Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Another Show...keep sending them in!

A big thanks to Joell for giving me a heads up on the Greater York Dance Spring Concert Performance of "The Sleeping Beauty Ballet". The performance will take place at the Strand-Capitol Performance Arts Center Sunday April 25th at 2pm, tickets are $10 for kids under 12 and $15 for adults. It looks like a really cute show and from everything I've heard about Greater York Dance you won't be disappointed! Enjoy! http://www.greateryorkdance.org/

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Shows Coming To York

There are two really cute shows coming to York in the next two months and I wanted to make sure no one missed the chance to catch a LIVE one! The first show to hit town is Harold & the Purple Crayon which will be at the Strand Capitol Performing Arts Center April 20th (Thursday) at 10:00am. http://www.strandcapitol.org/currentseason/calendar/view.asp?id=3372 The "recommended" audience is Pre-K to Grade 3, which makes me wonder why they scheduled it for a school day at 10am, but upon further reading the inspection I found an age suggestion of 3 and up. The show is $10 a ticket and for that price I might just try it out!

The second show, Curious George Live, will be at the Pullo Center at Penn State York May 25th and 26th (Wednesday and Thursday). http://pullocenter.yk.psu.edu/pick_show Curious George is a big hit with a bunch of my daughters friends, if you don't know it's a current PBS cartoon, and is sure to be a fun show. The great thing about this showing are the multiple times to see it, on the 25th there is a 7:00pm show and on the 26th there is a 10:30am and 7:00pm show, so if you have early to bed kiddos you can always opt for the early show! The tickets for this show range from $18-$38 dollars and if you have been to the Pullo Center you know that every seat really is a good seat, so if you don't have the money to spend don't worry, your child will be able to see everything from the "cheap" seats!

Finally I have to mention that Disney on Ice "Princess Classics" is going to be in Hershey April 7th-11th. http://www.giantcenter.com/events/schedule_detail.php?id=10706 There are a variety of times for the shows and it runs over a weekend, which is also nice if Grandma and Grandpa might be up for taking the little ones while you get a night or afternoon off! (I know, it's crazy!!). If you have a princess fanatic at your house, we haven't gotten to that stage yet, than you might have to make this show; it does promise to bring out the heavy hitters, Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Belle! Keep in mind that this is a Disney show, ticket prices range from $15.00-$55.00 (yikes!)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Playhouse Cafe- Lemoyne

My good friend Jenny G. clued me into a great little place up in Lemoyne called The Playhouse Cafe. http://www.myplayhousecafe.com/ Depending on where you live in York this is a very do-able 30 minute drive up 83 North, we live off of exit 15 (S. George Street) and it was almost exactly 30 minutes, and let me tell you it is worth the trip!

First of all the concept is brilliant, the main area is modeled after a cafe/coffee house where you can order coffee, tea, or a light lunch for you and the kids. They have small tables for the kids, larger tables for adults and groupings of chairs clustered around the room. Off of the main seating area are two playroom, one for the over 2 yr. old crowd and one for the wee ones. Now here's the brilliant part, while you sit and drink your coffee, tea, soda, whatever, your kids go into the playrooms (yes they are supervised) and run around, go crazy and bounce off of the walls! You can actually have a conversation with another person without interruptions, when was the last time that happened? My first reaction upon seeing all of this in motion was, "Why didn't I think of that?"

When we made our first trip to The Playhouse Cafe we met up with Jenny, mom of 2 kids, and Becky, also mom of two. Katie and I were running late, so when we arrived it was time for lunch, playing would have to wait until after we fixed the hunger whining! I had a Waldorff chicken wrap and soda, Katie had chicken nuggets, a small bag of chips and chocolate milk plus we paid for her "admission" to the playroom and the grand total was $18. Now, you have to factor in gas money on this one, but you could easily skip the meal and save yourself $13.00 and just pay the $5 playing fee. In fact there were a few kids that were just there for playtime, one Mom said they came once a week while she did her "to-do" lists for the week. The other special event that drew us up for a visit was to see Dora the Explorer, she usually comes for lunch once a week and dances and plays with the kids for about 30 minutes. (As you can see from the pictures it was the highlight of the day for Katie!)

If your child is scared of people in costumes and yes I know that many are, I would suggest you come on a non-Dora day because Dora plays music (loudly) and travels around to each of the playrooms and the lunch area, basically there is no escaping her! That being said, if you have a Dora fan this is a great picture opportunity and a wonderful way for your little one to get some one-on-one Dora time. The day we were there only about 5 or 6 kids really wanted to hang out with Dora, Katie being one of those kids, so each child got some alone dancing time with Dora and she even came around to say hi to the kids before she left and high-fived each child on the way out.

