BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01065 At Andy’s school each class is getting a Christmas tree to decorate. The students decide on a theme for the tree and then they bring in ornaments for decorating. Andy’s class is going with a minions theme and Andy came home and immediately made four ornaments out of clay. He is pretty amazing when it comes to creating things out of clay. The tree thing is a yearly thing and last year Eva came home with her class’s tree. However that tree ended up dying and the running joke with her class was how Eva killed the tree named Toby McCheesey. Apparently this comes up often and now that they are working on their new tree they are having a mock trial regarding Eva’s involvement in Toby’s demise. She gets a kick out of it so there you go.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01064 The fine folks from Playmobil sent me several set of their Dino Rise series for free in a large mystery box so that I could unbox them for you and then provided reviews of each set. This review is of the set Saichania: Invasion of The Robot (70626). I like this set because the dinosaur is cool. I can’t pronounce the name correctly for the life of me because I always thought this was an Ankylosaurs. But I guess they are a bit different than the Saichania. An Ankylosaurs has plates on their back and a heavy wrecking ball tail. This one has spikes all over its back. This Dino Rise series of toys is a lot of fun. Dinosaurs fighting giant robots. Kids friends with Dinosaurs. what could go wrong. Well, since Playmobil is all about imaginative play then anything could happen. Check out my video review below.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01063 Each year Hot Wheels make a set of holiday themed cars. I seem to find them at Stop & Shop and nowhere else. One of the cars that they make each year is a New Year’s car that is also a bottle opener. I think I have gotten this particular set for the past 3 years or so.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01062 Every year our Elf on the Shelf returns on the night of Thanksgiving so that the Christmas season can begin. This year Eva is in on the fun. She’s been playing along for a while and finally revealed to us that she knows that Mom and Dad provide Santa’s magic around the house. So, she gets to help out and move the Elf around the house until Christmas Eve. It still delights Andy and so we are keeping the magic alive for him.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01061 I took Andy to the movies today. I recently took Eva to see a movie and he did not get to go. He had felt left out even though he wouldn’t have enjoyed the movie in the first place. Well, we have had a Thanksgiving tradition in years past to go to a Disney movie the night before Thanksgiving. We were not able to do that this year so instead I took Andy to see Encanto today. Encanto is a musical about a family that has some special magical gifts. Andy really enjoyed the movie, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01060 This year we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. My parents came from the Cape and we also hosted Allison’s friend Colleen and her mother. Allison and Colleen prepared a ton of food last night and got ready for everything today. Allison made sure that she made many recipes that were gluten free so that my Mom could eat them including a gluten free green bean casserole. Colleen’s mom brought over a pumpkin bread that we can eat tomorrow morning. We had apple pie, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake and chocolate chip cookie pie. So much food. After dinner and everyone headed home we got changed into our Christmas pajamas. This is a yearly tradition. This was the first year that the pajamas fit well for sleeping. As we lounged in the new pajamas we enjoyed watching the movie 8-Bit Christmas. This was a hilarious movie about one kids’ quest to get a Nintendo Entertainment System. It starred Neil Patrick Harris and Steve Zahn. I really enjoyed it and we laughed a lot durin...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01059 Tonight was a great workout. The night before Thanksgiving Mr. Brochu at America’s Best Defense ran the Pre-Turkey Trauma workout. It was about an hour and 45 minutes and it was tough, but after it was over it was a great feeling. This month has been all about gratitude. I am so grateful to everyone at ABD. Pushing me, holding me accountable and working so hard together. I’m grateful for how all of this training has helped me get into the best shape of my life. Feeling the strongest inside and out. Never more confident either. This is a direct result of being a part of ABD.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01058 Funko sent me the Donatello and Leonardo figures for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II for free to unbox and review. Opinions are my own. I personally purchased the Michelangelo and Raphael figures. I’ve always been a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I wish that I had read the comic books from way back when but I did love the TV show and toys. Donatello is my favorite turtle and I try and pick up most Donatello figures whenever possible. These are pretty nice ones that I added to my collection.