Park clean up

In our continuing effort to help others and do nice things in our community
we had our 2nd annual park clean up down at Blackhawk Park.

There is always a lot of trash floating around which is quite frustrating since there are trash cans right at the end of the dock!

So, it was up to the SuperGirls to clean the water and the walkways.

First we had a short play time on the playground equipment.

Then we gathered to hand out gloves and talk about why we were picking up trash.












Since I was unable to find cute gardening gloves like last year, I bought some latex gloves and went to town with some sharpie markers.

I thought they looked darn cute!

The girls were eager to help. We talked about the reasons cleaning up the park was important even if we weren't the ones who left the mess.
Comments included:

So that ducks and fish and other wildlife wouldn't be harmed. 
So, it would look beautiful.
Because we should take care of our planet.

Off to a great start!

We took a good half hour to fill a large trash bag half way with all kinds of bottles, cans, cigarette butts,

rubber bands, candy wrappers, bobber and plastic bags.

Luckily Peyton was limber enough to climb into precarious places with the big long net.

As we headed back towards the main play area I started hearing a lot of whining.

I'm hotttttttt
I'm huuuuuunngryy
I'm tiiiiiiired

So, we decided to break for a snack.

I also felt like it was time for everyone to close their eyes for a moment, take a deep breath and envision in their heads the following scene:

You're laying in a hospital room, hooked up to tubes and you have a cast on half of your body. You're really sick and can't eat or even sit up.

After they had this image in their head they could open their eyes, look around at all of their friends and feel the sun and a breeze on their faces.

Whoah! Awesome! Smiles all around!

I told them it was time to quit complaining because if they were in a hospital, like so many children were at that very moment, they would give anything to be out at a park with their friends!










It was good reminder to be grateful for our health and the fact that we were able to walk around and see all of that beauty on a sunny day.

I didn't see any eye rolling and they all seemed to buck up for the rest of our time together. We went back to the trail by the lake and walked and talked and climbed hills and pointed out dragonflies and other cool stuff we saw.

They definitely wanted to make it back to the playground for some free time so we headed back that way.
After a few minutes, we were surprised by Greta's mom who brought little ice cream cups for everyone. What a fun treat!

And, it was a nice way to wrap up our time together around the picnic table before it was time to go home.

Only three weeks left!

I know some will be gone in the next couple of Fridays so maybe we'll have a grand finale pizza party some weekend night.

I'll keep you all posted.