BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #418 05/31/06 The summer movie season has started (Well it actually started with MI3 but who wants Tom Cruise’s crazy to rub off on them?) And te Da Vinci Code came out a week or so ago but we didn’t see it. But we did go and see X-MEN 3 The Last Stand. Awesome! That is about the size of it. What a great addition to the franchise. If you go make sure that you stay till the end of the whole movie and the credits. It is worth it. Allison was so excited. There was a bunch of new movie posters out at the theatre, one was for Snakes on a Plane. A Samuel L. Jackson vehicle. Here is the synopsis: “On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who’s a witness in protective custody, lets loose a crate full of deadly snakes.” I could think of a few more effective and focused ways to get the job done but it is creative. The picture is terrible, I know, fuzzy and whatnot. My pedometer shows 3576 steps. Pretty pitiful, gotta up that number.

Photo-A-Day #417 05/30/06 Doing the hippy, hippy shake. Because I work for a great place that gives me some good benefits like health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield I can take advantage of some cool programs. What I am holding is a pedometer that they sent me because I am taking advantage of Fit Blue. What is Fit Blue? Fit Blue is a weight loss program by Blue Cross Blue Shield. They sent me a pedometer, a measuring tape and a food journal. I also have a health coach that I talk with every couple of weeks. I’ve heard that many people are also doing some weight loss blogs. I’m not going to turn this into that but I will probably try and put up the number of steps I took that day. Since starting the travel thing the airplane seats have gotten tighter, stairs have gotten higher and I’ve missed the gym as few times. Well, I am trying to get back on track and hope that Fit Blue will help out with goals and keeping me honest with myself. Current goals are walking 45 minutes at least 3...

Photo-A-Day #416 05/29/06 Flowers today. We went to a great cook out but I didn’t take any pictures. I must be slipping. Update on The Whale Trail. One of the whales has already been stolen. I can’t find any news articles on it yet however. It was on the radio this morning.

Photo-A-Day #415 05/28/06 “Whale Come to Cape Cod” is the title of this art piece. “Whale Come to Cape Cod” is part of The Whale Trail art exhibit that is being shown all over Cape Cod this summer. There are 50 whales out at various locations all over the Cape that visitors can search for on The Whale Trail. Some whales are in pods. The pods are named for towns on the Cape. Since we are in Falmouth we saw “Whale Come to Cape Cod” which is whale ..1 of the Falmouth Pod. Some whales are not in pods either just like in nature. Male whales sometimes travel alone. The Whale Trail’s website has maps of where to find all 50 whales but the exhibit also includes a mystery whale that is not on any map. If you find the mystery whale and have your picture taken with it you can submit the picture to the The Whale Trail website to be entered into a mystery drawing. My Uncle sent me the link to The Whale Trail yesterday and today when Allison and I went out for short rollerblading excursion we saw “W...

Photo-A-Day #414 05/27/06 Today Allison and I were at the Cape. We slept in till 9:00 for the first time since te end of last summer. Being on the Cape is very conducive to good sleep. We went to see my cousin Nick pitch in his Babe Ruth baseball game. He was doing some very good pitching. After that we had lunch and then went to the beach where we enjoyed a very sunny afternoon and the opportunity to get some reading done. I’m reading Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen and Allison is reading Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr, I’m gonna get her hooked on this series too. Then we went and visited my Grandparents for a little while. After that we had a backyard BBQ and enjoyed the latest backyard addition, some all weather speakers that Dad picked up and installed under the porch. So we had cheeseburgers and hot dogs to the tunes of Jimmy Buffett. Then we went for a walk and I saw this umbrella still sitting on the beach at 8:00 at night, thought it was a nice beachy scene. And now we are going to...

Photo-A-Day #413 05/26/06 Tonight Allison and I drove to the Cape after work. We went to the house and got our sheet into the wash (It was our first time down for the summer so the sheets needed to be cleaned.) then we turned around and headed over to the Courtyard to have dinner with Neil and Andrea and Andrea’s mom. Dinner was very good. I think we figured out that we’ve had a meal together for each year on Memorial Day weekend for the past couple of years. But a quick check on past blog entries tells me that it wasn’t Memorial Day weekend but I know that we have had a few meals at the Courtyard each year with Neil and Andrea. After dinner we went to Somerset Creamery for their great ice cream.

Photo-A-Day #412 05/25/06 tonight Allison and I went for a walk after dinner. Something new we are trying, to stop sitting on the couch watching TV after dinner every night. It’ll be a thing, it is gonna catch on. It is a lot easier to do now that the shows are all over and the nice weather’s back. We watched the LOST season finale last night and can’t wait for next season. A lot of people are getting annoyed with the pacing of the show but I think that it has been done so well. And now next season looks to be filled with all new twists and characters. Some major revelations that occured in the finale, lots of loose ends and some tied up nice and neat. Such a great show. Anyway when we were out on our walk the grass in certain places looked like crop circles, except they were in a straight line. Can’t say I really delivered with today’s picture. I’m still running on little to no sleep in the past few days. I did take a nap after work and was out like a light till Allison came home.

