BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01367 I popped over to Seabra before work tonight. I needed some things to eat overnight. I noticed that there was a cooler that had a bunch of pints of ice cream that I had never seen before. Strange since this ice cream company is apparently almost as old as I am. Barts Ice Cream Company has a ton of different flavors but the one that jumped out at me was the Caramel Heath one because I love Heath Bar. The ice cream is rather good, too. I’ll have to check out what other flavors they have because they are unlike many others that I see and I like trying new and different ones. Still working through my COIVD recovery.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01366 I’ve been sleeping in my office since Monday and haven’t been venturing outside of it for much of anything except to pick up the kids from school or to take them to their classes and such. COVID has been kicking my butt and I haven’t felt like doing much other than resting. I haven’t been thinking much about photos either. At night I do notice that I have many Glow-In-The-Dark Skylanders figures in my display case. I decided to take a photo, not a very good one, of them using Night Sight on my phone. The red is coming from the light son my computer but the figure int he back is a Skylander that Glows.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01365 The fifth and final Marvel X Fortnite Zero War comic came out today and with it another free downloadable cosmetic for the game. What I did not know was that there was an additional set f cosmetics that I would get for free from having all the comics. I got the Iron Man Zero War suit plus back bling and harvesting tool. This is a great set because it also comes with a built in emote and the suit can be both Iron Man red and Gold or Fortnite Blue and red. It looks great. I thought, however that I’d have it sort of exclusively for a little while. You know, a reward for people who actually bought the comic books and and collected the codes but when the item shop reset at 8pm there was the set that anyone could buy using their V-bucks. I was mildly annoyed, but not surprised. On another front, COVID continues to run its course. I’m really run down because of it. This has really killed my training and I’m not happy about it. I took a walk around the block twice ...

  If you are a teacher of kids from grades 4-6 or 6-8 Wizards of the Coast has created a new initiative to provide educational materials for teachers so that they can incorporate Dungeons and Dragons into their lesson plans. This is very exciting and so useful, too. It also comes out to coincide with a brand new starter set being released.. Dungeons and Dragons is very popular with many celebrities playing it and it being featured in some very popular TV shows. Kids are learning more and more about it but they may have never played before. There are many benefits from playing and many educational moments to learn from while playing. This initiative will even provide schools, libraries and community centers and enrichment organizations with D&D Afterschool Kits that will include everything to start D&D clubs and meetups. I have a full press release below with all the information on the initiative. I would also like to point you towards the website where you can download many...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01364 A Few weeks ago I got an email from Disney + asking if I would like a Disney Drop. Apparently, they send out these special boxes to subscribers from time to time. At first I thought it was a scam email but then discovered that it was not so I signed up for it to see what would be sent. The box contained a whole bunch of things themed around, The Little Mermaid. There was Little Mermaid Bingo cards, a movie still with facts on the movie, some blank cards, a sarong, a Rubik’s cube, a pot holder and more. It was interesting but not really anything that anyone here in the house would use. Allison might use the sarong but that is about it. but, overall it was a nice thing to get. Had the kids been younger this would have been a fun box for activities.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01363 Well, it finally got me. I took a COVID test today and it came up positive. I’ve been sick since Thursday and I tested but was not positive. There wasn’t even a hint of positivity in the test the other day but today, today there was no doubt in the test. COIVD finally got me. So, I’m isolated to my office. The family taking care of me by bringing me my dinner and other things I need. I’m actually a bit mad about getting it. I had been able to avoid being sick for nearly two years now and then this past weekend I ended up taking two days out of work because I wasn’t feeling well. I tested and was negative. It persisted and so I took the test again and today it was positive. This means I can’t do much of anything for a while and it is annoying. I’m holed up ion my office and while I enjoy spending time there and playing video games, if that is the only option I get bored of it quickly. So, I’ll clean up in here, catch up on shows and get so

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01362 No, the cake does not taste like it was made of pickles. This is what Andy has called his creation. He colored the frosting to make this cake to look like a pickle, I guess. that is what he called it. It makes him happy to bake and to decorate.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01362 Tonight was Eva’s first High School Dance. Things have changed a lot since I was a student going to dances. for one thing you have to buy the tickets in advance and online. There is a cutoff date and time and there is no showing up the night of the dance to attend. It all has to be taken care of ahead of time. Kinda kills spontaneity but it also helps to know who is going to attend. Eva had a nice time and was able to get together with some of her friends, dance and enjoy the night. I am glad that she decided to go and had fun doing so. The theme was Neon.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01361 I hate being sick. I caught a cold this week and it got bad today. I took the night off of work so that I could get some additional sleep and take care of knocking out this cold. I was not feeling well all day and made sure to test for COVID (Negative). Tonight I settled in with some cups of tea to help out with the cough. It helped, a bit. But it was nice to have something warm to drink because today was the coldest it has been in a very long time. Yesterday I was still using the AC and today the AC is making the cold from outside come in and that is why I have my sweatshirt hood up.