Memorial Trees Planting & New Playground

The closest park to our house is called Queensbury Greens, but Gavin calls it "the regular park." They tore it all up in August and put in new play equipment and benches, and they just finished it a few weeks ago. We walked over there last Tuesday, which was a very nice weather day, and checked it out with Grandma Cordes.






Gavin loves all the new stuff there!




Then, on Friday, we went back to watch the planting of our two memorial trees. Nana Cermak's workplaces, Benedictine University and College of DuPage, had contributed to the memorial tree program, which is handled by Naperville Park District. As it turned out, we were able to have two trees planted! We chose what type of tree we wanted - autumn blaze maples - and which park to plant in - "the regular park, " where Evie and Gavin played the most. (We had waited to do the planting until the park renovation was complete.)





Uncle David and Uncle Brad came, too. Gavin was very interested in the whole process!







Gavin decided that the first tree that was planted was Evie's tree and the second one was his. Evie's tree is below. This was actually just a "ceremonial scoop" - the park district guys did most of the digging!













In the ground at last:





Gavin sat in my lap and observed while Evie's tree was planted. He got more involved for the second tree - he even used his own little shovel to scoop some dirt:










Gavin's tree:




Time to water:




It was a bit cool, but as you can see, the sun was shining and there were no clouds in the sky. It was a perfect morning!