Corn Maze, State Fair

After a long, blazing hot, dry, endless summer, the first signs of fall are here... I'm noticing leaves changing- granted, most of them are going directly from green to brown, due to our extreme drought, but they are changing! The weather has dipped to a frosty 80 degrees rather than 102, and our days are shorter. I often hear geese overhead. I assume it's different ones each time, and that I'm not being stalked by this one particular goose family...

Anyway, two events locked autumn into place for me over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, we took Sadie to Mckee's Cornfield Maze in Northern Orange County. Each year, a different large design is cut into the field, and there are approximately four miles of path altogether, assuming you got lost at every turn... We took the children's maze, which is much shorter, and enjoyed the farm animals, playground and pumpkins afterwards...

Then, I took Monday off and went with Finley, Dana, and Griffin to the NC State Fair. It's not fall until you eat the various and sundry fair food items deep fried and impaled upon a stick. Sadie enjoyed the fair animals and the kiddie rides, but was a bit challenged by being strapped in a stroller for almost four hours. A few times, she did the whole conscientious objector, going limp thing when I tried to put her back in her stroller... We had a great time, though, and there's nothing like the NC State Fair to remind you that autumn is here...

Here are a few pics...

Sitting on the porch, waiting to go to the corn maze... Sigh... will we EVER go?


Yay! We're leaving!


Here is a display at the beginning of the maze...

Corn as high as... a cat's eye... The drought limited the corn's growth this year, so the cornfield looked pretty dead and short... It made the maze much easier... ;-)


Sadie makes her way through the maze...

Afterwards, we checked out the farm animals... Sadie mistakenly called a donkey a goat, and this young girl was correcting her. She actually pointed up to the sign above Sadie and said "Can't you read the SIGN? It's a DONKEY!" I had to inform the girl that Sadie isn't even two yet and is not yet reading...

Sadie contemplates the various and sundry pumpkins for sale. We asked her to pick the one she wanted...


And she seemed to set her sights on this one...

The woman on duty at the corn maze offered to take a picture of us.... That's wonderful, because usually I find a way to sneak out of every photo op...

Sadie plays with a toy car... I have a video I'll post soon with her chatting inside the car asking us "How you doin'?" about fifteen times..



Climbing up the slide. All children seemed to be pre-programmed to go UP slides and skip the stairs... This, of course, creates bottlenecks as other children are waiting to go DOWN the slides...


Yay! A sandbox!

Have shovel, will travel...


Sadie's favorite; the swing...


And her favorite part of the day was getting a scoop of Maple View Ice Cream at the Corn Maze...
On we go to the State Fair... I wasn't able to get very many pictures, because it's impossible for me to chase a child around in a busy, crowded place AND take her picture...

Here she is in her stroller, apparently trying to hitchhike...


She enjoyed the children's barnyard... She loves farm animals and their various and sundry noises, and they were all happy to accommodate us by crowing, mooing and bleating.


Sadie worships at the altar of Barney. She's now singing the Barney theme song. I'm thrilled.


Griffin, Finley, and Sadie all prepare to be searched.


Sadie crawls through a hole in the magical chair...

And almost gets stuck...

I hydrate while Sadie and Griffin hang out...

Oh, and here's another "CHEESE"! shot...