MAiZE

American Gothic...in corn.

What a concept. There is a company that sponsors (not sure the business dealings) farms to develop these corn mazes. You may find one near your house at this website.

Ours, is patterned to replicate the American Gothic painting by Grant Wood.


It was fun, at least for the first two paths we took. Easy and Medium.

They weren't kidding with the Advanced. Every so often there are numbered posts. You stand in front of the post and read the clue. The clue will tell you to go right or left. Sometimes the clues are a bit tricky. Post number 7 proved to be a challenge. A very annoying, frustrating, exhausting challenge. The clue was: How many words in "This Little Piggy" rhyme? Not too tough, yet the answer choices didn't match any of our answers.

As we were trying to move to number 8, Big Boy got stung by a bee.

His first bee sting.

In a corn field.

Lost.

Good times.

Luckily, he was more of a sport that I had imagined he would be with his first sting. Then, every turn, we were looking at his sting to make sure it wasn't swelling and asking him how his throat was.

We just couldn't get out. It was looking pretty dim for a while.


Little Man kept asking why there were fingers coming out of the ground. I never really noticed the corn stalk roots.

At this point, it began to feel that all these fingers were laughing at us and about to grab our feet. We were all getting frustrated.

Then we came to post 6.

We were on our way back. Tom finally guided us out the same way we came in. I'm kind of pissed that the MAiZE beat us. We may need to go back.

To round out our weekend and give Tom study time, the boys and I went to the Buffalo Museum of Science. They had an exhibit on Robotic Dinosaurs, which was pretty cool. They have also moved some things around and made it a little more interesting for my aged kids. It always seemed that the one section was toddler like and the other was too advanced.

We found these new planks they have. Keva planks. All the pieces are the same size and shape. Just wood. At first, I thought they'd be boring. I was wrong.

The website mentions that Lego's and Lincoln Logs, although great, have more of a planning aspect. You have to hunt for the right sized pieces and plan out what you are going to build if you want a roof, or a window, or wheels. These are all the same, you just grab and go.

They are great! I've added a set to Big Boy's wish list since he really enjoyed them.

Did I mention that the museum has added a 3D movie theater?

(all photos taken from camera phone, forgive the quality. Maize photo from www.themaize.com)