BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00912 Eva has a sweet new haircut. Well, she has a cut and a color. It is the Summer and time for Eva to experiment with her hair because she cannot do it during the year. This morning Allison dyed both Eva and Andy’s hair red. Then she was showing me her hair and the sides were just really long and sticking out. We decided that I’d get some clippers and trim up the sides for her. Allison and I ran out to get some things for the Cape and while we were out I picked up some clippers. When I got home I trimmed up Eva’s sides of her head. She was thrilled with how it all came out. It was incredibly hot and humid and that is why my head is melting. Andy had a cooking lesson today. It was a virtual cooking lesson with Big Y on how to make homemade mac and cheese. Andy did an exceptional job and lunch was very tasty. Dinner was also tasty. We went to the North Attleboro Farmers' Market and we were hoping for wood fired pizza but the truck was not there. Instead we had s...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00911 I don’t have a photo of me and my buddy Frank from today but I spent the afternoon with Frank at his house helping him out with his podcast, Silver Screeners. This is a movie podcast and Frank puts a lot of time and energy into it so I wanted to help him make it as good as possible. To that, I helped him with his intro music and making a sound buffer so that he could block out sounds as he records. I talked about it in today’s vlog. The photo obviously has nothing to do with seeing Frank but rather with Andy. I asked him to clean out from under the entertainment center and he found a piece to this marble run toy that he has. He has not played with it in a very long time but once he found that piece he decided that he would immediately begin playing with it. That is what happens whenever we do a deep clean. He find his old toys and begins playing immediately.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00910 I’ve had my Xbox for about 2 years now. When I bought it I also bought a second controller so that the kids could occasionally play with me. Both controllers have been perfectly fine in that time. However, I have probably run them ragged in the past year from all the gameplay I have done. To that end both of the controllers failed on me. They each have their own issues. I detail them in this video below. Because I could not make videos with controllers that would act up out of nowhere I bought a new one. The cost of he business of play. I got the Shock Blue controller and it is really nice.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00909 Another weekend Vlog that is all about a LEGO set. This time I build the Miles Morales Spider-Man Mech Armor set. It was another typical Mech Armor build with some interesting touches specific to Miles Morales. You can see it all in the video below.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00908 I was in Big Lots and I found these cute food Pez dispensers. The Taco jumped right out at me and I had to pick it up and add it to my collection. It is adorable. They look like the foods that Andy draws when he’s doing some cutie drawings. I show them in the video below.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00907 A few years ago I picked up some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sprukits sets. I had put them away for a while and then I found two of the sets recently and I decided that I would build them for my daily vlog. Some weekends I need to create something to go up and that usually means a toy or something like that. When you sleep all day you can’t take an adventure like the one we took yesterday. So here is the assembly of this kit.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00906 Today was our martial arts graduation day. My graduation ceremony was in the morning after my Krav Maga class. We had a fun class and then the graduation ceremony began. I was the only person moving to advanced red in the ceremony and that is the last belt before a black belt. I let that sink in during the ceremony and man I have so much work to do in the next six months as I work towards being able to test for my black belt. It was a good morning. After the class one of my friends took this photo of me with my instructor, Mr. Brochu. I made my daily vlog about our day. We planned today to be a family adventure day and when I got home and took a shower we hopped in the car and headed to Hopkinton to have lunch at Snappy Dogs. We haven’t seen the ladies at Snappy Dogs in a while and it was great to spend some time seeing them. I got a Great Dane, their 1/2lb Pearl hot dog with some great condiments. Allison, Eva and Andy each got big dogs and enjoyed them very muc...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00905 Allison has been planting plants on the side of the house. These are gifts from people from school or kids from school. She’s got a Hydrangea and a Rose bush so far. I look forward to seeing how they grow. Allison worked very hard today to plant these. Tonight we watched the movie Luca on Disney Plus. It was a cute story and very funny. Not as high a Pixar standard as past movies but still very enjoyable. I made a video review of it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00904 I probably could have taken some other photo today but to be honest it was an overall blur with Stripe/Belt tests for everyone today. I did put more effort into making a vlog for today which will be below. Our stripe/belt tests were challenging but so rewarding. Each of us passed and moved to our next belts. Our graduations ceremonies will be on Thursday. I’m very excited.

Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance will be available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows 10 PC, and phones and tablets via Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) with Xbox Game Pass on launch day, June 22! The game will also be on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 ad Steam. I have already pre-downloaded the game so it will be ready for me to play tomorrow! However, I have already played the game on Steam thanks to a free download code that I was provided. I was able to pair up one of my XBox controllers to my laptop so that I could get the fully experience. The game was made to be used with a controller. In my younger years I spent so much time playing Dungeons and Dragons based games like Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II and Baldur’s Gate: Icewind Dale. These were exciting and fun games to play but I was completely blown away by Dark Alliance. The graphics are spectacular and the gameplay is so much fun. I know that I will get sucked right into this game and do as much as I can as a single player. ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00903 Today was National Selfie Day. I probably could have put much more effort into a selfie for today but I was honestly exhausted from the weekend.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00902 I’m very lucky to be the dad of these two wonderful kids. They make me so happy to be a dad. Eva is such a creative spirit. This past year she has learned how to sew, she’s creating things with Pop Tabs and doing so many creative things. She’s also become so much more confident in herself and she is crushing it in her Jr. Krav Maga classes. I cannot believe that next year is her last year of grade school. We can always chat about things together. Andy has been becoming much more independent. He loves to cook and express himself through his creations. Andy is also very skilled with computers. He loves creating things in Minecraft and Bloxels. He is also helpful to his friends and fellow classmates. Andy continues to improve in his karate skills. We are working more on talking together. Andy also loves to create with clay. He’s learned all sorts of things through Outschool and he’s even teaching his friends. I’m very fortunate to have these kids in my life. I...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00901 Today was one of those days that comes up once in a while when you work weekend overnights. We had a bunch of events happening today. First up was the Dads Hitting Pads karate class at America’s Best Defense. At this event I was able to train with Andy. It was a lot of fun. There were a bunch of other dads there. It was great seeing other dads and their kids having such a fun time there. Master Garcia taught the class and he told us that his father never saw him doing karate until he got his black belt. I’m so glad that America’s Best Defense includes the family so much in everything they do. After the karate class Andy and I went over to Dance Productions to see Eva’s recital. Last year was Eva’s 10th year but they did not have a recital so this year she was recognized for her 10 years at the studio. Her routine was to a song called Lost from The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. She took a class in theatrical dance this year and said that this w...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00900 Eva has been busy creating a pirate outfit. She made this from old curtains and a prom dress. She also found the boots at a thrift store for $5. She is really excited for her outfit and is looking forward to wearing it at King Richard’s Faire. We hope to be invited there again this year because it will be open this season.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00899 This post may be a little “Inside Baseball”. I am writing this on Friday and including events from tomorrow in today’s post. Time travel is fun. Much of what happened today I mention in the vlog below. But here goes the saga. About two weeks ago the DVR started acting strange and we were unable to access our cable. I tried some troubleshooting with the Xfinity Agent and it was determined that I needed a new box. So last Friday I went to the Xfinity store and exchanged our current box with a new one. I asked the man behind the counter if our recordings would transfer over. He said that they would. We can access our DVR recordings through the Xfinity Stream app and watch recorded shows on our ROKU tvs and iPads and whatever. I picked up the new box and brought it home. I got it all set up and turned on all of the streaming apps that you can access through Xfinity. I checked our recordings on the DVR and they were there. Great! We had a bunch of content to cat...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00898 I picked up two copies of the Batman Fortnite Zero Point comic book. One is for me to have and the other is for a giveaway that I’ll be hosting starting in two weeks when the final issue is released. At that point people will be able to enter to win all six of the issues and with that they will get all of the special cosmetics that were included in each of the comics. I actually had the comic for over a week ahead of the release date of today. I even tried to redeem the code a week early but it did not open up until today. This has been a great comic that has revealed information about the Fortnite island as well as some great Batman action. I can’t wait to get the final Batman outfit. You only get it if you’ve redeemed all six of the codes. I did a review on my daily vlog.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00897 Tonight we went to Bliss Bros Dairy for dinner. With karate and everything else going on today the day got totally away from us and so we decided that we’d take the kids to Bliss for their exceptional report cards. We have hamburgers planned for tomorrow night, we actually had them planned for tonight and or for this past Monday but the last couple of days with Allison working and me working on videos was a challenge and we gave in to the easy way this time. But that dessert was worth it!

