Park Clean-up

My MOMS Club has "adopted" one of the largest parks in our town for many years.  This means that twice a year, we plan to meet there and pick up trash.  It's quite a job because this park not only has a playground, but also several baseball fields, tennis courts, a skate boarding area, and multiple trails to walk on.  There's a nice little creek nearby so there's also quite a bit of wildlife to be found.  I've been in MOMS Club for seven years, so this would be my thirteenth time cleaning this park.  I brought Caleb there when he was a tiny little baby, and even got a sitter for Hannah one year because I thought Caleb would be old enough to pick up trash with me for once.  Over the years, the kids have learned the routine so my announcement that today was "Park Clean-up Day" was not met with complaints.  We got to the park after all the other members left (unfortunately---and that is all because of Caleb's school schedule) so there wasn't too much to pick up.  I gave each of the kids a trash bag and rubber gloves (you can never be too careful, especially since my 6-year old's first trash pick-up of the day was a bunch of cigarette butts.  Eww!) and they set off for their "treasure".  It was fun to watch them race to find the most trash and in the end, they each got about half of a bag's worth. 

We probably would have been able to walk longer and find more trash if the youngest member of our family wasn't so fussy.  (It was close to nap time, after all.)  In addition to the clean-up, we also saw a LOT of butterflies, many worms (including a newly dead one that Hannah wanted to claim as "trash" and put in her bag), an adorable little turtle that looked like this...

...and not to mention, some Dairy Queen slushies afterwards.  All in all, it was a fun experience and I'm glad that the kids are old enough to help and appreciate it.