Photo-A-Day #411 05/24/06 Our company’s Swans had Cygnets. From the Plane. The flight from Salt Lake has been good so far. The movie that was shown was Glory Road. I had forgotten that this was a movie I wanted to see. It was a very powerful movie. Josh Lucas was well cast in this as coach Haskins was very well cast. I am sure that I have seen Josh Lucas in other movies but cannot remember which ones. Now he seems to be everywhere. I was unable to find Hunting Season by Nevada Barr. I went to every bookstore and news store in Salt Lake airport and only found 2 of Barr’s books. I found her first Anna Pigeon novel, Track of the Cat and the book after Hunting Season, Flashback. So instead I picked up the book, Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen. Carl has written many books, they are funny and interesting. I listened to his book, Tourist Season on CD a while back. It wasn’t until today that I realized that he wrote Hoot and some other kids books. Not that I have read much past chapter 2 because I...

Photo-A-Day #410 05/23/06 I should be going to bed but I’ll have to get back up in 2 hours anyway. So I’m going to stay up. Last night I got no sleep because I found two little bugs in my bed (one was on my sheets and the other on the mattress). Oh man I thought that they were bedbugs, real honest to goodness bedbugs, but what I came to find out after some research that these tiny little bugs were not bed bugs. I probably can’t find out what they really were but they skeeved me out so bad that I called the front desk for them to change my room. They moved me to the room next door. The night guy said that they would give me a break on the room but I just got the bill and no changes were made. I’ll be writing a letter. Usually I can get more done with a simple, sternly worded, but nice, letter. But I unfortunately woke up every hour on the hour till I left for the demo. I had checked the bed and the bugs were never on me but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were. I was thinking abo...

Photo-A-Day #409 05/22/06 From the Grand Tetons National Park. Written on the Plane I’m in the air again, headed out to Idaho Falls, ID. I have a brief demo tomorrow and then it is back home for me. On Friday, Allison’s car had to be towed to the shop. It was making some nasty rumbles and shakes. The car was towed to our Volkswagon dealer to be serviced. That left Allison with no car. I picked her up after work on friday and took her home. Good thing too because the Pike was shut down and it would have taken forever to get home that way. So when we got home I snapped a quick shot of Allison looking forlornly at an empty parking spot. We had just enough time to quickly post the photo and then head out to Amy and Ryan’s. I just finished Nevada Barr’s book Blood Lure. It was a good read. The next book, Hunting Season seems to be one that we are missing. So I will try and find it while out on the road. I’m headed to Yellowstone when I land in Idaho. It is a 2 1/2 hour ride but should be we...

Photo-A-Day #408 05/21/06 Keeping with the trip down memory lane theme from yesterday, Allison and I went to Capron Park Zoo in Attleboro, MA. I told her we were going on a surprise trip to the zoo. We stopped and picked up some subs and then had a picnic lunch. Capron Park Zoo is right near the Attleboro High School. I used to go there as a child. I took art lessons at a building at the zoo when I was really young. I loved going to the zoo. I always have. Today brought back some great memories of the times my parents took me to the zoo over the years. At that time there were some polar bears, and some buffalo. But Frosty died long ago. Capron Park Zoo is another thing I can’t wait to do with our “future kids” (Kids not in existence or even glimmering in existence yet, and yes I’m gonna write that every time). Allison fell in love with the Civet, the Snow Leopards, Ocelots and the Sloth Bear (pictured above). I loved taking Allison to the zoo. It was a great way to get outside and have...

Photo-A-Day #407 05/20/06 I went to school long ago. Old School. Does anyone remember this? This was R.O.B. (The Robotic Operating Buddy). With R.O.B. you could play Gyromite and Stack Up. R.O.B. is a little dusty from little use in the past 17 or so years. I began moving some of my stuff from the basement up to the “future” office. My sister Tara began moving some of her stuff out of her room in the house and my sister Shelby will be moving her stuff from her old bedroom. And sooner or later Allison and I will be doing some remodeling of the second floor. I moved a few boxes of Transformers and I moved my box of old Nintendo stuff. Including all of the issues of Nintendo Power magazine (actually I don’t have all the issues just the first ones from way back when, the magazine is still being published.) I’m pretty sure I have all the way back to issue ..1. My first Nintendo had serial ..000001 on it. I kid you not. Unfortunately it ended up dying and I sent it back to get fixed and get ...

Photo-A-Day #406 05/19/06 Allison is in the passenger seat looking sad. Heidi (her car) had to be towed to the shop today. We are not sure what is wrong.

Photo-A-Day #405 05/18/06 I guess this means that I’ll have to still wait till “future kids” (Kids not in existence or even glimmering in existence yet) have turned 5 before they can play with a lot of the toys I’ve been saving for them. This was a special Harley Davidson pack that had this truck and a few other cars. I gave the rest to my Dad with another gift a while ago. It is a Hot Wheels truck. I was never big into toy cars like matchbox and hot wheels. I suspect that there are some rabid collectors out there like there are with Transformers. I hope they still have Hot Wheels stunt sets when “future kids” come along. I did see that the upcoming movie Cars has some toys out now that look like the cars from the movie. I think I’ll look into putting together a set so when “future kids” are old enough they can play with the cars after the watch the Cars movie.

