July 7 - 13

On Sunday night I was looking on Facebook and saw a post from OSV that they would be at a local baseball game on Monday to throw out the first pitch for "Historic Baseball Night".  Sure, we thought.  So we bought tickets for the Worcester Bravehearts, which is part of a collegiate baseball league.

Unfortunately due to timing we just missed the first pitch (photo below was snagged from Facebook) but we did run into Rhys, Dan, and Jan later.  Bennett wasn't much into watching the game, but he did like seeing Jake, the mascot.  But by "seeing" I mean watching him from a distance.  I tried taking Bennett to say hi to Jake, but he wanted nothing to do with that!

We also caught a foul ball.  Well, not exactly.  A foul ball was hit over the net and got stuck on the dugout.  One of the players tried reaching through the net and tossing it up to us, but that didn't work.  Some other kids tried reaching through a fence to get the ball but they couldn't reach.  So at the end of the inning the player climbed onto the dugout, got the ball, and handed it to us.  I don't think the other kids were too happy about that.

After school on Tuesday Bennett was all about books.  He kept running up and down the stairs to get more books from his room.  Then after dinner he helped me water the garden and then went for a bike ride with Daddy.

More books after school on Wednesday, but this time he wasn't happy to read them himself.  Instead Daddy read about three different Skippy John Jones books.  Since Bennett hadn't taken a nap (this is becoming quite the trend!) he was looking very tired during dinner so went up to bed early.

On Thursday we played outside for a while before dinner, and then after Bennett went to bed I went for a walk (my knees still aren't recovered enough to try running again) and then when I got back Chris went out for a bike ride.   As you may have noticed, we're trying to be a bit more active.  We'll see how long this lasts as it gets colder and darker.

Ugh!  When I picked Bennett up from school on Friday he was not listening at all.  I had to put him in a time out that ended up lasting far longer than it should have because he kept getting up again.  We went home, picked up Daddy, and headed off to Michael's.  It's a good thing Chris came along with us because Bennett fell asleep on the way there.  So Chris stayed with Bennett while I went into the store.  Unfortunately they didn't have what I was looking for- something for my Derby car.

Yup.  I took a picture of my kid as he was crying while in time out.

On Saturday we went to Sturbridge.  For a day without anything special on the schedule it still felt like there was a lot going on.  Victoria was in the Parsonage making currant pie.  She confirmed that we're still on for the secret activity.  Of course!  At the farm they were making an herb pie.  We also found a few eggs in the barn that Bennett brought in to the ladies in the kitchen.  Our timing was right to see the gristmill in action and we also went into the carding mill, which is a building we normally skip.

Justin working in the cooper shop

Bennett was also excited to play French and English (Tug o war).  However, it wasn't being run well, because Katie wasn't running it.  Katie rocks!  Anyway, it was in groups based on age, with 8 and up playing first, and then 8 and under playing second.  Ok, I kind of get this from a safety point.  However, with the 8 and under, it was all little kids on one side, and those closer to 8 on the other.  This doesn't work well.

Also, a funny story about French and English.  On the 4th of July we were trying to explain what it meant to Bennett.  And we mentioned England, and people from England were English.  He pipes, up, "I play that at Sturbridge- English".  Yup.  It's a little shocking how much he can relate to things from Sturbridge.

We also got to meet the "progressive farmer" a talk that they have later in the afternoon that we usually miss.  The small garden/field area by the Towne House is growing a few crops right now to show things that most general farmers wouldn't grow.  They've got teasel, mangle wurtzel, and they are conducting a potato experiment.  They planted potatoes in three different ways- whole, halves, and quarters and of those, they added compost to half of them.  This way they can see which way grows the best.  It looks as if whole potatoes with compost are the best, but as Rhys commented, that's based only on what we can see above ground.  We won't know the real results until they are harvested and we see what was actually produced.


On Sunday we visited Mimi and then went to Lowes to pick up some materials for redoing our front stairs.  We also got Bennett a toolbox and his own set of real tools.  He was very excited about this.  Now we need to find a project for him.

After nap we tried getting Bennett to play in the sprinkler, but he wasn't a fan of getting sprayed and wouldn't run through it.

We then played inside for a little while before I took Bennett and went to Ikea to get a couple more shelves for the basement organization.  Chris stayed at home to watch the final World Cup match and do some cleaning.

After dinner we all went on a family bike ride.