BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01127 On the Monday night after the Blizzard I was setting out the trash and recycling and liked how the back yard looked. We got quite a lot of snow and it was very pretty.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01126 I’m trying to get my grip strength up and so I picked up these hand strength trainers. There are three different levels of trainers. I gave level one to my partner at Krav so he can help out his hand rehabilitation. For me I’d like to have an overall stronger grip and that is why I am using these. I can use these while I work and take breaks from time to time.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01125 A massive snowstorm rolled in today. It was actually snowing throughout the night and most of the day. I tried to sleep in a bit in the morning but didn’t sleep that well. I got out and took a sweep of our driveway and my neighbor’s driveways. I also did the sidewalks and by the time I was done there had to be at least an inch or two on top of what I had just done. The snow was so deep at points that it came up over the front of the snowblower. The snow looks really pretty out there and I am glad we didn’t get too much of it. I’ll make a pass through tomorrow morning and get it all finished.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01124 We got the email today that Eva has been accepted to Feehan. When she came home today I had printed out the little sign and we let her know that she was in. I realized the other day that she is starting High School 30 years after I graduated from High School. Life is really wild.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01123 Today was stripe test for all of us at America’s Best Defense. My test was this morning and the kids had their tests in the afternoon. Andy has been out of classes for the past month and only came back on Tuesday. I was very surprised that he knew the nunchuk form as well as he did. Andy told me that he was actually moving his wrists along with everyone as he watched them do class all the past month. He was not supposed to get a full stripe because he had not been in to class but he got one none-the-less. We will have to do some catch up for him this month to bring him up to speed. Eva did a great job in her class. We are both on a gun defense rotation and so she was doing a great job with it. She even had to do gun defense with Mr. Brochu as the person holding the gun. She was a bit freaked at that but she recovered quickly.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01122 Eva has been planning a special day to celebrate the birthday of one of her favorite characters from the Percy Jackson series and for it she needed a cupcake. So, she went shopping at a local bakery today. Before she went tot he bakery she asked each of us what our favorite dessert would be. She went and spent her own money to get us each a fun dessert and also one for Miss Colleen’s birthday. When she got home she got herself in her Nico DiAngelo cosplay and made a video for his birthday on Friday. She worked very hard on it, too. Great job all around.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01121 Allison’s parents sent her a very special gift for Christmas but it never arrived. Back and forth we went with UPS and while they insisted that it was delivered. We got no message that it had arrived and it never showed up on my UPS app. When we got the tracking number we looked and it said that it was delivered but it never was. So, Dan tracked it down and come to find out the first time around it was delivered to the wrong address. Luckily it got sent back to the UPS store where it originated but then my in-laws had to pay to have it shipped a second time. Luckily it finally arrived and Allison now has this special edition Cookie Basket that is prominently displayed in our kitchen.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01120 I picked up a new RC car for myself and I am looking forward to actually getting a chance to run this bad boy around. It is supposed to get 48+ KM/H so it is going to tear all over the place. The car came with two batteries and I can run it for about 40 minutes overall. I haven’t had a chance to actually run it, yet. It also came with a DIY body so I can paint one if I wanted to.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01119 The fine folks from Funko sent me another great new Pop! figure for my collection so I could unbox it and review. Opinions are my own. Back when I was a kid I was a big fan of Trix cereal. Everyone knows the Trix Rabbit and it is cool that Funko incorporated the look of the Trix Rabbit into the arms and legs of this figure. This figure gets added to my growing collection of iconic things from my childhood like the Lucky charms cereal box, Punchy form Hawaiian Punch and A grape Kool-Aid packet. I do enjoy very much that Funko has been making these particular types of figures. I’m going to add my video unboxing to this post once I create it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01118 The other day I saw a video from my friend Dave Taylor about the eMeet webcam C970L. This is an HD webcam that is 1080dpi that has a built in LED Ring Light. I used to have a second camera that worked with my OBS program and then I was unable to get a second camera to work. I have since lost that ability and the other webcam so I saw the video and figured I would see if I could try again. It worked! Now I can record a video and using the second camera I can show products up close without having to stop and take out another camera. I am excited to see what I can produce now.