We just returned from a wonderful weekend with friends at a small cabin in West Virginia. We headed out there on Friday after work and met the Turpins and the Robinsons.
Logan had a blast playing with Jeffy and Ethan. It rained for most of the time we were there but there was a screened patio room as well as a game room complete with an air hockey table. Jeffy and Ethan also showed Logan how to play Mario kart on their game boys.
This picture is a tad out of order but I could not leave it out. We were getting ready to BBQ out on the front patio and there was this bowl filled with sand for an ash tray and what looked like somebody's abandoned toy spider. Jake went and tapped the bowl to see if it was real and sure enough, the giant spider came to life and started circling the inside of the bowl. We all freaked out to think that there were spiders this big running around the forest there...
Addy did great, we were a little worried that she would have trouble sleeping in a strange place, but she turned out to be a great little camper.
I promise we don't coach him to pose, he just does it. What a cheese ball...
The hot tub was awesome. On the first night we all sat out in the rain and talked until past midnight.
Burgers, dogs and brats, doesn't get any better than that. Due to the rain we had to move it to the front porch, but the resulting dinner was delicious.
I apologize in advance for the nature of this post but I just wanted to throw out some of my thoughts and my experience and also an invitation for all you to take a careful look at the places your children play. Tonight the weather was cooling down and Logan was full of pent up energy so we thought it would be refreshing to go out to the playground at our apartment complex in Columbia. Logan was climbing up the chains when something caught my eye. It was what appeared to be a condom. It caught me off guard. I kicked it under the woodchips and just as I did, something else caught my eye... a little zip lock bag with spades on it. For the next half hour I walked around the playground to see what else was there and here is what I found.
Condom package #1
Condom package #2
Remains of condom
Found several of these vodka tabs
Baggy number 1. I did a little research and found that it is common for drugs to be given street names. Sometimes the baggies have symbols printed on them as a label for that type of drug. Different types of bags are commonly used by different dealers in order for their products to be differentiated among other drugs and other dealers. So 3 distinct types of bags can mean three distinct drugs or the same type of drug distributed by 3 different dealers. Any way you slice it, scary. All of these bags were out in the open in plain site, I did not have to look hard to find them.
Baggy number 2
number 3
number 4
and last and hopefully least.... an anti theft alarm probably from clothes taken from a Walmart or Target. I am putting these pictures on a disk to give to the apartment management so that they can give them to the Columbia Association and the police. All of this made me sick. I am sad that this sort of stuff is happening out in the open in one place that I would hope would remain safe for my kids to play. I for one am going to pay a little more attention to what happens out there, maybe if we can get the association and the cops involved, the situation will improve or at least those who take part in these activities will be less eager to do so at our playground. Next time you take your kids to the park or the playground, take a good look around and be careful about letting your kids run off by themselves, you never know what they will find.