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01057 We celebrated Andy’s birthday today. He had a nice birthday and day at school. I took Andy to breakfast this morning at Morin’s where he enjoyed a meat lovers omelet. I took him to school then and ran home to find that Andy had forgotten the food and toilet paper that he was donating to the local food pantry. So I grabbed that and ran back to school. then got some sleep. Tonight we celebrated with some of Andy’s leftover cake from his birthday. Then we gave him his gifts. They were mostly Axolotl themed. I found some cute tshirts, a mask and Allison found a small hand puppet. I also found a very cool Dungeons and Dragons themed Nerf blaster. We’re going to celebrate with birthday dinner tomorrow night.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01056 Today was the Turkey Basket Brigade at America’s Best Defense. The school collects money so that they can make donations of turkey baskets to local organizations in need. We raised enough for 750 baskets. All of those baskets had to be assembled and it took many members of the ABD family to do the assembly. Eva and I went over to help and we each made 5 baskets on our multiple passes through on the assembly line.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01055 Today was Andy’s birthday party. We held it at One Up Games in Plainville, Ma. This location has a bunch of video game systems, some air hockey, pool and also a stand up cabinet system with 10,000 video games. We had about 15 kids at the party and ordered some pizza and Allison made an amazing Minecraft cake and cupcakes. The theme of the party was Minecraft and I figured that the kids would all play together in the game but instead they played all sorts of things. Some played together and some played independently. Eva and I played some air hockey together, too. I even got to play some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games and Spy Hunter on the stand up cabinet. Andy’s favorite game was a virtual reality game, too. This was a great place to hold a birthday party. The people there were very nice. They don’t even bill until they get the final count of kids that came that day, so that was a good thing. I appreciated that a lot.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01054 Occasionally I find funny memes to share with Eva. If she is not right next to me I email them to her. She thinks this is hilarious and very old school. She wonder’s why I don’t just text them to her. So, because she finds it funny I still email them. We’ve joked that I should just print them out for her instead. Tonight I tried to send her this meme and it was from a private site so she couldn’t see it. It was the perfect time for me to print the meme out and give it to her. She was so tickled about it. She laughed so hard and decided that the meme itself will appear on her wall of things. That is what she calls her walls in her room.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01053 Eva had a shadow day at Feehan today and that meant that she was there for the morning shadowing a current student and she was done at 11:20am. Well, since she had the rest of the day off I decided to take her for lunch at Bliss Bros. Dairy. We enjoyed a great lunch and then split a Pumpkin Cake sundae. I wanted the pumpkin Oreo ice cream to go on it but they no longer had it. So, they gave me pumpkin ice cream sprinkled with Oreo pieces. After I picked Eva up we went by the Attleboro Art Museum and picked up the kids’ pottery. The kids did so many nice pieces during their classes. The kids are quite talented and I love that they are checking out more artistic projects all the time.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01052 I received a fun mailer from Sony Pictures movie Ghostbusters: Afterlife with a free bag of mini stay puft marshmallows and a mini stay puft figure. I have been waiting for the movie to be released but I wanted to watch the original with Eva before I went to see it. I think she’d get a kick out of seeing it. We haven’t gotten a chance to go see it yet so there may be time.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01051 Today was dress down day at school and the them was dressing up. Andy wanted to wear his grey suit but the poor kid has grown so much this year that he no longer fits in it. I recently looked through the photos from this past year and he was able to wear it earlier in the year. I guess we did not realize how much he has grown. So, instead he choose the sweater vest and shirt. Eva wore her jacket and vest with her fancy shoes and Allison a beautiful dress. I caught them before they left the house for their day. They had a good day. Andy said that the kids at school thought he was Harry Potter because of the color of the sweater, I guess. Eva described how half the kids in her class were dressed up and how one kid was dressed up for Zoom with nice clothe on his upper half and pajama pants on the bottom. Pretty genius.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01050 Today was Science Fair for Eva and her classmates as well as the 6th and seventh grades. It was held outside on the plaza at school. the plaza is the small space between the mods and the school building. It is not very big but not as claustrophobic as the church hall was in past years. I think that is more of a claustrophobic thing because of all the echoes off the walls. Being outside I could actually hear each of the students explain their experiments. Eva’s experiment was testing local water for acidity using red cabbage. She did it all on her own and only asked Allison to order red cabbage. I only took the one photo and I thought I caught her with her eyes open but I did not. Allison got this better photo.