Putah Creek and Oxford Circle Parks

Two weeks ago I had to use our friends' washing machine to run a load of diapers.  I'd thought our washer wasn't working (turns out it IS, thank goodness, but I needed to fiddle with the dial a bit to get it going).

So while the diapers washed, Eddie and I went to Putah Creek Park near their house in South Davis.  It was a cool park, but the play structures could definitely use a major pressure-washing to get all the gunk off. 

Last week we went to Oxford Park, nicely situated near Trader Joe's where we stopped for some snacks and orange flavored chewable vitamin C (Dave's favorite).  This park's play area was quite small; it seems that the main function of the whole park area is for frisbee golf.  It is bordered by a giant frat house, off-campus undergraduate dorms, and lots of apartments.  As such, it was littered with empty beer cases and teenaged guys playing frisbee or talking on cell phones.  Eddie was absolutely enamored by the frisbee golf and would shout, "WATCH OUT!" every time a frisbee came within about 100 feet of us (which, by the way, was quite often since one of the frisbee catchers (or is it a goal???) was near the play structure). 

We'll definitely be visiting this park again.  The play structure was a rope course type thing (plus some really tall swings that I loved and a mini carrousel).  It took a few minutes for Eddie to get the hang of climbing on wobbly ropes instead of the standard rigid materials (wood, plastic, metal) but he was delighted when he figured it out.

This week it was raining so we went to the library instead of a park.  Eddie isn't really into reading (except at night), which stinks.  So while he was playing with the toys at the library, I offered to read a book to an adorable little 3 year old, whose own mom was busy trying to get a video of her little boy, who was taking his very first steps right there!  So we sat on a small bench and started reading a neat book about Monarch butterflies and how they overwinter in Mexican forests.  (Particularly interesting to me, since we spend a whole day talking about this in the forest class I teach.)  A few pages into the book, Eddie spies me "cheating" on him.  He ripped the book out of my hands and tried to push the little girl off the bench, away from me.  I offered to read to both of them, but he didn't like the book we were reading.  So he ran off to find a new book.  And of allllllllllllllll the books in the library, what does he choose?  A dinosaur book that we have at home.  Sigh.  What a little weirdo.