BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00790 Eva made dinner tonight. She wanted to make sausage, biscuits and potatoes. She told us that it was something that she imagined she’d get in a tavern in Dungeons and Dragons and so she wanted to make that for us. She has some interesting ideas. Dinner was good, though. So I guess it was one of the good ideas. Always creating, that one.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00789 Andy loves Minecraft and he’s really good at creating these awesome worlds. He’s used much of his time at home to learn new techniques from different YouTube videos. One of the YouTubers that he enjoys is called Preston Playz. He likes him so much that he wanted a special piece of merchandise from this guy. So, he used some Christmas and birthday money to get a Sweatshirt. It arrived today and he was so excited. The bottom of the shirt has Preston’s signature printed. He was shouting, “He signed it! He Signed it!” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that is was just part of the design. He was so excited. So, he’ll be living in this hoodie for a while. This afternoon Andy had his Outschool class for making Models in clay. today he made a Husky. He did a nice job making the Husky textured. He’s loving this class. He also loved having some time playing with a new puppy today, not ours.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00788 Andy is dreaming about the Tom and Jerry movie. Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. He did decide t take the stuffed Tom and Jerry that we got in the giant Piñata cake the other day. We haven’t re-watched the movie yet but it is now on HBO Max and I know he liked it. What’s not to like for a 9 year old kid. Cat and Mouse crazy antics, some potty humor and lots of mayhem. Right up his alley. I enjoyed the movie, too. I was a fan of Tm and Jerry from way back and I liked seeing many of the old gags in a new way.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00787 We want to thank Warner Bros. for sending us the free promotional items for the Tom and Jerry movie. Opinions are our own. Last week we were eating cake that we baked for the Tom and Jerry Movie. This week we were smashing cake. Not a real cake but rather a giant Piñata cake. The movie promo team sent us this cake along with a tiny mallet to use to smash the cake. However. We figured that we could do it one better and use other implements of destruction to take apart this cake. The cake was filled with a bunch of fun things like little toy cars, pencils, cereal boxes, candy and much more. They also included some confetti poppers to generate as big a mess as possible. That goal was accomplished.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00786 We received two new Beyblade sets from Hasbro and The Toy Insider because I am part of a Beyblade Twitter Party on Friday. Opinions are our own. Back when I was a kid my grandmother had a game called Battle tops. It was pretty simple and you had to wrap string around a plastic top and then pull and send the top spinning into a battle arena. The technology for battling tops has continued to improve with every iteration of Beyblade. Now we have Beyblade Burst tops. There are the Surge ones and the Pro Series ones and this Friday there is a Twitter Party where you can have a chance to win these new sets. We received them and opened the Beyblade Burst Surge set to play today. Andy loved it. He was so excited he pulled out all his old Beyblades and brought them down to play with as well. Andy and I spent some time battling each other with many different Beyblades. Once I figured out the proper way to load them onto the launchers I was able to get them ripping li...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00785 When Avatar: The Last Airbender started on Netflix I tried to get the kids to watch. They watched one episode and that was that. Then Eva discovered the show on her own and loved it. She then watched all through, The Legend of Korra and couldn’t wait until I finished watching both series. Once I had finished we looked to see if there were any comic books based on the shows and found that there were a ton of them. So we bought a bunch of comics and that has been what we have been reading ever since.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00784 Eva is not the only artistic one in the house. Andy has been doing a lot with Clay recently. He learned that one of his friend’s grandfather passed away recently. So, he decided to make a clay cross and necklace for her. The boy is a sweet kid with a huge thoughtful heart. He’s also pretty skilled making things out of clay.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00783 Yesterday I showed you some hand drawn art made by Eva. Today she has another project to show. She has been collecting Pop tabs from soda cans and making them into different things like bracelets and belts. I joked with her that she should make some chainmail with them for our return to King Richard’s Faire. She laughed but she secretly began work on it. So far she has made this top part of the armor. I then joked that she could make a prom dress out of them. Who knows!