After Dora left and Katie finished her lunch she took off for the playroom. Each child is given a bracelet, you are given the matching pair, and when you check your child into the room the only way they are coming out is when you show up with the paired bracelet. In the 2+ playroom there was a TV with Nick Jr. on, a puppet theater, a climbing structure, a reading nook, a giant ride on airplane for about 5 kids, and toys and puzzles galore. Katie was completely contented for over an hour and it was heaven! The under 2 playroom was open to the cafe, but separated by a long child gate, the floor was padded and in the room was a play kitchen, a tent, some ride on toys and other age appropriate toys. The two women I was with both had a child over 2 and a child under 2 so I got to see the kids playing in both environments and everyone seemed to have a good experience with both playrooms.

Overall this place was a find, I got to talk to some friends while my daughter was in a safe and fun environment, we had lunch and got to meet Dora all for under $20! The other nice thing was that the Wegman's grocery store in Camp Hill was less than 10 minutes away so after Katie got to play Mommy got to have her fun too! Go, go, go...........it's AWESOME!
Dancing with Dora!
High-five!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Volunteer Opportunity!

If anyone was looking for a great way to spend a May weekend helping your community I have the opportunity for you. Inspiring H.O.P.E. (Helping Other's Play Equally) is building a barrier free playground here in York for children who cannot hear, see or walk so they can play along side able bodied children. It's really a wonderful idea and when you look at the pictures you will see how excited all of the kids are to have something like this locally!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Atomic Bounce Rocks!

Do you have a bouncer in your house and by that I mean a kid that sees a bounce house and looses his/her mind with excitement? If so than I have a great place for you to check out, even better it's LOCAL! Atomic Bounce in Red Lion is a perfect little evening or afternoon get away for the under 8 yr. crowd; we have taken Katie twice in the past few months and both times she had a blast, bouncing her heart out and then sleeping like a log at night (woo-hoo)!

You can find all of the information on Atomic Bounce here: http://www.atomicbouncerocks.com/default.html they operate out of the Red Lion fire hall on Broadway St. right near the square. Most months they have 4 or 5 sessions available, one or two during the week and the others on the weekend. There is never a set schedule so you have to check the website at the beginning of the month to see when the sessions are. Atomic Bounce is also on Facebook so friend request them and get access all the latest information as it happens! As an added bonus you can book birthday parties at the Red Lion facility and/or rent out the bounce houses for a party at your house!

Right now there are two bounce sessions scheduled for Sunday March 28th and one for Monday March 29th, so if you have a slow weekend you might want to check them out. For a full schedule go to the website above and then click on "Indoor Center Reservations". You must register your child ahead of time to bounce and the fee is $5 for two hours of bouncing and you can add a slice of pizza and a juice box for an additional $2.25, you just can't beat that deal!

Lastly Atomic Bounce was started by two SAHM (stay at home mom's) and as one myself I think what they are doing is AWESOME! If you have the time to check it out, Katie and I would highly recommend it, playing for 2 hours and lunch for under $10 is a deal we just can't pass up!

Need a new version of Toy Story or Toy Story 2??


This is a great opportunity to upgrade your current copies of Toy Story or Toy Story 2, if you have a Blu-ray player. My husband is a Blu-ray nut but always seems to find cheap or free ways to upgrade and this is a great find that should pay off for a while. As Disney re-releases all of it's old titles on to Blu-ray they will give you a coupon, usually $8 or $10 off, towards the newer version! When you apply that coupon with the one that the store, Target/Walmart/Kmart, usually adds it brings the price way, way down.

Here is the current situation:

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are currently on sale at Target for $22.99 each but you get an automatic $10 off from the store if you buy them both. (I'm pretty sure Kmart and Walmart are running the same offer) If you have the old versions of the movie, like I do, log onto :http://disney.go.com/disneymovierewards/ , scroll down to the bottom of the page where Hamm from Toy Story (the pig) has a sign that says Upgrade your DVD or VHS and sign in. You will be able to print out $10 off coupons for EACH movie, so take another $20 off your total. If you are doing the math that bring the total to $15.98 for BOTH movies and that includes the digital copy and the Blu-ray copy. Now the next part is crucial to make this an awesome deal, make sure you buy copies with a sticker on the front that reads "Free Movie Ticket" somewhere on the box. When you buy the movies, come home and go back to the above website, enter in your code and follow the directions to get your free movie ticket to Toy Story 3 (out this summer)!

