Summer Adventures 2013, Week 1
I first heard about the book Adventures Around Cincinnati when I was pregnant with Sam. One of the authors spoke at a MOPS meeting I’d been invited to and I was hooked on the idea. What idea? The idea to plan regular, fun activities for your kids, to make memories and traditions, to give your kids new experiences, and to be intentional about it. Anything new and interesting can be an adventure! Fast-forward two years and my little guy is finally big enough to start going on adventures. We’re going to follow the example of the book (which is a great guide to unique and memorable places for kids in the Cincinnati area, including side trips to Dayton, Columbus, and Indianapolis) and do weekly adventures this summer.
Since Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer around here, and I was eager to get a start on adventuring, we kicked off the summer with lots of activity in the last week of May. First stop: Pleasant Ridge Park and Sprayground the day after Memorial Day.
Sam was not so sure about the sprayground. I thought he’d love it since he’d been asking to go see it when we visited the playground next door. He’s not a fan of water in his face and kept focusing on the (closed) pool behind us. He stood in the general vicinity of the spray for awhile and liked watching the buckets drop water (two pictures up). We’ll have to try again later in the summer since the sprayground is free and has longer hours than the pool.
We moved over to the playground and he was all about that. We love this playground because it’s one of those with a large wooden climbing structure with lots of nooks and crannies to explore. It was closed most of the spring for repairs and we’re very glad it’s open again since it’s not very far from our house.
That would have been enough for a normal week, but like I said, we decided to kick things off big our first week. Jeff took Wednesday off of work for us to have a zoo family adventure. (We wanted to go all together over the weekend, but decided the crowds would be too crazy with the holiday.)
This beautiful giraffe family is especially popular at the Cincinnati Zoo right now. Baby Lulu was born last October and she’s something of a zoo celebrity.
It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I was super excited to see Lulu nursing!
Lunch break!
Last stop: zoo train! Sam was pretty tired by this time, but he does love the train. He started to meltdown when we had to get off, and then I went and hit his head on the roof of the train getting out. #parentingfail
All in all it was a great visit and a fun way to kick off our summer. These are also the last pictures before Sam’s first haircut so they’re making me nostalgic already. More adventures to come!
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Hi Sarah! Y’all look great! It’s nice to see your faces again after a little break there. (I don’t think all your pics uploaded correctly though). I’m really inspired by the idea of looking for more adventures, even for a toddler. There are lots of cool things to do around Vancouver that I know I’m going to regret missing out on if I don’t get my act together soon.
I haven’t even been to the beach with Lucy yet this year!
GORGEOUS giraffe photos. The colors are great.
I think it’ll be great to see what all you can do and such. Always great to see the things near you that you never go see. I did that last week while visiting my parents.
Great article.