Welcome, Fall!

How about a post that has nothing to do with running?!

The Friday before my marathon, my dad came to visit.  It was a rare free Friday…no co-op, only a makeup guitar lesson later in the afternoon, and Jeff not arriving home from Thailand until later that evening.  The kids had been asking to go to Tanner’s Orchard, a veritable fall institution up here.  So, as soon as my dad walked in the door at 8:30 Friday morning, we asked if he would like to go to Tanner’s with us.  He was game, so we loaded up and headed to Speer, Illinois, a 45-minute drive from our place.

Tanner’s boasts a huge market with the best cider and apple cider donuts in the area, a sprawling playground, goats and llamas to feed, and a gargantuan corn maze.  Last year during peak Tanner’s season, Charlotte had a broken leg, so the corn maze was out.  But this year?  Well, why not?!

So that’s where we started.  The corn maze is in the shape of a train this year and is actually two separate mazes.  It has 12 checkpoints, six of which are “clues” to solve a “crime.”  We got maps and punch cards when we paid, and we were off.

For the first maze, we pushed Jeremy in the stroller.  The ground was hard-packed, but it was definitely not smooth enough to make that a good idea.  We parked it before we headed into the second maze.

Here are my dad and the two older kids at the first checkpoint.

And here’s stroller boy.

And here they are after Jeremy was liberated from the stroller.  We’re probably lucky we didn’t lose him in the cornfield.

Despite my misgivings about navigating this thing without Jeff, we did pretty decently.  Charlotte only got us lost three times, but we were able to get back to the starting point.  We did eventually get all 12 checkpoints punched, and we solved the crime of which animal did away with Farmer Joe.  (Spoiler Alert:  It was the llama with a stick in the barn.)

We spent 90 minutes in the maze, which was plenty of time for all of us.  Next stop:  the goats and llamas.  Then:  the playground.

Charlotte and Elijah absolutely love the Tanner’s playground.  It has tetherball, several large play sets, a big hill for running and rolling down, a hay maze, and, best of all, on this particular day, friends.  Two other families from our homeschool co-op were visiting Tanner’s, so Charlotte and Elijah each had other boys and girls with whom to play.

This was Jeremy’s first Tanner’s experience.  He wasn’t nuts about the animals, but he did love the slides.  He went up and down this one at least 10 times in a row.  I got tired of it before he did!

We ended up staying at Tanner’s for something like four hours.  I was completely unprepared, so we all ended up having donuts and sample cups of cider for lunch.  (Once again, I win Mom of the Year.)  The kids kept asking if they could stay just a little longer, so we did.  Finally, as we had to get back home and grab the guitars for lessons, I rounded them up, and, after a few last pictures, we headed home.

I had great hopes that I could get a cute fall picture of my three little angels.  Eh, not so much!  Oh, well!

Have a good one!