7 Ways to Extend Your Weekend

By Won Kim

I'm a huge fan of lists. So, in honor of the extended three-day weekend, I thought of seven ways to lengthen your weekend even more. Being the dad, you know everyone's counting on you to come through in the clutch. And although spending the whole weekend lounging out on your couch catching some playoff basketball and some movies sound nice, these little nuggets might help you to get everyone involved.

Again, I'm not expecting anyone to accomplish all seven, but I would love to hear some feedback about how you pops will (or did) spend the weekend. If anything, send us some more ideas of how you extended your weekend.

1. Road Trip. If your wallet can handle the steep gas price and your patience can cope with the inevitable holiday traffic that you'll face, plan an impromptu road trip. Google search a great getaway destination that's affordable, but more than anything else, find a place that offers some family festivity (www.family.go.com/travel is a great site to begin).
   
   
2. Park It. Why not spend a nice, lazy afternoon exploring a park with your kid(s)? If they're young, they'll enjoy the colors and the animals that nature provides. If they're a bit older, show them how to read a map, use a compass and track a deer (or other animals, preferably nothing bigger than you).
   
   
3. Cook Out. Don't buy a bucket of chicken from KFC and call it home cooking. If you're going to do it, do it well. Marinate some beef, put some veggies on a shish kabob and fire it up. Here's a site that might bring out the cooker in you (www.cooks.com search keywords "shish kabob").
   
   
4. Slumber Party. Maybe you're just planning to lay low and stay at home. Why not spice up the weekend at home by planning a themed slumber party for your little ones. Whether it's a movie night, safari night or '80s (wait, our kids won't understand that decade at all) ... or game night, you can make one night truly memorable.
   
   
5. Get Educated. Sounds boring? But with the right amount of energy and preparation, you can turn a learning experience into something enjoyable. Map out a few museums, a zoo, a science center and some historic sites around the area, and do a quick search on these places. Using a few pieces of gathered information, you can create a scavenger hunt that will make the visit to these spots an adventure. For example, if you visit a science center, have a checklist of things they need to find to complete the scavenger hunt (find the name of the person who found electricity, where did the first plane fly, what is the name of the bug hanging from the third floor ceiling, etc.). For toddlers and babies, just take them to an interactive museum and they're set.
   
   
6. Lego Time (or puzzle time). This activity was always a fave of mine on rainy days. Basically, take some time together to build a house of legos or put together all the puzzle pieces. Although my son is only three years old, he loves helping daddy find the missing Lego piece. Warning: three-year-old boys have a tendency to demolish Lego houses when only halfway done.
   
   
7. Ask Your Kid. Sounds simple, because it is. Sit your kid down and ask them if they could do one thing this weekend what would it be. Some might be easy like taking them out for ice cream or kicking the soccer ball around. However (and most likely), some responses might seem impossible to fulfill, like climbing Mount Everest or visiting Mickey Mouse at Disney World. But, if you're creative enough, you can make any one of these requests come true. Okay, so you can't buy a plane ticket to Nepal to climb Mount Everest, but I'm sure you can find a really steep hill to climb (with ropes, backpacks, etc.). Or if your kid wants to go to the moon in a rocket ship, why not get a cardboard box and make a rocket ship, and turn your garage or basement into a miniature version of space.

Bottom line: make some memories. Suddenly your three-day weekend just got longer.