Wickham Park

I'm so glad we had one nice day this week where we could get out and play!  I absolutely love Wickham Park In Manchester, CT! It's only a few dollars per car to enter and, if you bring a picnic lunch as we usually do, you can spend the entire day there.  After only a 20 minute detour on a failed search for a cup of iced coffee for H, we arrived without getting lost.  This is an amazing thing for us.  Last time we went, even though we've been there 10 times before, we took the wrong exit and ended up going 20 minutes out of the way before we could get back on track.  Pretty sad, I know.  I don't know why it is that we can't go anywhere without getting lost or hitting some random crazy traffic. And yes, Mr. No seriously needs a haircut.

Once we finally made it to the park, we headed straight for the largest playground since Mr. No so wanted to play on the playground!  He was our new brave Mr. No and headed straight for the spiral slide (that H almost fell off of the last time we were there).

brave Mr. No

He was all over the place playing and even put himself on the merry-go-round and asked to be spun. H spent most of this time fighting with the vending machine trying to get a Mountain Dew...well a 2nd one since he attempted to perch his first one a very narrow and uneven portion of the playground equipment and it promptly fell to the ground.  He was not amused when I laughed.

giddy-up ducky!

Mr. Cutes!

We spent quite a while there until Mr. No decided that it was time to move on to the birds.  The geese were right at the fence hoping for a treat.  All 3 peacocks were showing off their plumage .  The rest were either at the fence or strutting their stuff.

the very impressive white peacock

they were checking each other out for about 3 minutes

Mr. No then ran off toward the sensory garden.  He always wants to see this garden and then rushes through it.  He loves the fairy statues and the pegasus and the fact that one part of it tells you to go ahead and touch the statues.  It's always amazing to Mr. No when he's told to go ahead and touch.

Bee in the sensory garden

Mr. No wanted a little more playground time so we compromised and drove to the smallest playground near the frog and duck ponds since the playground we were at was getting a bit crowded...with adults taking over. Mr. No who may have to be known from now on as Eagle Eye spotted a cutie little bunny hanging out in the grass.  I tried to sneak a good photo in but Mr. No pushed by me in excitement and rushed at the poor thing.  Oh well, he thought it was fantastic.

poor little bunny

Mr. No was a monkey all over this playground as well climbing up the slides and sliding down backwards.  For those who know Mr. No, you know that this is a pretty big deal for him.

having loads of fun!!!

a pro at climbing up

being silly sliding down backwards

After H claimed he had a tick on him, we decided to move on to the duck pond much to his dismay.  Mr. No loves the steep bridge and adores the ducks.  We even fished out our only quarter to buy some duck feed from the machine.  Turns out we didn't really need it.  A very nice Mommy with her 2 kids gave him a bagel half to rip up and throw to them.  It's always a wonderful surprise when people are generous, isn't it?. A bagel half made a little boy's day.

I love this one!

We did a little more exploring before we went to check out the frog pond.  Mr. No really loved the dragon statue.

an actual smile?!?

 We've been disappointed by a few so-called frog ponds in the past where you could maybe hear 1 frog if you were lucky and certainly didn't see any.  This one was amazing! There were literally over 20 frogs in the pond and they were huge!  Everywhere we looked there was a frog...or fish...and most of them didn't even budge when we got close. It was awesome for me so I can't even describe how excited Mr. No was!

peeking at a frig

Hello big fella!

calling H back to see the frog

he was huge and handsome

another frog saying hello!

Then it was time for us to leave.  We didn't even wander through the gardens or walk the bird trail this time. There's also a fitness trail but we tried that once and it most certainly defeated us.  We're so sad!