CornMaze

We went CornFusion, just north of Manchester.  I thought that Illinois did cornmazes well, but this one was the best one I've been to.  For the price there were lots of things to do in addition to the actual corn maze.  The slides were super tall and fun.  There was a haybale maze too that was fully enclosed so it was more like a tunnel maze.  The girls didn't want to come out!  They just kept going in and in until we finally asked them to come out to do something else.

The actual corn maze was around 3 acres with three different bridges and a slide.  There were multiple rubbings you had to get throughout the maze and a puzzle to figure out.  I hate to say, this one stumped us.  We spent about an hour in the maze and never did find two of the stations to "complete" the maze. We grew so fatigued that we ate green plums from a tree in the center of the maze for nourishment.  :)   Finally we just focused on finding the exit, which we didn't actually find either.  We went out the entrance because that's what we could find.

Once out of the maze, the girls and Jason rode pedal cars and played lots of baseball, football, and basketball target games.  And of course I made them stick their heads in all the picture boards.

Do they look suitably miserable for being in the stocks?  I'll say they were acting the part and not just tired of me taking their pictures.  

I think we'll all look forward to CornFusion again next year, pictures or not.  

Monty's here!

Monty came to visit for a week.  It is so nice to have family here!  It is also nice to have another adult around!
We were getting ready for Trunk or Treat.  The girls (and I) decided it would be easiest just to do a farm-themed trunk because we already had everything for that.  The girls did need to make a scarecrow though.  So Monty added her artistic talents to help make the scarecrow.  He's a cutie!

We took two of the chickens with us and many of the pumpkins.  It's crazy how many people have never seen a real chicken!  So many people just wanted to pet Goldie and have their picture made with him.  They weren't as excited about the hen we had, but the rooster is a bit more showy.

We took Monty to French Twist on Friday.  Everybody needs a treat when you've gotten up so early for a piano lesson!

You may wonder why Lyla is in this bag.  I can't really explain other that it's one of the things that I think the science teacher enjoys getting kids to do.  He got me to do it too, but thankfully there are no pictures of that. Monty declined the fun.   So you got in the bag and held on to the vacuum hose and he sucked the bag to you.  I think it vaguely had something to do with air pressure, but I really think he just likes to fun-scare kids.  They did  like it though.  A couple of them didn't want to do it, but the ones that did kept asking to do it again.  So if any of them are caught at home with a shopvac and a garbage bag, maybe they can explain some scientific principal to you.  But probably not.

A Full Weekend

I had another American Girl program at the library.  This time the theme was Rebecca, turn of the century New York City.  I was pleasantly surprised that many of the same girls came back for the second program so I guess it's a success!  We made dreidels and played the dreidel game.  We also learned to crochet with our fingers because Rebecca was a very good at crochet.

Gwyn had her first swim meet.  This one was really a time trial, but she did very good.  It is very awesome to see her doing something so well and that she is proud of.  It makes a momma proud!

Jason and I actually got to go to a Halloween costume party.  We decided to dress up as Sam and Suzy from The Moonrise Kingdom.  I think it turned out pretty good for two days throwing it together.  Do we look awkward enough?

There, that's better.  

School

We do history and science with two other families.  This semester the two "little" girls are doing snap circuits.  They are given a circuit map and a goal and they have to figure it out on their own.  They may have to make a bulb light up, or a fan turn, or a switch work.  I think the one they like the most is making the alarm go off, of course because it makes noise.

The older kids are doing the Lego engineering challenges.  Their first one was to learn the three types of levers and then construct an example of each one.

We have been having breakfast in Eldersburg after our piano lessons and before our co-op.  We've tried lots of cool places, and some we know not to go back to.  But we found a really nice cafe called French Twist in Sykesville.  They have all kinds of yummy coffees and teas.  And they have crepes!  Yummy!

Celee is doing really well at HapKido.  She's holding her own with the boys who've taken the class before.  So she was excited for the teacher to call her up with them to do moves for the rest of the class.  Watch out any boy who tries to take Celee on!

