A couple of months ago, our Young Women president decided that we would be going to a local corn maze for one of our youth activities. It's kind of amazing how much money our youth program has with 30 young women alone, and no joke, we do these kinds of big activities at least once, if not twice a month.
I've done a corn maze once in my life (after Glo's baptism), and I did NOT enjoy it. There's a reason that I have always loved maps, and it's because I don't very naturally navigate myself (to no one's surprise, John is the exact opposite--I still can't get him to look at the directions on the GPS correctly in the car). So walking into a giant corn maze doesn't not spell fun to me.
I was assigned to wait at the corn maze for anyone who wanted to drive directly there (nobody showed up for 30 minutes), and to bring a whole heck-of-a-lot of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. No joke, I actually quadrupled the recipe.
I don't know what the bishopric was thinking when they extended released to us three weeks before we are actually released, but our presidency definitely walks into each activity feeling a bit of wistfulness that this will be the last time we do __________. I felt that especially keenly this week.
Once the YW hopped out of the car, I joined them, and once again I felt all those wonderful feelings of being with them. Seriously, Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings are the absolute best moments of my week (along with Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons in the temple!). We headed right over to the corn maze.
Let me tell you--this place was about squeezing every dollar out of you. When we mentioned having cider at the car in the parking lot afterwards, they told us we could only drink the cider we bought in the store. And they sold maps of the maze for a dollar in a sealed envelope. Thankfully, I ended up being with a semi-smarty pants YW who took a picture of the maze hanging on the wall with her phone.
"Semi" comes from the fact that she couldn't actually navigate by it ;-)
When we got on the hay ride, I thought we were being taken to the starting line, so I didn't really start any of the singing or anything. However, it was a fun time to talk to the girls about who they like in the stake, and to get a recap of the dance that had happened the previous weekend. This is going to sound funny, but it's just really fun being a girl. When I talk to the family about any of my own relationships with people, or when we are knee-deep in some relationship of one of my kids, I always (and that's a true ALWAYS) have to be mature and patient and watch my words. However, with the YW, I just be a goofy YW and it's really fun.
So a group went into the maze, but two of the girls looked back at me, and told me to come with them. Um, these are the track girls--one is a cross-country girl, and the other is a sprinter, and the other two are swimmers. And then there's asthmatic, broken ankle, Sciatic damaged leg person. But they wanted me to come, and thankfully I was wearing my Hokas because we were off.
We got about two minutes into the maze, and we were standing around talking to each other. And Caroline, our resident sprinter, was running the rows of the corn in seriously the most impressively fast way. And someone within minutes decided that we should just connect over to the exit that lay next to the entrance. Which we did. And those little rebels even celebrated when they crossed the finish line even though they had only found ONE of the EIGHT stations in the maze! Now THAT'S my kind of corn maze!
I tried to convince them that we should probably go back in because what kind of Mia Maid leader endorses cheating, but then Maddie Christie piped up that we could just tell them that we had indeed finished the entire maze, to which I looked at them and said that our next lesson in YW was going to be on lying :-)
Then began the onslaught of convincing me to do things that their mothers don't want them to do--things like watching SCARY MOVIES. I kid you not, not a single YW has been allowed to watch a scary movie. At first, I thought they were talking about all the R-rated movies with Chuckie, and The Exorcist, and such, but no, they aren't allowed to watch A scary movie. Not even our Kennedy favorite, Lights Out. So with a whole heck of a lot of time to spare, I showed them the Lights Out short....and it was so deliciously wonderful to see how crazy scared they were. Like screaming in fright at the end as they were circled around my phone in the dark. YAAAS!
I guess there's a whole lot more to do at the corn maze than just the maze including a corn "pit" where a 10-foot diameter plastic wall was filled with corn kernels. You know those corn pillows that you can heat up and put on sore muscles? It was like sitting in one of those but with cold therapy, and it was wonderful! Of course, somebody had the great idea for Caroline to sprint into the corn pit, long jumping as she landed, and she was amazing! The other girls tried it as well, and then came the plea: C'mon, Sister Kennedy, let's see how far YOU can jump.
I told them that I would be lucky to clear the wall so let's leave it to the professionals.
This then began a discussion about how old I actually am. Want to talk about something scary?
We sat there for the next half hour as other girls drifted in just talking school and life and sports and boys. I laughed and laughed, and marked how far Caroline kept jumping, and we kept inviting everyone to join us. Talk about a perfect Fall night!
When we'd wrangled everyone out of the maze (there were some phone calls to me to try and find their way out....like I could tell them?), we snuck cookies in the parking lot. And one of my quieter MM, Maryanna, said, "Sister Kennedy, we should have these in stead of birthday tater tots."
