Birthday party fun

One of the little girls in the Noodle's class just celebrated her birthday.  Fun times!  The place of the party was at a great big store where they sell playground equipment.  The goal?  To encourage the kiddos try out the goods--let them play, jump, clamber, climb...and then beg, plead and guilt the parents into dropping a couple grand on this super cool playground stuff (I kid). 

But seriously, backyard playsets have come along way since I was a kid growin' up in the eighties...remember how if you got to swinging too high, the whole set would bounce around?  Good times!  Actually, our little family didn't even have a playset.  My dad made us a wooden rectangular swing, drilled a hole in the middle of it, covered it with canvas and then suspended it from a tree.  I use to love swinging on that swing!

By far the Noodle's favorite thing to do there was bounce around on the huge trampoline.  They also had one of those small mini-tramps (more for exercise purposes...I guess?!)  but she informed me that she didn't like that one because it didn't have the net and so it wasn't safe.  So true, sage one!  Safety first :)  The rock wall was also a hit, but she had a hard time figuring out how to use the rope with the wall--as evidenced by her face.  Ha ha!  She'd rather just scamper up without it.

Sadly to say we will NEVER purchase one of these great, big sets because we have a postage stamp for a yard.  Seriously.  Most of them were bigger than our garden!  Oh well, it was great fun playing on them and imagining the possibilities.  And who knows, maybe in our next house...........and no, we're not planning on moving anytime soon :)

See what I mean?!  Actually our yard is bigger than this, this is just the back part, but still!