A DC Day

We went on a tour of the Library of Congress with our co-op.  I don't know what I expected, but it was really amazing.  I can't wait to go back and spend some more time exploring this amazing building with so much information everywhere!  And that's without even going into the actual study rooms.  Our tour was supposed to be focused on Thomas Jefferson, but our tour guide kind of did his own thing so it hit Jefferson here and there, but was a cool tour none the less.
The Library of Congress was built in such a cool way.  The architect went to Chicago and hired artisans who had no where to work after the World's Fair, brought them back to DC and told them to do what they wanted.  So the marblework and masonry is really ornate and at times bizarre.  There are these little cherubs up the staircase that each have things in there hands to represent things like books, a globe, a hammer, a spear, etc.  But the guide said that some, they don't know what's in their hands and can't figure out what it's supposed to represent.

The girls also thought it was super cool that we each had an earpiece to hear the tour guide so he didn't have to yell and we didn't have to try to crowd around him to hear.  We could wander and look and still hear him where ever we were.

There is an exhibit of the books in Jefferson's own library.  There are some missing, but it's still neat to see what Jefferson himself would have read and thought enough of to have in his personal library.

There is also a children's reading room tucked away in the bottom of the library.  They have the normal children's library stuff like puppets and toys along with many cool books.  They did have an exhibit of the collages that were used to illustrate "Parrots over Puerto Rico."  They were amazing and beautiful!

We took the tunnel to the Capital to get back to our car and while we didn't have time to do a tour or see much there, we did snap a picture inside.

It was kind of a wet day, but we decided to try for the National Zoo anyway.  This zoo has large enclosures and as-close-to-natural-habitats as I guess you can get.  Zoos always make us a little sad though.  We enjoy seeing the many different animals and I'm thankful for the conservation efforts of many zoos like this one.  But I do hate to see large animals or birds contained.  I did get to see a few animals I had never seen before.  I had never seen a Maned Wolf, but man!  Those things are huge! (said in the voice of Tiny Elvis)

Still, we had fun and the girls enjoyed seeing new animals.  So it was a fun day!

Weekend of Service

We ended up doing a weekend of service.  This reminded me of our church in Illinois that had an organized "Weekend of Service" every September where the church body went out into the community and did service projects instead of church.  (The church has left the building!)  We ended up doing that here, but we did get to go to church on Sunday too.
Celee's Girl Scout troop was signed up to pick potatoes at First Fruits Farm.  This farm donates either the proceeds from produce or the produce itself to local food banks and charities.  But, it had rained way too much the day before and the machines couldn't get into the potato field so we ended up picking pumpkins instead.  The girls had so much fun picking and sorting pumpkins!  And they each got to pick one at the end to take home.

Gwyn's youth group went to "volunteer" at Baltimore Station after church.  Baltimore Station is a home/resource center for veterans who are struggling with addictions, PTSD, re-adjustment issues, and other problems when they return home.  I say the girls "volunteered" because our job was to watch the Ravens game with them and have a party.  It provides the vets with some social interactions and normalcy that they may be lacking in.   So we went down and and had a football party with them.

Gwyn also discovered that she could climb into this ball catcher at the playground next door.  She is a climber!

Lyla didn't get left out.  We were told by an acquaintance that a local farmer was done with his pumpkin fields and was going to plow it under in three days.  If we wanted pumpkins we could go get some.  So we went.  The kids kept saying they were done and then someone would decide to go get "one more."  Then everyone would go get one more.  Soon we filled the mini-van with as many pumpkins as we could and still have a spot for me and five kids to sit.  I don't know how I didn't get a picture of this, but it reminded me of pictures you see from third world countries where all you can see through a car's windows are some kind of produce or farm animal.  Even after we dropped the neighbors kids off with all their pumpkins we still had over a hundred pumpkins to put in our yard and decorate.  We keep giving them away to friends who come over and we still have piles here and piles there.  I like to think of it as a physical reminder of "as you give, so you shall receive."