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00782 On the weekends when we have dinner together we catch up on what everyone did that day, I sleep of course but I have been having rodent adventures lately. I had some have a heart catch and release traps but after releasing my 5th mouse I was starting to suspect that they just keep finding their way back to the house, so I upped the ante and got some instant kill traps. I was sleeping and when I woke up around 10 am I heard scurrying above my head so I set some traps in the attic. I saw no evidence of any mice up there but I could hear them and it was a different sound that that of the snow melting and sliding off the roof, which dies sound a bit similar. Icicles falling off and sliding sounds exactly like mice in the walls. So traps have ben set and in the basement I got two more in the new traps. I’ve found that the Tomcat ones are the most effective. The Tomcat Mouse Snap Traps are the easiest to set and have been the only ones to actually catch mice. I p...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00781 For the first Friday of Lent we went and picked up a bunch of clam cakes from Portside Fish Market. Allison wanted to make Rhode Island Clam chowder because that is the kind that she enjoys most of all. The rest of the family prefers New England Clam Chowder but that is okay, we gave the Rhode Island kind a try. I would definitely call Rhode Island clam chowder more of a soup than a chowder. It is far too thin for my liking. I love dipping the clam cakes into New England Clam chowder and getting them all covered but it is not as satisfying with Rhode Island chowder. The kids ended up having New England style after all because Allison bought some of that in case the kids weren’t into the Rhode Island. The clam cakes, however were on point. Portside makes some great clam cakes and I think we may just have to revisit them for additional Fridays for these next 40 days. Last night Andy came to my office to get a canvas because we wanted to paint today. He create...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00780 We received a free review copy of the book Flora and Ulysses from Candlewick Press. Flora & Ulysses is being turned into a movie for Disney + and debuts tomorrow. Opinions are our own. So, I asked for this book so that Andy could read it. I figured that there were some illustrations inside that he would enjoy and he might also like the story since the book was being made into a movie for Disney Plus. He did not read the book. I read the book. It was a quick read filled with interesting characters. The character of Flora is the most interesting character of the book. She is described as a natural born cynic. How she got to be this way is sort of subtly explained. Flora lives with her mother who is a romance writer. She observes a squirrel being sucked up into a vacuum and saves him. The squirrel she names Ulysses after the vacuum hat has changed his life. Ulysses is now a Superhero. Ulysses ends up doing many fantastical things like write poetry and fly....

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00779 The kids have been enjoying using the clay and clay sculpting tools that they received for Christmas. We took the Tom and Jerry Cake mix bucket to use for the tools and Andy and I organized the bags and bags of half-used clay, too. The kids spent the late morning making these gnomes. Andy made the four in the back and Eva the one in the front. She also made, what I think is, a frog. We took the afternoon and played the game Here to Slay which is a fun card game about slaying monsters with a band of heroes. Each player trying to slay 3 monsters before the other players and each player can attempt to thwart the efforts of all of the other players. It is a fun game that Eva got for her birthday.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00778 Eva is an interesting one. She’s perfectly fine being surrounded by the debris of her room and when she wants to work on something and create she just moves a pile from here to there. She also creates how she likes. I walked into her room and she was sitting on her desk. This is her preferred method of using the desk. Only when she is in a class do I see her actually sitting on a chair at the desk. So, she’s sitting on her desk and drawing on the window. That is actually not correct, she using the light from the window to trace something for whatever she is creating next. She explained that she does not have a lightboard. However, she does have one, a Crayola one from years ago, but she likes her own methods much better. Allison was away overnight with a couple of friends. So, I had the kids tonight to myself and we got pizza and watched The Princess Bride. Allison does not like the movie and now, neither does Andy. He was doing fine with it most of the way...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00777 This afternoon Eva and I watched Iron Man 3. We’re slowly working through several of the Marvel movies so that Eva is up to speed when new series come out on Disney + and when movies return to the theaters. I want to get to the point where we are completely up to speed. So we watched Iron Man 3 and we have a ways to go until we get into the movies like Endgame. But we are moving along.