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00896 On the first day of vacation for the kids while mom was at school ad dad was sleeping seems to be the best time for Andy to get creative with food. It is going to be a long Summer. Last night Allison made a couple of round cakes for Andy because he wanted to make a Leopard cake. In my mind I figured that he’d take one cake and cut it up to be ears and whatnot for the leopard. Nope. He went and made a giant cake ball cake shaped roughly like a leopard. Then he also made rocks and grass with the frosting and extra cake. While he is quite creative he isn’t much for looking at a recipe and following directions. In the end Allison saved the frosting for him so that he could create the cake. There were some touch and go moments and made things a bit tricky for us but we got through it.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00895 I made this post private but wanted it to be a part of our blog because this catalogs our life. Today Eva and Andy both came out to us. We had long suspected that Eva had something to tell us and today she did. We knew that at some point, in her own time she would tell us. Allison ad I have always been supportive of the LGBTQ+ community. We’ve also been extremely open to our children and let them know that they can tell us anything. I think that Eva has been stressing herself out over telling us. She told us tonight at dinner. No big preamble or anything but after she told us that she was bi-sexual she explained what that meant. I guess she has a little of me in her in that she felt the need to further explain the term. Then Andy pipes up that he is, too. He further stated that there were two boys that he liked. We talked about things for a bit and before I headed up to work I asked Eva to come outside with her new flag. Allison ordered her a Pride flag for her r...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00894 I built the LEGO set 76169 the Thor Mech Armor. This was a fun build with a cool minifig of Thor with little Mjolnir. Then you could build a larger Mjolnir for Thor’s suit to hold. I made a video of the build.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00893 Today was the last day of the 2020/2021 school year. Both of the kids had good years and they earned great grades. While much of the year was done from home they did go back full time later in the school year and that has been good. Both kids grew in height and in maturity. I find it so hard to believe that Eva will be entering her last year at the school next year. After school the kids went with Eva’s friend to get frozen yogurt. They had a fun time and it was nice that Andy was invited along as well. Andy also had a fun night at the ABD Parent’s Night Out for their Nerf War night. He does tend to really enjoy that event. Eva enjoys the Teen’s Night Out and is looking for the next one.

Last week I had the pleasure of checking out the Upcoming Nintendo Game, Game Builder Garage for Nintendo Switch which launches tomorrow. This is a rather incredible game that will teach kids how to create their own games and that is something that I cannot wait for my kids to learn. Both Andy and Eva love games like Minecraft and Super Mario Maker 2. They enjoy building and learning how to create things. Being able to create things right out of their own imagination is the best and with Game Builder Garage they can take their creativity for gaming to the next level. The game has a series of training exercises that are about and hour or more each. Doing each training exercise will unlock features, abilities and knowledge that kids will need to make their own type of games. Every step of the way kids have help rom the Nodons. The Nodons are creatures that connect all the parts of the game together and they each have a distinct personality. As kids learn about each Nodon they gain more i...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00892 I ran some errands today after Krav and that included picking up some comic books and finding some Scooby Doo Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels made character cars of Scooby Doo and Shaggy. This was with a group of cars that included Fred Flinstone and Tom and Jerry. I’m not sure what else they are going to do but I did like these ones and so I picked them up. I also got to the comic book store and picked up the DC Pride Month comic and read that during Eva’s Karate class so that I could give it to her to read when her class was done. She was excited to see that it had been released. It was a good read.

