Be there or be square. The Junction Arts Festival is the best street fair our city has to offer. (Take that Taste of the Danforth and Beaches Jazz Festival it.) The street comes alive with all manner of performance and the shops and restaurants become impromptu art galleries.  There is music, dancing, sketch comedy and circus tricks. What’s more, though, is how this festival truly reflects our community. The young families come out to play with the hipster artists and the independent entrepreneurs and it’s a big, all-inclusive love fest.  And, so much fun! If there was ever anything worth the trip to the Junction, this is it.

And this year it looks bigger and better than ever before. Check out the A Child’s Experience schedule or just show up and make your way along Dundas St. W. and let it all soak in.

It’s not just for apple picking anymore. Chudleigh’s Apple Farm (of Chudleigh’s pie fame) offers a slew of other activities for families all summer long. I used to be opposed to the idea of putting a price tag on the rural experience and selling it to city parents, but really, where else are you going to get all this?

- A petting zoo with alpacas, deer, goats, peacocks and more
- Tractor-drawn wagon rides
- A large safe & fun playground complex with a sandpit, towers, bridges and slides
- Straw maze
- Face painting and pony rides on weekends
- A restaurant great for farm-fresh summer lunches
- Store where you can take home an apple pie and many other treats
- Picnic area
- Nature walks featuring a teepee

And at $17.50 for a family of four or $5 per person (kids three and under are free) you still come out ahead of lunch at McDonald’s.

Image courtesy http://www.etobicokeeats.com/ -- geat blog!

All summer long (and winter, too). 630 The Queensway. 416-259-1846.

There are few simpler or more perfect pleasures than driving out to The Queensway on a summer’s evening and pulling into Tom’s Dairy Freeze. The vintage 1960′s  ice cream and burger shack stands alone in a small lot littered with picnic tables. The weather-worn sign out front is lit up on all sides by incandescent bulbs and you feel as though you’ve been thrown back into another time. If you’re lucky, the line winding it’s way from the front window won’t be too long. And as we dug into our banana split (with four spoons) I thought this is the stuff childhood dreams are made of.

For two weeks every summer, you get the chance to take your kids to see real, live theatre on the cheap.  Or leave the kids at home and check out some of the other plays at Fringe. All adult tickets are $10 and kids get in for $5. Check out The Fringe website for play listings or to download a program.

Also, yours truly will be reviewing each and every kids play over at Eye Weekly to help you decide which production is right for you. I’ll link up the reviews at the end of this post as they go up, if you’re having trouble picking out the kids plays on the Eye Weekly site.

Fringe Kids reviews:

We're serious about band practice around here.

Friday, June 25 at the garrison. 1197 Dundas St. W. (just west of Ossington).  Doors open at 9pm.

My husband is throwing a party (more details here) and you should come. Here’s why:

1. A night out without kids. We all love the family friendly events and proving to the world that we can still party ’till the break of, er, 8pm with the best of them. Every once in a while, though, it is good to go out on the town and not have to worry about where to park the stroller. Trust me, it’s good for your soul and it will make you a better parent as soon as the hangover wears off.

2. There will be yours truly and there will be most awesome entertainment. I will be there and so will my husband and the rocking band he’s put together to entertain the crowd. But there will be no crowd unless you join us and how sad would that be? And I really, really want to see you and/or meet you for the very first time. Remember, I will be without kids and won’t know what to do with myself without dozens and dozens of people to talk to.

3. It’s a fundraiser for women’s cancer! Not only will you get to have fun and hobnob with the elite of Toronto’s Junction-north alt-media parenting circle (cough, cough … or something), you also get to make a difference in the fight against cancer. It’s $5 or pay-what-you-can at the door and all the money goes to the Keenan’s For the Cure team that walks in the Weekend to End Women’s Cancer (formerly, breast cancer) every year and has raised over $100, 000 for Princess Margaret Hospital to date. (I walked last year, remember?) I think there’s going to be a raffle, too!

4. Do it for this woman. Her name is Lee and she is my husband’s aunt and the first person to introduce us. You will never meet a more hard-working and hard-living, loving and accepting, and funny-as-all-get-out woman.  She has been receiving treatments for a gynecological cancer at Princess Margaret. And she is not well.