Santa Cruz Parks & Recreation introduces the Inaugural Holiday Glow Guide—a community-driven showcase of our area’s most festive and dazzling holiday displays. The Glow Guide features local homes with twinkling lights, creative decorations, and festive charm. How to Join: Register your home as a festive stop by submitting your address and a photo at 2024 Holiday Glow Guide and Contest. Once registered, your home will be added to the online Glow Guide map for the community to explore. Every entry receives a $5 promo code for Winter-Spring activity registration. The winner will receive a $50 Parks & Recreation gift card.
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Local Businesses Need Your Help
We got some disturbing news recently from two local businesses we love. They are struggling badly and need us to shop in their stores. The good news is that we can help them, just by shopping in real life, not online.The bad news is that we may be watching the end of retail as we know it. Amazon and the billionaires boys club are killing local businesses. Wonderland Toys, a great shop in Aptos, is one of those businesses that recently sent out an appeal for help. “There’s nothing easy about this announcement, so we’re just going to come out & say it…our little shop is in trouble. This past…
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Strategies to Build Resilience and Emotional Strength
According to Webster’s, resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. Here are strategies parents can use that are based on three well-researched, go-to resources for parents: SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) developed by Eli Leibowitz from Yale; Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) developed by Matt Sanders at the University of Queensland in Australia; and The Anxious Generation, NYU professor Jonathan Haight’s last, well-researched bestseller. Resist the Urge to Fix Validate your child’s emotions but resist the urge to solve every problem for them. Our parental instincts are to protect our kids and keep them from harm. But often trying to fix our…
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Securing Our Health, Keeping Our Commitment
Our community stands at a pivotal juncture. Access to life-saving, local healthcare for tens of thousands of residents throughout the Pajaro Valley, Santa Cruz County, and North Monterey County is on the March 5, 2024 ballot Measure N is not just a bond; it is a lifeline for our community’s health and an investment in future generations. As we approach the March 5, 2024 election, we are faced with the opportunity to fortify and expand the capabilities of Watsonville Community Hospital, solidifying our dedication to a future where quality healthcare is a cornerstone of our local community and ensuring that our friends, families, and neighbors have access to the care…
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Craft Corner Games
Bored With Your Board Games? Make Your Own! By Crooked Beauty If you are interested in creating a game from scratch, there are templates you can download here: printabletemplates.com/graphics/board-game/Crooked Beauty will be hosting a board game-making class Sunday, November 6th. Go to crookedbeautyart.com for more details. One thing I’ve realized is that between school and home, kids have a lot of rules they have to follow…so when they get the chance to be in charge, wow do they love it!Maybe you don’t have time to make a board game from scratch, but you can use parts and pieces of the games you do have to make a new one.…
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Recycling Center Tours
Free Summer Tours City of Santa Cruz SANTA CRUZ, Calif. —The City of Santa Cruz offers free summer tours of its recycling center, the Resource Recovery Facility, 605 Dimeo Lane, every Friday from July 29 through Aug. 26 at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. The 90-minute tours provide opportunity to learn about the multifaceted recycling process as well as our new food scraps processing and Household Hazardous Waste Program. Visitors will see what happens to the 30 to 50 tons of material that Santa Cruzans place into their blue recycle bins every single day. They will learn why it is important to “recycle right” and avoid “wish-cycling.” Visitors will see a…
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Wonderful Wednesdays
(Photo by Kelly Berreto) We don’t have to tell the locals about Wednesday’s free twilight concerts at the Capitola bandstand, but sure, there are plenty of new people moving in all the time, not to mention tourists. One of the coolest, free-est things you can do is bring a chair or a beach towel and stake out a spot on the lawn or on the beach on Wednesday nights, from 6-8 p.m. Some of the bands coming up for the rest of the summer include the ever popular Joint Chiefs, Live Again, the Santa Cruz Latin Collective, Billy Martini, Jive Machine and Dirty Cello. We’ve never seen a bad show there. Catch…
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El Vaquero
Trivia Night by brad kava Here’s something for families to do that’s free or low cost. El Vaquero Winery in Corralitos has trivia night at 7 p.m. on Thursdays and unlike some alcohol serving places, it’s kid and dog friendly. Sometimes there are more kids than others. Host Michael Gaither often throws in questions that the tykes can answer. (How did we miss the name of Sponge Bob’s home town, Bikini Bottom, even aided by a 6-year-old?)It’s outdoors, there’s food catered from the pizza joint across the street (or bring your own), excellent reasonably priced wines and apple juice and a fun couple of hours for all. El Vaquero is at…
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Swanton Berry Farm
Delicious Berries by brad kava If you are heading north on Highway 1, you have to stop at Swanton’s Berry Farm for a real make America great experience. First time visitors usually end up standing at the cash register waiting for someone to collect their money for the great berry pies, coffee, jam, short bread, berry baskets and more. They wait, and wait and wait…until someone tells them, “It’s donation only.” Ooops. Happened to me. You pay what you want. And as the manager there told me, they end up making more money by asking for it than they would with a cashier. It’s like stepping back to a country…
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Yes on D
