I'm in Juneau, Alaska this week, meeting my new nephew, visiting my sister and her husband, and enjoying all that this capital city has to offer - which actually is quite a bit.

Two fun facts to grow on this week:

1. My daughter loves her Daddy very, very much and misses him even more if that's possible. We left him at home.

2. Kids in Juneau play outside even on cold, rainy or snowy days. Since it rains somewhere on average of 90 inches a year (Juneau is in a rain forest actually) and snows another 100 inches (200 last winter), you'd be pretty much stuck inside all year if you didn't.

You won't see many umbrellas around here (unless Juneau is a day trip from your cruise ship). What you will see are XTRATUF rubber boots, winter hats, snow suits and this great park where we spent two freezing cold hours one morning this week. (OK, it was 50 degrees out, but that's pretty cold).

And that's only about half of it.

Project Playground opened about a year ago, one of the moms at the park told me. It was built with money and volunteer labor raised through the community.

There are at least a half dozen tube slides, a maze of corridors and lots of covered spaces so the play area doesn't fill up with snow or get too wet. Kids play on it pretty much year round, one parent told me.

Here are a few more photos:

A tot area for the smallest kids -

Slide with the salmon -

Certainly, a lot of the design isn't much different from KidsTowne in Apex and All Children's Playground at Laurel Hills Park in Raleigh near Crabtree Valley Mall. Neither of those have nearly as many covered spaces as this one. It all made me wonder if there were applications that would be useful in North Carolina.

We don't have the wet or snowy weather, but we certainly could use more playgrounds with more shade in the hottest, sunniest months.

Check out our other daily themes at TriangleMom2Mom:

MONDAY: Meet!
TUESDAY: Ask!
WEDNESDAY: Eat!
THURSDAY: Play!
FRIDAY: Out!

WEEKEND: Relax!