We visit Roselle Park ...

The last time I was together with these sweet grandchildren, we had visited the zoo with the goal of accomplishing rope climbing over at the Sky Zone. A few weeks ago, I chronicled how that turned out! The children were quite terrified and simply refused to climb! I was really very surprised, because I have seen them climb on all sorts of playground apparatus since they were very small kiddos!

 All three of them claim they thought I was talking about a climbing WALL, not climbing ROPES, and certainly NOT from a dizzying height! But they were adamant that they were expert wall climbers, and … could I please take them wall climbing?!

 I relayed our disaster story with the ropes at the zoo to my co-worker and she very casually asked if we had ever been to Roselle Park. She told me they had wonderful climbing stuff there. I know we visited here two years ago, but there was really nothing to climb except the stairs inside the silo (which is very fun). 

 So, yesterday afternoon, we decided to drive over to Roselle Park and see if there really WAS stuff to climb on! There was! The silos were still there too, and you could climb the one that had the observation deck (see above). We all did climb those 87 stairs (87 according to Matthew, but I'm not sure because I totally forgot to count) only to find that the observation deck door was …. locked. How sad was that!?!?!?! I'll show you those pictures further down this post ...

 There was plenty to climb on here and I did point out once or twice that some of this stuff was actually ROPES (like the zoo), but none of the kiddos connected the dots whatsoever! They were extremely pleased to be here and they climbed everything in sight! Yay! And did I mention that it was absolutely FREE?

 These foot-holds were kind of randomly placed, and I was very relieved to see that they did not go to an extreme height. Christopher enjoyed himself immensely here.

 Emma hung around in this rope place, finding comfortable spots to position herself ...

 It was an amazingly gorgeous day--low humidity, a nice cool breeze …. perfect.

 Roselle Park is surrounded by protected wetlands and there are wildflowers EVERYWHERE!

 There were several rocks to climb ...

 This was the only thing I was unable to climb! I was so disappointed in myself, but I could NOT climb this rock!

 The children said it was VERY simple.

 It was so great to watch them run and play like this. My heart was SO full with happiness.

 And the wildflowers were … delicious.

 Matthew was very intense at his climbing. He is a tough little kiddo.

 Christopher climbed the wall over and over and over again.

 Matthew was happier on the rock.

 And Emma was queen of the ropes! 

 Finally, I announced that I was climbing to the TOP of the silo … was anyone else game?

 The children were SO fast. They left me way behind, but …whew … I finally caught up to them!

 We met a friend here at the Park by the name of JUDAH. "Oh, " I said, "Like in the Bible!" "Yes," he replied. "The very Judah that Jesus descended from!" I added. "Yes," he replied. "And Jacob was his father … and Isaac was his grandpa … and Abraham was his great-grandfather!" I went on. "Exactly," Judah said. Isn't that great?!

 When we found that the door to the observation deck was LOCKED (rats!), the children ran back down all of those stairs, with me trying to catch a picture of them.

 Hi Emma!

 Hi Matthew and Chris!

 The view from the top (with my camera pressed against a window) ...

 The door that was locked ...

 Another view from the top ...

 And then I descended to the bottom and took a picture looking up, up, up to the very tippy top!

 And Emma ran back up the stairs so that she could be in the picture … except she would NOT hang over the railing so I could see her face better (smart girl).

 I brought a little picnic along, just some snacks and cold water … but those were very refreshing.

 We discovered that the huge rock was fake (!!) and made out of some hollow material. Every here and there was a little engraving … this dragonfly ...

 And a stingray too! There were other pictures too … like fish and other insects … very beautiful.

 There are tons of pathways through the wildflowers with trees that are labeled, so that you can learn a thing or two while enjoying God's great outdoors ...

 Ems and I decided to take a trail or two and see where it would lead us.

 Matthew joined us for awhile, but then he and Christopher went on a bunny trail of their own!

 What a beautiful place this is!

 And look! We found a very cool frog (below) that had an amazing jumping span! This was one of two frogs that we came across in our exploration. I touched the other one and it jumped away. Emma told me to be sure and wash my hands as soon as I could afterwards. She was NOT going to touch any frogs.

 I know this is a place we will frequent on a regular basis … from now on! 

I love to explore new places, don't you? The children were crazy about this spot. I was so thankful it turned out to be a nice place.

We drove back to the Beach House and enjoyed a huge salad and continued our Bible stories about Moses and the children of Israel. We were learning about what led up to the giving of the ten commandments this week. We talked about Mt. Sinai (the mountain of God!), we talked about Him being a "consuming fire" and what it means to FEAR Him. We learned how God introduced the commandments with this sentence: "I am the LORD your God, who RESCUED you from SLAVERY in Egypt." We dissected that verse in detail--what a blessing to have "The One Who is" be our very own personal God who delivered us, set us free from bondage to sin, self, darkness, despair and hopelessness! We had a great study time this week.