Opening Day for the majors is in April, and nothing says spring like a day at the ballpark. While Yankees, Mets, or Phillies tickets are a special treat, New Jersey families can enjoy hassle-free (and affordable!) baseball any spring or summer weekend at one of NJ's five minor league stadiums. With easy parking, reasonably priced tickets, and kid-friendly activities such as fireworks, giveaways, and Star Wars or Harry Potter theme nights, a minor league game will please the whole family.

Here's what you need to know before you gather up your little sluggers and head out to a game.

Summer can be a unique opportunity to indulge a new interest, fine tune one's skills, or continue one's academic pursuits, sometimes even for college credit. With so many camps from which to choose, a little research, such as our posts on writing camps, tech camps, sports camps, and arts camps, can help.  This list includes unique camps almost exclusively for teens and tweens. For more summer camp ideas for kids of all ages, check out our comprehensive camp guide. 

Spring is finally here, so it's time to start hopping to The OC's most egg-cellent Easter extravaganzas. Luckily, there are plenty of egg hunts to choose from, featuring a wide array of activities—including puppet shows, face painting, baloon twisting, trains, and petting zoos.

Look no further than your own Orange backyard to get in on all of the family fun this holiday season. Here are our top 10 picks for Easter fun from Orange to Dana Point, from Anaheim to Huntington Beach, and beyond.

Where can you dig for dinosaur bones, pet a live ball python, and try hands-on science experiments? The Long Island Science Center, of course! And now all of the fun and learning can be had a bit farther west, in Rocky Point. 

Got a budding scientist on your hands? For more science-related fun, check out these museums and classes.

New Jersey is filled with fun amusement parks, boardwalk fun, and more attractions for kids, but one of the more unique options might just be Wild West City. This western-themed outdoor mini amusement park in rural Sussex County, New Jersey, lets families experience life in a frontier town circa 1880.

Attractions include live-action shows; stagecoach, pony, and train rides; mini golf; a barnyard zoo; and fun events for kids, including a dress-up day. Ever since Toy Story made its way onto our Netflix queue, my boys have been fascinated with Woody, so we took our two little Wild Bills and headed to Wild West City to check it out.

It's finally getting warm out, spring is in the air, and you are probably starting your spring cleaning tasks! If those tasks include clearing out your kid's closets and attempting to downsize the growing mass of post-holiday toys, then you are in luck—spring is peak consignment sale season! While it might be tempting to just toss the growing pile of clothes and toys, but what you have on your hands is a treasure trove. With proper planning and a little effort, you can turn that pile into a cash advance on your next big purchase, or use it to restock your child's growing wardrobe needs.

Here are our top tips for making your consignment efforts worthwhile:

Like your wise but slow-moving granddad, baseball is showing its age—its TV audience is now the oldest among major American sports. And so savvy teams like the Boston Red Sox are bending over backwards trying to get more young fans to the game. In just the past few years, for example, the Red Sox have added Gate K, a kid-friendly concourse in right field, along with Wally’s Clubhouse, a climate-controlled game room that’s open from the third to seventh inning. That’s in addition to bobblehead doll giveaways, pre-game entertainment on Yawkey Way, and other ongoing efforts to make Fenway more fun for your little one. We know, we know; there are a lot of spring activities around Boston that cost less; but if you time it right, a Fenway family outing might prove to be the highlight of the season.