Ken's Corn Maze!

I am loving (maybe slightly addicted) to coupons and finding great ways to save money. I am not in any way like Extreme Couponers on that TLC show. They are CRAZY!!! The only problem is.....I am not as organized as I should be to keep up with it. I have too much sanguine in my personality to stay on top of all of it. In saying all this, I had purchased discounted tickets to a corn maze in the area on Groupon a month ago. I assumed we would go in October or when it got cooler. Thank goodness, one of my friends blogged about her experience at that same corn maze. It reminded me of my Groupon. This was Friday the 23rd. I looked up our certificate and it expired on Sunday the 25th. So, I was about to throw away an already paid pass into the corn maze. Thanks Maridith for your post about the maze.....if you are out there! Glad I read your blog girl :) I have lost way too many deals because of my lack of organization!
Glad I was able to get all that off my chest....LOL! Admitting you have a problem is the first step right?
Going to a corn maze is the perfect thing for Caedmon to do. He loves to do mazes, word searches, and hidden pictures in coloring books. He has a very logical, analytical mind like his Daddy. He is extremely gifted in this area for an almost five year old. I told him about the maze earlier in the day Sunday, but we were not scheduled to go until after Jensen got up from his afternoon nap. Caedmon asked me about the maze so many times. It was one of those moments in parenting where you learn from your mistakes and realize that keeping secrets from your kids can be nice :) Reminds me of 12 hours of driving to Disney a few years ago and the sheer amount of questions......AHH Flashbacks!!!! I do not think Caedmon really knew what to expect. When we got there, they had a huge tower you could climb up to look at the maze. All you could really see were these flags moving through the maze. Caedmon was surprised when I told him that that was the maze we were going to attempt to tackle. I think it was 2.5 miles long and took the average group 1.5 hours to complete.
We let the kids do a few fun things before we left. We went to the bathroom.......necessity...... and the kids measured how tall they were.

Liesel really enjoyed milking a cow. HMMM......I guess we should live on a farm. I would love that, I think!

Caedmon found a jail........well the end of a tractor :)

Now I think we are ready to go tackle the maze. Craig and Jensen are ready to go:

We let Caedmon lead the way in the beginning because he was more excited than probably any kid that has ever gone in that maze. I wish I had recorded the first time we came to a fork in the maze and we had to decide which path to take. He was in his element and I am not exaggerating! If you spend any time with Caedmon, I am sure you can imagine how serious this was to him. There were three colored sections to the maze and we had to find stations with letters to punch on our card. There were four letters per section for a total of 12 which spelled Ken's Corn Maze. Before we went in the maze, they went over the rules.....We had to "Stay Together" and "No running" were the rules that Caedmon remembered the most. Caedmon wants so badly to follow rules. He is very concerned about rocking the boat, if you know what I mean! One time we knew there was one section that connected back again, Craig and I could see it. So we told the kids we would split up so we could both look for a letter. Caedmon was concerned about breaking a rule. The other thing is he went so quickly through his section that he missed the first station, so from then on we had to double check sections he had covered. One time he began to run. He stopped right away, pointed to the punch card that had the rules and said: "Uh-oh, I unbeyed the rules." Yes unbeyed instead of disobeyed....so cute!
Here we are after we found the first letter: K

Isn't Craig just the best....carrying Jensen and the flag? Liesel loved punching the cards. She did her card and Caedmon's card at every station. Each station had a different shape for the hole punch. She was so careful to line up the hole punch on the picture each time. There are moments in parenting (well a lot for me) where you look back and realize you need to relax! After 3 or four stations, I rushed her along because I was worried we would be in the maze for 4 hours. I love Liesel's attention to detail. I just need to appreciate it a lot more.
This corn maze was not easy at all and there came a point where I think we all were tired and ready to be done. Liesel at one point sat on the ground and said "I am just going to wait right here. You can come get me when you find all the letters." Ha! I wish that would work! We could not find the letters, we sure would not be able to find our daughter! We finally found letter Z.....only one more to go....E.  High Five People!!!!!!

We found our second wind and worked so quickly to find the last station. Here was my fun idea of acting tired. The kids are great actors, I just look, well, weird......is a nice way to say it. Ha!

We made it out of the maze officially with a time of 1.5 hours to be exact. I did not want to have an average time. I have not told Craig this, but I actually would like to go back just me and him without the kids and try to do it in an hour or maybe less. I am so competitive and love a challenge. Maybe I could just go by myself. Where is Heidi? Oh she is just at the maze running around aimlessly. LOL!!! Seriously......I might do it!
Here are my boys in the bus. Going on a trip? I love how Jensen is waving.

The kids conquered the hay maze much quicker.

Who are these funny looking animals?

They had a huge area full of corn. Liesel said it was way more fun than the maze.

Corn angels anyone????

The kids fell asleep in the car on the way home. I can personally understand. The next day Liesel said she wanted to go back there again the next weekend. I was surprised because she did not seem to enjoy the maze much at all like Caedmon did. She said because she wants to play in the corn again :) Maybe I can just build a big pit of corn at my house. Or just put it on my honey-do list. LOL! Caedmon told me the next day that the maze was the hardest maze he has even done. For sure! He also said something so funny and I forgot to go write it down. That is how I remember what to write in my blogs. This time I forgot. Oh well! He says enough witty and funny things in the day that I really should keep a journal in my pocket for Caedmonisms! I just made up a new word. :)
I love blogging because it will be great for my mommy brain to remember these precious moments of their childhood. When I can't tell them what happened, they can read this blog. Hopefully!