Parks, Trails and Picnics
Guest blogger and mother of two, Traci, returns to talk about how her family is choosing to enjoy summer in Central Wisconsin.
How to choose?
There are so many great parks, trails and outdoor events in Central Wisconsin in the summer that we could easily fill every minute of the day with something. However, since our kids are newly two and almost four my husband and I make a conscious effort to choose activities and locations that we think the kids will enjoy long enough to let us enjoy them as well.
Running is more fun with the family!
We quickly realized at the beginning of the summer season that our kids love the Wausau Farmers Market, so we recently decided to expand on our weekly farmers market trip by adding a run, playtime and picnic at Oak Island Park to the morning!
Enjoying cinnamon rolls and muffins in the stroller.
Preparations
As any parent knows an outing with kids involves preparation and packing the appropriate items. So before we ventured out for our morning of fun we slathered on the sunscreen, packed up the diaper bag with more wipes than we thought we’d need and loaded the double stroller into our vehicle. We told our children multiple times that first we were going to go for a run, then we’d pick out some yummy fresh baked breakfast food for a picnic and that after they ate they could play on the playground. We wanted to make sure they had a clear expectation for the day.
Picnic Time!
After a short run, which worked out well for both the kids hungry tummies and my ability to manuever the double jogging stroller around around the park, we let our kids pick out some delicious bakery items from Helene’s Hilltop Orchard’s booth at the farmers market that we then took back to the park for our breakfast picnic. For us, it’s easier to pick up food for a picnic versus trying to pack a picnic. This way the kids can pick out what they want and I won’t pack something ‘yucky’ and it becomes more of a special event for them. Since toddlers and preschoolers have strong opinions about everything, when they said they wanted to eat in the stroller we went with it.
The Oak Island Park playground was a huge hit!
Play time!
I’m very glad I decided to pack extra wipes! Cinnamon rolls and frosting make for very messy children. Both kids were super excited to play on the new equipment at Oak Island Park and started talking about it as soon as we got there, but they did eat their food first like we discussed. As a mom, I love the foam ‘floor’ at this park. It’s nice and soft when they inevitably fall down and it’s so much cleaner than getting sand everywhere. We’ll visit the Oak Island Park again for sure!
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