Fall Family Fun - Cox Farms
Published by Sara on Tagged UncategorizedThere is SO much to do for families in fall here in the area; we can’t keep up with everything! We have really tried to get into the autumn spirit and take advantage of as much as we can while the weather is mild. Watch this space to get some ideas to keep you busy for the next couple of weekends.
Cox Farms
We went on a Saturday when it was supposed to rain so it wasn’t really crowded at all. The price was kind of high at $15/person for anyone over the age of two (that is 4 of us), but if you can leave early one day in the week and get there by 3:30, you can spend a solid 2.5 hours there for only $9/person.
The farm has a TON of things to do and the whole family can actually enjoy it. There are at least a dozen slides of varying lengths that are fun for everyone. They have a troll bridge stocked with plenty of goats for the kids to feed. The hayride was a highlight of the trip (15 minutes) through the farm, forest, and haunted barn. I highly recommend making the trip to Centreville. Check out the website for more info: Cox Farms. Below are some pictures from our trip.
Corn Mazes Galore
Published by Sara on Tagged UncategorizedAutumn is coming and we are very fortunate to live in an area that is surrounded by farmland. Sure we live in a busy metropolitan, but there are countless farms within Northern Virginia within an hours drive or less!
A great Saturday can be spent visiting one of these farms and navigating your way through a corn maze. Below you can find a list of area corn mazes:
| Farm Name | Location | Distance from Springfield | Other Info |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cox farms | 15621 Braddock Road Centreville, VA 20120 |
17 miles (33 Minutes) | Open Daily 10am-6pm (closes 5pm Nov 3-4) |
| The Corm Maze in the Plains | The Plains, VA | 40 miles (50 Minutes) | Open Sept. 20-Nov. 2, 2008 Saturday and Sunday (Fridays in Oct.) open Columbus Day Monday (Oct. 13) Hours: 10am-6 pm |
| The MAiZE | 15789 Temple Hall Lane Leesburg, VA 20176 |
43 miles (1 Hour) | Friday, September 26, 2008 - Sunday, November 02, 2008 (10:00 AM-10:00 PM) |
| Cows-n-Corn | 5191 Germantown Rd Midland, VA 22728 |
35 miles (1 Hour) | Friday 3pm -9pm Saturday 10am -9pm Sunday Noon -7pm |
| Maize Quest | 4032 Mechanicsville Turnpike Mechanicsville, VA 23111 |
105 Miles (1 Hour and 50 min.) | Season: 8/30/2008 - 11/1/2008 Hours: SEPT. Sat 10am-Dusk, Sun 1pm-Dusk; OCT Fri 2pm-10pm, Sat 10am-10pm, Sun 1pm-Dusk |
Dining out in Burke…Loudly!
Published by Sara on Tagged Uncategorized
Are you afraid to take your kids out to eat because they make a lot of noise? Well, I have the solution for you! Glory Days Grill is a sports bar/family-friendly restaurant with plenty of TVs lining the walls (approximately 40) and tasty food. Each table has a speaker that allows you to tune it to one of the tvs in your area. They even make sure to have a couple of cartoons on in addition to the sports to keep the kids happy.
The grill has a wide range of food for various tastes. They are most famous for their wings (to include the boneless kind) and sandwiches. The food isn’t anything spectacular but it is good and we would go back again.
There are several locations throughout Virginia and Maryland.
Perils of the Lost Jungle
Published by Sara on Tagged UncategorizedA couple of weeks ago, we wanted to go play mini-golf but hadn’t seen any courses, so of course we did a little research. Apparently there are numerous mini-golf courses in the northern Virginia area and one stood out from them all being called one of the “top 5″ in Virginia.
Perils of the Lost Jungle is part of Woody’s Golf located in Herndon, VA, close to the Dulles Town Center. From the outside looking in, it doesn’t look all that impressive but once we saw the first hole, we knew we were in for a good time.
This mini-golf course has a jungle theme with plenty of animated bugs, spiders, and snakes to keep you on your toes. The first hole had a life-size Komodo Dragon that my 7 and 4-year old were scared to death to walk by! The second hole had a Tomb straight out of Indiana Jones. You needed to putt your ball through the tomb which would only open once you put your hand into a secret spot. The rest of the course was equally as enjoyable.
