Phil and I paid a visit to El Dorado park yesterday. Our mission was twofold – 1, get details at the Parks and Rec office about the Municipal Band concerts that start there next Friday. 2, check out the playground and have some picnic snacks.

So here’s what we found out about the band concerts! Starting next Friday July 1, there’s a concert every week for the next month in El Dorado Park. The band plays at various places around Long Beach on other nights of the week, but the El Dorado location is the most popular. The recommendation from the Parks Dept was get there much earlier than the 6pm start time. She said some folks start trickling into the park to claim their spot as early as 3pm! El Dorado park is huge – to help ya out, the band plays in the southernmost chunk of the park off of Studebaker, near Willow. If you’ve driven on Studebaker on a weekend and have seen all the kids playing soccer, that’s about the right area to head towards for the municipal band concerts. Concerts happen every Friday night through the end of July.

So once we got the scoop on that, it was play time! Phil and I advanced token to the little kid playground right next to the Parks and Rec office. Phil didn’t really care about the slide too much, but he was way into the swing. At one point he looked like he might be getting bored so I picked him up out of the swing and he did a massive lean maneuver back towards it to let me know “No muhmuh, I’m totally not finished yet.”

Then we checked out the sand. I think one of the coolest things about Phil is watching his first reactions to things. Sand blew his mind. We sat there for 20 minutes at least, and he dug his hands and toes in, watching how the tiny little bits fell through his fingers.

He also ate some, because he’s a hooligan.

We shared a picnic of nectarines, celery and cheese on the grass nearby before heading home. Such a cool park near home for us to walk to!

(In case you haven’t heard, muhmuh is the best seat in the house.)