Yes on Measure D Keep travel safe for kids and get them off the couch! By brad kava On June 7 Santa Cruz voters will have a chance to build something world class that will bring in tourists, cut down pollution and help locals get fit and travel safely. It will be a 32-mile-long bike, walking and wheelchair path that will wind along stunning beaches, majestic forests and picturesque landscapes between Watsonville and Davenport. It will attract tourists, as do similar well-traveled paths in Santa Monica, San Diego, Sacramento and hundreds of counties across the country that have converted useless rails to useful, joyful trails. It will be the most…
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Cool and Free Ideas
May 19, 2022 …May 19, 2022Juggling Fun Every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. kids can get free juggling lessons at the Capitola …May 1, 2022Mama and Baby Seal Submit your coloring page for a chance to be in our paper …May 1, 2022Emilia | Age 6 Hayden Joseph | Age 8 Leo Age | 4.5 Luna | Age 10 Olive | …April 29, 2022 …April 29, 2022Encaustic Paintings by Terry DowellI have been swept away by the challenges and immense rewards of …April 29, 2022Do REALTORS Even Matter? By Seb FreyIn a real estate market as hot as this, where …April 29, 2022Capitola Mall is Flying High with Cirque.Tumble.Cheer By Jeanette…
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Juggling
Juggling Fun Every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. kids can get free juggling lessons at the Capitola Mall’s Cirque, Tumble, Cheer storefront. We tried it and it is a blast. The teachers are kind, friendly pros and kids of all ages can learn amazing skills free. Parker, 6, and his dad, 66, are both taking lessons and learning to make things fly with the greatest of ease. Well, not that easy, but totally fun. It’s at 1811 41st Ave, Capitola, CA 95010, right next to Lens Crafters. Also, some of the same teachers give free classes on the Esplanade in downtown Capitola,near the concert area, at 4 p.m. on Tuesdays. Send…
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Education
Schools Look at New Forms of Discipline By Suki Wessling Once they looked through the lens of equity, they realized that school discipline had to be reformed—now. When you say “discipline,” most people imagine punishment. When you say “suspension,” people imagine kids being sent home. When you say “behavior,” people imagine bad behavior rather than behavioral health. Santa Cruz’s County Office of Education is trying to turn all these suppositions on their heads, and it all started with the numbers. “We started asking the question, are we treating students differently based on their ethnicity?” said County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah. “We have been gathering data from a variety of…
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How much do you know about music?
Take the quiz for your chance to win tickets to Santa Cruz Symphony’s Family Concert! March 27, 2022 – Civic Auditorium | 2:00 PM Carnegie Hall’s Link Up program introduces students to the orchestra by helping them to become a part of it. Through this highly participatory program, students learn to sing and play an instrument in the classroom and perform with a professional orchestra from their seats at a culminating concert. *Winners will be notified by email on February 25.
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Día de los Muertos
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Editors Note 621
June Editor’s Note By brad kava We love the cows at Arana Gulch Park. Parker, 5, and I visit them most every day and we bring them carrots, which they love so much that the minute they hear his voice yell “treats,” they come running from wherever they are on the field to us at the fence. We’re surprised that a lot of people don’t even know about this great resource, but it’s a favorite for the families and cyclists who have found it (off Mentel Ave. but there are several other entrances). We want to salute the city for this great piece of urban development. And don’t think it…
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Erin Torr
Erin Torr 14 years Surfing What is your occupation Mental Health Counselor Do you have any significant community involvement? I work at a school as the mental health counselor for grades 6-12. I love it! I’ve also hosted exchange students for the last ten years which has been awesome. Tell us something unique about you as a mother who surfs with/without your kiddos I do not like surfing small waves and i really only surf the hook! What is your most memorable surf moment with your kids? There are so many—I love our family surfs on holidays. Big Sur camp trips every summer are so fun because the waves vary…
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Summer Activity Guide
So many peoples’ lives were changed by summer camps. They are places not just to get away from parents and make new friends, but to try new things, enjoy nature and learn crafts. We canoed, made lanyards, caught frogs and snakes, learned guitar, made fires in the wilderness and cooked and cleaned up afterwards. Those were timeless experiences that gave us a lifetime of memories. DAY CAMPS Be Natural Music740 & 742 Water St, Santa Cruz831.515.8369BeNaturalMusic.LiveLearn and perform Jazz, Rock, Reggae, Motown, Pop & more at our two locations in Santa Cruz and Cupertino. BNM offers private Music Lessons, Group classes, Real Rock Band classes, Performance, Summer Music Camps &…
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The Surprise Return of Skateboarding
by Hugh McCormicK Skating is now considered cool. Nope, not that countercultural, subversive, slightly dangerous, punk-rock cool. Just cool. Everyone wants to be, or at least look like a skater. COVER STORY | SKATE PARKS | SKATE SHOPS Rocking a black and yellow Huff sweatshirt, a well-loved pair of Levi’s, and a sweet pair of Nike SB’s, 38-year-old Ralph Mendoza rings up (and talks up) a steady stream of customers on a wet and windy Saturday afternoon. Laughter echoes off the board-covered-walls of Santa Cruz’s iconic skating emporium, Bill’s Wheels. Throngs of groms (lil’ skaters) peruse racks of carefully curated textiles and ogle over the shop’s brilliant rainbow of wheels,…
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WiFi 101
WiFi 101 BY Luigi Oppido As time has gone by, the need for WiFi has become greater and greater, and the protocols have followed this need by becoming faster and faster. All these digital devices we use in 2021 need a connection of some type. Your experience is only as good as your connection, and that comes from either a cellular data connection coming from a tower-based somewhere in your town or it comes locally from your local Internet connection. That local connection we fondly call WiFi. WiFi service is broadcasted a number of different ways from those little antenna coming out of your router. As time has gone by,…