Photo-A-Day #404 05/17/06 Tonight Allison and I went to dinner with our friends Autumn and Kenny. We went to the Funway Cafe for Pasta Night. When Kenny first told us about going to Pasta night at the Funway Cafe his eyes kinda glazed over and you could tell he was thinking about the awesome food. He was certainly right about the food being awesome. For $12.95 a person you get salad, a glass of wine, breadsticks and then you go to the pasta station to get specialty cooked to order pasta from Joe the Chef. First off you chose what type of pasta you wanted, ziti, gemelli, or spaghetti. Then you choose the meats, you could have chicken, shrimp, scallops, sausage, meatballs, or swordfish. You could choose one or all of them. Then you pick your sauce alfredo, marinara, pink, and fra diavlo. You could also choose vegetables, broccoli, peppers, zucchini, carrots, and mushrooms. Again you could choose from one to all of them. Joe cooked everything right in front of us. He had four portable gas...

Photo-A-Day #403 05/16/06 It just keeps raining. So, another picture of Duncan. I liked his expression in this picture. So I sent the crappy camera back to the person I bought it from. I used FedEx Kinkos to ship it out. Here is a concept I cannot get behind. Putting two really frustrating services together in one place and let some really inept folks run it. That is Great! Argh, so frustrating.

While talking with Andy and Rondi last night Andy told us about the Funny Wedding Vows – Humorous Wedding Vows Inspired by Dr. Seuss. Here they are. Pastor: Will you answer me right now These questions, as your wedding vow? Groom: Yes, I will answer right now Pastor: Will you take her as your wife? Will you love her all your life? Groom: Yes, I take her as my wife, Yes, I’ll love her all my life. Pastor: Will you have, and also hold Just as you have at this time told? Groom: Yes, I will have, and I will hold, Just as I have at this time told, Yes, I will love her all my life As I now take her as my wife. Pastor: Will you love through good and bad? Whether you’re happy or sad? Groom: Yes, I’ll love through good and bad, Whether we’re happy or sad, Yes, I will have and I will hold Just as I have already told, Yes, I will love her all my life, Yes, I will take her as my wife! Pastor: Will you love her if you’re rich? Or if you’re poor, and in a ditch? Groom: Yes, I’ll love her if we’re ri...

Photo-A-Day #402 05/15/06 Don’t believe the hype. This camera is not worth the box it came in. That is why I am returning it. Sure it looks like t has some great stats but the reality is that Fisher Price can make a less toylike camera. Imagine trying to take a picture while looking through tomato soup and mud. That was what it was like to use this camera. Just about the worst pictures ever. Luckily I can return it for almost a full refund (restocking fee.) A lesson learned. So tonight we went to dinner with Andy and Rondi at Chilis. We had a very nice dinner and great fun conversing and laughing at some funny stories. Thanks for calling to see what we were up to tonight Rondi. These are just two of the 10 pictures I took with the camera. Pretty much the worst pictures ever.

Photo-A-Day #401 05/14/06 Allison’s friend T.R. came by today to measure the rooms of the apartment; as well as the rest of the top floor of the house. She is an architect. And she’ll run the measurements through a CAD program and get us a nice layout of the space that we are eventually moving into. Allison gave her a hand with all the measurements. Happy Mother’s Day.

Last night Allison and I along with Neil and Andrea went to Derek and Michelle’s house to have a night where the couples could get together because we hadn’t seen each other since February and that was before we knew that Michelle was pregnant. So we got to see the mom to be and be excited for them. And we are very excited to have a baby on the way among our friends here near us. So we arrived with a garden salad and the Sparks famous pasta salad. Pasta with a bottle of Catalina dressing (One bottle per lb of pasta) and cut peppers and sometimes onions or whatever veggies make you happy at the moment. Derek and Michelle had an assortment of Omaha Steaks treats like Burgers, Hot Dogs (Gourmet Franks) and Brats. Neil and Andrea brought a fantastic spread of sundae fixin's. They brought not only Edy’s Vanilla Ice Cream but Edy’s French Vanilla as well. So I’m not sure if we ever were able to discern whether or not there was much of a difference in the tastes of the two. Andrea even ma...

Photo-A-Day #400 05/13/06 Neil and Derek give the Roger Corman classic Death Race 2000 two emphatic thumbs up. “It was the greatest film of all time,” says Neil. “The acting was superb,” Derek glowingly stated. More about our night at Derek and Michelle’s will be written tomorrow plus bonus pictures.

Photo-A-Day #399 05/12/06 Today it has been six months since we got married. And tonight Allison and I had tickets to go see Catie Curtis at TCAN. These were tickets I bought for her for her birthday not really knowing that today was a six-month-a-versary. We had dinner at the Naked Fish and then headed to TCAN. Meg Hutchinson opened up for Catie and she also sang on a few songs with Catie. It was a very good concert. I took quite a few pictures but there were only three that came out well. Bonus Pictures Meg Hutchinson Meg, Stephanie, Catie and Kevin.