BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00609 Andy’s LEGO Super Mario LEGO starter set has arrived. He was very excited and built all of the sets that he has for Super Mario. In addition to the set that he bought I picked up two other sets for him to build and add to his Super Mario set. With them he can make bigger playsets for Mario to advance through. There are special bricks that make Mario do special things. The Mario unit can tell what color bricks he is on and he can do different things as he moves around the area. There are several other sets that he can get to add to this and then he can do even more. There are different outfits that you can put Mario in to allow him to do even more things. There are several suits that Mario can use including the Fire Suit, Cat Suit, Builder Suit and Propeller suit. When Mario puts these on he can do additional feats like collect more coins or shoot fire at the enemies. Eventually we’d like to add Bowser’s castle to the mix.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00608 When Andy got his new bed and bedroom it was also time for us to change the decor a bit so that it was more grown up than the comforter that he had when he was 3. Andy decided that he wanted to have a set of Minecraft sheets and a comforter. Allison and the kids picked up this new set for Andy yesterday at Target. Tonight he got to sleep on the sheets for the first time. He was very excited. Andy has been enjoying his new bedroom and new bed very much. This weekend he transformed his futon into a fort, Fort Jupiter in honor of Camp Jupiter from the Percy Jackson books. He is having fun making the space his own.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00607 About a month or so ago I ordered some Xero Shoes. These are nearly barefoot shoes and they have been excellent for me. The Xero shoes that I got first were called Speed Force. These are lightweight and can be used for running. I have them for my walking and eventual running. I’ve put several miles on these shoes already as we walk 3.5 miles each day. I’ve also run in them and I like how they feel. Some new styles have been released and I decided to get a few more pairs. One for the dojo because I cannot go barefoot. One for around the house. The thing is, I am not sure which one are going to be better for the dojo. The Apto is a laceless slip on shoe. While it fits my foot pretty well I sort of feel like it may fly off during a powerful kick. On the other hand there are no laces and so it will be a nice flat surface for the kick. The other shoe that I ordered was the Prio and that is more like a traditional sneaker and they have laces. The Prio is thicker than t...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00606 Allison found a cute activity to do with the kids at school. She’ll be helping with the Kindergarten class this year. She found this project that kids can do to color self portraits of themselves with masks on and without masks. Andy used one of the papers to make his own. He even made it look just like him for today down to the new haircut and shirt that he has on. Hre is what the project looks folded up. I took Andy over to Rome’s for a haircut. Zach took care of Andy and even played the “I’m Thinking of..” game with him. Andy loved playing that game with Amanda for years. Now he’s taught the game to Zach and has Zach looking to find a harder thing for Andy to guess next time around. Andy needed his home done haircut taken care of before going back to school.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00605 I’ve been walking an average of 30 miles a week since June 4th. That was when I joined the ranks of the fitbit family, or at least this family where each members has a fitbit. The kids got them first and then Allison was doing a walking challenge with folks from work. I was the last holdout and then I too got one in time for a walking challenge at work. It was pretty glaring how little I moved throughout the day and since I put on the fitbit I’ve been moving a lot more. Allison and I have been taking daily 3.5 mile walks to start the day. I then added the use of a 30lb weighted vest for more of a workout. Because of this walking we have both made a little progress on some weight loss. Nothing huge but it has made a difference. Today I walked along Great Bay on my own because we were still at the Cape and Allison still at home. We went home later in the day in time for Eva’s Jr. Krav Maga class. Her class got a small taste of the work that my class did on Tu...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00604 We had a nice day on the Cape today. The cousins came over and we all went to the beach and enjoyed a beautiful day. This evening we had a cook out and celebrated my sister Shelby’s birthday. We enjoyed an ice cream cake and hamburgers and hot dogs. I’m glad that we were able to spend the day with everyone and celebrate this evening.