I finally sent the girls to their tent at 9:30 in hopes the group would abide by the quiet hours beginning at 10pm. That was the point when they pulled out the karoake machine. The girl thought it was awesome! I could hear them giggling in the tent as I sighed heavily to the start of each new song. While Brayden read on his Kindle, I lay there listening to fabulous top 40 hits of the last few years.
For a policy that is "strictly enforced" according to the check in papers, this one took some time. The first visit of a ranger was a simple driveby at 10:01pm. Neighbors started visiting asking for them to at least stop their kids from running around in the dark screaming. By 10:20 they were getting enough visits they decided to turn off the karaoke machine, but they had to spend 15 more minutes finishing their conversations and saying goodbye. The ranger then threatened to kick them out and we were surrounded by the silence of the woods. I think I fell asleep in 12 seconds.
The kids have gotten in the routine of getting on the road early, so by the time I'd showered and gotten a car breakfast ready the kids had everything packed and ready to put in the car. We were on the road by 7 and ready to make it to our first stop. We were getting to the good part of our latest audiobook, The Island of Dr. Libris, so the kids opted to listen to it the whole way.
Having just studied the colonial time period for history in the fall, I knew our next stop would be a perfect learning experience. We stopped at Old Sturbridge Village for a few hours to see a little of what it would be like to live in a colonial village in the 1830s. This is definitely Laney's thing. Our first stop was French and English tug of war. The English won!
Next Laney wanted to take a carriage ride around the pond, so we were able to check out much of the area led by the beautiful, one ton horses, Jim & Jerry.
Next we visited the bank, tin shop, yarn dying area, and one of the typical homes of the time.
Ninteenth century baseball was next. They played with an ax handle and rules were a little different - base running clockwise for example - but the kids had a blast.
Then we walked up to the school house where the kids tried a few games. They all enjoyed sitting at the desks the kids used comparing it to their school which takes place all over the place! Ryan was surprised to read about how all the kids from kindergarten through early high school age sat in one room until she realized that's exactly what we do too, especially at homeschool co-op!
Next up was the pottery house and the carding mill where they processed wool into batting or strips for spinning into yarn.
After visiting the farm, we came back to the common to enjoy the toy balloon flight demonstration. The kids love hearing stories about what kids their age used to do and this was exactly what some curious boys used to do when they were interested in science and figuring out how things work.
After lunch we saved their favorite part for last where kids could experience more hands-on opportunities for play. We waited until it was hot to visit this part of the village before we left.
After we made it through some traffic, we found another science museum I knew the kids would love. It was part nature and part hands-on science with an exhibit on immature activites for kids - perfect! Our first stop though was a very cool exhibit on ipads showing normal every day things magnified millions of times. Some things, like dust mites, we didn't really want to see but others like fingerprints, orange peels, and pencil lead looked very cool. Dave, Brayden, and I had seen an IMAX very similar to this somewhere and this was a fun refresher!
Next up was definitely all the imature stuff. After playing in the mirrors and experiencing winds of a hurricane, we learned how to fold rings out of dollar bills, make boomerangs, flip spoons into cups, catch things off elbows, fold footballs, flip cards, and all the kids favorite - pull tablecoths out from under dishes! We must have spent 2 hours in this section. It was so much fun!
Once we'd had enough we went outside to play with the bubbles until they closed shortly after. Like water, bubbles are usually an instant mood changer.
We all left with big smiles on our faces and headed to our campground. Unless we were going into Boston naked, we absolutely needed to get some laundry done so once the kids finished dinner we headed back into town. Grammie had made it into Boston so we were texting trying to make plans for the next day. We decided to meet at the train station and go into town to get our feet wet in the city.
We were all pretty exhausted from the night before and our full day, so once we got back to our site I left the laundry unfolded in the bag and we all crashed.