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01360 This morning when I went to my Krav Maga class it was pouring so hard that I could not hear my radio. Inside the building it was even hard to hear Sensei Brochu and he can be loud. The rain was torrential today and was like that most of the day. However, after the kids had their classes things lightened up and got nice. The evening turned out pretty good overall.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01359 When I take Andy to his Rock Climbing Classes the gym is part of a large complex that includes a go-kart track, escape room, arcade and also an Axebar. I checked the place out last week and it looked like a fun place so this week I decided to go to throw some axes. At 4pm on a Wednesday the place is empty so I had it all to myself. After a little bit of instruction I started throwing axes in my two lanes. There were two sizes of axes, a small and a large. You can throw either with one or two hands. I started with two handed throwing until I felt comfortable enough to try one handed.  I found that this activity was pretty easy to do overall. I was hitting the target really well after only a couple of throws. The person who gave me instruction then gave me some stickers to put on the target and try and hit them. I put on 8 stickers between the two targets and managed to hit 7 of them. I simply could not get the bottom right hand corner of the target. It ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01358 I received a free copy of The Art of the National Parks: Coloring Book to check out and review. Opinions are my own. I am a big fan of coloring books. I love having some colored pencils or crayons to use to just put color on paper and enjoy losing myself in the activity. I also like nature and have been to a few National Parks. This is one fantastic coloring book, not only in the content but the physical book itself. When I first opened it up I was immediately impressed. For one thing when you open up the book the spine lays flat and the pages lay flat so you do not have to keep the left side down with your hand like you normally do with most books. The back cover it a thick hard cardboard, too so you have something firm to color upon. This is perfect. The content is also phenomenal. There are 63 pages to color and 63 pages of information on the parks. So you have the coloring page on the right side and a description of the park on the left side. It is real...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01357 I was lying in bed tonight and realized that I did not take a photo today. I pulled out my phone and took a photo of the red light from the power strip. It wasn’t much of anything but it was something. I had spent most of the day working on a special Fortnite video and that took up a ton of time. I made my video about where to find all 22 characters in the new season. However, I could not get one of them and that became quite frustrating. I knew where the character should be but that character only shows up 1 in 4 times or should.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01356 After dinner tonight Andy was being super silly while he loaded the dishwasher. He was dancing around and I made a little video of it. He caught me making the video and came after my phone with his dish washing gloves. I figure I’ll hold on to the video for a later date. when he least expects to see it. Today marked the latest season of Fortnite. Chapter 3 Season 4 dropped at 2:00am. When I got up I started making videos of all the new challenges of the season. One took me most of the day but I did get it done. I knew I had to get these made to get a jump on this season. There is so much to do. I hope that the videos help the channel continue to grow. One video ended up being a half an hour because of how many parts there were to it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01355 Today I took Eva to New Hampshire for the Granite State Comicon. We headed up to New Hampshire about 8:30 and planned to get to the con for 10:00am or so. There were some panels that I wanted to see and some that Eva wanted to see. We both wanted to really see one of them because a voice actor from a show we both love was going to be there. The first panel was with Mick Foley from the WWE. I used to watch a lot of wrestling when I was a residence hall director at Saint Anselm and I saw Mick Foley wrestle live a few times. He was always entertaining. His panel was great and he was so down to earth. The second panel that we saw was with Janet Varney. She is the voice of Korra from The Legend of Korra. Eva and I both love the show and because of that we were excited to hear her speak. I also convinced Eva to go to her booth so we could talk to her and tell her about how much Korra means to us. We paid to get the selfie below and I explained to Janet how I trie...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01354 I’ve had my car for one year now. In that time I have only gone 6,000 miles. This is great for my lease because I will have plenty of miles left over and the car will be worth more when I turn in the lease. I’ve got such low numbers due to the fact that I work from home most of the time. The only running around I usually do is to the dojo or to school. I may put on some more miles this year because I am picking up Eva from school but I don’t think that will make a huge difference in the overall mileage.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01353 Tonight Allison and I went to Feehan for the open house. We basically went to all of Eva’s classes in a two hour period. this meant we walked up and down the stairs from one building to another to meet with her teachers. They all seemed very nice and now we can put faces to the names and stories that Eva has told us. I am very happy that she is enjoying being at Feehan. I loved my time there and I hope that the experience is very good for her, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01352 Today was the day that Andy had been waiting for for so long. He’s wanted to start taking Rock Climbing lessons and we finally took him to the Rock Spot Climbing gym a few weeks ago. He had a great time and so we signed him up for a 3 month class. He can go whenever he’d like because he has a membership but formal classes meet for an hour and a half every Wednesday. This makes our Wednesday’s a bit crazy but doable. While Andy and I went to Rock spot Allison and Eva went to PPAC for the Tina Turner musical. They really enjoyed it. We gave Eva a season’s pass to PPAC so she could go see some plays that she was excited about. This was the first one. After Rock Climbing Andy and I went to Fitzy’s Pub for dinner. He had wanted their cheese sticks. Halfway through dinner he lets me know that he’d have Fitzy’s Mozzarella sticks at school for lunch tomorrow. Of course he was. Andy did a great job climbing. He moved up to the 5.9 routes and that is advanced for his...