Liberty Park

Liberty Park is a huge park in downtown Salt Lake City. It has some great play structures, a sprinkler and this really amazing splash pad that was designed after the canyon rivers. I had heard a lot about it from people around here. So, I put it on our list of must do summer field trips. Yesterday was the Liberty Park day. Before yesterday, I had three of my sister in laws and my mother in law show some interest in coming along on our field trips, so on Monday, I wrote up a schedule and emailed it out. Much to my surprise, they all wanted to, and could come.

We got to the park first, and played at the river canyon part. It is a really hard place to keep track of all of my little kids, so I gave them strict instructions on partners. Adam and Johnny were to stay together, Ruth, Kate, and Rachel were to stay together and I kept a close eye on Anya and Joseph. So, knowing that it is a lot less likely for my kids to misbehave in partners, and a lot less likely for someone to grab two kids together, I let them go and explore all of the water falls and such.

I wore my swimsuit, and I think I was about the only mother who did. At first I felt a little embarrassed to be the only one, but after looking around, I was really glad to be a mom splashing with my kids in the water rather than a mom sitting on the side sweating.

After an hour, we went to the playground/sprinkler part to have lunch. There we met up with 3 of my sister in laws, their kids and Uncle Jay. We all ate lunch together. Then headed back to the canyon river part. When we got back, the amount of people there tripled. It would be a lot harder to keep track of the kids. I made sure all of my kids had their firm partners. Then we went back to playing, exploring and splashing. Joseph and his cousin, who is three days older, played rather cutely in a shallow river stream. Not too long after, Grandma arrived with another sister in law. Grandma and sister in law, Amy, noticed a creepy guy, pull a bike into the bushes and sit down to watch the at least 150 children playing there. Grandma had Jay go and keep an eye on him. That, is just plain old creepy to have a man hide out in the bushes watching children.  Because of this, we decided to wind things down a little early and Grandma said she'd take all of the kids out to ice cream. that is good, because the offer of ice cream made it a LOT easier to round up the kids. plus, I had brought a couple bags of candy just for the same purpose. As we were gathering our large group a policeman came up, and the creepy guy in the bushes rode off on his bike. (I am not sure what the creepy guy had planned with a bike as get away?) Grandma told the policeman about the guy in the bushes and he told her that he had come for that reason (another parent had called.) He also said it is not against the law to sit in a bush and watch children play. So unless the guy actually did anything illegal the policeman could do nothing.

We still left and went to the nearby Artic Circle for ice cream. When we got there, a guy, obviously, an employee was outside on a cell phone. Jay said that looked a lot like the guy he was watching at the park. How weird!!!

The kids enjoyed their ice cream and especially their ice cream with all of their cousins. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny, being the oldest Utah cousins acted as cute little helpers and servers. I had fun just gabbing with everyone. Having friends and family was a lot funner than just us.

I got some pictures in Artic Circle, but since I was mostly holding Joseph or Anya and watching kids at the park, I did not get park pictures. I will have to get John to come with us some time soon. Creepy guy and all, we will be back.