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: http://www.yorklibraries.org/
• The York County YMCA's: http://www.yorkcoymca.org/
• The York YMCA: http://www.ywcayork.org/
• The Jewish Community Center: http://www.yorkjcc.org/
• Current York County News (from the York Dispatch and York Daily Record newspapers): http://www.inyork.com/

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/).