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01049 We received a free copy of the latest book in the Explorer Academy series by Trudi Trueit to read and review. Opinions are our own. This Summer I read through the first five books in The Explorer Academy series. This is a series that is inspired by the National Geographic society and is published through National Geographic. It is a science fiction novel series where the science fiction is things not too far outside the realm of possibility. There are thins that may not even be a few years off as technology progresses. Then there are things within the series that seem way far outside of possibility. It is a fun series to read with tons of great puzzles and a pretty intricate plot with some big mysteries. I do not know how many books are planned for the series but the major mystery is nearing an end. With the fallout from the gut wrenching events of Book Five hanging heavy on Cruz he has to put that aside and keep searching for the cipher because Nebula is c...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01048 I’m really trying to keep it together in this photo from today. I had just found out, after taking a 4 hour grueling Krav Maga test, that I was not moving on to test for my black belt in December. This is something that I thought was a possibility in the back of my mind as I have been training. Now that it is a reality I have many emotions about it. Failure, sadness, anger at myself for not performing as best I can, relief, acceptance, doubt, resolve and determination to come back in the Spring and crush the tests. After the test and doing the run (9:48), push ups (59), Squats (89) and Plank (a dismal 1:02) I was asked to come to gather my things and come to the pro shop. There were five of us there. Our instructor, Mr. B. told us that would be part of the Spring boot camp group to test for our black belt. Something that he told us was, Delay is not Denial. This means that just because we were not earning our black belts this time around doesn’t mean that w...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01047 Allison and I celebrated our sixteenth Anniversary today. How did we celebrate? Cars and a pack of crayons, a candle and a hoity toity chocolate bar. that was today but back in September we went to Foxwoods and maxed out a Spa Gift card and saw one of our favorite comedians perform. That was supposed to be for our 15th anniversary but… covid. So, last year we treated ourselves to a hand drawn print from our favorite singer. It was the words to our wedding song and we had it framed at Preservation Framer, a great framing store in North Attleboro. We’ll most likely head out for a very nice meal this coming week or so to also celebrate. Sixteen years has been very productive. We own a home, built a family and have two amazing kids. We are great partners to each other. Life is good.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01046 We took a quick run to Cape Cod today. We won’t be heading down to the Cape for Thanksgiving because of Boot Camp for Krav. I have to be back on that Friday so it made no sense for us to run down to run back when we couldn’t really enjoy the day after Thanksgiving. I know this puts a damper on some of our traditions like the kids helping Mem and Grandfather trim their Christmas tree. But, we’re going to have them come to our house for Thanksgiving instead. We’ll spend more time down there for Christmas instead. Before we headed down we had a nice lunch at Bliss Dairy. Andy had us play Mad Libs while we waited and it was quite funny to say the least. I tried something new there, the Ultimate Grilled Cheese burger. It was a burger between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Not something I’d normally get but it was really, really good. One of the reasons we went down was to see my Grandfather. We did not get to see him today but will see him tomorrow. Another reas...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01045 Allison went to a bakery today and she picked up some great treats for after dinner. She got different ones for everyone including this amazing Lemon square for me. I’m loving these treats and lemon squares are one of my absolute favorite desserts.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01044 We received a review copy of the new comic book for middle graders called Batman, Robin and Howard for free to review. Opinions are our own. Graphic novels for middle graders are the sweet spot for getting my son, Andy to read. He has the best time reading them and he observes so much when he does. I wasn’t sure that he was noticing things because he reads them so quickly but what he noticed about this book blew me away. Yes, the book is about Batman and his son Damian Wayne who is also Robin. It is also about another character named Howard who comes into the Wayne’s lives. However, that was not what Andy noticed. What he noticed was that there was a student who goes to school with Howard and Damian who does not have a hand on his left arm. I was like, are you sure? He said, “Yeah, it is one of my favorite things about the book because it includes everyone.” I was blown away that my almost 10 year-old noticed something like that and had that reaction. He’s ...

