Isn't this awesome?!

Today was the So Kids Can playground build day. Rink Rat Timmy came out to help, too, along with a lot of other caps fans and people who just loved the idea of building a playground (if you've never volunteered with KaBoom, I highly recommend it). We started this morning with an empty lot of lots of random stuff--well, not so random, but it looked random--strewn about and some holes in the ground. Five hours later, we had a finished playground plus picnic tables, benches, a kicking mural, and some cool planter/bench/trellises.

Mike Green brought some friends along to help:

Karl Alzner, Nicklas Backstrom, and Joel Ward. They were out there, moving stuff around, raking mulch, painting, the whole nine yards. Plus getting endlessly pestered for photos and autographs.

and this guy says THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR PLEDGES!

And a big thank you from me, too, because this truly is a huge group effort each season.

Eliot Segal was also there, running around like a maniac, as he always does. (largely unrelated, but Eliot and I had a great chance to talk about the upcoming Lupus walk. So if you have nothing to do on Oct, 2, come out and join Ted, Eliot, Me, and Mama Birdie!)

and a few more playground pics and one more THANK YOU from me!

Capitals now have a story up. They're supposed to send pictures to volunteers, so I'll add those once I get them.

and VIDEO! not too much building of the playground, but a lot of the kids playing on it.