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The following Austin-area restaurants have playscapes:

• Central Market on 4001 N. Lamar - In addition to the great outdoor play area and large picnic area, there are lots of events, mostly music.  The beauty of Central Market is that you can also get your grocery shopping done here too.
• Phil’s Ice House at 5620 Burnet Rd. w/Amy’s Ice Cream next door - This is a great combination… good burgers, ice cream and a outdoor playscape and shuffleboard.  During the summer, Phil’s host movie nights.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the fast food places with playscapes. 

• McDonalds
• Burger King

The Summer Movie Clubhouse is a great idea especially with our string of 100 degree days this year in Austin.  For 10 movies for $5 if you fired this up at the beginning of the summer or for $1 per movie at the box office on the day of, you can watch kid friendly movies at 10:00 AM at one of two theaters in the Austin area:

• Cinemark Tinseltown 17 in Austin
• Cinemark Movies 8 in Round Rock

The previously mentioned Cinemark Movies 8 in Round Rock is also a great place to see cheap movies.  Prices are $1.00 on Wednesdays and $1.50 or $2.00 the rest of the evenings.  The don’t show first run movies but generally have several kid friendly movies.  For example, they are currently showing the following kid friendly movies: Speed Racer, College Road Trip, Horton Hears a Who and Nim’s Island.  Maya and I saw Horton here last week.

The Alamo Kids Club shows classic children’s movies throughout the week during the summer.  The Alamo Drafthouse is one of the best theaters in the country.  Show times are at 11 AM.

AMC’s Summer MovieCamp also offers $1 movies with proceeds going to charity (Variety and the Will Rogers’ Institute).  The showings are on Wednesdays at 10 AM.  Barton Creek 14 is the participating AMC theater in the area.

Here are some other interesting options:

• Regal Cinemas Arbor Cinema @ Great Hills has a Family Film Festival that has free children friendly movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10am.  Upcoming movies include Charlotte’s Web, Shrek the Third, Stuart Little 2, etc.  Participating theaters include Arbor Cinema @ Great Hills, Westgate Stadium 11, Lakeline Mall 9, 
• The Splash Party Movie Nights at Deep Eddy sounds and looks like a blast.

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The following options are a bit too late for the youngsters but might just be right for families with older children:

• As part of the Movies in the Park program, one of my favorite all time movies, Field of Dreams, is playing at the Dottie Jordan Park on July 5th at 8:45 pm
• Also part of the Movies in the Park Summer Movie Series, Republic Square Park is the site of another outdoor movie series.  Movies start at dusk.  

Austin Joey is a site for greater Austin area parents to find ideas and activities to do with their kids.

Austin is such a great place to be parents.  The weather is great most of the year.  There is a lot to do both outdoors and indoors.  Austin boasts a wonderful arts scene above and beyond the music.  However, much of what there is to do is shared word of mouth. As such, it appears that it takes time for newcomers to Austin to learn about all of the fun stuff to do with their kids and often long time Austinites are don’t have a good view of everything available to them to do.

The site will initially start out as a blog but over time and as requested by the community, we will add new features e.g.,

• consistent review system for each event / activity
• event calendar
• categories (e.g., what to do on a rainy day, what to do when it is 100, what to do on a budget, etc.)
• resource section with links

For now, we will start with just the blog.  We will likely start with some things of the beaten path because most people are already familiar with the Austin Children’s Museum, Zilker Park, Barton Springs, Round Rock Express, etc. but fewer are familiar with the Summer Movie Clubhouse, the fountain park in Round Rock, Austin Farmers Market Picnic in the Park, etc.

Neelan