cutest little deathtrap this side of the equator

We've had a lot of rain lately.

Have I mentioned that?

I'll mention it again:  we've had a lot of rain lately.

Note the following picture of our back yard:

No, not snow - hail.

It is from Saturday.... lots of hail, lots of rain, lots of thunder and lightning.

The kids went out and collected some hail from the roof.

There was so much rain, in fact, that school was cancelled this past Monday due to flooding.

And in the same way that we were thrilled as kids with a snow day, the kids were thrilled with a flood day.  And in the same way my mom was probably not thrilled (I don't ever remember her letting on... I'm not quite as good an actress.  Either that or she was a saint.) with a snow day, I was not so thrilled with a flood day.  

The weekend had been plenty long enough. 

Enter Mari.

Ah Mari - the same gem of a friend that had the Easter party - invited us to go to the zoo.

Bless her heart.

I'm pretty sure God told her to call us and help get us out of the house - I'm so glad she listened!

So we all piled into her car and headed off on the 1/2 hour or so journey to the zoo.

We arrived at the zoo (not a simple, easy place to get to....) to find a sign that read:

lunes: cerrado

Translation: 

Monday: closed

Okee-dokee.  Plan B.

We brought a picnic lunch along, and it was close to lunch time, so we began the hunt for a place to have a picnic.

Not the easiest thing in the world.

After a good half hour of driving around, we spot this place tucked in behind a restaurant.

We're pretty sure the park was part of the restaurant complex, but we took our chances.

And it was quite lovely.

Lots of benches, trees and play structures.

This was the favorite:

 It is what I now refer to as (see the title) the cutest little deathtrap this side of the equator.

A mini ferris wheel.

 There is no way in the world something like this would be found in North America.

It has personal injury lawsuit written all over.

In fact, it screams "better have a million dollar policy".

 But boy did the kids have fun.

 And we had some lessons in balance and counterbalance.

And the moms had a good arm workout, hauling the thing around to load kids, spin them around, and then unload kids.

 But look at all those happy faces!

They did have a few other more safe structures like swings and such.

 I love it when the kids are still young enough to not mind having friends of the opposite gender.  It makes life so much better..... and easier.

 They even had some good climbing trees.

And we never got kicked out.

So we may not have been able to see monkeys in the zoo, but we still had plenty of our own.