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01351 Tonight we decided to make some D’Angelo’s style BLTs at home. This was a fun meal because we were able to make each sandwich according to our specific tastes. I like everything on mine. So does Allison, mine the cheese. Eva and Andy like theirs with no tomatoes. We got these really nice tomatoes, too. They were great on the sandwiches.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01350 Andy found these building blocks at Target in the $1 spot. He’s been making all sorts of things with them but I really love this little heart that he made. He’s a kid with a big heart and big emotions.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01349 Twenty-One years ago I was helping my dad dig support holes for an outdoor deck. He sent me to go and get some supplies and while I was at the hardware store I overheard that a plane hit the World Trade Center. I heard no other details and drove back to the work site. While in the car I heard more on the radio about what was happening as it happened. When I returned we went into the house and watched the news. We saw the towers fall and the next few days were full of shock and sadness and unbelief. Each year on the anniversary Dad and I try and give each other a call.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01348 Today there was a welcome meeting for candidates for Black Belt at America’s Best Defense. I made my first attempt a year ago and then decided not to go for it in the Spring because of family obligations. Now I am ready to go for it again. The Black Belt Curriculum Evaluation is a month from now. Then Boot Camp begins two weeks after that. The Pre-Test is three weeks after that and then one month after that is the final evaluation. I did not make it beyond the pre-test last time. I was not aggressive enough. I did not feel completely sure of my skills at that time, too. This time I have another year of experience and have had time to work on my skills. I’m ready to go for it and looking forward to it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01347 I was in target today and I saw these Limited Edition Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Spice Grahams Goldfish. So, I picked up a package of them because, why not. They were actually pretty tasty overall. I’d get them again.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01346 Another night where I am not sure what to photograph. Allison and I were going to watch some shows and Torrun was sitting over on the back of the chair in the living room. I went over to try and take a photo with her. She was not too thrilled with that. This was the best of the bunch.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01345 I got even more Command Strips to use in my office. I should get 3M to work with me on some sponsorship deal or something. I added a set of Avengers themed Hot Wheels to the wall directly under my Avengers lenticular poster that I could from Wild Time Comics. Each car is themed for a different character but they are not the same as Character cars which look like the different characters. I have a ton of Marvel character cars but most were opened and not easily displayed. I also have another set of 8 Avengers cars that could go right under those but I have some other items in the way so that may not work out.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01344 So, these two lights, they do nothing. They don’t go to anything. They are some silly USB lights that I got at Five Below. the Top one changes colors and the bottom one is just Red. They fit into USB slots and they are basically one more thing in my office that lights up. I was considering getting another set so I could have two color changing ones. Not sure what I’d do with 2 red ones, though. The kids went back to Karate and Krav today. Eva was picked to help demonstrate a few times. Not sure she was that thrilled with that. She learned that her partner and friend was no longer doing Krav. She wasn’t that upset, at least to us. But I am glad that she is felling more comfortable there to work with other students. One of the girls in her class is also a Freshman at Feehan with her so that is nice. I’m now picking Eva up from school on a daily basis. Whether it is in the pick up line or later on I will be going to Feehan to get her when she gets out of schoo...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01343 Tonight Andy wanted everyone to make a part of dinner. Andy made the dessert of strawberry ice cream and 100,000 Grand ice cream. This is his latest thing, he mixes things into vanilla ice cream to make new flavors. Allison made Stromboli, Eva did baked potatoes and bacon and I made Doritos fried chicken tenders. I’d try anything else again but was not impressed with the Doritos chicken. for one thing when it was fried up it had a weird smell of the fried Doritos. Such a strange almost fish like smell. Then there was barely any flavor or taste to the chicken even though it was liberally coated with crushed Doritos. We rounded out the night by watching Sing 2 on Netflix. That was a very cute movie.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01342 It was one of those days where I did nothing but work and sleep so when it came time to take a photo I scrambled for something interesting. Came up with this Decepticon fridge magnet. So… not really interesting per se. But something.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01341 When I woke up this afternoon I put on my Grillmasters of the Universe shirt and Allison had gotten burgers for dinner and put me to work. It was as if she knew I’d have on the appropriate gear. It sounds like everyone had a nice day today. Eva went to her D&D group for the afternoon and Allison took Andy to rock climb. She said that he was like a whole other kid there. He was confident and having an awesome time. I think this really helped him clear his head after so of the events from the past couple of days. He was so animated and excited talking about all the climbing that he did and many of the people in the gym remarked at how well he was doing. He’s so excited to start his classes the week after next. they picked up a chalk bag and chalk for him to use. The staff couldn’t believe how long he climbed without any chalk.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01340 Tonight after prayers Eva hefted James into her arms. She looked cute holding her giant cat. She loves him so much. He is her constant companion and is so lost when she is not around. When she goes to school he wanders around meowing and it sounds like he’s saying, “Hello!” It is really odd and sometimes spooky.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01339 While I was setting up my Hot Wheels on the sloped wall in my office I went through all of the Hot Wheels cars that I have on their backings. I found a set of 10 that when put together form the American Flag. I decided that that would go on the wall as well. I have some more to put up but I have run out of command strips… again.