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00603 The Summer days are waning and because of that I took the kids down to the Cape for a few days. Trying to soak up the last bits of sand, water and sun before it is back to school time. Allison was back to work this week so it was just me and the kids taking the trip down. After my morning Krav Maga class we packed up my car and headed out. Took a quick turn through the McDonald’s drive through and then we were really on our way. We got down and relaxed. Andy played a ton with a giant container of LEGO bricks. We gave them to my niece, Kylie. She’s been having fun playing with them, too. They got to build together this week and that was fun for them. The cousins were not down today but would be later in the week. The kids had my parents to themselves for the night. Eva went to work on the tiny library that she and my dad built when she was down last. Eva went right to work painting the library. She can’t wait to see it put into use. Dad will be making a stan...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00602 I took Andy to karate today. Allison has gone back to work at the school and get things ready for the year. Andy does much better at Karate when it is in the morning. Of course, we’re soon going to be going back to school and so his classes will be in the evenings instead. I think he’ll do much better this year. He’s focusing more. You can see him trying harder every class and he’s being asked to demonstrate things to the other kids so he is enjoying that attention. Today in class the kids got to do board breaking and they did so with a Pop up Jump Front Kick. Pop Ups are a kick that Andy has had trouble with in the past. It is hard to do them at home on the wood floors so being back on the mats has really helped with that. I snapped this a moment before he broke the board and it was pretty high for him. I do like how he’s starting to show some great form in class, too. He’s improved so much.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00601 Almost a year ago I stopped working on Built from Bricks. Brian had given me this LEGO dinosaur so that I could make some stop motion thing with it for the show intro. I never got around to doing it. I also forgot to get the dino back to him. I need to do that. For now the dino sits on my desk in a Melissa and Doug wooden pot for a toy kitchen because that is what I am using to hold lemon drops. It sits there, staring at me wondering when it can go home again.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00600 I was in Target the other day and saw all of the LEGO Super Mario sets that they had and was tempted to get one for Andy because he did express that he wanted to get the starter set. They had these small bags with this little set which would be fine if Andy decided that he did not actually want to have the Mario LEGO set in the end. He does, though and we ordered it. He’s buying it himself. He seems really excited about it, too. I knew that he liked Mario but not as much as this. He had wanted me to get the LEGO NES set but that was pretty expensive so I opted not to do that. He wanted me to get it because you can make the Super Mario LEGO set interact with the Nintendo NES LEGO set. Maybe someday.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00599 Super Impulse sent us a free sample of their new Wacky Packages. Opinions are our own. Wacky Packages are back! what began as stickers from Topps are now 3D miniature products based on those iconic stickers. Super Impulse has taken their World’s Smallest line and worked with Topps to turn those Wacky Packages stickers into tiny toys that are fun to display. They come in a little cup-like container with 5 mini products and 1 mini Original Wacky Packages sticker. I showed these to Andy when they arrived and he got a huge kick out of them. They are super silly. The whole Wacky Packages series has been around since the 1960s. This series will have 66 different mini products to collect including 6 ultra-rare styles in pearlescent white. You can pick them up at Target and Walmart.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00598 We got Eva her first pair of real boxing gloves today. she had a pair of kids gloves that were just for playing around. These ones are serious. Since Eva is now doing Jr. Krav Maga she’s going to need some gear to go with it like boxing gloves. She’s also need some MMA gloves at some point and a whole kit of other items. We’ll get to that. Right now there is no need for these things since there is no sparring happening until we are able to get close enough to spar. I had been at my Krav Maga class in the morning and I spoke with Sensei Howard and let him know that I was looking for gloves for Eva. He said that one of our adults ordered a pair but they came in at too light a size and he had them in the storeroom. They were yellow he said. Eva can rock yellow so I said that we’d get them when we came in for her class later that afternoon. When we got the gloves I said that they looked like Bruins colors. Eva said that they were more like Bumblebee. She is a T...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00597 We have a new dining room table now. My parents gave us their old dining room table that will work better in our space. Our former dining room table was from my grandparents. I had wanted that to have to start our family. The table served us well for a number of years, but it was time to let it go. I am keeping the Lazy Susan, though, which come to think of it was really why I wanted the table in the first place. I loved growing up around a table with one of those. Dad helped me get the table over to the house. We had to first figure out how to disassemble it to bring it over. The table is really well made and has leaves that extend on either end. The way that mechanism works is deceptively simple and it took a little bit to get it all back together and working properly. Good thing we numbered every part. That is, except for the screws. We thought they were all one size, they were not. Not that it made much of a different but there were some longer than oth...