Our Summer Park Quest Begins!

We enjoy a good park. Now that the weather is back to delightful (gotta love Florida) we are on the go exploring all the amazing outdoor spaces around town. I am always looking for good inspiration for the girls, the blog and I found it yesterday hazily skimming through Facebook. A mom of three who lives in Northern Pinellas wrote about her adventures visiting over 90 parks in the last two summers.

We have a lot of great parks on our side of town too! Of course, I am now intrigued to visit a few on her TOP 6 list, but today I share about a hidden treasure, Crisp Park and a park I never knew even existed, Freedom Park.

Yestersday afternoon was gorgeous. We ate dinner and went to the park. We had a couple of errands to run so we ended up at Crisp Park which is tucked away in a neighborhood that is in between Shore Acres and 1st Street N. 620 - 37th Avenue NE St. Petersburg, Florida. The playground is almost completely under shade and it is fenced in. If you are taking toddlers or multiple young kids the fence is amazing, because they are contained. The playground is filled with black rubber pieces which is really springy and fun to run around in. Vivian enjoyed the texture of it and playing with it. She resisted putting it in her mouth which was shocking because Lydia at age just ate it.

The equipment is newer and there are two major structures in the playground area. There is a basket ball court, and a boat ramp. Lydia always loves to take a look at the water. Last night we spent a little time throwing sticks in the water, see who could throw the farthest. There are big fields for running and there is an open restroom which is handy for little ones and potty training. We went to a big church egg hunt at this park which was really great.

A few weeks back, we met some friends at Freedom Park located in Pinellas Park on 9990 46th Street. It is tucked away under an over pass behind Bill Jackson's if you are from the the area. The playground area is sandwiched between a pond and a road that runs through the 40 acre memorial park. For our toddlers it was hard not to run towards both of these potentially dangerous places. There were some usual suspects too that clearly didn't have any kids but as a public open park with bike and running trail, there is a bit of that to be expected. I would say this park is best for adults since it also has a large area that have exercise equipment.

The girls love it. It was new and it had a great underneath the play structure area which they repeatedly ran through, but I am not sure if us mommies would be returning anytime very soon. We were glad to check it out, but would have like the playground to be slightly more isolated mostly for safety because kids are fast and though we were by them every second, you never know. There was a cool climbing structure and definitely plenty of picnic areas if that is something that you are looking for.

My goal begining yesterday until the end of August is that we make it to 50 different parks! We are well on our way!