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Penny Wise: Stay together, play together

By Bettina Adragna and Raiza Canelon/Staff Writers

Movies are expensive, long trips take too much gas, and summer’s in full swing. How do you keep the family busy on a shrinking budget?

Here are a few ideas for inexpensive fun you can have as a family.

And as your family goes the inexpensive route for fun, you might discover that your kids like simple, old-fashioned kinds of entertainment. Who knows, your family might even want to do more together.

Fun and games

Board games do cost money up front, but they can be used over and over again for many years.

Go for games that don’t eliminate players, don’t require much strategy (if you have younger children), and don’t require expensive or specialized equipment.

With older children, a good example is Fictionary, where the goal is to guess the correct definition of an unfamiliar word. One person reads out an unfamiliar word and writes down its definition on a note card. Players write down their own definitions and mix them with the actual definition. You get points if you guess the correct definition or if someone else chooses your fake definition.

Blow bubbles. This is a great warm-weather outdoor activity but can even be done indoors in bad weather, as long as you remember that the soap in a bursting bubble can make your floors slippery and sting a small child’s eyes.

And you’ll save lots of money by making your own bubble solution with a combination of water and liquid dish soap. Some home recipes call for adding either sugar or glycerin, and there’s no shortage of recipes. When we plugged the phrase “make your own bubbles” into the Google search engine, we got 2.7 million entries in 0.29 seconds.

Do-it-yourselfers also say kids can blow the bubbles with nothing but a plastic drinking straw, or make giant bubbles by bending a metal coat hanger and dipping it into the homemade solution of dishwasher soap, glycerin and water.

Here’s a sample recipe:

1 cup water

4 tablespoons dishwashing liquid

2 tablespoons glycerin or light Karo syrup

Gently stir, but don’t shake! Remember, we’re talking about making bubbles here.

Store leftovers in a tightly sealed container.

When the kids start to get bored, another “online expert” recommends making colored bubbles by mixing up:

1 cup granulated soap or soap powder

1 quart warm water

Liquid food coloring

Dissolve soap in warm water. Stir in food coloring until desired color is attained. Give each child an empty can or carton about 1/3 full of the mixture and a plastic straw to blow the bubbles.

The colors might stain certain fabrics, so you might want to consider what the kids are wearing before you turn them loose.

The outdoors ...

Visit a local park. Swings and slides are great for younger children, and parents or older children can push the younger ones or even swing themselves.

Go for a picnic. Take a few loaves of French bread, a big hunk of cheese, your favorite fruit and a blanket. Mix sparkling water and juice for a fun, fancy drink.

Buy a football or a baseball and teach the children how to throw it.

Get some sidewalk chalk and make a mural on your driveway.

Play Frisbee. If you like golf, try disc golf, or “Frisbee golf” as it’s also known. There’s a very popular disc golf course in Waller Park, a county park in Orcutt, if you feel like driving that far. You can also visit http://pdga.com/course/ to find other disc golf courses.

Cachuma Lake Wildlife Cruises features a 45-passenger pontoon boat "Osprey" on a two-hour tour with a naturalist describing wildlife, wildflowers and resident birds. The cost for the cruise is $15 for adults and $7 for children ages 4-12 (younger than 4 not allowed) plus $8 per vehicle park admission.

From March through October, cruises are generally conducted Friday at 3 p.m., Saturday at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., and Sunday at 10 a.m. Reservations are recommended by calling 686-5050.

Low-cost programs

Check with your city’s parks and recreation department for free or low-cost activities.

There are weekly Movies in the Park on Aug. 8, 22 and 29 at Oak Park in Buellton and they will be showing Mask of Zorro, Mary Poppins and Night at the Museum.

Enjoy fresh popcorn, hot chocolate and great free family entertainment under the stars. Bring your chair, a blanket, a picnic and your love of movies. Films are rated G or PG. Parents are responsible for deciding whether a given film is appropriate for their children.

During the hot summer days enjoy the high school’s open pool Monday through Saturday, through Aug. 30, with lap swim from noon to 1 p.m. and open swim from 1-4 p.m. The cost for both is $2.

The Solvang parks and recreation department organizes road trips to interesting places such as the Getty Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Aug. 12, from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Cost of the trip is $35 per person. Enjoy the museum’s tremendous collection of paintings, sculpture, decorative objects, illuminated manuscripts, furniture, changing exhibitions and beautiful gardens. Lunch will be on your own at the center.

For more about Solvang’s programs, call the city’s Recreation and Parks Department at 688-7529.

You can also visit the Nojoqui waterfall, which is about five miles south of Solvang on Alisal Road. This is a terrific picnic spot, and a gentle 15-minute hike up to the falls — a spot that’s guaranteed to be cool even on the hottest day.

Enjoy the Solvang Farmers Market, which offers fresh produce, flowers and foods — and free people-watching — every Wednesday, rain or shine from 2:30-6 p.m. in downtown Solvang, on First Street, between Mission Drive and Copenhagen Drive.

Every Thursday there is also free Music on the Green presented by New Frontiers market in Solvang, with a barbecue and live music from local bands. Bring a blanket and the family to sit on the lawn and enjoy the summer afternoons. It runs until Aug. 28 from 5:30 until 7:30 p.m. New Frontiers is at 1984 Mission Drive, near the corner of Alamo Pintado Road. Call 693-1746 for more information.

Arts and other stuff ...

Do a “toy inventory” to see what you already have. Organize the toys you have in clear boxes with lids so children can see them easily. Donate the rest, or maybe sell them on eBay if you’re Internet-savvy.

Check out audio CDs, movies or books from the library, which are free, and listen to them, watch them or read them as a family.

Scour our “Places to Go and Things to Do” calendar every week in the Santa Ynez Valley News, which is full of arts and entertainment choices, many of them free.

Keep an eye out for high school or community productions of your favorite theater shows.

Go to a museum, but call ahead to make sure the museum’s exhibits are age-appropriate.

Visit an art gallery. As with the museums, call ahead to determine age-appropriateness.

Volunteer. Call a local nonprofit group to see if they need help. Children can organize food or toy drives, and older youths can help out at local animal shelters, for example.

Raiza Canelon can be reached at 688-5522 or rcanelon@syvnews.com. Bettina Adragna can be reached at 739-2220 or at badragna@syvnews.com.