Hess Toy Truck sent me their 2021 Mini Collection for free to review. Opinions are my own. We have been collecting the full-size Hess Toy Trucks for several years now. We started collecting when Eva was born. Santa gets these trucks for the kids every year and every year I am more and more impressed with the quality of the trucks. There are so many of them and they all have lights and sounds and are some of the toughest built vehicles around. I made an unboxing video of this new collection in the video below. I have the full details of this new mini collection below. THIS SUMMER’S MINI COLLECTION FEATURES MINI VERSIONS OF VINTAGE HESS TOY TRUCKS 2021 Mini Collection Includes An Amazing 5-In-One Toy Set Complete with Mini Racers At Just $29.99 New York, NY (May 31, 2021) Hess Toy Truck’s limited-edition Mini Collection ($29.99) tradition has launched, featuring highly detailed, small scale versions of classic holiday Hess Toy Trucks from the past. The 2021 little legends are on sale exc...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00891 This morning I drove down to the Cape to spend the day with my Dad. Today is Dad’s 70th birthday. I got there in the morning and we went for breakfast at Betsy’s Diner. It was great to get back to doing something normal again. We ate outside because, well, nothing it too normal yet. The weather was great so that worked out well. We drove around in Dad’s car and tried to sign the kids up for swimming classes but there is no decision yet on whether or not there will be any classes this Summer. Or rather, the person who had that information was not working today, maybe tomorrow. Dad and I took a walk up the beach and hung out. I stuck around until the family Zoom to celebrate Dad’s birthday. We’ll have a bigger celebration with everyone in person next month but everyone got to sing Happy Birthday to dad and he got to open his cards and gifts on the Zoom. It was a nice day and I am glad I was able to get down to visit. I’m so fortunate for this man to be my Dad...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00890 The kids had their field day today. Things were a little different because of both the pandemic and an unplanned half day due to a heat wave in the area. So, the day was cut short but they still had some fun. I came by to take some drone photo but everything was winding down when I got there so I pitched in to help with serving the food. They had cheeseburgers and hot dogs. the kids had a fun time playing different games. Each class has their own class colors and Eva’s class had pink as their color. Eva made her own shirt that said “Color Are Genderless”. She’s very strong in her convictions and is unafraid to put them out there. I’m very proud of her. Andy’s favorite part of the day was the Drip, Drip Drop game and he was soaked when I got there.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00889 I mowed the lawn today and had to fill the gas tank of the mower. I am not a fan of these new safety gas cans, they are terrible. I have never spilled more gas in my life than I have with these pieces of garbage. So, I got a little feisty in my daily vlog.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00888 Funko sent me the new Funko POP! Artist Series: Marvel Patriotic Age – Captain America for free to review. It is a Target Exclusive figure that comes with a Box protector and it is so pretty cool. I to enjoy Funko Pop! figures very much and I have a bunch of them. I have never gotten one like this one, though. If a collectible like this can be called realistic then what I like to collect are the realistic ones. I never really went for the more artistic ones but this is pretty cool overall. I talk more about it in my daily vlog.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00887 One of my subscribers to my YouTube channel suggested that I build the Grave Digger set for my daily vlog. I was at Target this week and I saw this set. I wasn’t even in the LEGO section so it was a sign that I had to pick it up and build it this week. The whole build is in today’s vlog.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00886 Funko sent me the new Funko Pop! Grape Kool-Aid Packet Funko HQ Exclusive Limited Edition for free to review. Opinions are my own. I love these fun Food Icons that Funko is doing. The Hawaiian Punch mascot was one of my first food icons and when I saw that Funko was making some Kool-Aid figures I was excited about the Grape Packet figure. It is so cute. I reviewed the figure in my daily vlog below.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00885 Andy had Colonial Days at school today. In past years the 3rd grade would go to the Little Red School House in North Attleboro. However, with COVID-19 the kids could not visit The Little Red Schoolhouse. Instead the kids had Colonial Days at school. He had a really fun time pretending to be from the 1800’s for the day. Still, I feel bad that he did not get to experience things at the actual Little Red Schoolhouse. Hopefully things will become safer and the kids will get to have some of the fun field trip experiences once again.