iPhone, Corn Maze, Chuck-a-Rama

Sounds like the perfect Saturday, right?

I've been wanting an iPhone ever since I got my MacBook Pro laptop last Fall. I was most interested in the fact that it syncs your phone pictures directly into your iPhoto library via wireless connection. I've had a smartphone for almost two years and the Android phones do mostly everything that an iPhone does, but I just wanted to have everything on an Apple platform. The price was cost-prohibitive, though, because T-Mobile no longer offers discounts on phones. They don't require contracts anymore but you have to pay full price for a phone.

My Android phone has been on the fritz for quite some time and it was finally giving up the ghost. We were heading to Logan to take the kids to the corn maze, so we stopped at the T-Mobile store. I was very surprised to find that the Android smartphones with good cameras were just as expensive as iPhones. Rather than pay for the entire phone up front, T-Mobile divides it into 24 interest-free payments and after 6 months you can upgrade your phone at anytime and they will forgive the balance on your current phone. Sounded pretty good to me, so I was in business.

I was checking out the camera features and accidentally snapped this one. Beauty, eh?

I was equally excited and horrified at how much detail the camera showed. Pores, anyone?

Originally this post was just going to be a collection of pictures I took on my iPhone, but there were so many I liked from the corn maze that I took with my big camera, I decided to include them all and do a separate post with more iPhone photos.

We arrived in the late afternoon, in time for the beautiful, golden light. I tried to get a good picture of the kids by the colorful trees, but Mack was in no mood to cooperate.

Lily tried to force a smile. :)

Me and my girls. Notice me trying to hold my tween daughter's hand. It's working out well.

The kids got such a kick out of riding the little train. I tried out the iPhone and captured this picture. I love the guy in the back smiling like I'm his mother.

Lily is so pickin' tall!

Headed for the corn maze (taken with iPhone).

Amelia has developed this fakey smile she loves to do for pictures. Total courtesy smile. Taken on the iPhone.

Lily got a kick out of sneaking through the corn stalks, calling my name, and seeing if I could find her.

I didn't do much running around, I just piddled around taking pictures while Dan and Mack went one way and the girls went the other way.

The plan was to send a walkie talkie with each group so we could keep track of each other, but Dan took off before I could give him one. Amelia was in typical form, whining and freaking out that she couldn't figure out which way to go. I kept reminding her that we were there to enjoy running around, not to solve the maze in 5 minutes. Eventually Dan and Mack caught up with us and Mack promptly climbed into the stroller I'd been pushing around. Then he talked to me on the walkie talkie while I stood 10 feet away.

Dan was a naughty bird and took Mack crashing through the stalks rather than staying on the trail. Mack thought it was AWESOME!

So did Amelia (and her real smile).

It was a really pretty place, surrounded by farmland. Imagine that, a corn maze surrounded by farmland.

iPhone photo going down the tarp slide.

The Canon 7D photo is clearly better.

Rather than sliding, Mack kept rolling down the hill.

Lily didn't want anything to do with the slide, it was surrounded by too much hay and she didn't want her allergies to explode. Instead she weaseled a little money out of her dad to go get a drink.

I messed around with the iPhone while the little kids were on the slide. Lily loves this hat given to her by her Aunt Lora.

I tried to take a picture of Dan but he was sassy and gave me the hat.

Lily snapped this picture of us. She clearly needs a lesson in composition.

It seems silly to do the pony ride when we have "real" horses at home that you don't have to ride on a treadmill, but the kids couldn't resist.

In the meantime, Lily rode the train again and found a tree to climb.

Some cool laundry set up at one of the historical homes (the corn maze is at the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville). Note the peacock on the roof.

And the cute boy with his collected peacock feathers.

Each of the kids picked out a pumpkin, which were on sale for $1.00 since we were there on the last weekend before Halloween.

A little something for my artsy-fartsy side.

After the corn maze we went to Chuck-a-Rama for dinner. We had never taken the kids there and oh my gosh! You'd swear they'd died and gone to heaven! They couldn't believe all the food choices available to them. The rolls with honey butter were to die for. They even had slushies to drink! Amelia and Mack both said, "This is the best restaurant EVER!"

Amelia's like, "Mama, don't eat me, too!"

Needless to say, I was NOT counting calories that night!