@@ >-----------------------------------------< @@ | date: Mon 07 Sep 2026 03:05:04 PM PDT | @@@ | subj: at the park | @@@ | auth: bbsing | @@ | doc#: 92 ------------------------ | @@ >-----------------------------------------< ------------------------------------------------------------ I'm still a bit ill today, but significantly better than yesterday. I thought the end of all good feeling had grabbed hold of me, but I'm really glad it hasn't. ------------------------------------------------------------ This document will be a bit more than just about the part. At the park is important enough. We've found a park we like. Oak Harbor has a great park for kids two years of age and up. The last couple of days we've visited this park, and compared to the parks near our home, this park is the best. I don't like the cost of fuel to get to the park, but my wife likes going for car rides and that is nice. I like the rides too sometimes, when I don't think of fuel costs. Costs are on a lot of people's minds today as everything has started to cost a lot, but if a one can get one's family to the park and back, the rest is free. The kids need extra doings throughout the day. Being locked up in our home all day ignoring their toys, watching sick tired parents attempting to recharge for the workweek ahead is not in a one-year-old's understanding. For them they can hardly even sit on one position for more than thirty seconds, and if you are our daughter, it might be ten seconds. At the park they can be happy and free, and run from one new novelty to the next. The slide was immediately caught my daughter's attention today. She headed straight for the stairs on the slide. Like ours at home to enter our main living area, one must traverse stairs, and at times when we return from being outside, we place our children at the bottom of the stairs, and let them climb each step. From the brief training our daughter has at home with confidence and a smile she climbs the steps to the top of the slide. I set her at down on her bottom at the top of the slide, and give her a light push. Away she goes wiping the rain drops on the way down. She lands perfectly. I help her up, she grins, and does her best Frankenstein run back to the base of the slide stairs, she is ready for another ride on the slide. She is happy and doing well as a person which makes me happy. My son has found his spot at the park. He likes doing things that work. Yesterday mom showed up how to load the wood chip feed. The woodchip feed is a little shop-like structure, nearly five feet tall, a-frame sloping yellow roof, blue sides, and red three-quarter inch framing. In the shop there is a feeder, like an upside down megaphone attached to the frame by holes going through the top of the funnel, so the operator can either flip the funnel, or let the wood chips trickle through; which they will if you are a one year old operator. The child operator can place a catch cart under the funnel or let the wood chips fall back to the ground. The catch cart resembles the top part of a mining cart used in ore extraction operations. It is attached to the lower part of the red frame via holes at the center axis of the cart like those old ones in the mines. The bucket can slide back and forth allowing the operator to line up the funnel with the loading cart. Since my wife took our daughter onto explore some things, I hung out with our son, and helped him load the mining cart. He likes picking up the wood chips, putting them into the funnel, and when its full enough dump it all into the cart. He can do this for awhile, figuring out how it all works. Later he saw his sister heading back up the stairs at the slide, and he decided he would give it a try. Out of the workshop and off to the slide he walks smiling. He seems happy to try the slide. It took him a couple tries, and once he got to the top he decided its better to just hang out at the top. With both kids at the top of the slide platform they seemed to have found the platform as their new hangout for the moment. After a few moments, our daughter slides down. Then her brother tries with some helpful pushes from dad. He slides down, his foot catches the landing, and he plants his face into some wood chips. I don't think he understood if this is part of the fun. He picks himself up, and I dust him off, and remove the wood chips from his mouth. I pick him up and put him directly on the slide so he can have a better experience. This time he slides down and lands correctly. Fifty Fifty in his mind. He walks back to the base of the slid steps, attempts climb them, and another older boy climbs past him. My son decides only a couple steps are as far as he wants to go. He tries to turn around, and go face first downward, but I turn him around and help him down the stairs so he climbs back down. Enough of the slide today. The kids are running out of steam as their nap time is approaching. We try a few other things and not too much is keeping them happy. Mom joins son at the ship rudder steerage. The uneven woodchips catches our son's foot, and he bumps his face on the steerage. This is the end of the park fun.