BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01459 Because we were away for Christmas we celebrated our Christmas as a family this morning. Santa left some gifts for the kids under the tree and we opened all the other gifts from each other. Santa brought the kids each XBox controllers and headsets so that they could play on my old XBox that I moved down to the living room. Now they can play various with their friends without having to use two devices at the same time. Eva got a few things for her various projects including some new boots and Amazon and Michael’s gift cards. She was very excited about the boots. they are a bit big so they’ll have to be exchanged, though. She can’t wait to work on her next project, though. Andy’s big gift was a Ninja Creami. This device lets Andy create all sorts of frozen treats. He cannot wait to start making all sorts of ice creams for everyone. Allison got me a nice new sign for my office. It is of my gamertag. That is the name I use when playing games online. I guess BenSpark ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01458 On our second day of road tripping back from Florida we got up and on the road around 6am. We were going to go to Richmond and have breakfast with one of Allison’s friends but she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be getting up early enough to meet us. So, we went to Richmond and turned left across the state of Virginia toward Route 81 in Pennsylvania. We did have some time in the morning for a few shenanigans with the broken pullout couch. I discovered a missing spring and nearly fell through the thing while I was putting on my shoes. Andy went fully through it because he’s Andy. We were trying to make it to another Cracker Barrel close to 81 but nature called sooner than that so we pulled off and went to an IHOP about 30 minutes from the Cracker Barrel. The kids had never been to an IHOP before and they enjoyed the various syrups that they could have on their pancakes. We went 81 to cut out route 95 in Washington and Maryland. It added more time to our tri...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01457 Because our flight was cancelled by SouthWest and our rescheduled flight would have been 5 days after the original one we decided to drive home from Florida. We were luckier than most people in our situation. We had a place to stay for free. We weren’t at the airport wondering how we would get home and we were able to get a free car to use to drive home. No rentals needed. We packed up all of our stuff and got the kids situated in the back seat with all the drinks and snacks. Eva had her giant blanket with her to cover up and Andy had plenty of entertainment on his Switch and iPad to keep him occupied. We left the house about 6am and got right on the road. We drove for a few hours and stopped to fill up the tank. We tried not to stop too often but had to stop a few times for bathroom breaks and to stretch our legs. We were trying to get to the Buc-ees for lunch. ?We had heard a lot of things about it but once we got there it was entirely too overwhelming fo...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01456 We should be getting on a flight home tonight but ours was cancelled. We had made plans with friends of Mimi and Dano’s to bring us to the airport. Our plan was to go to dinner in Celebration and then go to the airport for our flight. Well, despite not having a flight we decided to go to Celebration for dinner anyway. We went to the Columbia Restaurant and it was excellent. After dinner we caught up with my Aunt and Uncle who live in Celebration. We got ice cream from Kilwins. They have fantastic ice cream there. We enjoyed our ice cream and chatted with my relatives. Then we explored downtown celebration. there is a christmas tree in downtown Celebration and they make it snow around the tree a few times during the night. They even have ice skating and other activities. there were horse drawn carriages and even a little train that people could ride. We decided that we would drive Dano’s car back to Massachusetts rather than wait for the rescheduled flight o...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01455 We woke up this morning to the news that our flight home was cancelled. We were supposed to catch a flight home on Wednesday but Southwest has cancelled 5200 flights in the past few days. I had not been worried about our flight being cancelled because there was no significant weather happening at home. Apparently, that was not the major factor in the cancellations. I was able to rebook us on a flight on January 2nd instead. After that news I was happy that we had donuts from Donut King to enjoy today. Here are the ones that we selected. I had the lemon donut. It was delicious. We did some more playing and exploring in the Villages today. We went on nature walkover by Mimi and Dano’s house. Then we played some shuffleboard and we had lunch at the marketplace which is the closest village square near them. Inside there were a few food options and we picked up pizza, some calamari and Andy had a hot dog. The pizza was fantastic and the calamari very tasty. We e...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01454 Today we went and explored Mount Dora. This town has some interesting shops and fun stuff to see. We had lunch at the Salted Fry and found an interesting bookstore. Andy and Eva each got some books to read. Eva picked out Frankenstein and also a collection of Ray Bradbury stories. I hope that she enjoys both books. This morning we also went to the mini golf area near Mimi and Dano’s. We played 10 holes before heading out to Mount Dora. On the way home we stopped at Donut King and picked up a dozen donuts. Donut King makes the donuts for Disney. They were really good and the box was huge! I could not believe that a dozen donuts from them was under $15, either.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01453 Our first Christmas in Florida. We got up and enjoyed some cinnamon rolls and then opened our stockings. The kids got Fitzy’s letter and enjoyed reading it. Andy decorated the cinnamon rolls with gum drops because we had gum drops. We watched the Christmas Mass Eve at our church back home last night. I had forgotten to mention that in yesterday’s post. For Christmas we had a bunch of snacks out, opened gifts, enjoyed a great meal and hot chocolate and more Christmas movies. Dano and Mimi’s friend Mark came for dinner. Andy got along very well with him and enjoyed talking with him. It was a very nice day filled with some fun moments and lots of great food. The kids had a great time opening their gifts. Fitzy even snuck in one gift for Andy. When we were at Cracker Barrel Andy saw a tiny Bob Ross figure and asked if he could get it. I had already seen it and picked it up for him for Christmas so I told him no. He was unhappy with that but he didn’t make a fus...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01452 For Christmas Eve we continued to do some baking and preparing for Christmas day. We hung out at the house for the day and in the later afternoon we started watching Christmas specials and enjoying the Mikey Mouse shaped cookies that I picked up when we were at Disney Springs. We may have run to the store again, too. Andy is having fun here and enjoying hanging out on the front porch. This was his get off my lawn pose. Later in the evening we all got into our family pajamas and took photos by the tree. We watched A Christmas Story, A Charlie Brown Christmas and I think the Elf on the Shelf Christmas movie, too. We may have watched Home Alone during the day as well. Before Bed Allison wrote out the yearly letter from Fitzy to the kids. We put out some cookies for Santa and went to bed.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01451 On our first full day at Mimi and Dano’s we did a few things. Mimi, Allison and I went to the store to buy food for Christmas. Dano took the kids on a golf cart adventure and both kids got to drive the golf cart in a big parking lot. Eva enjoyed it, Andy was a bit hesitant about it. Driving a golf cart certainly takes some getting used to. Fitzy not only made the trip to Disney but he also arrived at Mimi and Dano’s to the delight of Andy. Andy is still into this Elf on the Shelf he was so happy that Fitzy came along with us. We went to one of the Villages main squares to do some shopping but also to visit Allison’s old boss from American Eagle. She works in a quirky little store in one of the villages. I forget which one we were at, however. I got some new shoes and We also got some ice cream despite there being cooler temperatures than usual in Florida. We also stopped by a Starbucks and Andy got a reindeer cake pop. We got back to the house and Allison, ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01450 Today we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. This was part of our Christmas gift from Dan and Marcia along with our stay at All- Star Music last night. Because we were staying on property we were able to get into the park early. After taking a photo by the giant Animal Kingdom Christmas tree Allison, Eva, andy and I went to the Avatar Flight of Passage ride. This is our favorite ride and it is super popular so waiting in line for it is a very long thing. I think we only waited for about 45 minutes though. We had gotten there close to when the rope drops for the park and because we were on property we got in a little earlier. However, the rope drop happened and all those people were sprinting to the line. It was obnoxious but we were able to get on the ride and I was able to book us a Lightning pass for the Safari when we were done with Flight of Passage. The Animal Kingdom Christmas tree was huge. We asked someone passing by to take our photo so we could all b...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01449 This morning we got up and headed to the airport at 4:00am for our 6am flight to Florida. We’re headed there to celebrate with Allison’s parents in their new house. We’ve never been to Florida for Christmas before and our Christmases with Allison’s parents have always been virtual. They send us a big box of gifts and we open them on Facetime or a Zoom meeting or something like that. This year we decided that we’d go down for a week and spend the holiday with them in person. Our flight down was very smooth. Andy had some trouble with the pressure in his ears on the descent but luckily that wasn’t too long for him to go through. He can’t seem to pop his ears properly to get relief. He had some shows to watch on the flight so he kept busy. When we landed we were greeted by Dan and Marcia. They picked us up and we headed to breakfast at Cracker Barrel before heading to Disney Springs to walk around. When we got to Disney Springs we saw all the beautiful Christm...