adventure playground + giveaway winner

Last weekend our oldest daughter turned 12. As much as she's growing and changing and entering new stages, she's still a kid who loves to play and get messy. And I LOVE that.

I'd heard about Adventure Playground before and thought it sounded fun, but if I'd known it was this incredible, I'd have been taking the kids long before now. We had other plans for the day, but when they fell through at the last minute, it was decided we'd spend the day here. I think we were ALL thrilled with the way the day turned out. SO much fun. So inspiring. (You can click on pictures to enlarge for detail.)

This is a place where you don't just play on the playground equipment... you get to help build it! You can hammer, saw, paint, and let your imagination run wild. So so great.

Mercy was the princess of this castle. I so want a castle like that in our back yard!

This was an old row boat. For a while the little ones had fun playing inside it, then they took to painting the outside. They use tempera paint, which is washable, so it not only comes out of clothes, but when it rains, I imagine the "canvases" of the playground are wiped clear, for new masterpieces to be created.

I was so inspired as I looked around and noticed all the beauty. And as I watched our kids, strangers' kids, lots and lots of kids.. building, creating, taking pride in their work and so excited and empowered because they weren't given limits. They were able to imagine and transform the space to their hearts content. Now I'm on a mission to gather materials and allow some free creating to happen in our back yard. The kids had already started on a tree house, complete with rope ladder.

Now we're inspired to create a whole new play space.

On to the winner of a print from my shop:

Brooklyn helped me. All names went into a bowl, and very carefully...

she chose a winner...
and the winner is:

Jamie PA said...

I am inspired to make the most out of this day as I hear about a young friend of mine agonizing with the return of his aggressive cancer.

Jaime, send me an email letting me know which print you'd like, along with your address and I'll get them off to you asap!