Really, I do. I love plans. I love when they work, I love making them, I love plans. Today’s Memorial Day outing would have gone the same without a plan. *Sigh*
Disclaimer: I realize today is Memorial Day. I knew going places was going to be crowded. I had even steeled myself to be calm, not to stress and to basically just have fun. I just wanted to say that. This has nothing to do with me not knowing other families were going to be out.
I will admit that I was a bit indecisive with my plans for today. I had thought about taking the boys to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium since I’ve been trying to get them down there for a year, but then someone asked if I really wanted to drive there and back in Memorial Day traffic. Ummm…no. Okay, next plan.
I thought about the Woodland Park Zoo or the Seattle Aquarium, but I spent a little too much this weekend and decided that maybe spending the money for either of those wasn’t the wisest plan. So, that left going to a park. Not a problem, the boys and I make a game out of going to parks we’ve never been too. We take snacks, plan to be gone most of the day and generally have a good time.
Today I thought it would be fun to go to a new park in the northern part of town. We had found the park (playground section) previously, but it was rumored to have beach access. The boys had on their swimsuits, had their buckets and shovels. They were all set. My Mom graciously decided to go with us and she drove. :)
On the way, Grandma decided that we should stop at McDonald’s for ice cream. The boys were thrilled. They both got chocolate dipped cones. K thought his was great. I’m not sure if D actually ate more than 2 bites, however it did melt and drip all over him, his car seat and Mom’s back seat before he decided it was okay for Mom to throw it away. Boy did he need a little time in the water to clean him up.
We find the playground part of the park and decide to venture down this little road next to it that had a sign saying “No Access. Local Access Only”. We wind our way down this hill and at the very bottom, in the middle of a sharp turn is a little drive barely two cars wide. As we are passing said drive I happen to see a little sign that says “Park Hours”. Whoops, we missed it. We drive a bit to somewhere we can turn around and then head back down. We get to the parking area and it is full. Packed, not a space to be found. I was expecting a large parking area, but nooooo. This place holds maybe 75 cars. Who the heck makes parking for one of the only sandy beaches in the area that only holds 75 cars! Idiots. This is supposed to be the oldest bathing beach in this part of the city. Maybe the parking area held more horse and buggies. So we make our way out of the parking area (no easy feat as there is no turn around area and after explaining to the boys that no, we can’t take the parking space that someone it pulling out of because someone is waiting for it with their blinker on) we head for Plan B. (Oh, we also passed about 20 cars coming into the same little parking area as we were leaving. Really, city planners can be idiots)
Plan B (after much discussion and cell phone surfing) became heading to Mukilteo Beach. We pull in and…NO PARKING there either. Arrgghhhh. I haven’t even had time to get frustrated by all the people milling about because we can’t get out of the car! I can’t even blame poor design for this since it has tons of parking. It was just insanely busy. So after a lovely tour of the parking area, including the newer area, we head off. At least the boys got to see a really long train go by as we took our tour so that was nice. :)
Back to Forest Park. Not a new park, but somewhere we don’t go very often. NO PARKING. People were parked on the edge of the road, down the steep hill, leading out of the park.
By this time we are getting a little hungry. I had packed the boys a light lunch but since by now they had been riding around in the car for 1.5 hours with the promise of a park, we decided to go into a McDonald’s (also because some of us had to use the restroom, but still. :) ) The boys were thrilled to be able to have a Happy Meal and other than the whole voice modulation thing, they did a great job and were really cute. Imagine, going to McDonald’s TWICE in one day. The thrill for them.
With no other knowledge of parks that had any sort of decent water access and being in the Northern part of town we decided to try a park on Lowell that I had found online. (cell phones with internet access can be so helpful). The boys had a great time. It was a new park. It had some features they hadn’t played on before. It had just enough kids that they had fun, but not so many that they were crawling all over each other. A great park to find.
So the day, while not as planned, was still very fun.
And we learned, courtesy of K, that when you are 100 you have to talk in ‘old person voice’ and say things like “Get off my lawn”.
I laughed so hard. I have no idea where he got that but it cracked me up.
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