Stephen's Lake Park

I kept forgetting to charge my camera, so for most of my adventures with Jess, we had to use hers, which means I don't have any of the pictures yet!  So my blog posts from the past week are going to be a bit out of order since I can't blog about most of our fun until I get the pictures from Jess.

Columbia has an amazing park system.  Until recently, we were not taking advantage of this.  So Naomi and I have been trying lately to visit some of the different parks and take advantage of everything they have to offer. There are about 70 different parks/trails/community centers listed on Columbia's Parks & Rec website.  On this park map, taken from the website, you can see all of the parks here in Columbia.  Every dark green spot is a different city park, and the big brown area at the bottom is Rock Bridge Memorial State Park.

While Jess was here, we came up with a Park Rating System to help us rate the parks and decide which ones are the best.  We rated each park from 1 to 5 stars in 5 different categories:  Attractiveness, Playground Equipment Variety, Ease/Safety, Fun/Coolness Factor, and Parking.  Then we averaged the scores together to come up with the park's composite score.  For attractiveness, we rated the parks on how pretty the landscaping and layout was.  Playground equipment variety is pretty much self-explanatory.  With ease/safety, I was rating the park on how easy it is to get around the park and watch your children to make sure they were safe.  For me, that included how easy it is to get around the park with a stroller, since I have Aleta.  For the fun/coolness factor, we rated the extra features of the park--what did they offer in addition to playgrounds?  And for parking, is there enough parking, and do they have parking close to all of the most popular features of the park?

This past Tuesday, we visited Stephen's Lake Park, which I think is now my favorite park in Columbia.  It has 3 different playgrounds, one of which I had been to before with the girls.  We only took the time to see one of the playgrounds on Tuesday, so there is still one playground there that I haven't seen yet.  Stephen's Lake Park also has a big lake with a free beach/swimming area and free spraygrounds, which Jacob and I unsuccessfully tried to take Naomi to last summer, and she cried and screamed the whole time we were there.  (By the way, Jess & I attempted to walk by the spraygrounds when we were there on Monday, and Naomi got so scared when we were still 20 feet away that she started whimpering and crying in her seat in the stroller.  I don't know how I'm ever going to get her over this weird fear she has!)

Naomi really liked this thing... you hit the keys & it plays the note.

Naomi made some friends at the park.

She wasn't quite sure what to do with the climbing wall.

Stephen's Lake Park also has a few pavilions (including an indoor pavilion), an amphitheater, 2 waterfalls, a sledding hill, an island and boardwalk, an open playfield, and 2 hard-surface walking trails--one around the lake and one around the entire park.  We walked around the trails a bit and walked out to the island on the boardwalk in addition to playing at the playground.  We also passed an $80,000 discovery garden project that is still under construction.

Jess & I were pretty strict with our park ratings... no park gets a 5 in any category unless it's totally awesome and we really think it deserves it!  After much thought and deliberation, Jess and I gave Stephen's Lake Park the following ratings:

Attractiveness--4 stars
(It was definitely a pretty park, especially the lake area, but it wasn't the most amazing park ever.)

Ease/Safety-- 4 stars
(At the playground, it was pretty easy to follow Naomi around with the stroller and make sure she was ok.  Because of the big lake, there are definitely areas where your kids could fall or jump in, so we didn't feel it deserved a 5.  But of course, at any park, you have to keep an eye on your kids!)

Playground Equipment Variety-- 4 stars
(With 3 separate playgrounds, they definitely have a lot to choose from, but it wasn't a 5.  We did give one park a 5, but you will have to wait to hear about that one!)

Some of the playground equipment we played on.

Fun/Coolness Factor-- 4.5 stars (We decided on 4 originally, but I upped it to 4.5... I can do that, because this is my blog!  With everything the park offers, I felt they deserved 4.5.  It's a pretty cool park!)

Boardwalk/Island

Boardwalk/Island

Spraygrounds/Beach area

Another shot of the island

Spraygrounds--this picture was from the website, here

Parking-- 4 stars (They had good-sized parking lots by each part of the park, and we didn't have any trouble finding parking.  I am betting on weekend summer days, however, it can be tough to find good parking by the lake/spraygrounds.)

Composite Rating-- 4.1 stars!.