The Maize

We had a great day yesterday as a family. We took the kids to the Sauvie Island Maize at the Pumpkin Patch. It is a yearly tradition for us now. Lori, my friend from Idaho, has never been to something like this so of course we took her with us to show her the fun :) We all had a ball together! The weather was beautiful and the mud was managable in the Maize. Last year we got about 20 ft in and had to turn around and ask for our money back. We did get it back but we notice this year they have signs up stating no refunds. I'm guessing they had a lot of refunds to give out last year.

We usually let the kids lead the way. They are pretty good about finding their way around these things. I generally have no idea where we are at but the kids can usually guess which part of the "picture" we are in. Usually only takes us a 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes to get through the whole thing.

After we conquered the Maize we hopped on the hay ride that takes you out to the pumpkin patch. There we spent much time each looking for our perfect pumpkin. Lori found hers right away, a nice big green one! Green is her favorite color and she couldn't pass it up. Usually our rule is if you can't carry it yourself you can't have it. She heard us reminding the kids of this and at first wouldn't admit that maybe the pumpkin was too heavy for her to carry. But we could soon see it was a bit of chore to haul it back to the waiting area for the tractor back to the barn. She refused to let us help her carry, it was the rule after all :) She just makes me laugh. We ended up breaking our own rule anyway as the boys found their perfect pumpkins which just happened to be 3x larger then last year's!! How can you turn down a kid who has found his perfect pumpkin? So Rob and I helped them carry theirs back to the tractor.

Then it is usually customary to go in the store and buy some fresh corn. After that it's on to the refreshments stands where the kids get caramel apples and the adults get elephant ears. It was funny watching Elizabeth trying to eat hers as her mouth is so small. She was having a hard time getting a bite of apple.

We went home totally worn out and sore but we had so much fun. It's always worth it to see the kids out there having so much fun!