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00596 Earlier this week Andy and Allison made chocolate Chip Cookies. Tonight Andy requested that we make some S’mores. So, no that is not an ice cream sandwich that Eva is eating, that is a Chocolate Chip Cookie S’more. We got some of the giant sized marshmallows because I like to make reverse S’Mores. That is when you toast the whole giant marshmallow and then take the outer part off and then put the graham cracker and chocolate inside. If the marshmallow is nice and toasted then your hands shouldn’t get too messy. Andy had fun toasting his marshmallow, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00595 We tried some of the Knock It Off She’s The Boss Barbeque Sauce with our dinner last night. That is some good BBQ sauce! We thoroughly enjoyed it. After our dinner we decided to play the #UpsideDownChallenge Game and it was really funny. Vango Toys sent us a free copy of the game to play with and to review. You basically put on these goggles that make everything look upside down and then you have to do some challenges like draw things or pour water from one cup to another. They are very tricky when your perception is changed. We made a couple of videos while playing the game. The Family Playing with the #UpsideDownChallenge Game Playing Fortnite while using the #UpsideDownChallenge Game Goggles

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00594 One reason that I love Skylanders so much is the unique designs of each and every character. There are well over 200 different characters that have been made into fully realized toys. The company designed and made these characters and toys with backstories on each one, too. They were perfect for the video game and also cartoons and comic books. The game should really have kept going but it ended up being cancelled with the 6th iteration of the game. At the time there were many other Toys to Life games out there. Then they all just stopped.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00593 We took Andrew along with us on our morning walk. He doesn’t usually go with us but I figured that he should get a little outdoor time this morning. It was a great morning to walk, too. It was so nice and cool. Some mornings this Summer have been really hot really early but not today. Today it was finally cool and made for great walking weather, especially while wearing masks. We walked around Capron Park a few times and there is this tree there that has a face on it. This is a novelty item that someone must have put on the tree at some point. I think I noticed it only a month into our walking. Now I see it all the time. The tree that it is on has an almost hollow bottom and I don’t expect it to withstand another major wind storm, but it may surprise me. We noticed a very colorful mushroom growing on the back side of the tree and stopped to identify it with an app that Allison has. I then thought to have Andy pose with the tree. While at first glance it doe...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00592 Imagine being a kid and discovering a video game that you really enjoy. Then finding out that you had access to anything and everything in every iteration of that game. That is what has happened to Andy. He was just a little guy when I was running down to New York City for Activision Skylanders Playdates for Trap Team and SuperChargers and new game reveals. He even got to accompany me on two of those occasions and two additional times for the Activision Family Game Summits in 2012 and 2013. Suffice it to day, the kid has had a ton of experience with Skylanders but it never truly clicked with him until the other day. Andy helped me put all of my Skylanders into the display bookcase next to my computer in the office. As we placed them into the bookcase he helped me sort them into their respective game releases. There were 6 Skylanders games and each had a set of toys. You can tell which toys went with which game based on the color of their bases. Andy was goo...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00591 Funko Games provided me with two free samples of their new card game: Something Wild. Opinions are my own. Funko games has a new card game hit on their hands. With Something Wild you and your family can have a fun night of cards and enjoy adorable Disney characters in the Funko Pop style on the cards. The game has a bunch of fun ways to play and each Something Wild pack can be combined with the other ones. So there are six Something Wild decks: a Classic Mickey Mouse one, an Aladdin, A Little Mermaid, A Toy Story, A Nightmare Before Christmas and a Disney Villains one. Each game comes with a mini Pop Figurine that is part of the game. We received Toy Story and Aladdin. Toy Story comes with a Woody Figure and the Aladdin one comes with The Genie. Gameplay starts off a tad tricky but you quickly figure out some strategies to really work the game. Andy and I played our first round together using the Toy Story Something Wild deck. Each player gets 3 character c...