the past with spinning or flipping over due to her Hydrocephalus, but over than being dizzy she got over it fairly quickly. I did ask her why she didn't cry out and she said, "I was too scared!" 

Cute red face from playing so hard! 

The next thing we went to explore were the ziplines. 

Each of the older boys went 3 times and had lots of fun, but the big slides were right next to the ziplines and they wanted to give those a try. 

One of the slides is a tunnel and the other is open. Of course the kids favor the tunnel slide! 

For added exercise you can just climb up the hill instead of taking the stairs. 

Here's the whole view of the slide/sprinkler park area. There were some older kids there and they were coming down on their bikes from the top of the area where the tunnel slide is. 

Of course I didn't bring the kids swim clothes! 

I told the kids to only get their feet wet and for the older kids that's possible because you know their legs are longer, but for this cute shrimpo that has barely any legs it was impossible for him to only get his toes wet without getting his shorts wet. 

Of course he was soaked! 

Owen really wanted to ride his bike up the hill that was next to us and then come back down so he was doing that while the other kids were playing in the water. 

They even started riding their scooters through the water. We stayed for a couple of hours and had so much fun! One of the things I noticed that stood out to me was the fact that we were in Seattle, but I never once heard a bad word, I never saw any street people, I never heard any fighting and I never saw any sort of questionable behavior. There were just lots of families with their kids enjoying a beautiful day at the park. Loved it!!!! This is definitely a park we will be coming to again and again!