Eisenhower Park

the tot lot

I really wanted to love this Eisenhower Park. We have driven by it so many times and I looked longingly at the big duck pond and expanse of green space. We finally decided to go check it out Memorial Day weekend.

Yeah, Memorial Day weekend. So the park was packed - which is fine with us, except that it was also fairly trashed. I am not sure if it is always this way or just the result of a busy weekend.

The park is SO big. It has great green space to run around in. It doesn't have a ton of shade and Monday was HOT. There were several shady places, but they were pretty well staked out for holiday gatherings. The playgrounds were nice. The duck pond was scummy and had trash floating in it. But the ducks were fun to watch. I didn't see any swings.

more of the tot lot

Also, there were a couple of small, dedicated parking lots for the park, but they were all packed, and the neighboring shopping center had up a fence between it and the park (presumably) to keep

Our toddler had toy envy, and we weren't sure how to handle the situation. Normally we just tell him the toys aren't ours and encourage him to play with the ones we brought or head back to the playground, but my mom was with us and encouraged us to see if the other kids (er, parents) would share. So we let him borrow a ride-on toy we came across that didn't seem to have an owner in the immediate vicinity and kept an eye out to see if anyone claimed it so we could ask permission. Eventually one little girl stared me down and tried to tell me (I think... we were literally not speaking the same language and I had to think back to my high school days to ask her if the toy was hers) that the toy was her brother's. How does your family handle toy envy?

big kid play structure

Anyway, I can't say that we will be planning to return to this park, but one day we may have to give it another try...