FAMILY blog
Fall: Festivals, Family and Fun
O ne of my favorite things about fall is the
plethora of festivals. Although they seem to
come all at once, in a six-week sprint between
mid-September and Halloween, these events
give us a chance to be outdoors in the beautiful fall
weather, learn a little bit more about some aspects of our
community and enjoy some good food and entertainment.

Like the growth chart on the kitchen wall, they also
serve as markers of our children’s development. Wasn’t
it just yesterday you were pushing him in a stroller or
holding his hand tightly while he pulled you from one
booth to another? Now he’s confidently running around
on his own, taking photos and sending them to his friends
or posting them on social media.

One of our favorite events is the Dulles Day Plane Pull
and Festival, which benefits Virginia Special Olympics.

The location is unique – when else do you get to walk
on an actual runway or taxiway at a major international
airport? And jumbo jets are landing and taking off literally
only a few hundred feet away.

You can watch teams of muscular (and some not-so-
muscular) men and women pulling a 737 – yes, pulling
it by a rope, like a tug of war. You can take a joy ride in
one of Dulles’ trademark mobile lounges for a spectacular
view of all the airplanes. You can wander among historic
military and passenger aircraft arrayed on the runway,
and even explore inside a few of them.

For the airplane and history enthusiast, like my
son, now 13, it’s a day he looks forward to every year.

And watching him go off to explore the planes and talk
intelligently about them makes me proud – but also
makes me reminisce about the days when I would tell him
about what he was looking at, and he would listen.

At this year’s Plane Pull, for the third year, participants
also could stop by Washington FAMILY’s booth (in the
kids zone) and help their children make paper airplanes
6 October 2016 washingtonFAMILY.com
(we provided the materials and instructions) – and then
see how well they fly. Kids drag their moms and dads
over to our table, choose their plane (girls usually go for
pink; boys for blue, stereotypically), and then get mom or
dad to help them fold the paper just right.

Then they have to account for the wind (which can be
tricky at the airport) and fly their plane into the target. It’s
a lesson in aerodynamics and a chance for a little parent-
child bonding. Even the adults sometimes get in on the
fun. We’ll do it again at another of our favorite events, the
Manassas Fall Jubilee, on Saturday, Oct. 1, and we’re also
planning to be at the Marine Corps Marathon Kids Fun
Run on Saturday, Oct. 29. And our annual Private School
Fair will be Sunday, Oct. 9, at Kid’s Choice Sports Center
in Woodbridge.

Participating in these kinds of events is important to us
because they support the community and give us a chance
to connect with our readers. And the 13-year-old isn’t yet
too cool to help the younger ones make paper airplanes,
so we get a little father-son bonding time, too.

We hope you’ll find time in your busy fall schedule
to come out to at least one of these events and meet our
family. We’d love to meet yours!
Bruce Potter
Chief Operating Officer
Northern Virginia Media Services
publisher@thefamilymagazine.com