Corn Mazes, Now and Then

Since it's starting to rain, and Theo's last soccer practice of the season will probably be canceled, I'll try to get a post done.  This fall has had a lot of wet Wednedays, but at least the weekends have been beautiful.  We've gotten in a lot of fall outdoor fun.

2011

One of our favorite places in Delaware (well, Maryland, but from when we lived in Delaware) was Kilby Cream.  This place had some awesome ice cream and a fun petting zoo.  And, in fall, has a corn maze!  I think this was the first corn maze I ever visited, and we went in both 2011 the first year our oldest could walk and again in 2012 with our newborn and our 2 year old.  I think Eli slept through the whole thing in his sling.  And maybe other than being a little crowded our second visit, it was a great place to go to get lost in a field of corn.  See old post, here.

                                           2011                                                                         2012

2012

I remember Theo just loved bossing us around through the maze, and "reading" the maps.  Their current prices are $7 for 10 and older, $5 for 3-9 year olds, and free for under three year olds.  And this year that includes an additional kiddy maze.  I was half tempted to make the drive all the way back there this October to visit again, but decided we should try something a little closer to home.

Enter The Corn Maze in the Plains.  This seemed to be one of the closest places to us that featured a large corn maze.  For the steeper price of $10 for adults, $9 for kids, and 3 and under free, we entered a farm yard filled with obstacle courses, slides, farm animals, and other objects to climb, roll in, or otherwise move.  There was a hay ride, and you could sling shot pumpkins into an open field (apparently Eli's favorite, as this was the only thing all day he signed "more" for).  And then, there was the corn maze.  At 5 acres, it was challenging enough for our family, but not too long to exhaust the boys. 

And now, for an overload of photos from this year:

 We had a little extra fun with the theme of the maze, being "wolves".  I totally did not plan Theo's shirt to match (though, we all know I would have, had I known).

Surprisingly... no one was injured in any of these activities.

Who doesn't love a corn maze?

Cows 'n Corn Fieldtrip (Theo's first fieldtrip)

Knowing we'd be going to a farm for Theo's field trip, we haven't really hit up as many local farms this fall as we might have otherwise.  We were all excited to join Theo's school for a morning on the farm.

Cows 'n Corn is located a county over in Midland, VA.  The farm is open to the public with a large corn maze, ice cream, and lots of play equipment for the kids.  For our field trip, they split us into groups and rotated us through four stations. 

First, we got to go on a hay ride.  Theo was pretty funny correcting a kid who was holding a piece of straw and calling it hay.  He apparently learned this difference between all the farm and fair visits to Indiana.

 Their Holsteins are a bit spoiled-they have an automatic back scratcher (yellow), that was something I've never saw before. 

Next they got to go learn a bit more about a heifer, and pet her, as well as some other farm animals.

The third station was a butter-making demonstration.  The kids all got their chance to shake the cream until it turned to butter, and got a taste.  Theo was the first in line to claim his cracker.

 And the fourth was pumpkin class, which included a story reading by a calf puppet.  Theo has been really into our hand puppets lately, so this was perfect for him. 

 Lastly, there was plenty of equipment to play on throughout the farm, including a rope spider web, crawling tubes, wooden trains, and a huge stack of hay bales.  And, of course, all the kids got a little bit of ice cream.

 Elmo especially enjoyed the field trip (he is going everywhere with us lately).

Kilby Cream

After a quick search of my blog, I realized I have never really done a post about one of our favorite local places, Kilby Cream.  Though this one is a bit away from Newark, I would still consider it close enough to call local.

A quick jog down 95 will lead you into rural Maryland (third state Eli has visited now).  It always amazes me how quickly we can get to the country here. When we lived in Phoenix it took FOREVER to get "out of the city".  Here we are not nearly as trapped in the urban sprawl as we were there.

This dairy has really great ice cream, a petting zoo (calves, goats, mini horses, etc), and a playground that Theodore just can't resist.  And in the fall it is home to a corn maze.

Last year was our first time there, and we had a fun time taking Theodore through, though we went at a busier time and some of the lesser behaved children annoyed us.

But this year, we had the whole maze to ourselves on an early Sunday evening, and Theodore really had a blast leading us through.  He wanted to "read" the map the whole time, and kept deciding "This Way" at all the intersections. He was oddly right most of the time too.  Every now and then he wanted to trick dada by telling him to go a different way, but then would get worried when he was gone.  T would literally jump in the air when dada would sneak up on him by going around a different way, and then start giggling.  It was a lot of fun, and of course was followed by some great scoops of ice cream!  Not a normal fall pairing, but one Theodore is probably going to always link-  ice cream and corn mazes.