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00776 Allison picked up some steaks for our Valentine’s Day dinner. I took today off to spend with the family. I get a few holidays that I can take so I try and take them on Sundays. This one just worked out nicely so that I could be home with the family instead of sleeping all day and working all night. Allison put together some treat bags for everyone and I picked up a few things for Allison and the kids. We watched a movie for the afternoon and then Allison and I watched Ellis Paul and friends do several 70’s love songs. It was a nice event.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00775 Warner Bros. sent us a free Williams Sonoma Rainbow Explosion Cake mix and cake pans for a promotion for the upcoming Tom and Jerry Movie that will be out on February 26, 2021 in theaters and on HBO MAX. Today we got to enjoy Tom and Jerry Rainbow Explosion Cake that we made yesterday. But before that Andy and I had an interview with the director of the movie via Zoom this afternoon. I’m not going to go into details on that interview until my official review of the movie when the embargo lifts. What I want to talk about is Andy’s emotional maturity. Andy has been growing a lot emotionally and he’s definitely gotten much better at handling disappointment. Some days he can be found in the basement working on the heavy bag with something tapes to the bag. It could be the Apple Logo, the Roblox Logo or just a sad face. Rather than scream and yell over something that is frustrating him he works it out on the heavy bag for a little bit. Well, during our call Andy...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00774 Warner Bros. sent us a free Williams Sonoma Rainbow Explosion Cake mix and cake pans for a promotion for the upcoming Tom and Jerry Movie that will be out on February 26, 2021 in theaters and on HBO MAX. I made that cake today and Allison decorated it tonight with the help of Andy. the cake has 6 layers from Purple to Pink and everything in between. Then the middle is cut out and filed with rainbow nonpareils, sprinkles and candy covered chocolates. Andy carefully placed each layer on top of the next as Allison frosted the layers. Andy carefully filled the cake with the sprinkles, nonpareils and candy covered chocolate balls. The final frosted cake.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00773 I shower with Everyman Jack’s Sandalwood All Over Wash every day, that I shower. It like it because I only have one item in the shower plus it isn’t like I need shampoo anymore. I learned that Everyman Jack was doing a special with Marvel and they were making some Marvel themed body washes. So I ordered the collector’s set of them.  The four fragrances are inspired by Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and Black Panther. I have a feeling that when my current bottle of the 3 in 1 is complete and I put in one of these bottles it will be taken and used by Eva. She saw them and wanted to check out each one and she was very excited by the scents. I think her favorite was Spider-Man which is called Fresh Air. Then we joked that Iron Man’s probably smelled like an opened tin can. All the scents are pretty terrific and luckily we can get them individually so whatever one is our favorite we can get more of.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00772 I was in Target recently and I checked out the clearance aisle. There I saw a special Fortnite Battle Royale set from Moose Toys. I picked it up because they used to send me the toys and I have a bit of a collection of them. They are sitting on my desk at work and I have not seen them for a year but I still have the collection. This was a 5 figure set and the box converts into the Battle Bus from the game. so I got it and did a special toy review video on my YouTube Channel which just recently passed 6000 subscribers. Here is the video. Oh and it is titled Death to Peely because that is the name of the Banana outfit and we all know how I feel about that evil fruit.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00771 Rather than buy cards this year Andy decided that he wanted to make his cards. My first instinct was to just say no and have him pick out some pre-made cards. However, I decided against that and he showed me what he was making. First he took one of his birthday cards and attempted to create it on the computer using a drawing program. He did a good job but after failing to save the progress and having to start over twice he got frustrated. I suggested that he can physically draw the card and then we can san it into the computer and then he can add the words and we can print them out. He liked that idea so he got to work. He drew the front and inside of his card. I then scanned that into the computer, edited them to be individual files and sent them to him. He pulled them into Google slideshow and added the words. Then saved that as an image file and sent it back to me. I then set it up so that we could print three cards to a piece of paper. We printed them c...