One of my New Year’s resolutions is to keep better track of how our tax money is being spent. I hope to make this a group effort among our readers. As a family magazine, we must take a good look at how families are being served, or more accurately, neglected. Do your kids have safe ways to get to and from school on their own? Mine don’t. If we don’t drive them, they have no sidewalks or bike paths to get there. How did that happen? The only answer I can come up with is greedy developers put in homes and ignorant or lazy politicians let them build and earn…
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Keeping Food Local and Fun
What looks like a glorious local grocery store is actually, more and more with each passing year, a form of rebellion, a forefront in the fight to keep Santa Cruz more…Santa Cruz. Andre Beauregard, 42, the hands-on owner-operator behind that Shopper’s Corner store in Midtown Santa Cruz, understands the city about as well as anyone. He grew up biking and surfing along the Westside, playing hide-and-seek at Lighthouse Field State Beach, and romping with his siblings and dogs—and riding motorcycles—around his family’s vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Meanwhile he was helping his family at Shopper’s, which involves interacting with hundreds of fellow residents, and tracking how the area’s small…
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Family Game Night With a Twist
Learning about money doesn’t have to be a chore—it can actually be a lot of fun! Board games and other family-friendly activities often weave fiscal fitness and decision-making into their mechanics, offering kids a chance to learn through play. At Bay Federal Credit Union, we believe financial wellness starts early, and what better way to introduce these concepts than by spending quality time with your family around the table? Coin Identification Flashcards: Children Ages 2+ For the littlest learners, coin identification cards are a fantastic way to introduce money concepts. These cards feature large, clear images of coins and their values, helping kids recognize and match pennies, nickels, dimes, and…
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‘A Christmas Carol’ Was a Fun Experience
A couple of days ago my parents took me to see “The Christmas Carol” at the veterans hall in downtown Santa Cruz California. I sat directly in front of the stage with my mom and dad and my little sister. It was great because we could see the actors’ faces and bodies really well from so close. And we could touch the fake snow that was lying on the floor right in front of the stage. Sometimes the actors would walk right past us on their way to the stage. We were so close that we were part of the play. When local actor Mike James, who was playing the…
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Start the New Year with a Family Keepsake
It used to be that families would have a large shoebox filled with printed photos meant for albums that never got made. Today, with cell phones capturing countless pictures and cloud storage like Google Photos saving them for us, the same thing is happening. While the photos are automatically dated, they often lack important context—like what event they capture, who is in them, or the story behind the staged smiles. When I was raising my two daughters, I kept an informal journal of their lives. At first, I wrote daily because things changed so quickly—eating schedules, sleep patterns, and milestones happened all the time. Sometimes, I’d ask my daughters to…
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Winter Enrichment for Pets and Kids
As we move into Santa Cruz County’s winter weather, we may find ourselves spending more time indoors with our families and pets. And when the cozy moments inevitably turn into chaos, the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter Foundation is here to help with ideas to keep both kids and pets engaged, happy, and out of trouble. Unwanted behavior is one of the leading reasons people surrender their pets to shelters. These behaviors often arise as dogs and cats enter puberty—much like their human pre-teen counterparts. But the good news is that enrichment activities can prevent or redirect these behaviors while fostering a deeper connection between pets and their families. Animal…
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Eating to Save the Planet
In the vibrant tapestry of Santa Cruz County’s nonprofit community, Eat for the Earth stands out as an organization with a mission as bold as it is necessary: to transform the way we eat to protect the planet. This vibrant grassroots movement is not only addressing personal health but also tackling one of the most pressing issues of our time—climate change. Reverend Beth Love, the Executive Director and driving force behind Eat for the Earth, is committed to advancing the practice of sustainable living. A longtime Santa Cruz resident, Love combines deep expertise in plant-based nutrition with a passion for environmental stewardship. Her leadership has helped establish Eat for the…
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Mastering the Positive Time-Out
The notion of Positive Time-Out came out of Positive Discipline. Positive Discipline is a parenting approach that promotes a relationship-based, mutually respectful, and developmentally appropriate way of meeting children’s needs for belonging and significance while teaching them valuable social and life skills. Under the Positive Discipline model, the disciplinary tool known as “time-out” has been transformed into the Positive Time-Out, a parenting tool aligned with the idea that when we model respect, engage in connection before correction, encourage (rather than punish) discouraged children, and help meet children’s psychosocial needs, children are more likely to feel and do their best. Different Types of Time-Out Imagine a group of children playing in…
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Celebrating YOU During Positive Parenting Awareness Month
Dear parents, foster parents, grandparents, relative caregivers, and other adults raising children and teens: we’re celebrating YOU in January 2025! For the 13th year in a row the County Board of Supervisors has partnered with First 5 Santa Cruz County to declare January as Positive Parenting Awareness Month, joining other California counties and the California legislature, which will pass a resolution declaring January 2025 as Positive Parenting Awareness Month across the state. What does this mean? It means that local and state elected officials recognize that positive parenting is vital to the current and future well-being of children, families, and the entire community. It means that across the state, we’re…
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First Baby of 2025
Dominican Hospital is excited to announce that it has welcomed its first baby of the year! Dominican Hospital welcomed a healthy baby girl, Elliana Mae Azmy, Wednesday morning. She arrived at 3:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2025, weighing 6 pounds and measuring 21 inches in length.Elliana’s mother, Lily Adelia Kornher, and father, Elijah Azmy, from Boulder Creek, are delighted with their new bundle of joy. Nurses at Dominican Hospital’s Birth Center’s presented the family with a beautiful gift basket filled with goodies and essentials for the sweet newborn. Both mother Lily and baby Elliana are healthy and doing well.