If you worked the system right, you will end up with FREE MOVIES on Blu-ray! I printed out my 2 free movie tickets about an hour ago, and I know that we would go see the movie regardless if the tickets were free or not, so for us it's a win/win situation. That being said if you don't have a Blu-ray player yet but think you might be getting one you still might want to get in on this deal.

Be on the lookout for deals like this to keep coming from Disney, we have taken advantage of it with a few re-released movies already and with Blu-ray catching on they will be sure to keep them coming!

Also for you non-Blu-ray families that still want to save some $$$ on new release movies check out: http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/disneymagicalsavings/ for coupons for the digital version. (We just got the Princess and the Frog and used a coupon from here).

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Free Summer Bowling!

A big thanks to Abbey G. for sending me the information on this cool summer opportunity! Your kids can bowl 2 FREE games every day, all summer long at participating bowling centers. How cool?! Registration begins today, so don't dawdle, I'm sure they fill up quickly! Visit http://www.kidsbowlfree.com/ , click on the link labeled "View a list of all bowling centers" and then scroll down to Pennsylvania, or another state if you wandered on here and are interested! The bowling centers included in this deal are Colony Park East and North, Suburban Bowlerama, Hanover Bowling Center and Lion Bowling Center in Red Lion. Your child can only bowl at one location, so choose wisely, and enjoy this FREE activity all summer long! Thanks again Abbey!

Monday, March 22, 2010

Great Resources.

I was thinking this afternoon of compiling a list of great resources in York, links I use weekly. I'm just starting the list so it will most likely be updated from time to time, but here are the few that immediately came to mind.
The York County Library system has a quick link on the front page of their website "Escape in a Story", click on it and you will be taken to a list of all of the story times at each library and their weekly themes and events. We have personally attended story times at Martin Memorial library in downtown York and Kaltreider-Benfer Library in Red Lion and they are always fun. My suggestion is to arrive a little early for weekend story times as they fill up quickly, if you can go during the week, go, go, go, they are much less crowded. My nephew, who is 17 months old, attends the Village Library in Jacobus weekly for story time with his Mimi (Grandmother) and loves it! Use your libraries, they are FREE and you can never spend enough time reading with your kids!

The YMCA, YWCA and the JCC all offer classes for you and your family. The YMCA might be a great fit if you don't live near York City, they have branches in York City, Shrewsbury, Dover and in East York (right outside of Hellam). The Shrewsbury and York City YMCA have swimming pools, so they will be the only two offering swimming classes. The YWCA is smaller, also in York City, but they offer many of the same classes as their big brother and the pool just got a $500,000 face lift! The JCC is the newest facility in York and for our family the most convenient. We have taken two parent/tot swimming classes there and the water is always nice and warm (great with little ones). Katie is currently taking ballet there and she seems to like it, there are about 10 3 year-olds in her class and the teacher is very good at keeping the kids focused for the 30 minute class. I'll keep you updated, the recital is in May!

The final resource is just about keeping up to date with York news. York has two newspapers, the York Daily Record, AKA the morning paper, and the York Dispatch, the evening paper. The website is updated throughout the day so if you don't get the newspaper and still want to keep in touch with your surroundings this website should help. For more up to date information, breaking news (if there is such a thing here!) check with WGAL 8 (http://www.wgal.com/index.html) or FOX 43 (http://www.fox43.com/).

Welcome to My Blog!


Welcome to my blog, Mom's Around York!

My name is Suzi, above is my 3-year old daughter Katie and my husband Nat. We live in York, Pa. and have for about 5 years, although both my husband and I are natives. My intentions with this blog is to point out all of the great things to do with your family in and around York, many of the ideas and the places I visit will be for the toddler set, but I will try to add things here and there for the over 10 crowd. (I aim to please!)

The first thing that I am going to mention, now that it is finally Spring (Hallelujah) is please don't overlook the great parks in York! We are very fortunate to have wonderful township parks, with new and expansive playground equipment and great County parks, lakes and hiking paths. We also have Nixon Park, down in the Jacobus area, that features a FREE museum with hands on activities for the kids, and great hiking trails with a creek. (Yes I'm the mom that lets my kid get soaked in the creek!)

You can find out more information on Nixon Park and the county parks system by stopping by here:http://www.yorkcountyparks.org/

My daughter and I will be checking out places in and around York, about 1 trip per week and then posting pictures and our opinions on the fun factor and cost of the trip. (I know we try to take advantage of FREE when we can!)

I hope to see you all back soon!