And I wanted to curl up and cry at that moment. Little did Maryanna know that we have had our last tots.
Gotta stay on the glass half-full side--this year and a half with the YW has been my salvation, and at least I'm getting released with everyone else--but I sure will miss my little corn children ;-)
I've done a corn maze once in my life (after Glo's baptism), and I did NOT enjoy it. There's a reason that I have always loved maps, and it's because I don't very naturally navigate myself (to no one's surprise, John is the exact opposite--I still can't get him to look at the directions on the GPS correctly in the car). So walking into a giant corn maze doesn't not spell fun to me.
I was assigned to wait at the corn maze for anyone who wanted to drive directly there (nobody showed up for 30 minutes), and to bring a whole heck-of-a-lot of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. No joke, I actually quadrupled the recipe.
I don't know what the bishopric was thinking when they extended released to us three weeks before we are actually released, but our presidency definitely walks into each activity feeling a bit of wistfulness that this will be the last time we do __________. I felt that especially keenly this week.
Once the YW hopped out of the car, I joined them, and once again I felt all those wonderful feelings of being with them. Seriously, Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings are the absolute best moments of my week (along with Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons in the temple!). We headed right over to the corn maze.
Let me tell you--this place was about squeezing every dollar out of you. When we mentioned having cider at the car in the parking lot afterwards, they told us we could only drink the cider we bought in the store. And they sold maps of the maze for a dollar in a sealed envelope. Thankfully, I ended up being with a semi-smarty pants YW who took a picture of the maze hanging on the wall with her phone.
"Semi" comes from the fact that she couldn't actually navigate by it ;-)
When we got on the hay ride, I thought we were being taken to the starting line, so I didn't really start any of the singing or anything. However, it was a fun time to talk to the girls about who they like in the stake, and to get a recap of the dance that had happened the previous weekend. This is going to sound funny, but it's just really fun being a girl. When I talk to the family about any of my own relationships with people, or when we are knee-deep in some relationship of one of my kids, I always (and that's a true ALWAYS) have to be mature and patient and watch my words. However, with the YW, I just be a goofy YW and it's really fun.So a group went into the maze, but two of the girls looked back at me, and told me to come with them. Um, these are the track girls--one is a cross-country girl, and the other is a sprinter, and the other two are swimmers. And then there's asthmatic, broken ankle, Sciatic damaged leg person. But they wanted me to come, and thankfully I was wearing my Hokas because we were off.
We got about two minutes into the maze, and we were standing around talking to each other. And Caroline, our resident sprinter, was running the rows of the corn in seriously the most impressively fast way. And someone within minutes decided that we should just connect over to the exit that lay next to the entrance. Which we did. And those little rebels even celebrated when they crossed the finish line even though they had only found ONE of the EIGHT stations in the maze! Now THAT'S my kind of corn maze!I tried to convince them that we should probably go back in because what kind of Mia Maid leader endorses cheating, but then Maddie Christie piped up that we could just tell them that we had indeed finished the entire maze, to which I looked at them and said that our next lesson in YW was going to be on lying :-)
Then began the onslaught of convincing me to do things that their mothers don't want them to do--things like watching SCARY MOVIES. I kid you not, not a single YW has been allowed to watch a scary movie. At first, I thought they were talking about all the R-rated movies with Chuckie, and The Exorcist, and such, but no, they aren't allowed to watch A scary movie. Not even our Kennedy favorite, Lights Out. So with a whole heck of a lot of time to spare, I showed them the Lights Out short....and it was so deliciously wonderful to see how crazy scared they were. Like screaming in fright at the end as they were circled around my phone in the dark. YAAAS!
I guess there's a whole lot more to do at the corn maze than just the maze including a corn "pit" where a 10-foot diameter plastic wall was filled with corn kernels. You know those corn pillows that you can heat up and put on sore muscles? It was like sitting in one of those but with cold therapy, and it was wonderful! Of course, somebody had the great idea for Caroline to sprint into the corn pit, long jumping as she landed, and she was amazing! The other girls tried it as well, and then came the plea: C'mon, Sister Kennedy, let's see how far YOU can jump.
I told them that I would be lucky to clear the wall so let's leave it to the professionals.
This then began a discussion about how old I actually am. Want to talk about something scary?
We sat there for the next half hour as other girls drifted in just talking school and life and sports and boys. I laughed and laughed, and marked how far Caroline kept jumping, and we kept inviting everyone to join us. Talk about a perfect Fall night!
And I wanted to curl up and cry at that moment. Little did Maryanna know that we have had our last tots.
Gotta stay on the glass half-full side--this year and a half with the YW has been my salvation, and at least I'm getting released with everyone else--but I sure will miss my little corn children ;-)
Comments
Post a Comment