We had a wonderful park outing to our first visit at Phyllis A Needy Park in Kirkland aka Houghton’s Tot Lot. Since it’s located in Kirkland it was a bit of a trek for us but I packed lunches and supplies in anticipation of the multi-hour outing.
The park did not disappoint.
The entire area is fully fenced which let’s you allow your kids to roam and you don’t have to worry about turning your back and finding they’ve run towards the street.
The first thing I noticed was each section of the playground has raised areas which helps corral little kids. Alice couldn’t wander into the swing area without being lifted up, which was a nice change of pace, no kids accidentally getting kicked from swinging kids. Miles swung for nearly 45 minutes solid. It was awesome. There’s two bucket swings and two regular swings.
A sandpit area with diggers and other toys folks have left behind.
As well as a large play area with tot sized climbers and toys.
There’s two slides with climber sides to the tower, a four person teeter totter, three ride on rocky toys, a balance beam and a separate gazebo with animal spinners and counters for playing cafe. I didn’t get as many photos as I would have liked, I was trying to respect the other mom’s with tots there and not take pictures of their kids. We arrived around 10am on a Friday and there was perhaps a dozen tots plus parents. My boys at five years old were easily the oldest kids there but since it was our first visit they were kept entertained for nearly two hours.
The smallest tots wouldn’t be able to get out of the play area unassisted due to the raised walls all around. There’s a path for ride on scooters and practicing your bike skills.
There’s also a running water restroom, water fountain and a couple picnic tables. The entire park is surrounded by large trees which make for nice patches of shade but the tables are in direct sun so bring your sunblock and hats.
There’s even checker boards built into two of the tables so bring along your checkers! Graham wasn’t going to wait until next time, he used part of his snack for the markers.
The park has a latched gate that is meant to keep the kids in but I think Graham and Miles could have easily done the latch themselves so if you have older runners you will have to watch out for that. There isn’t a dedicated parking lot, it’s street parking only, but the day we arrived we were able to pull right up to the gate and have quick entry into the park.
We’ll definitely be back to the park, although the distance from our house will prevent us from going very often.
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