Village Green Park in Glen Ellyn

Place: Village Green Park
Location:  130 S. Lambert Road (south of Roosevelt Rd. and north of Butterfield Rd) in Glen Ellyn.
Type of Place: Park
Secret: There's a free splash park! Its small, but perfect for kids who can go back and forth, from the playground to the water, on hot summer days.
Appropriate ages: everyone
Cost: Free!

The latest playground I discovered was recommended to me by another blogger: Christine, who blogs at Kids Of DuPage. The playground there has the coolest jungle gym I have ever seen! Its shaped like a rocket ship (giving the park the nickname "Rocket Park") and has slides, stairs, bridges, and secret passages everywhere! Unfortunately, my camera died after fifteen minutes there, so I didn't get a ton of pictures. But this one pic may give you the general idea of how large and complicated the jungle gym is!

The next coolest thing is that there is also a small splash park! Its not huge like the other Glen Ellyn splash park where you have to pay $3.00 to get in, but it is still nice. Little kids simply enjoy it being water that they can run in and out of!
Here's Little Bear in last year's bathing suit, since her other two bathing suits were in the wash!

And same with Pufferfish! (We play in the water a lot...)

And now for the most important part... This place has nice, clean, indoor bathrooms! This is not only nice if you have kids like Pufferfish who constantly have to go potty, but it provides a place to change your kids' clothes if you want to put dry clothes on them before you head home.
We've already gone to Village Green Park several times this summer. I bring a lunch, and we can easily . spend five or six hours there! Its the perfect place to spend a lazy summer day

Atten Park In Wheaton

Place: Atten Park
Location:  1720 S. Wiesbrook in Wheaton
Type of Place: Park
Secret: You'll love the squishy padded ground, which is designed like a baseball field!
Appropriate ages: everyone
Cost: Free!

We got invited to a picnic at this park last week, and we were delighted to find an awesome new playground! This place has everything!
There is a really cool jungle gym wirh a ton of different climbing equipment!

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There is also a smaller tot lot for younger kids.

They loved playing restaurant in this little compartment.

Pufferfish and the other preschools adored this little see-saw, which just has a gentle bounce to it.

Of course they also both loved the swings! Pufferfish wanted a million underdogs! (This swing is one of those special swings for kids who can't hold their bodies up well in a regular swing, but Pufferfish loves to chill out in them. There are regular swings, and baby swings, as well!)

The large sand area is another favorite! It has diggers, and tunnels too!

I liked that the ground was very soft and squishy. It felt like the kids could fall from the sky, and they'd bounce! Of course thats probably not exactly true, but it is definitely very squishy! The ground is designed like a baseball field, which was very cute.



And the best part of all? The indoor bathrooms! Nice and clean, and a great "plus" for people who have kids with small bladders, or kids who are in various stages of potty training! There's a great picnic shelter too, so this is a place to keep in mind for playgroup get togethers and other events!

We're definitely adding this to our list of playgrounds to visit on a regular basis!

Lake Ellyn Park in Glen Ellyn

Place: Lake Ellyn Park
Location: 645 Lenox Road in Glen Ellyn (on Lenox Road at Linden Avenue) in northeast Glen Ellyn.
Type of Place: Park
Secret: Very cool park with a lake, tons of trees and picnic tables, an awesome playground, and indoor bathrooms!
Appropriate ages: everyone
Cost: Free!

Today is the first day of summer vacation! The kids and I headed to Lake Ellyn Park to spend the day. We got there at ten in the morning and stayed until three, with the kids playing happily the whole time!
One of my favorite things about this park was that it had a lot of trees and shade. It made me feel like I was at a park somewhere in the north wood, or camping or something! The lake added to that feeling.

Doesn't it look pretty and peaceful? I liked that the kids spent some time just playing among the trees and exploring down by the lake. (They found several snail shells, a feather, some cracked walnut shells, and a dead baby raccoon. They also loved throwing rocks and sticks into the lake, and watching a family of ducks!) If you've read books like Last Child In The Woods, you know that this kind of play is something kids can't get enough of. Unstructured time in nature is something most of us took for granted when we were kids, but its an actual novelty for kids today! I'm hoping to give my three as much time in nature as possible this summer!
Aside from the natural setting, Lake Ellyn also has a nice playground, with a tot lot as well as a big climbing structure for older kids. The kids loved the bigger structure because it included a zip line and a roller slide. (The roller slide was very popular among all the kids we saw on the playground!)
                                The big kid climbing structure

The tot lot

There are baby swings and big kid swings, a sand box with those steam shovel riding toys, and a ton of benches and picnic tables that families can use as their homebases.

 Another thing I really like about this park is that they have indoor bathrooms! This was extremely important to me because we were there for so long, and because Pufferfish goes to the bathroom especially often. I took a total of four trips to that bathroom... three for Pufferfish, and one for Little Bear and Rafael! The bathrooms were very clean and nice, like regular indoor bathrooms, not like your usual dilapidated bathrooms in parks. (Maybe I should have taken a picture of the bathroom!)
All in all, the kids and I really love Lake Ellyn Park, and I'm sure we'll be going back there a lot over the summer!

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