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00770 It seems like a total no brainer for Mattel to make some Masters of the Universe Hot Wheels Character cars since Mattel is also the parent company that makes Masters of the Universe toys. With a couple new He-Man shows in the works it makes so much sense to be making this sort of cross over products. I had heard about the He-Man car online and knew I probably wouldn’t be able to find it at Walmart or Target anytime soon so I place an order for the whole set. I am very pleased with what arrived, although I do like the individually carded cards and the artwork found on each. If I do happen to find any of them and the artwork is good I may double dip and buy them as well. The cars themselves are really well done and incorporate key aspects of the characters design. From the power sword on the side of the He-Man car to the blue accents on the Beast Man Van/Truck thing. Attention to detail was paid to these cars and it shows. I love the Man-at-Arms vehicle with ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00769 Allison has been working for two years on her new sweater. She’s been working so hard on it and it is now complete. This past week she finished all of the knitting and then she blocked it and sewed t all together. Today she got to try it on for the first time. She did an amazing job on it. Allison had Eva take her photo out in the snow and when I woke up I wanted to take one as well. We had Eva take a photo of both of us in the sweaters that Allison made out in the snowfall too. She made mine back in 2010. I posted to Facebook that mine took her five years to make, but it did not. I guess it took her nine months to make mine. Mine is a replica of a sweater that a character wore in a TV show that we both enjoyed very much. Tonight was the Super Bowl and we had appetizer dinner like we always do. The other day Andy and I went to Target and he asked me for a giant tub of Cheese balls. After he ate his dinner he also wanted the bowl of cheese balls. He took the...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00768 Andy has been taking an Outschool class on sculpting with clay. He wanted clay for Christmas and got plenty of it it. He has been making a ton of great stuff. This week he made a wolf and some additional things. When I came to dinner tonight there was a seal pup on the table. Andy had created that in class today. He gave the seal a little drink cup too. He also added the detail of a little bow tie for his seal pup. This was something entirely Andy and you can see on his face how proud he was of his creation.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00767 The other day when I was looking for the wolves for Andy I came across some of the Dragons that were part of our collection, too. I had packed a bunch of these figurines and toys away because Andy and Eva no longer played with them. I decided to keep the Dragons for myself and put them around my frog tank. The remaining frog is still swimming strong. We gave the rest of the large box to the school for the Pre-K class. The kids were quite thrilled to go through those toys and find fun things to play with. The box was decent sized too, so they got a ton of great new toys. I got another box out of the house.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00766 Andy has a presentation coming up for school on Wolves. He picked my favorite animal. Well, the other day I went through the old Safari Limited toys that we received over the years to find the wolves that were part of that collection. I found two of them, I thought I had wolf pups, too but could not find them. Andy must have been inspired by his project and by the wolves because he decided to make one out of clay for his Secret Saint. It was Catholic schools week here and Andy has a Secret Saint, someone that he gives a small gift to. He brought in a few dollar store type items but also wanted to make something special so he made this green wolf. Today, after Eva’s Jr. Krav class she had a few extra minutes of Black Belt training. This is for those students who are committed to continuing towards their black belts. At the end of class they get a little extra training on new and upcoming concepts. Eva is close to moving up to being able to do more black belt...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00765 I built the LEGO Nintendo NES Console today. I did not build the TV that goes with this at this time nor did I build the controller. I started it this afternoon with help from Andy. He lost interest after the second bag. I kept going until the whole console was complete. It is a really neat build and it works just like the NES console I had as a kid, minus actually playing games. But you build a game cartridge and it slides in the same way and you push it down and it locks, push it again and it pops back up. There is also a fun Easter egg, too. On the right side of the console, hidden under the top is a little the warp tubes that Mario can use to get to later levels in Super Mario Bros. I was building it and didn’t even realize what it was. I’ll have to find another day when I can build the little TV portion of this set. That will be more complex because you build a Super Mario level that you can crank around and around and pretend to play as Mario.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00764 From the inauguration to the cookie aisle, Lady Gaga is everywhere! I saw these Lady Gaga themed Oreos at the store and had to pick up a package of them. They are pink vanilla oreo with green filling. Something quite fun for us to enjoy.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00763 When we placed that order from Redbubble for Eva’s special Camp Half Blood T-shirt I also ordered a bunch of stickers. They have so many fun designs and I always look for new Transformers and TMNT ones. I found some really nice ones and plenty with my favorite Transformer, Wheeljack. I also got a couple of stickers for Eva and she loved them. I still have to finish putting all my old stickers into the new book and find some room for these. Although they will probably adorn some of my tech like my laptop.