Allure of the City Park

Ahhh...the city park.  Like crack to a baby.  Not until I had a baby ( who's now 3 and no longer a baby) did I start taking notice of city parks, that or moving to Oregon - they have the most beautiful parks you'll ever see.  I spend most of my time either trying to find a new park for Ivy or trying to distract her from seeing the many parks we drive/walk by.  She doesn't quite understand that we can't stop and play in every park we walk or drive by, it's just not acceptable to her.  I swear, she has park radar and can sense one blocks away...like a drug sniffing dog.

Right now it's all about swinging.  Every once in awhile she'll attempt to slide, sometimes she actually does slide but mostly she doesn't trust all involved with the act of sliding: slides are a tall climb, steep, which leads to fast movement and they can be either wet, hot or both.  Not her idea of fun.  However with the swinging, if allowed, she could do for hours on end.  I love my daughter but get bored quickly with pushing her in the swing - I know, I'm awful.

We just moved to Salem about 2 months ago and found the greatest park - Bush Park. It has everything from jogging paths, multiple playgrounds, big beautiful trees, football field and a couple of public bathrooms (huge when you have young kids!)  The pictures above of Ivy swinging were taken at a park up the street from our apartment, not sure of the name but it's pretty great little park.  I'll have to take pictures at Bush's and add soon.

There are only about a million parks in Portland, but these are my fave by far:  Mt. Tabor , Laurelhurst & Cathedral Park

A few more pictures of Ivy at various parks: