BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01792 The pickup line for Andy’s school can be quite frustrating. From the first day there I decided that I’d get over to the line well before Andy got out of school. I do not like being on the road waiting in the line. If I get there early enough I can be right where Andy and the rest of the kids need to be picked up. There is always a car that parks right at the end of the road that forces all other cars to go around them in order to park. If you aren’t a fan of parallel parking you are sort of stuck. Why don’t they just pull up, they are going to have to do it as soon as the kids come out anyway. So this car (the second in the photo) was in the last spot. Or it should have been the last spot before the other car drove around me and instead of going in front of the last car in line they parked behind that car and hung out into the road. I got more frustrated than I needed to be over this act. I need to just park, listen to my audio book and let idiots be idiots...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01791 Andy has been working with their school’s drama department on learning how to run lighting for performances. Tonight was the talent show and Andy ran the one of the spotlights for the show. There were two kids on spotlights and Andy did a really nice job of running their spotlight. I hung out and watched the talent show just so I could watch andy do their thing. One week from tonight we’ll be back in the cafeteria for the band concert and we’ll get to see Andy and their trombone.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01790 This is our air purifier. We named it R2-D2 and when we have something extra good for dinner R2 gets mad. R2 gets mad because things like beef and bacon give off so much smoke that it gets the air purifier working on overdrive. R2 will go from yellow to orange to screaming red when we do grill indoors or make bacon in the oven. All that good smoke gets R2 angry.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01789 Our elf on the shelf has returned once again. We’re not sure if this is the last year that he’ll be flying around the house or not. Andy does not seem that excited to see Fitzy or find Fitzy every day like in years past. I am thinking that Andy may be humoring us this year. We’ll we’ve had a good run of creating magical memories for the kids over the years with this elf. Many people hate the elf for various reasons. He’s a tattletale and whatnot. But Fitzy has always been well received by the kids except for the one time that he ended up in the bathroom. Eva was having none of it when that occurred. We’ll see at the end of the Christmas season if this will be Fitzy’s last hurrah.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01757 Allison has finished all of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves pumpkins. The kids at school are really going to love these. Today was stripe test for Eva and I. The morning was a tough workout but I ended up pulling through. Eva did a great job at her stripe test, too. She is showing a fierce determination in each class. It is great to watch.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01788 Slept really well overall today and tonight while taking out the trash and recycling I looked up and the sky looked really cool. Lots of clouds and a big moon. The difficult thing about shooting with a cell phone is that it does not get great shots of the moon. I used Night Sight on the phone and that helped a bit but the moon is not detailed at all and it was pretty detailed.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01787 This afternoon my Aunt and Uncle contacted Allison and let her know that they were up this way and wanted to know if we wanted to meet them at Bliss for some ice cream. they were on their way down to a hotel in Providence. While it has changed names over the years this hotel was one where my grandparents stayed on their honeymoon. My aunt had a photo of the receipt and their 2 night stay was $8.75 a night and the total was $17.50 with no tax. My grandparents went there for their 50th anniversary and the tax was almost more than their first stay there. Crazy. We each got some decent sized ice cream sundaes and that was dinner for me. I got a cookie sundae with strawberries and Oreo ice cream. This was huge and almost finished it, luckily Andy was there to eat up what was left. They offered to finish Allison’s as well but we figured that Andy did not need a major stomach ache for eating several ice cream sundaes. It was really nice to see my aunt and Uncle. W...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01786 We came home from the Cape today, but not before helping dad out with a few little projects around the house. Moving some chairs and then helping get the wreaths up around the fence in the back yard. Dad has been putting up lots and lots of lights at the Cape House. He has a lot of wreaths that go on the fence and those are all filled with lights as well. It looks really nice when all lit up. I just snapped this photo because it is a behind the scenes sort of thing with all the strands of lights all over. I was zip tying wreaths on one side of the fence and dad was placing them where they needed to be. We came home later on in the afternoon because I had to work tonight. I got a little sleep before I started up. Never enough sleep but I did manage to sleep in a bit this morning.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01785 Today was thanksgiving and we spent it on Cape Cod with my parents. Andy helped out by making a very nice charcuterie board for everyone to enjoy. Andy loves making these and is constantly learning new ways of presentation. Allison and I got out for a little walk along the beach. It was sunny but chilly. We had a nice walk despite the chill. Thanksgiving dinner was very nice. We had turkey and all the fixings. I looked at my Facebook memories for this date and several photos in the memories were of the sunset from the sunporch. This is the best time of year for that because the sky looks awesome at sunset and so I took another one. One of our family traditions is matching pajamas for Christmas. We get new ones each year. This year Allison got them from Old Navy. These ones fit best out of many we’ve gotten over the years. I am very happy about them.