An Outing to Franklin Park

Today I needed to pick up something I was purchasing on Craigslist, which brought us to Prairie Village. Prairie Village is probably one of the most inconvenient places for me to go in Johnson County so I do not get out that way very often at all. Yet I love it. If I were moving here from another town, that would probably be my first choice of where to live. I love the mature trees and older homes. Since I had to take the kids, I didn't want to just be in the car for an hour, so we went to Franklin Park.

This is a really nice park in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Johnson County. It has all these really great trees, two nice play areas, baby swings, big swings, a tire swing, a natural play area, a sand box, and a wading creek (in the summer). You really couldn't ask for more and if I weren't such a baby about driving more than 15 minutes from my house, it would probably be our go-to park.

All the kids really enjoyed playing here, and we also enjoyed the natural play area a lot.

The park had some toys that stay there permanently and Joshua really enjoyed playing with a dump truck he found and all the kids liked balancing on the logs. Hannah really enjoyed going into and out of the creek bed, which is currently only full of leaves and not water. We had a really fun time and it made it worth the trip since the place we were going was only 10 minutes away from the park.

Later in the day, we hit a big "First". Jason was a little late getting home because he had to pick up Natalie from the vet and the kids really wanted to go out. But I had to make dinner. So, with much encouragement from Jason, I let them go outside in the back by themselves. (Hannah was there too, but she was on the deck blowing bubbles during the pictures).

We have a fenced backyard on the end of a cul-de-sac and I could see them out the kitchen window, so it was pretty safe. And it went really well. They just played together in the leaves and dirt and were super happy. Normally while I make dinner they are just really disappointed that they can't go outside and argue the whole time, so this was better. Since it went really well, we might do it again sometime. When Jason is out of town, I don't really cook and we just go outside until it's dark and then make something really fast like sandwiches. But when he is in town, I try to cook dinner every night so this is a good option if he can't be home right at 5:30.