It is Friday night: the eve of another weekend. Your kids are rowdy. Your plans are haphazard. You don’t want to pile the whole family into the car and drive into D.C. to see the zoo again. Your kids have seen all the animals, and they’re bored. Besides, you don’t want to deal with the same traffic you have to slog through every weekday during your work commute. Weekends are supposed to be a well-deserved break from stress, right? Let us help you brainstorm some family activities that will grow memories and create some zest in your life.
You want to have fun, and you want to be entertained. You want the whole family to enjoy themselves. So, we’ve put together a handy list for unique weekend ideas for your family! Take your family on an enjoyable adventure, sure to create some of your best memories!
1) Burke Lake Park
Fairfax County’s Burke Lake Park is full of exciting adventures for the whole family! Spanning 888 acres, Burke Lake Park is full of family-friendly hiking trails, perfect for getting your kids out and active in the beautiful, fresh-air of nature. Your family can rent a rowboat and go fishing on the 218 acre lake. Play together competitively: take a swing at the miniature golf course, or group into opposing teams and take advantage of the volleyball courts. There’s frisbee-golf, and horse-shoe pits, and three separate playgrounds. You can even take a ride on the miniature train or carousel!
Burke Lake is perfect for an all-day adventure. With all the options for activities, you will be completely occupied, physically stimulated, and stress-free. Throughout the park there are picnic areas with grills, so once you’ve eaten your mid-hike snack and worked-up an appetite from boating and golfing, you can cook-up some burgers and hotdogs and take-in the sites. Then, for dessert, visit the ice cream parlor for a delicious treat!
Burke Lake Park is beautiful, full of enriching activities for the whole family. Entrance fees are affordable, and often free for Fairfax citizens. Complete with ample parking, there’s no part of your Burke Lake experience that will be stressful or complicated. Take advantage of this easy, natural wonder. Hiking as a family, or playing recreationally, build those Kodak moments we’re all so fond of.
2) Skate Quest
Conveniently located in Reston, Skate Quest’s indoor ice rink is an exciting day-trip for your whole family. Whether you’re a beginner skater, intermediate, or expert, this full-sized ice-rink will keep your whole family active and occupied for hours.
When you visit Skate Quest, all you have to bring is yourselves. Rent great-quality, any-size skates for a reasonable price and skate, skate, skate, to your heart’s content. When your family is hungry, visit the impressive Cafe, complete with an actual Starbucks. At this cafe, all of your family’s tastes are satisfied, offering everything from breakfast to sub sandwiches, from cheeseburgers and hotdogs to nachos and french fries. You can order pizzas as big as 16 inches, or by the slice. They even offer dessert!
Spending a day at Skate Quest ensures your family is active, entertained, and fed, meaning you don’t have to be stressed over prepping or planning. This unique experience is sure to delight your children–full of fun and delicious food, this is absolutely an adventure they’ll want to do again and again!
3) Super Pet Expo
Right in Chantilly, the Super Pet Expo is exciting, adorable, and absolutely delightful for every member of your family, including your dog! The Super Pet Expo is an all day affair, full of dazzling dogs, precious bunnies, and charming tricks! You can come just to see the animals, or you can enter your dog into the day’s activities! The Super Pet Expo is all about enrichment and fun, letting your kids awe over fuzzy friends, play with adorable pups, and learn about adoption.
With Ultimate Air dogs, watch as delightful dogs dive into a 30,000 gallon swimming pool, competing to see who can dive the furthest. There are even dog-agility demonstrations where you can watch puppers jump and dodge their way through brightly colored obstacles. There’s even a rabbit agility course. Your kids will be overjoyed as they watch these precious rabbits perform agility tricks and traverse adorable, miniature obstacles!
The Super Pet Expo offers several “shows” too, including an All Friends Pet Care Best Dressed Pet Competition. Enter your own dog, or simply watch as these fabulously furry friends strut their stuff in little costumes and outfits, dressed in tuxedos, hats, and dresses! Then, take a moment to listen to Dana Humphrey, “The Pet Lady,” as she provides educational talks about the most interesting and unique pet products from all over the world!
Once you’ve spent the day watching all the dogs, and bunnies, and learning all about pets, take a moment to shop at the over 150 local, and national, exhibitors. Don’t forget to visit the Kids Fun Zone before you leave: complete with crafts, face painting, moon bounces, and sand art!
Super Pet Expo is a one-of-a-kind family experience that is sure to be a favorite memory for every member of your family.
4) The Panther Family Laser Tag Center
Right in Sterling, this family focused amusement center is an exciting, entrancing, and active adventure. Their massive arena is multi-storied, and works with the newest technology of vests and lasers. Your family can compete together as one team, or compete against each other: either way, a healthy sense of thrilling competition. The Panther Family Laser Tag Center is family-focused: it is safe, smoke-free, drug-free, and alcohol-free. In between games, be sure to indulge in the air hockey tables and video arcade!
This impressive laser tag center has so much to offer, and their site describes it perfectly: “Strap on a vest, step into the darkened labyrinth and become completely immersed in another world — a world where teammates emerge from fog-filled passageways, and a frantic energy pervades your every fiber! Thoughts disintegrate. Lasers pierce the glowing, foggy blackness. You feel it. You become the game. Panther Family Laser Tag and Family Amusement Center in Sterling provides a safe, supervised environment for kids, teenagers, and adults alike to have a blast!
5) Sportrock Climbing
With locations in Alexandria and Sterling, Sportrock Climbing Centers offer a genuine, rock-climbing experience in a safe indoor facility. With several courses, and walls of various heights, you don’t have to be an experienced climber to enjoy the climb! Strap your family into our harnesses, and climb up to an exhilarating height of 40 feet. Using enriching problem-solving skills to figure out footing and handholes, this activity is not only a physical exercise, but a mental one. Take advantage of Sportrock’s Friday Night Heights, boasting 90 minutes of “all-you-can-climb fun!”
This engaging experience will test your family in new and exciting ways! At the end of the day, your kids will be sure to have an appetite, and then be ready to go to bed!
6) Water Mine Family Swimmin’ Hole
This convenient, Fairfax water park is like nothing else! With so much to discover and enjoy, the Water Mine Family Swimmin’ Hole can keep your family occupied for the whole weekend. You’ll want to keep coming back for more! The Water Mine Family Swimmin’ Hole has such an impressive list of activities to offer, your family can purchase season passes and are sure to never grow bored.
Their site says it best: “This family water park captures the excitement of the Old West’s Gold Rush with attractions tailored for all ages. The Water Mine Family Swimmin’ Hole offers more than an acre of slides, flumes, sprays, showers, floatables, and an interactive water playground. Careen off covered wagons, float on wild animals and dash through showers tipped from water-filled ore carts. The activity pool is encircled by Rattlesnake River, a 725 foot lazy river you can enjoy a relaxing float as the current gently nudges you along. The centerpiece is Pete’s Peak, a craggy mountain dotted with boarded up mine shafts and tunnels. Several slides of various size and intensity jut from the mountain, giving a variety of thrills you’ll return to again and again. Enjoy a slide down Big Pete and Little Pete, or experience the thrills of Prospectors Plummet with one of three 3-story waterslides!”