Lafayette Park

There is a gorgeous park not far from our house called Lafayette Park.  It's part of the National Historic District of St. Louis called Lafayette Square.  We took the kids today to check out the park, take a walk, and play on the playground!

You can see the playground in the distance.  It's a good-sized playground.

Turtle!

You can't tell in the pictures, but instead of mulch, it has this soft, foamy-feeling ground around the playground that I LOVE.  I've only seen it in one park before, but I love it.  It's awesome stuff.

You can see Naomi running in the corner of the picture.  She loves the playground!

Climbing!

I am no photographer, but I tried to take some pictures of the park to show how pretty it is.  The pictures don't do it justice--it is a beautiful park!

There are swans!

Walking down to the water to see the swans.

The swans came right up to us as soon as we got to the water.  They thought we had food to feed them, but they were mistaken.

I love bridges.  This was my favorite part of the park.

It's so pretty!

The other thing I loved about the park was the houses on the streets surrounding the park.  The houses around the park were so gorgeous.  I tried to take some photos, but most of them were taken out of the car window as we were driving past, so they didn't turn out too great.  They're beautiful homes though!  

Living in center-city St. Louis isn't all bad!  :)

Flat Branch Park

The last park I am blogging about from Jess's visit is Flat Branch Park, which was actually the first one we visited.  Jess's first full day here was Thursday, and my playgroup had planned to meet up at Flat Branch Park, which has a free sprayground area.  This was the first time this summer I had attempted to take Naomi to play at a sprayground, so I was still hopeful that she would have fun.  But of course, she wanted nothing to do with the sprayground.  In fact, as we were walking on the sidewalk toward it, Naomi started shaking.  I was walking a good 5 feet behind her, and I could see her hands start shaking as we got closer to the sprayground.  Poor girl... I have no idea why she is so afraid!

There was a small (very small) playground area at the park, but it was pretty lame.  Naomi maybe went down the slide twice, and then she was done.  We took a few pictures, walked around a bit, and that was that.  I will say this about the park though--it is one of the prettiest parks I've been to.

We rated it as follows:

Attractiveness-- 4.5 stars
(Flowers, the cool bridge, landscaping, gazebo, stream... it was really pretty!)

Ease/Safety--  4 stars
(Because the park was so tiny, it was pretty easy to keep an eye on Naomi and follow her around.  We didn't give it a 5 because of the stream--the sidewalk went right up to the stream, so it would be easy (and tempting) for kids to run into the stream and play, but there were signs by the edge warning people not to touch or play in the water because it was so full of bacteria.  So that definitely takes the safety rating down a little.)

Playground Equipment Variety-- 1 star
(As I said, the playground was tiny and pretty pathetic)

 Fun/Coolness Factor--  3 stars
(I think Jess & I originally decided to give it a 4, but I just don't think it deserves that high of a rating.  It does have the sprayground, which is cool, and the neat bridge, and a gazebo, but that's really it.)

Parking-- 1 star
(There was one teeny tiny parking lot, which was full when we got there.  The only other parking we could find was metered parking, because this park is downtown, just a block or two from the main downtown street.  I never have change, so we had to drive to a store to get change.  Then I wasted 3 quarters paying for parking... definitely not worth it.)

Composite Rating-- 2.7 stars

So... not the best park.  Although if you wanted somewhere to take some cute pictures or if you wanted to play at the spraygrounds, it would definitely be a good place to go!

Shelter Gardens

Shelter Insurance, which is just around the corner from where we live, has a gorgeous gardens area on their property where you can go, for free, to walk around, have picnics, take pictures, etc.  I've wanted to go for a while, so I made Jess go with me when she was here!  It was gorgeous... I really want to go with Jacob for a picnic sometime (if we can find a friend willing to watch our kids for free... haha).

I liked that tree top left... I thought it was cool looking.

What is that thing in the top right?  I have no idea.

You can go inside that little schoolhouse, too.

