Congratulations to RaisingBakersfield.com members bobbysaka, BossLady, Jeagle222, and deannimal67, who have each won a family 4-pack of tickets to Sunday afternoon's performance of Disney On Ice at the Rabobank Arena!

Thank you to all who entered the contest, which brought us so many new members and hundreds of new photos in our Scrapbooks.  Look for some of these great photos to grace the cover of our monthly print newsletter, available mid-month at locations across town, in the coming months.

To those of you who are new to RaisingBakersfield.com, welcome again!  There are so many ways for you to participate and interact with other local parents here, so please, explore - and let me know if you have any questions!  If you have a public profile (and remember, even with a public profile, you can control what does and does not appear online - control your information via your "edit my settings" page), you can start a journal, put images, information and links on your profile page, and "friend" other users.  (You do not have to have a public profile to comment on journals or forums or submit photos.)

Our homepage is a great entry point to our website, with feeds of the latest journal entries, comments, scrapbooks, and contests, as well as featured content highlighted in our slideshow tabs at the top of the page.  As you explore the site, don't forget to vist our Calendar often for updated family-friendly event listings, our Parent Perks section for discounts and deals offered by local businesses just for you, and our free parent-to-parent classified ads, perfect for unloading unneeded stuff as our families grow.

Speaking of family-friendly events, be sure to say hello if you see me at the Mr.Oscat concert tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 3, at 6:15 at Dagny's Coffee Company downtown.  Mr.Oscat is Bakersfield's own homegrown kindie-rock band (and he blogs here about hip kids' music), and their shows are always a rollicking, kazoo-rific good time for kids and their grownups alike.  (This show is being presented by our friends at momEconnect.com.)  This First Friday in the Downtown Arts District is sure to be a kid-friendly good time - stop by the eagerly anticipated new children's boutique, Ellie Jaye's, near 19th and Eye and just down the street from Dagny's, to see if they're open yet!

Come say hi on Sunday too, at the Health and Fitness Family Fun Day being put on at Liberty Park by our sister publications the Voices.

Thanks for all the well wishes that came my way after my last post, and again, to all the new members, welcome - and to all our longtime users, thanks so much for making this a warm, inviting, lively community of local parents.