The course is a full 18 holes and we didn’t spend much time taking score because the kids were just taking their balls and putting them in the holes so they could see what was around the next corner. We went in the evening which provided for a different atmosphere than it would during the daytime. If you go with children younger then 4 or who fright easily, I would recommend going in the day!
King’s Dominion - Always a Good Time
Published by Sara on Tagged UncategorizedLast spring we bought season passes to King’s Dominion and have done our best to make the most of it. The theme park is about a 90 minute drive from Northern Virginia so you really have to want it to go there. This fact helps to make King’s Dominion less crowded than other area theme parks.
We always have a good time there. There are tons of rides for both kids (ages 4 and 7) and we enjoy ourselves as well. This time, however, our mission was to hit the water park and spend the day there. I had never been to their water park and after the disaster at six flags, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I was pleasantly surprised! WaterWorks was extremely clean and the rides/pools were all working and in good shape! My four-year old had fun playing in the wave pool, a HUGE water play house, and loved the lazy river. My seven-year old could ride all of the water slides and I convinced him (bribed him) to ride several of the slides with me. He was a little hesitant at first but loved it afterward.
We had such a great day, I am sad that we waited until the end of summer to enjoy it. We will definitely get season passes again next year and will go more often. There is still one more week to enjoy it before the water park closes!
NoVAAlerts - Twitter
Published by Sara on Tagged UncategorizedIf you haven’t heard of Twitter yet; now’s the time! Twitter is essentially a micro-blogging tool that lets you connect with other people and keep up to date with a ton of different things. You create your twitter account and you “follow” people which essentially subscribes you to any of their updates. With twitter you only have 140 characters to say what you have to say. It is really neat because not only can you get updates from your friends, it is really easy to stay up to date with a lot of things. For example, the presidential campaigns are both using it:
Barack Obama’s Twitter Account
John McCain’s Twitter Account
News organizations are also using it:
CNN’s Twitter Account
Fox New’s Twitter Account
One of my favorite twitter accounts and a must-subscribe for any NoVA resident is NoVAAlerts! It provides alerts on traffic, weather, crime, and other goings on in the Northern Virginia area. If you don’t have a Twitter account, you need to sign up today and follow these guys!
Disaster at Six Flags
Published by Sara on Tagged UncategorizedA couple of weekends ago it was pretty hot and muggy and we REALLY wanted to go to a local water park. But which do we go to?
We considered some small local ones like The Water Mine and SplashDown Waterpark and even considered heading down to Kings Dominion which is an hour and a half away. I decided I wanted to stay closer so I did some more research. I found out that the Six Flags in Maryland has a water park and is supposed to have one of the BEST wave pools in the country. Score!
I went to the Six Flags website and saw they were offering all of their tickets for the price of a child’s ticket. Double score. I was really excited that we had gotten a good deal on the tickets and were headed to a fun water park!
We arrived at Six Flags at approximately 11:30 AM. There was a long line to get into the parking lot, but it really didn’t bother us at all. We opted to pay the extra $5 for VIP parking so we could beat some of the people in. When we get inside the park, we immediately head towards the water park since that is really the goal for the day. Once we get there, we rent a locker to store our keys and our clothes. We forgot to bring sunscreen so I went to the shops and they were all sold out unless you counted the 8 SPF sun tan lotion. Well, 8 SPF is better than nothing; I figured I would just need to watch the kids closely. At the locker area, i looked down on the ground. There was squished ketchup packets and plenty of other things I couldn’t identify just thrown down on the floor. It was really pretty gross. I was anxious to get out of there and get into the water.
Little did I know that the ketchup packet was just the beginning. We started heading towards the wave pool and see that the no one is in the pool. We assume they are taking a break and will open it in 10 minutes or so. We head down to the kids play area. It looks nice and big from a distance but once you get close, you see all of the disgusting things on the ground. We let the kids go into the wade pool and stepped in ourselves. I felt extremely dirty all of the sudden. Walking through patches of warm water grosses me out just a little bit. We let the kids play for about 20 minutes then we decided we needed to check on the wave pool because surely that would be cleaner. We headed over there and noticed the pool was still closed. On the way there, we saw drinks spilled on the ground and what looked to be vomit. After speaking to a security guard, he said they had a spontaneous water quality check and they had to close the pool. We were officially grossed out and decided to leave. Nevermind the fact that we spend $115 on tickets and parking, we were leaving as fast as we could.
I don’t consider myself a clean freak by any means but being there made me feel extremely dirty. I will never go back there. Yuck.