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00590 We called Eva at the Cape tonight and while we were doing the call we were all sitting on Andy’s futon and had the camera angled up. We also had the rope lights on and it gave a very cool effect. So while we were doing the call I thought, this image of us should be today’s photo of the day. Spent some time with Andy today playing Skylanders on the XBox One. He as having a great time switching the different characters an enjoying all the fun gameplay. I think that what I’ll do next is hook up the Wii U so that we can play the previous games. The toughest will be playing the first game again and having to use the Wii controllers. We’ve come a long way since those things.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00589 Let’s say that… a few years back I was a huge collector of Skylanders. I pretty much have every single one except for Master Ro-Bow. That one was very elusive to find. I held it in my hands once and put it back in case I was sent one to promote. I was not sent one but almost half of the figures in the bookcase were provided to me by Activision. That saved me a ton of money but at the same time I spent a ton to get the others. I had this idea when it was time to switch my office with Andy’s room. I decided that I was going to paint my bookcase black and att lights to it and make it a display for all of my Toys to Life figures. That was the segment of video game related toys that you could activate in a video game. Skylanders was the game that reawakened my love for video games. I picked up a Wii U and then later on a Nintendo Switch to play the Skylanders games. There ended up being six games in all and each with a new set of toys. I started off the morning ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00588 Eva’s spending a few days extra on The Cape with her Aunt. While she is there her cat, James, is wandering the house meowing. He misses his girl. We were chatting with Eva on Facetime tonight and the cat came into the room. We showed him the phone with Eva on the other side. He was not amused.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00587 I’ve been slowly rebuilding my office and since this move is a more permanent home I have a lot to unpack and put up on the walls, around the desk and more. I have these two large LEGO sets that I like to display. They are the Hulkbuster and the Voltron. These were great sets to build and they look amazing on display. so one side of my desk has a spot to display Hulkbuster and the other side will display some of my favorite Transformers. As this comes together I’ll be posting more information and photos on how the desk looks I’m going to need a wider angle on the camera, though.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00586 Rez Bar sent me a free sample box to try out and talk about. Opinions are my own. I get asked to try out products all the time. Many I pass on but then something comes along that speaks to me. That was the case with Rez Bar. I received a message asking me if I’d like a case in exchange for a post to Instagram, but I liked them so much I decided to do the full treatment and add a blog post as well. When the bars arrived I was impressed by the packaging. Each bar has a retro looking sticker on it. There is only one flavor right now called Peanut Butter Punch-Out!!.It is peanut butter based with some chocolate as well. There are lots of good things found inside the bar including: Peanuts, Peanut Butter, Dates, Tapioca Fiber, Milk Protein Isolate, 74% Cacao, Chia, Magnesium. there are also things not found in the bars: No cholesterol and no sodium, The bars are also Keto friendly, Gluten-free and Vegetarian, Organic and Non-GMO. They are also Low carb, low suga...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00585 Andy got into Pokémon in school and he attempted to teach me a while back. It wasn’t until we got the Pokémon Battle Academy that I began to really understand the gameplay dynamics. Once that happened we were all playing. Andy, Eva and me. Andy and Eva even taught their cousins how to play and each morning they’ve been busy playing. I picked up a few packages of Pokémon cards this week and the kids had fun going through them. Eva talked with Andy and he agreed to let her go through all of his cards and set up a few decks to play with. When she got home today that is exactly what she did. She went through all of his cards and began making decks to play with.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00584 Our kids and my niece and Nephew got some real world building training from my dad today. Each Summer the kids attend Science School in Woods Hole. This year, however, tings are happening remotely with my sister, Tara in charge. My dad came up with the idea of building bird houses with the grandchildren. He had the scrap wood and he cut all the pieces to size and then set up a plank on sawhorses with taped off sections for each of the kids. He had some help in supervising the kids but he showed them how to hammer a nail and then he also drilled some guide holes for the kids. I did not get to see everything happening because I was taking my Krav Stripe test via Zoom in another part of the yard. The kids were so proud of their creations and loved spending time with my dad. Tonight we had a movie night in the back yard and played an 80’s classic, The Karate Kid. Eva made it all through the movie but Andy decided that it was getting late so he put himself to be...