A Saturday At The Park

Today we took our younger four children with us on our walk to a local park. It's a long walk, but we saw thousands of tadpoles there a couple of weeks ago, so we were hoping the kids would get to see lots of frogs today.

Some of the houses we saw on the way there had some pretty flowers in their gardens.



It was a long walk to get to the park.



We finally made it to the park. There weren't any frogs, but there was a lot of clover.



I was hoping to spot a four-leaf clover, but no such luck.



There was a tire swing and a rope swing at the park. Connor tried them both out. Gabby decided to explore the area around instead. Bella tried the swings and did some exploring too.







Cameron enjoyed himself, even though he didn't do all of the exploring and playing that the others got to do.



There was a lot of nature for the children to explore.







Today, the local farms were shearing the sheep. The children loved getting to see the sheep, and they even watched a couple of the sheep get rid of their heavy wool.







There were a few benches along the way, and the children were quick to make use of them.





When we got to the lake, we gave the children some bread to feed the ducks with. The lake's two swans swam over to us and brought along their three little signets.






The park's Magic Kingdom was open. It is full of sculptures of giant toadstools and snails as well as other fungi displays.






We hadn't realized that the BBC was holding a Breathing Places event at the park today, but since they were there, we took the kids to see some of the displays.



At the beekeeper's stand, the kids got to try and spot the queen bee.



Another stand had a live owl.



There were other stands too. One of them was a stand where the kids could get free face-painting. Gabby is the only one who decided to have her face painted.



There was an herb garden with an interesting center-piece.



The kids got to bring home keychains with hedgehog pictures on them, booklets that explained about different things in nature and a few other things. Then it was time to head home again.



Of course, the kids still found some last-minute opportunities to explore before we got home.



Though Cameron had not run around as much as his brother and sisters, it was getting close to his naptime, so he was starting to get tired.



Connor started to get tired too, but he already had the solution in mind.



I thought it would be a good idea to show that I had actually come along with the kids on this walk to the park and lake, so I stopped so that Robert could take a quick picture.



Our walk to the park and around it and home again usually takes Robert and I 2 hours, sometimes less. With the kids along, and adding in stopping at some of the stands, it took us 3 1/2 hours. It was worth it to take the children out for such a fun day, and the family got some good exercise at the same time!