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01117 I got my new cell phone the other day and I am now able to take selfies again. The front facing camera is excellent. It has a cool portrait mode, too. I am not sure if my old phone had that one. It certainly has a camera with higher megapixels, too. I think that is what happens when I get a new phone every other time they release one. I’ll have to shave before I take another selfie.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01116 Testing out my new phone’s camera and loving how nicely it captured our cat, Torunn. Apparently I use the phrase Torunn Sitting Pretty in my blog posts often enough that I have 3 posts with the exact same title. One from 2012 and one from last year. She is such a pretty cat.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01115 Andy was enrolled in a cake decorating class and he had that class today. He said it was a small class of 6 kids. The class was at the same place that Allison and Eva have taken sewing and other classes. Andy’s class was all about cake decorating. The cake was provided and all of the frosting as well. Andy was able to learn how to use 6 different frosting tips. He was so proud of his work and the cake tasted delicious, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01114 A new phone is on the way. Back in November I dropped my Pixel 4XL and it broke the glass under the protective glass. It made it impossible to take a decent front facing photo. I have two older phones in my possession and really have nothing to do with them. I have my old Samsung Galaxy 6 and my old Pixel 2XL as well. A new phone is on the way to me. I went with the Pixel 6 Pro. This new phone has a great new camera and I cannot wait to take a bunch of photos with it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01113 Eva has been taking a fashion class online through RISD. These are a couple of her sketches. Her assignment was to make a modern style from some ancient inspiration like Greece and Egypt. She does some pretty incredible work. She’s have a fun time with this class, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01112 Tonight Allison and I went to see Rent at Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC). Months ago Allison saw that Rent was coming to PPAC and this is a show that she’s been wanting to see for a while now. I told her to get tickets for her birthday. I had completely forgotten about it until Friday when Allison told her friends that we were going to see it. Cut to a quick night off and we were at the show. Allison really enjoyed it. I thought it was good. Not my favorite but was entertaining overall.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01111 Allison and Eva went to the hairdresser today. Eva got a spunky new cut that can be done up closer to one of the cosplay characters that she has been working on. She also realized that she now cannot put her hair up in a ponytail for krav.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01110 While I was at Big Lots today I saw that there were still a few artificial trees left. I had not seen these ones before at all, though. I’ve never seen rainbow Christmas trees before. It was something out of that tree lot that Charlie Brown and Linus went to with the modern trees. I had to take a photo of them to prove that I had seen them.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01109 I took Andy to the doctor today for them to check out his wrist. They first took off his cast and then took some x-rays. The doctor then came to us and showed us how the break was healing really well and new bone was already growing in. He said that the growth plate looked good and the break should not hinder that and it should not contribute to any possible arthritis in the future either. Nice to be young. Andy liked the feeling of the cast being cut off. I thought that he would have been freaked out by the saw but the nurse showed him that it would not cut skin. Andy liked the vibrations and getting the cast off but he kinda wanted a new one, too. He did not need one, he just needs an ace bandage for a while longer and he cannot do any sports or karate until the 24th. I’m very glad that he is healing up so well.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01108 I received this Playmobil set for free from Playmobil so that I could unbox it and review. Opinions are my own. When I was a kid watching the A-Team was so much fun. It was one of my very favorite shows along with Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazard. I was very excited to learn that Playmobil was creating an A-Team Van set and was even more excited to receive it. I think that out of all of the 80’s TV show vehicles I liked the A-Team van the most. Don’t get me wrong K.I.T.T. and The General Lee were awesome in their own right but there was something about the A-Team van. It wasn’t super charged or had a talking computer inside. It was muscle and made even better all the time by B.A. Baraccus played by Mr. T. I liked how the team would always be helping the little guy and sticking it to whoever was trying to get over on everyone. These guys were like The Magnificent 7 and Robin Hood all rolled into a tight 4 person team. the set is awesome and I talk much m...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01107 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 Dino Rise T-Rex: Battle of the Giants (70624). This set is very cool. there is a giant mech and the biggest dino of them all from this series, the T-Rex. There is also a smaller dinosaur. I was going to complete this review a while back but when I opened the box it was missing one of the pieces, a character, Ian. So, I contacted Playmobil’s helpline for missing parts and got one sent to me. It arrived this week so I could complete the review. This is a very cool set that kids will really like. check out my video review below.