Afternoon Fun...

The boys have spent a lot of time playing out front this week, usually riding their bikes or scooters up and around the cul-de-sac.  They also like to get out the buckets and their water shooters for some fun. 

Today, they had the hose and buckets out and were attempting to make waterfalls on the rocks.  

They really like Grandma & Grandpa's new water fall and think we should have one too. 

 I've been in and out of the office today working on Tyler's soccer banner...

 I'm very close to finishing the painting so I can get it all put together, Yay!

Then it's time to move onto the next project...

Sports backpacks for the boys.  

Back for another session of swim lessons....

Monday we started another session of swim lessons for both boys. 

If you have been following along on Facebook you'll know that Tyler has not had the best start to his Saturday sessions.  The first 2 weeks were awful, wouldn't listen and just would not do anything the instructor asked of him.  Before his 3rd lesson we had some talks, he lost some privileges and I even added a Disneyland sucker as a bribe minutes before his class started.  Something worked and he was a rock star in class.  The instructor even made a point to see us after class and let him know he did a great job and she was proud of him.  So we do still have 2 Saturday lessons to go. 

To get him going a bit more, we are overlapping a two week morning session with his Saturday class.  It is the same class he's in on Saturdays, but a different set of instructors.  So far so good!  He responded right away to his instructor and continues to be a rock star.  (It helps that she's a cute, blonde, and kinda looks like his favorite gymnastics coach)

Bobs...

 Learning about streamline hands...

 

 Practicing streamline arms with kicks....

 Being shown how to do freestyle arms...

 His second day went well, really going after the freestyle stroke.  They also had a chance in the shallower water to dive for rings.  Yay for swimming!

Cody is also back for another session.  We've spent some time the last couple of weeks working on his back swimming and he's getting better. 

Working on his streamline...

 Jump to freestyle...

They also work on diving in this class and he's struggling with this quite a bit.  Hopefully we can figure out the right words to explain it better for him to be able to figure it out.  It would also help for us to be able to get over to the OV pool so he has a chance to practice in the deeper water. 

Someday, it will all come together....

Over the past few months, the office has become a dumping area.  My dumping area.  It's caused me anxiety to even walk through the door, even when it's just a bee line to the computer.  
So, I've finally made a bit of headway and have usable space again!  Hooray! 

The first project to get finished was moving the shelves in the closet so that it's more usable.

 

 Also taking time to organizing all the wrapping paper, bows, bags and tissue.  Before, if you tried to get anything out, one thing turned into a fall of a hundred bits and pieces. 

 

 Ooo, tables with open spaces to actually work on!

 I also took the toss and condense method to heart when organizing the shelves.  

They really are not organized at all, but it's condensed and fits!

  The cabinet now has a set of wire shelves for fabric and enough room for the paper cart to slide in and be tucked. 

A big step was taken with the Cricut cartridge boxes.  

They were all thrown away!

 For some reason I've felt the need to hold onto them, you know in case I bump my head and decided to offload Cricut and all the cartridges.  (That's just laughable!)  So they are now gone.  Freeing up an nice little chunk of shelf space.  

Now, it's not finished by any means.  

This space is still a bit of a head scratcher.  The chest of drawers peaking out on the right needs to be gone through as well. 

I do have ideas though....

Plastic shoe boxes and my label maker to organize things better. 

 Maybe even some canning jars on shelves...

 or hanging them on a magnet strip kinda like this...

 Cropper Hopper ribbon cards to get rid of the millions of spools.

 I'm also thinking of getting a bar or two like this from Ikea to hang for things like scissors, markers, pencils, etc. 

 I would also like to get something like this to hang my thread on the wall. 

Then I walk out into the living room and the yard sale/give away/find someone awesome to take over this amazing item pile.  Gah!

 

So yeah, someday it will all come together. 

Forgotten Splash Park...

I forgot a splash park on the great review! 

 Peter Bertelsen Memorial Park located on 831 Redwood Ln in EDH

 Nice play structure with swings.

 Small spray yard, but nice covered picnic area. 

 The only problem is that you can't sit at the picnic area and still see the play structure.

 So, bring a chair for the grass (usually a little damp) and you can sit right between the spray yard and the play structure. 

 This park also has a nice parking lot and really nice, clean bathrooms.  

We never just go to this park, but if we are up for a movie, we go afterwards for a picnic and play.  We visited it today after seeing Marmaduke at the $1 showing, the El Dorado Hills Regal theater is one of my favorites.  

Slip N Slide...

Tyler has been asking to get the slip n slide out, but our back yard isn't in the best shape for sliding.  So I finally decided to just put it out front!  He had a great time. 

 Cody was being a turkey and didn't want to get wet, so he missed out on all the fun! 

Our review of some local splash parks.....