 

Cosmo Park

Cosmo Park is the biggest park in Columbia.  And, lucky for us, it's just 5 minutes away from where we live now.  It's got a few playgrounds, one of which is HUGE, and then a ton of other stuff.  In fact, I think I'm just going to copy & paste the list from the website because it's so big:

7 picnic pavilions
Telephones at park entrance, soccer concession, Antimi Shelter, Rainbow concession, L.A.Nickell Clubhouse
Antimi Sports Complex - 4 lighted fields - 250' fences, 2 lighted fields - 200' fences, 2 T-ball fields - 110' fences
Cosmo Fitness Trail
Bear Creek Nature Area (leash-free area for dogs)
Cosmo Nature Trail
Columbia Skate Park
Bear Creek Trail Trailhead Access
2 - Fishing lakes (Nickell Lake and Antimi Lake - see map)
4 - Football fields
2 - Football/Lacrosse fields
12 - Horseshoe pits (lighted)
L.A. Nickell Golf Course - 18 holes
L.A. Nickell Clubhouse
Off-leash area for dogs
Steinberg Playground
2 - Playgrounds (1 at Rainbow Softball Complex, 1 near Nickell Shelter)
Rainbow Softball Center - 6 fields
Rhett's Run Mountain Bike Trail
Remote Control Car Track
Roller Hockey Rink
19 - Soccer fields
8 - Tennis courts (lighted)
7 - Volleyball courts (6-sand, 1-grass)
5 - Restrooms (open April 15 to October 15; Nickell/Lamb restroom open year round)

Yeah, it's huge... 533 acres... definitely one of the coolest parks I've ever been to. 

Jess & I really only spent time at the big playground. Based on our time there & the extra information from the website, this is how we rated Cosmo Park:

Attractiveness-- 3 stars
(It was pretty, but nothing fantastic or really special.  But it's such a huge park that I wouldn't expect them to have awesome landscaping over every inch of the park.)

Ease/Safety--1.5 stars
(This rating was mostly based on the big playground, because that's where I spend my time with the girls.  Because the playground is so huge and has so many different levels, separated by slides and stairs and ladders, it is nearly impossible to keep an eye on your kids, especially if you are pushing a stroller.  With a stroller, you can't even get to all of the levels, so I mostly avoid Cosmo park unless I am only taking Naomi or someone else is coming with me.)

Playground Equipment Variety--  5 stars
(I think if any playground deserves a 5, Cosmo Park does!)

This is a picture of the huge playground... you can't see some of it because of the trees, but it's still a cool pic.  I took this from the Columbia Parks & Rec website, here.

Fun/Coolness Factor--  4.5 stars
(The only thing that I can think of that Cosmo Park is lacking is some kind of water--there is no pool or lake or sprayground like at some of the other parks, so I feel like it can't quite get a 5.  It doesn't have everything.)

Parking--  4 stars
(They have lots of parking spread out throughout the park, but I couldn't give it a 5--the park is just too busy and too popular.  I won't even go to this park on the weekends because it's complete insanity.  The one and only Saturday I tried to go with Naomi, they actually had people directing traffic as you turned into the park.  I went around the roundabout and drove right back out again.  That kind of craziness just isn't worth it to me just to play at a playground.)

Composite Rating-- 3.6 stars

For such an awesome park, I feel like it should have a higher rating, but the low ease/safety score really brought down its average.

And finally, here are some of our photos from when Jess & I took the girls!

Aleta was exhausted & fell asleep in the stroller pretty quickly.

Naomi absolutely loves the swings.  90% of our time at the park is usually spent on the swings.

Some of the playground equipment...

This part is cool--it's like a deck area with a few different slides & some other toys, and then the deck area goes along other parts of the playground as well.

More of the playground equipment.

Knocking on the little "window"

Really long slides... Naomi loves these, but I get too tired to run up those stairs a million times.

 

Devil's Icebox

In the afternoon on Tuesday, once Jacob had gotten home from clinicals to watch the kiddos, Jess & I went to Rock Bridge Memorial State Park here in Columbia.  I can't believe I've never gone before--it was only about a 15 minute drive from where we live now, and from our old place, it wouldn't have taken more than 5 minutes to get there.  Jess & I went on a little hike (it was really more of a nature walk... barely a mile round trip) to the Devil's Icebox, which is a cave.  You can go down into the cave opening and splash around in the underground stream.  It was really cool down in the cave (I'm thinking somewhere in the 60s), which felt really nice after our mini-hike in the summer heat.

Down in the opening of the cave... thank goodness for flash--it was really dark.

Those are people who are down in the cave... we looked up through that crack when we were down there.

The stairs leading down into the cave opening. 

Part of the Devil's Icebox trail.