Corn Maze with the James and Kim

The James have been a large and great part of my life since I moved into the ward.  Heather (the mom) is my VTing companion and I was in her primary presidency before the current one with Kim, Harvey (the dad) was in the Bishopric and is my home teacher (right now he is in Prague on a Full Bright).  They have two great kids, Hannah (11) and Isaac (13) whom they adopted.  They are my favorite 11 and 13 year old that I know - great kids. 

So there is this cool corn maze outside of Columbia (just East) that we decided to check out today.  The last time I went on a corn maze was in Lehi, UT and it was right after Cameron was born.  Donna, Suzan, Cameron and I went, paid our money, got lost for over an hour and finally retraced our steps to the beginning!  It was an adventure and I guess that is what it was meant to be. 

 

This is the cool barn next to the corn maze - the Shrycock family has done the maze since 2002 - they have been farming the land around it for the last 5 generations and now use 15 acres for the maze.

This time the maze was cut in the shape below for the coming election. 

So this is what we walked through (this is an aerial shot), there were 10 check points that asked us questions about elections, presidents and the like.  We did have a map that clearly showed the exits (note: this only helps if you know where you are the map - which looked just like the picture above).  We figured out a system and in the end got all of the check point marked (there was a drawing for a iPod and bike that the kids wanted to enter).

Here are some pictures.

Isaac, Hannah and Heather trying to decide where to go next.

Heather, Kim and Hannah

We thought that the roots of the corn was fascinating - they were above ground and none of us had ever seen that before.

There was a bridge you could use to "get your bearings" this is what we saw - not helpful in any way but pretty!

Me, Hannah, Isaac and Kim Outside of the maze.

The James Family - minus Harvey.

After the maze we had a picnic lunch and then headed home - it was a beautiful day and a fun time, I am glad that we got a chance to go before I leave.

Tonight is the Woman's broadcast and so the sisters in the ward are eating Chinese food and then heading over for the broadcast.  Later Kim is going to come over and we are going to watch Anne of Green Gables (the continuing story) - Kim had never seen or read any of it so she is now reading the books and watching the movies.  I had forgotten how good they were!  And of course we are going to work on primary program stuff because we start practicing tomorrow!