  We received a free digital copy of Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld for review. Opinions are my own. I enjoyed reading Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld. This new graphic novel is about Princess Amaya of Gemworld and the Amethyst kingdom in Gemworld. Amaya begins the story spoiled and a bit of a brat. she torments the servants of the castle with her powerful magic. She mostly steals treats from the baker. One day she and her brother end up in the royal vault and they cause some trouble there. This causes her parents to send her to Earth for one week so that she can see what living without magic would be like. Maybe that would straighten her out. Something goes wrong and Amaya ends up on Earth for three years and she completely forgets who she was back in Gemworld. She makes new friends and is living like any normal kid in a suburban neighborhood. She is brought back to Gemworld by another kid and once she is back she slowly begins to remember who she was and realizes that she was a re...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01043 I picked some louvers for the small half windows for my car. I’ve been looking for some additional items to dress up the car a bit more and these looked pretty cool to me. They have a carbon fiber design and they simply get stuck onto the little windows. They were made for the Kia K5 but they also fit the Kia Forte GT perfectly. I like how they add a little flair to the sides of the car.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01042 This week always sneaks up on me. this is the week that the clocks fall back and the city picks up yard waste. I’ve got to get everything cleaned up so that it can be hauled away. Most of the leaves on our two largest trees have fallen so I shouldn’t have to do a ton more cleaning for the next yard waste pick up. while I was putting out the bags of leaves I noticed a pretty nice sunset and the sliver of moon in the distance. I was able to catch both.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01041 I grew up during the time of some pretty amazing candy. Nerds, SweeTarts, Skittles, Rinky Rinks, Jolly Ranchers and so many more. Sadly Rinky Dinks did not survive the 80’s. At that time Skittles had lemon, strawberry, orange, grape and Lime. At some point Lime was replaced with Green Apple. The green apple flavor was everywhere and I hated it. I was not happy eating Skittles and having to pick out the green ones and throw them away because they were so heinous. Where was my beloved Lime? why was it replaced. Must have been some market research. Terrible. I’ve always liked Lime flavor. Lime Jello was the best and I love some Key Lime Pie whenever I can get it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01040 We received a free Swirly World Nutty Narwhal Liquid Light up Pen from Bright Stripes. Opinions are our own. Andy loves narwhals and also writing. Yesterday we read a story that he had written about the time he fell on some bleachers at a Falmouth Commodores game. He has a knack for writing and making a written story come alive. He can’t tell you a coherent story verbally but when he writes things down they are really good stories. This pen is one of four different varieties that Bright Stripes offers. I chose this one because of Andy’s love for the Narwhal. One of his favorite book series is about a Narwhal and this pen would go along perfectly with that series. Maybe Andy will write a narwhal story with the pen. Assembling the pen was very easy. Everything you need is included with the kit. There are some clear beads, plastic bubbles, the narwhal and a jellyfish accessory plus the mineral oil. The packaging also allowed you to stand up the pen to make add...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01039 We just had a rotation of knife survival and I also attended a slasher seminar the day after Halloween. All those times working on my knife defenses and no forearm protection. My wrists were killing me. Well, there was a sale happening at the pro shop so I picked up some forearm protectors for the next time we work with knives.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01038 the folks from Super Impulse sent me some of their World’s Smallest Action figures so that I could put together my MicroShelfie. What you see here are a bunch of micro action figures that I’ve gotten over some time plus some new ones that were sent to me by Super Impulse. There are a few figures from different sets that I would still like to have like Starscream from Transformers, Snake eyes from G.I. Joe, Skeletor from He-Man and Raphael from TMNT. The only figure outside of that trend that I liked was the Garbage Pail Kid, Geeky Gary. This one is hilarious to me because he’s surrounded by TVs and has a TV for a head. Hits a little close to home.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01037 The other day I saw that there was a new Avengers set of Hot Wheels vehicles on Amazon. I try and pick up all the Marvel Hot Wheels cars that I can so I picked up this set. I’m not going to be taking them out of the box per se but I did disassemble the box so that you could see what was inside.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01036 Tonight Auntie Tara took Eva out for a birthday dinner. Eva was very excited and got dressed out in a fancy suit complete with vest and tie. Fancy shoes and button up shirt and she was ready to go. They went into Providence and had a delicious meal. Eva showed me some photos of the meal which include steak, cauliflower and a beet puree. Eva ate all of it and really enjoyed it. I think she mostly love her time with her aunt plus getting to dress up in a powerful looking suit.