Alright local friends, here is the Scollay Family review of some of the free splash parks in our area:

 (oh, and please enjoy this trip down memory lane, as you will see)

We'll start our tour in Rancho Cordova at one of our favorites.

Stone Creek Park, Spoto Dr (just off Zinfandel) 

This park is in a nice area with lots of parking and fairly clean restrooms.

There is a nice covered picnic area, although a bit back from the water area.  The rest is covered in nice grassy areas that are prefect for setting up a shade canopy.  They also have benches around if you do not want to pack in your own chairs, but most are in the open sun.  

The play structure is a lot of fun, with nice climbing areas. 

They offer a nice spray pad with water that sprinklers that shoot in all directions.  

That would be a 5 year old Cody enjoying the water...

also a 23 month old Tyler...

They also have a nice sand area with diggers, 3 year old Tyler approved...

Another fun thing about this park is it's right by the air base, so you get to see all kinds of planes go by as you play. 

The Village Green Park located at 3141 Bridgeway Dr 

Behind the Lowe's off of Zinfandel

The park is just a spray yard, although it also has a lot of nice grass to play in.  There are nice bathrooms and covered tables to hang out for lunch.  Parking is along the street, but it's in a residential townhouse development, so the traffic isn't too bad. 

This is a nice place to go and cool off, maybe even host a simple party at!

Next we'll travel to Folsom.

John Kemp Community Park located at 1322 Bundrick Dr

There is a nice parking lot, frequented by the ice cream truck, nice bathrooms and a great covered picnic area.  Benches surround the spray pad for parents as well. 

The spray pad is a smaller one, but has lots of fun sprinklers.  

2 year old Tyler loved this place!

As did 4 year old Cody...

 

The next year, it was all about lying on the sprayers.  

There is a really nice play structure here as well. 

Livermore Community Park located at 6004 Riley St

This is one of our favorites.  The parking is nice, they have restrooms that are close, a shaded picnic area is available, and if you pack your chair or blanket there's lots of shade to sit under.  

This one is good for the big and little, with a giant water fall to play under, then the stream to sit in and run boats down or to fill your water shooter.  

3 year old Tyler showing off the water fall.

3 & 5 year old Tyler and Cody in the stream...

7 year old Cody is also a fan of the giant water fight that happens...

4 year old Ty getting in there as well...

This park also has a nice play structure and sand volleyball pits.  To be honest, we go for the water and have never played on either of these as they are off in another section of the park. 

The next part of the tour takes us to Roseville.  

Roseville's web page lists the next three parks as having water features, we didn't find this to be true.  

Mark White Park located at 504 6th St.  

This was not the best area, the parking was all on the street, and there wasn't a bathroom. 

The boys did have a bit of fun on the play structures...

We did finally find the button that was supposed to turn on the water, but could tell where the water was going to come from or what it would do.  We won't be going back to this one, ever. 

R.F. Rube Nelson Park located at 1213 S. Bluff Dr.  

This is a nice neighborhood park, street parking and no bathrooms.  There are some picnic tables, but not much shade. 

Small play structure and decent grassy areas.  

The water feature wasn't working or turned on, it was some kind of sprinkler that sprayed out of the frog.  Good for little ones, but not as much fun for the big ones. 

Leanoard Duke Davis Park located at 1460 Northpark Dr

This is a nice big park, lots of grass, street parking, good shady picnic area, but no bathrooms. 

The play structure was fun and they also have a half court basketball area. 

This stream is the water feature, that goes into a sand box, but again it wasn't on or working. 

They did have some pretty flowers around though...

Our final destination was to tour Rocklin.

Whitney Park located at 1801 Whitney Ranch Pkwy

This is where we entered the land of awesome.  

Big parking lot, nice bathrooms, 3 large covered picnic areas, with lots of other seating around.

The spray yard was a nice size with sprinklers and water shooters.

The play structure is one of the largest I've ever seen, the boys thought it was awesome! 

Fun! 

We will defiantly make a trip back to this park this summer, hopefully bringing some friends along.

Lone Tree Park located at 6101 W Oaks Blvd

Nice park with good parking, bathrooms, 4 covered picnic areas and lots of grass for your own chairs and shade canopy.  

This is the largest water pad of all the ones we've been to with sprinklers from the ground or above on poles, things to run under and water shooters. 

This also hosts another monster play structure that has some feature you don't always find, like a flat swing that goes in a circle. 

We have been here before.  Queue the Ahhhh....  

(11 month old Tyler)

2 1/2 year old Cody...

Memorial Park located at 3980 Rocklin Rd

A nice spray yard with all kinds of sprinklers.

A smaller play structure that was okay, but they have swings. 

We would like to thank you for making it this far on our splash park tour.  

Your tour guides after a day of research...

Looking around, there are also spray yards and even free play pools all around Sacramento.  We may venture out to the one in Land Park the next time we are down that way, but most are not ones we would go to.