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01784 Today is Andy’s 12th birthday. We started off with breakfast at Morin’s together. there we played Tic-Tac-Toe with silverware and jelly packets. Andy has always enjoyed Tic-Tac-Toe and playing games while we wait for our meals at restaurants. We did not have a pen and paper so we made do with what we did have. Later in the afternoon we went down to the Cape for the Thanksgiving holiday. We stopped off at McDonald’s to grab lunch for Andy and me. We made a second stop at Dunkin for Eva and Allison. Then we were off to the Cape. Traffic was not bad so we made great time. We enjoyed some Paul’s pizza for dinner and hung out with mom and dad. We watched the movie, Leo, on Netflix. It was funny and cute. We gave Andy their gifts including some Axolotl socks and slippers. Eva gave Andy a Minecraft LEGO set that also had Axolotls in it. We also gave Andy a 3D printed Dragon. Andy has barely put this dragon down over the past few days. they really love it. I posted...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01752 I was at Stop & Shop tonight picking up some olives. On my way out I saw this cute little Halloween balloon. It is totally impractical and for the briefest of moments I considered picking it up for the kids. Totally ridiculous and all but for the briefest moment I thought of getting it. But I did not.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01783 In the next couple of weeks we will be cleaning up the living room and getting ready for the Christmas Tree. I took the first week of December off so that we could do all of our Christmas traditions that weekend like putting up the trees, going to La Salette and more. When we do this we’ll be picking up and putting away all the toys in the living room. The kids do not play with them and we can use the space for additional furniture like a second rocking chair that is in the garage at the moment. Apparently the wiring in the house is messed up and today Allison used the new kickplate heater in the bathroom. It started fine but the motor burnt out while she was showering. The wiring on this is wacky and it caused the device to burnt out. So… we’re not quite done with the bathroom remodel at this time. We’re going to have to replace this.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01782 Some days you just have nothing much going on and haven’t taken a photo all day so you take a random photo of your bookshelf. This plastic wolf has been on the shelf forever. I think one of the kids used it for a diorama at some point and this is where it ended up. Dad came up today to help me out and connect the kickplate heater in the bathroom. This was the last thing that we needed to do to the bathroom to complete it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01781 Today we celebrated Andy’s upcoming birthday by having a few of their friends over for cake, popcorn, a movie and pizza. Andy wanted to keep things low-key this year and just have friends over. The kids had a nice time and for the most part got along together. I think poor Preston may have felt a little left out being the only kid who wasn’t at the same school. I also think he’s had his fill of public school kids. However, I hope that he had a good time. I think that Andy had a nice time with their friends. We had Preston, Tristan, Emma and Elliot here for a couple hours. It is nice to be able to put faces with names after hearing about them so much. Andy has been very happy at their new school and it is great to see that they have found some friends. Before the party in the afternoon Eva and I went to ABD to help out with assembling turkey baskets for the huge donation that ABD does each year. We gather and put together so many turkey baskets for the peopl...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01780 Growing up I remember that the holiday season was when the special Planters snack canisters would come out. While the Cheez curls were tasty I really loved the pretzels. Now the Cheez Curls are back but not the pretzels. I wish that they’d bring back the original pretzels in the canisters. I miss those. These are not as good as they used to be.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01779 the other night we learned that Andy has been watching a YouTuber who makes flipbooks. The channel is called Andymation and this guy shows you how to create animation flipbooks. Andy asked us if they could buy the Andymation starter kit. With this kit Andy can create 8 flipbooks. The kit also came with a flipbook called The Pencil. It is cute and something that Andy aspires to be able to create. I’m looking forward to what Andy comes out with.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01778 For many years IDW had both the licenses for G.I. Joe and Transformers properties. They had very long runs of both comic book series but then then no longer had them. Transformers and G.I. Joe comics stopped being made. There were rumors that another comic book company was picking them up and it was pretty quiet overall. Enter Skybound Comics. Skybound comics has the new licenses for both Transformers and G.I. Joe and they are creating a shared universe. These two comic series have not shared the same universe in the past except for some special comics, now everything that is going in each series can reference the other and some additional properties. I’m excited to see where this goes. Today I picked up the first G.I. Joe comic which continues with the same numbering that began back in 1984. Issue 301. This series will continue the continuity that has been established over the past 40 years and will have the inclusion of the Transformers. the