Well, it looks like the girls' and my highly anticipated adventure of checking out all 16(?) OKC Spraygrounds will come to an abrupt end, thanks to our impending move. I am thinking over the next year, we may cover a few more when we visit friends in the area, since the girls have two besties who live in Edmond...and I know many people from Enid take to traveling to OKC, Tulsa, and Norman somewhat frequently, as Enid is somewhat small-town. That, however, is a feature I am HUGELY looking forward to. We are generally happy wherever we move, but I have noticed that in places where there is perhaps less to do and get distracted by, it is easier to develop deeper relationships with those around you, so I am looking forward to that aspect, for sure. And Enid certainly has intriguing features of its own, such as an unusual flat metal cattle/cowboy statue park, a city museum with a castle-theme playground, and all the fun activities put on by the base (such as monthly events for families and children, and outdoor rec always has great ideas too).
Anyway, back to the spraygrounds. We did enjoy two final visits before focusing on our move (and squeezing in our Tennessee/South Carolina grandparent vacation). Firstly, we visited
Macklanburg Park at 11700 N Stratford (for about the fifth time), and have started using the *free* pool there.
At first glance, I was not planning to use the pool, mostly out of concern for safety, as it is often filled to capacity (as in there is a line to get in), and its hours (M-F, 1-6pm)--which pretty much prohibited Matt from coming with us. I wasn't hugely into the idea of taking the girls swimming on my own, as neither of them require flotation devices anymore, however, both are into nonstop daredevil action (no concept of drowning) that require constant, close-up supervision (as in, I like to be about 2 feet from Hana and within arm's reach of Vienna at all times). This is hard, because they like to swim all over the place and jump in the water a lot. During a visit with Julia and Amanda one afternoon, I decided to give it a try, as all three girls were clamoring for a chance to check it out. Upon entering, I was shocked and thrilled to discover that the water goes from about 2' at its shallowest to about 4-4.5' at its deepest.
Hana can stand in most of the pool, and Vienna can stand in about a third of it. There is a separate deep-water pool with a dive, but it is separated from the main pool by a concrete barrier. Plus, they allow pool toys and floaties! This setup made swimming there with the girls easy and a joy. They were able to enjoy considerable independence and were spared from my nervous nagging when I obsessively drum up safety concerns.
Granted, this pool gets crazy-crowded, and unsupervised kids are literally dropped off there by busloads, but we found that the population is generally manageable from about 1pm until 2 or 3. It is a great community resource and I definitely recommend it! :o)
The other sprayground we visited (as a family, for the first time!) was Earlywine Aquatic Center, adjacent to Earlywine YMCA at SW 119th & May. We swim at the Y indoor pool intermittently, as it is a bit of a drive, but also houses the best indoor water park we have seen in the area (waterslide and frog-themed sprayground in addition to lap pool), but had yet to try out the city-sponsored pool. Unlike all the others we've visited, it is not free, but it is well worth the $6 per person admission fee--and the occasional wait to get in, as it is apparently frequently full to capacity. One way around this, I learned, is to book a party there (additional $20/hr), but guaranteed admission at the time you schedule it for. This pool is great because it has a water slide that kids and parents can ride together in interlocking inner tubes. It is a great, long slide, that has a toilet-bowl type swirly-feature halfway down. Ha, who has been trying to ride a water slide by herself (as most do not allow parents to ride down with their children) for some time, but always getting too scared to go down once she climbed to the top, absolutely loved this, and it was a HUGE confidence booster for her. We took her to a community pool in Tennessee this week, and she actually went down the slide there by herself--and loved it, something I wouldn't have dreamt of her doing a couple months ago. There are also two other slides there, that I believe kids need to be 48" to ride. I think the minimum height for the "Big Bowl" one is 40" (V was still too short, but loved the other [sprayground] features). Unfortunately, I do not have any pix from this adventure. Our camera is not waterproof, so I miss capturing a lot of our water fun, as both Matt and I are generally hands-on, in the water, for the entirety of these adventures. :o) There are some cute pix on the park's
website, though, and it is definitely worth checking out!
Well, here's hoping we find some fun spraygrounds in Enid, and also get to check out at least two more OKC ones (namely the Pirate Ship and Under the Sea themes, as those sound too cute to pass up!).
Other City Spraygrounds we've visited include:
Harvest Hills Park
Macklanburg Park Sprayground
North Highland Park
