Wizard of Oz Playground at Watkins Park

Keeping up with this blog has become impossible. I’d like to be able to write nightly, especially when we have so much going on, but I just don’t have the energy for it. My stress/emotions have been running full speed ahead for the past several weeks and I’m flat exhausted.
But, right now, Dakota is having a rest in her bed and I figured it is as good a time as any to at least tell one story.


When I’d heard that there was a Wizard of Oz themed playground that had just opened I knew I had to take the kids. I’d been promising Harper and Dakota a trip to Watkins Park all summer and we finally made it out there last week.


As far as playgrounds go, this place is pretty awesome. Here’s a decent shot of the Emerald City:


You can kind of see the forest of tree’s in the back middle of the next photo. And the “poppy’s” in the bottom right section. And, look at the swirl of the yellow brick road! Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road…


Those aren’t the kind of poppies that’ll put you to sleep though, these babies spin!




Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road! I loved the detail on this bench, the wicked witch’s broom looks cool atop the spider webs.


There is a barn with a full on chicken coop. There were kids in there pretending to be chickens every time I looked in there. There were hay bales leading to the inside and a cute slide with Plexiglas windows on top so that you could see your little one sliding down.




Aunt Em’s House:




There was a corn field right next to Aunt Em’s house.



And a little house for Toto:



I think one of the kids’ very favorite things was this conveyor belt:




I found this cute little munchkin in Munchkin land: (at least I think that’s what these little sculptures are representing)



Ruby red slippers anyone? There’s no place like home…there’s no place like home…


There was a nice area where the kids could make music. Harper seemed to really like this part:

We really enjoyed playing at this playground and will certainly go back. It’s a bit of a haul for us, about 1/2 an hour drive, but worth it. There’s lots of other stuff to do out there but my kids were so tired after playing that we headed home.