Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

We kicked this Halloween Season off with "The World Famous Horse Corn Maze"!  Ever since Eric and I were dating, he's always shared with me his love for labyrinths and 'natural' mazes.  I remember the first couple years we were married I searched for corn mazes this time of year and the best I could find was at Bates Nut Farm...which is fun, but mostly for kids...as it's not corn maze it's just a 'hay bail' maze.  But the bails are only stacked two or three high, so as you can imagine it's not as difficult or as fun when you can see over the maze.  Last year when we went to Hawaii, we spend a day on Oahu and went to the Dole Plantation, specifically to go in their labyrinth.  Eric and I raced...take a wild guess who won...yep, he did ; )  The maze was super hard, but it was pretty 'thin' so you could see through the maze and walk through the 'walls'...but it was the best one either of us had been in so we were stoked.


Well, low and behold right down the street-ish, there is "Southern California Largest Authentic Corn Maze".  Here is an aerial shot of the maze....however, it felt way more intricate inside it.

Heather, Maryann (Heath's mom, my second mom), Bo/Eric/Luke, myself, Grant and Rachel, all took the maze challenge.  I for one, was totally over confident...I thought it was going to be super easy...wow, I could not have been more wrong.  However, it was a total blast...after we hit 'mile marker' 5 (not really 'mile marker', but they had stations throughout the maze to kind of keep you on track).  We passed mile market 1, 2 & 3 multiple times...going in circles...good times.  The kids were 'done' by the third passing of marker 3...at one point Grant decided he was going to be a 'doggy' and started crawling and growling (oh, maybe he was being a dinosaur...), anyway Heather first tried to get him up, he wanted nothing to do with it, I tried (verbally), he just growled...then slowly, Heath and I started to giggle...how ridiculous are we, trying to do this super hard maze with two, two year olds...(oh and guess who forgot water and guess who, for one of the first times ever, asked for water!!??!! yeah, that's me and my Doggy, apparently, crawling really makes you thirsty.  Good thing heath brought two bottles with her!).  With Grant being a Doggy and Rachel's fascination with mud (which was everywhere...she just could not resist, stopping, squatting down and squishing her fingers in it), had there been an exit we would have taken it right there and then...but there wasn't.  Which was a good thing because after 45min-ish, we made it through and felt really good about our accomplishment!  (Just so I am completely honest, we kinda cheated-ish...I would call it strategy, but some may not agree.  So at every 'mile marker' was a flag that flew above the corn stalks...so after the fifth marker I was like, 'hey, let's just look up and see if we can the next flag, rather than forward to decide which way we should go...Heather was the best at spotting the flags (height may have something to do with it...or just sheer desperation to get the frick out!).  We were moving so fast after that, that trick would have been money around marker 2 and 3!).  


After the maze the plan was to hit, the pony ride and then jumpy houses...but since we got there late and the maze took a bit longer than anticipated...the jumpy houses were deflating (Grant says 'jumpy's going nite nite) and the pony was walking to her stall.  We and mostly the kids were super bummed!  Until we found the corn!  And as you can see by these pictures...we ALL had a great time in it!


Oh wait first we found a old water pump...Rach is showing Grant how it's done ; )

K, then the corn...

The patch was closing so we shook the corn off and headed for the car.  I swung by the kettle corn vendor bought a bag (and negotiated a 50% discount, which made the popcorn taste that much sweeter!)


We got the the cars, Auntie M gave Grant is belated bday present...which he loved! 

It was a perfect day!  Except we didn't buy any pumpkins!  LOL!!  Oh well, there is always next year!  Which we will be back!!


We did get a couple cute pics of the kids by pumpkins ; )