Happy Birthday to Us!

For the past several years, on my mom's side of the family we've been having a "group" birthday party. There are so many birthdays between september & December that we just celebrate everyone's at once. So this year we hosted at my mom's & she had a great idea to gather the gang & go corn mazing. We had a BLAST! Pretty much as soon as everyone arrived, we bundled up & drove down the road to a local corn maze. Once there, we chose teams to go out with, grabbed maps & chose which of the 3 mazes we would tackle first. Me, Darren & my cousin Bethany started out together but soon ran into my mom, dad & aunt Karen. So we wandered around the largest of mazes for about 30 minutes trying to find the "checkpoints" to stamp out little card. There were something like 20 checkpoints hidden throughout the 3 mazes and the object was to find each one & stamp our cards. I thought this was a fun twist to the traditional corn maze. Well, our group was hopeless. We happened upon 1 or 2 checkpoints while aimlessly wandering the maze. Oh, did I forget to mention that NONE of us had a map? Don't ask me how that happened! After a while Darren, Beth & I ditched the old folks and set out on our own. We eventually found our way back out and at that point Darren had lost all interest in our expedition. So we lost an explorer but remembered to pick up a map! We headed to the smallest of the mazes. We were about 5 minutes in when we came across Evan wandering by himself. Little did we know, we'd just found the corn maze equivelent of Sacajawea. Evan apparently is a master map reader & was able to efficently lead us to about 15 checkpoints before the rest of our party became bored and we decided to pack it up & go home. I had so much fun, I was sweating & trudging up & down the cornfields with an enthusiasm I haven't had since...since I don't know when. So if you're looking for something fun to do next fall, grab some friends or family and head to your local corn maze. Might I suggest looking for a maze with the extra challenge of finding checkpoints. No matter which one you choose here are a few words of advice...grab a map if one is available, wear layers AND boots (cough,cough clarkston whites) and find a friend who is proficient with a map!


After the MAZin race, we came back to the house where we ate and relaxed for a while. And of course, got in some Rock Band!


Pic 5: All the cousins on mom's side, oh and alex
Pic 4: the whole fam damily
Pic 3: I think we're lost
Pic 2: This is the guy to have with you on any expedition
Pic 1: Darren, Leah & Evan rockin it out