Weekend Plans MLK Day Edition: Parties, rodeo, sledding, more

Most school kids have a long weekend ahead of them with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. Today’s post will include activities through Monday.

Lots of Wake County school kids have school off on Tuesday as well. If you're looking for something to do, check our reviews of local parks and playgrounds and posts on Triangle family destinations. Also, Raleigh Winterfest, the ice rink in downtown Raleigh, is open nearly daily through the end of the month, including Friday through Tuesday. And the Museum of Life and Science, which is usually closed on Mondays this time of year, will be open on MLK Day.

As always, check WRAL.com’s Out & About calendar for more weekend activities. Here’s your weekend family fun!

Cary, Raleigh, Marbles Kids Museum and Northgate Mall all will have special family-friendly events to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. And the United Way of the Greater Triangle’s Day of Service offers family-friendly volunteer opportunities. Some events, including the one in Cary, begin on Saturday. For the details on all of the events, check my earlier post for details.

The highly anticipated Stay & Play Snack Cafe in downtown Durham will celebrate its grand opening from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday. The business, supported through a successful campaign on kickstarter.com this summer, is as much indoor play space as it is coffee shop. You can get a latte and snacks here. But you can also lounge on a couch while your young kid plays with all the toys here and not buy anything to eat. An admission fee is $4.50 per kid and $3 for each additional child (adults are free). I’ll have much more about the cafe on Friday, including the schedule for Saturday's event (there's a 2 p.m. performance from the Sandbox band). So stay tuned! Before then, check out our gallery of pictures taken this week as Emily McCall, the owner, worked to get it ready for the weekend.

The World’s Toughest Rodeo is 7:30 p.m., Saturday, at the PNC Arena in Raleigh. The rodeo showcases top cowboys performing bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, and bull riding. New this year is American-style bull fighting, which involves rodeo clowns or “cowboy lifesavers” using their agility and skill against specially bred rodeo “fighting” bulls. Kids 12 and under get ½ price tickets on regularly priced seats (except for the $75 seats) thanks to WRAL-TV and Fox 50. Tickets start at $18 each.

Shen Yun Performing Arts returns to Raleigh’s Progress Energy Center with three shows Saturday and Sunday. The show features classical Chinese dance and music, bringing to life 5,000 years of Chinese history. I am told that the show is absolutely spectacular. It features nearly 100 artists, 400 costumes and an orchestra with both Western and Chinese instruments. With that said, tickets start at $60.

It appears that there’s a very good chance of snow at Cary’s Bond Park on Saturday, Sunday and Monday as the town will be hiring Snow My Yard to come out and make some snow. The town is offering sledding sessions each day. You must pre-register if you want to go (and some slots may be full already). Read my earlier post for details.

Mordecai Historic Park, 1 Mimosa St., Raleigh, will offer free tours on Friday. Tours start every 30 minutes, beginning at 10 a.m. The last tour starts at 3 p.m. Tours are only offered twice a year at this city of Raleigh park, which features a collection of historic buildings. It’s a great opportunity if you’re tracked out or homeschooling.

Marbles and the N.C. Science Olympiad will team up for a Family Science Olympiad from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday. Participants can build bridges, rockets and secret structures, investigate genetics, solve a mystery and more. It's free with admission, which is $5 per person.

Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill will have a couple of special events for families this weekend. From 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, the museum will host a Winter Pajama Party. Kids ages 4 to 8 (and their adults) are invited to dress up like the men and women they’ll find in the artworks on view. Hands-on activities include trying on costumes and making accessories such as jewelry and mustaches. There will be stories related to dressing up. Pajamas are encouraged, along with any binkies or lovies.

And from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, Ackland will have “Cryoacoustic Orb,” a sound installation by Jonathon Kirk and Lee Weisert. Here’s how it’s described in a museum release: “Creating a complex, winter-inspired soundscape, “Cryoacoustic Orb” involves multiple illuminated acrylic orbs filled with slowly melting ice. Hydrophones frozen inside the ice amplify the sounds of the melting process, which are electronically processed and spatialized throughout the Museum gallery. The result is a unique ambient soundscape that evolves over the course of several hours.” My seven-year-old daughter would be mesmerized by this.

Northgate Mall’s Ho-b Max, a seller of battery-operated, electronic hobby crafts such as airplanes, cars and trains, will host a free 1/10 scale car drift racing event with model drift cars from noon to 4 p.m., Saturday, at the Durham mall’s center court. Kids ages 10 and up can sign up for five-minute rides with remote control drift cars from noon to 3:30 p.m. From 3:30-4:00pm, Ho-b Max customers that bring their own drift car will race against Ho-b Max employees. “Developed and popularized in Japan, car drifting is a driving technique that balances steering, accelerating, braking, and shifting to remain in the state of oversteer, or ‘drifting,’ where the driver intentionally causes loss of traction in the rear wheels, while maintaining control from entry to exit of a corner,” according to the mall.

And the Broad Street Cafe’s BSC Kids series continues at 4:30 p.m., Sunday, with The Buzztown Band. According to the Durham cafe, the band was created by Brian Buzby and includes musicians from across the Triangle. They have played in bands such as Saunter, Shine, Motion Pictures, Stone Age Romeos, JetHorse, Damn Fine Coffee, and Land of Chocolate. The concert is free.