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00583 Thank you Amigo Games for sending us free review units of Saboteur, Saboteur 2, Saboteur Duel and Saboteur the Lost Mines. Opinions are our own. Being in this pandemic has been a challenge for all of us. For parents it can be really tough finding games and activities that the entire family can enjoy together. Luckily I work with a bunch of great toy and game companies and have been able to try out a ton of games. The latest game that has come to the house is called Saboteur. In this game you are either a Dwarf in a mine looking for gold or you are a Dwarf in a mine looking to prevent the other dwarves from gathering gold. The game can be played with up to 10 players and I think that with more players this would be much more challenging to determine the Saboteur in the midst. For one thing there could be multiple Saboteurs. That is very tricky to nail down who is trying to thwart your progress when it can come from multiple players. We played with the four o...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00582 I received my Sweet Suite Swag box today. This is a box full of toys and games send as promotional materials for attendees of Sweet Suite. This year Sweet Suite was a virtual conference and it was done really well. I was able to meet with many of my favorite companies to discuss working with them to review and promote various toys. I’m always on the lookout for great toys and games to share with my readers. One game that I was super impressed by was Pokemon Battle Academy. I was so excited to find that it was in my swag box. But, before I get too far ahead of myself maybe you should check out the unboxing video to see what else I received. The box was FULL of great toys and games. I have a lot to do with them in the coming weeks. Some items will be donated to Christmas is for Kids and some will have their own videos made. One got played with today almost immediately. Eva set them all up so I could get a full shot of everything that I received. The game that...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00581 I had the pleasure of interviewing Max Brallier this morning as part of my Read to Me, Dad Reviews! series on YouTube. This is a series where I talk to authors or review books that would be great for other dads to share with their kids. I’ve been wanting to chat with Max for a while now and we were finally able to nail down a date and time. We spoke this morning after work and then I went to bed, got up and edited the video. Max Brallier is the author of the series, The Last Kids on Earth. This is a fun series about four kids in the Monster Apocalypse. The first two books have been turned into a series on Netflix with the first book as a longer full length special and the second book as a 10 episode season. I cannot wait for more seasons to drop and also for Max’s next book, The Last Kids on Earth and the Skeleton Road. I’ve read through the six books that have been published. We discussed how June’s Wild Flight, the most recent book started as a shorter bo...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00580 The DIY project that I have been working on is coming along nicely. I am still figuring out the next steps but one thing I need to do is put a few holes into the back of each shelf of the bookcase. I am either running a rope light through the entire thing or some LED strip lights. The LED strip lights are a bit difficult to work with. I’m sort of regretting buying those. The rope lights worked great on Andy’s bed. I may have to pick up another one and some special clips to use that on the bookcase instead of trying to get the strip lights in there. They were a pain to try and install under Andy’s bed and I bet they are going to be as big a pain trying to lay them out like I envision on this bookcase. Once this is ready there will be a video reveal.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00579 When I had moved everything into my new office I had very few things left to move. Most everything else ended up in the attic. For a while the futon was pretty clear of things and I could nap on it during my breaks from work. That was up until this week. I have a number of things on the futon that are for reviews that I am working on. Everything seems to arrive at once and always at one of the worst times, too. Things tend to arrive right in the middle of when we are back and forth to the Cape. There are quite a few table top games in the mix, however, that we can play if the weather gets bad. That might be happening soon or it might not. Either way we will be ready. On top of the toys there on the futon I have the Sweet Suite Swag Box on the way. It was supposed to have been delivered on Friday and so I saw that it was out for delivery on Friday only to see it re-scanned back at the distribution center in Warwick. Then today I saw it was out for delivery a...