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01106 Today was Allison’s birthday. We tried to celebrate as best we could. We bought a mess of food from Blue Moon Thai and really enjoyed it. The kids found some new things that they really enjoyed and both Allison and I really enjoy Thai so we were thrilled. while I was out picking up the Thai food I stopped over at Seabra and picked up a Carvel cake for us to enjoy for dessert. Been far too long since we’ve had one of those.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01105 Allison has been knitting up a storm every night. she whipped out her hat after two days. She was wearing her hat and Eva also wearing a hat and Allison said that they were looking alike. Eva did not agree but I can see it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01104 I think it is time to revisit my Skylanders collection seeing that I have so many of them. I have Skylanders Imaginators on my XBox so I should get going on playing this game with these figures, they are so much fun. I love how they look and how they are so different from one another.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01103 Eva has been working on her latest Cosplay creation. She is doing her own spin on a Minecraft player named Technoblade. Eva ordered the pink wig and she did the entire hairstyle on her own. She has also been experimenting with different makeup styles and did all of her own makeup for this as well. She had come outside to ask if she could use my ring light so she could take photos. I snapped this one of her in the snow before she went back inside. Andy’s snow rituals worked and he was able to enjoy a snow day. I got to use the new (to us) snowblower from my dad. It worked great and I was able to get both houses done pretty quickly. I’m glad I made sure and got gas last night on the way home from class.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01102 Despite already getting the call that school would be closed tomorrow Andy figured that he would pull out all the stops on the snow day rituals. Apparently there are 7 steps to guarantee a snow day. One of those is putting an ice cube outside. When I came home from F.I.S.T. tonight I noticed an ice cube on the railing to enter the house. I knew it was the work of Andy. Earlier today I put the storm windows in on the mud porch and front door. I also put the stand up paddle boards in the garage and rearranged things in the garage, too. The snow blower is ready to go for tomorrow.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01101 The other day I put a bunch of Star Wars Funko Pops on the wall and they were in a large Star Wars box of a bunch of toys. I had received this box years ago and there were things in there like the BB8 remote control toy and the Chewbacca animatronic toy. I have not used either one of these toys in a while. I hope they are all set and still work right. They have their own internal batteries and I hope that they did not leak at any point. I’ll check them out soon. I am not sure if I planned it or not. I pretty much didn’t today the second episode of The Book of Boba Fett came out Disney +. It was an incredible episode and I cannot wait for more of them to come out.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01100 Santa brought me some chocolate covered pretzels and while I am trying to limit the amount of candy and such that I eat. I’m back trying to be very good with my Isagenix. I’m back doing nightly push-ups and I’ve cleared the garage and moved things around so that I can use my B.A.S. Body Action System for some training. Getting myself back on the track to earn that Black Belt, too. But I do love hot chocolate and have been having a nightly cup since the beginning of the year. Maybe I should not be having it EVERY night, but it is so tasty. I’m rotating the mugs since we have a bunch. I love my Ninja Bread Men one from Shelby but this one is also a large mug to enjoy. The one thing I have been doing is limiting myself to only one of those chocolate covered pretzels. They are quite good.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01099 The past couple of days Eva has been painting some bottle caps to make some pins. These are her finished pins. A couple of them are album covers, one is for Camp Half-blood from Percy Jackson books and I am not sure what the other is. She continues to impress us with her creativity.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01098 I picked up a couple of dips for New Year’s Eve but we didn’t end up getting to them. So, instead, they are my snack overnight while I’m working. I have not made any specific resolutions this year but one thing I need to reign in a bit is snacking. May just have to limit it to weekends when I am working and not during the week. that being said, the buffalo chicken dip is amazing. It is the Shaw’s brand one and it is so good.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01097 A quiet New Year’s Day here. I did not take the night off so I relaxed for much of the day before taking a nap before work. Allison made a nice big breakfast of waffles and bacon for us to enjoy. Allison and I started the new season of Cobra Kai together and I ended up finishing the rest of the season while working overnight. Eva started a new painting project and she is apparently mixing the colors on her hand or something. she came in to show us her hand full of paint. At least she is creating and using the new set of paints that she got for Christmas.