Transformers ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01777 Tonight was Eva’s Fall Art show at school. This year she’s been doing self portraits in class and she has two of them completed. There is a pencil sketch one and one done on scratch paper. I am fascinated by how the scratch paper one was done and am in awe of Eva’s talent. She has been making huge strides in art each year and I love seeing her work. It was a nice night for her to share this with us. My mom and my aunt also came to see the show. We ran into a childhood friend as well. She has two kids at the school, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01776 With the time change the light is gone so early now. I was out grilling up steaks for dinner at 4:30pm and it was so dark that I had to wear a headlamp in order to see them grilling. I love to grill and will do so all year long but it is much harder to get motivated to do so when the clocks change and the dark comes in so much quicker.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01775 Last week Andy made some S’mores cookies for their friends at Rock Climbing. They insisted on making the cookie dough from scratch and when I went to get brown sugar for the dough I picked up some pre-made cookie dough to make my own version of the cookies. I also picked up some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to put inside the cookies. The cookie dough was Reese’s Pieces and so I took graham crackers and crushed them and put them on the bottom layer of a cupcake tin. First I sprayed the tin down with Pam and added a small pat of butter to the bottom, then the graham cracker crumbs. Next I added a couple mini marshmallows and some chocolate chips and the peanut butter cups. The top was the Reese’s Pieces cookie dough. I then baked them for 20 minutes and they all came together quite nicely.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01774 Today Allison and I celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary. I took the night off of work and we went to The Blackinton Inn for dinner to celebrate. Allison had a couple of gift cards to use for the night and we had an excellent meal. Allison got the scallops and I got the shrimp and lobster fra diavolo. It was so good. Then we each got desserts including carrot cake for Allison and a Crème Brûlée for me. We each enjoyed our desserts very much. An excellent night celebrating 18 wonderful years together.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01773 I haven’t picked up a LEGO set in a while but tonight I saw this Fast and Furious Speed Champions LEGO set. This Dodge Charger R/T is Dom’s and it even comes with a Dom minifig. This car has been in so many of the Fast and Furious movies and has undergone a ton of modifications through the course of the movies. I can’t wait to build this one.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01772 everyone had the day off today for Veteran’s Day. Allison, Eva and I went to see the movie The Marvels over at Showcase while Andy hung out at home. Andy is not into the Marvel movies. It was a good movie and we enjoyed it very much. Some good laughs in the movie and the end credits scenes were awesome, they really set up some things to come. In the afternoon I ran out to Walmart to see if I could find any of the ice cream flavors from the TV show Stranger Things. In the show there is an ice cream shop called Scoops Ahoy. Well, some of the flavors created are for the show. I picked up the Triple Decker Extravaganza which is very much like a fancy waffle in ice cream form. The Void was the one I really wanted to try. I was a bit disappointed because it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. The kids loved the Triple Decker ice cream and I had to make sure that they saved some for Allison.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01771 I was wandering the house looking to take a photo tonight. One corner of our kitchen island is where Andy puts their stuff for school. It can get filled with stuff but for the most part it is kept under control. Yesterday I went to the comic book shop and picked up my comics and also saw a graphic novel of Animorphs and I knew that Andy had read them. Apparently Andy already read and owns this book. I’ll have to check out their books and make sure that if I pick up another one I’ll find one that Andy doesn’t already have. I told them that they could give the extra book to a friend.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01770 I got back to the cellar to continue the clean out of things that could go to savers. I found an old Crayola Rock Painting set that had all but dried up and I spent some time cleaning up the containers so that I could recycle them. I put all the paint into the downstairs sink and liked the way the colors were all running down the drain so I shot this photo. We had the electrical inspection of the new furnace today. All’s good except for one receptacle that has to be replaced. The electrician will be coming by next week to finish that. Today was Andy’s last session for Rock Climbing for the Fall classes. Andy brought the cookies that they made to share with their friends and Emmett their teacher. Emmett told me that the cookies were the best thing that Andy’s brought so far. So, I’d say that they went over well.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01769 Andy had today off of school because many of the schools are used for elections. Today was election day for some local elections. My polling location is La Salette Shrine. It used to be the Elks Lodge but things got moved for some reason. Either way I took class this morning and then headed there for voting. After voting I took andy over to Tex Barry’s for hot dogs for lunch. Andy started out the day by making some dough for cookies that they were making for their friends at Rock Climbing. I had seen a recipe that called for graham crackers for the base with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips but then to be covered by a a pre-made cookie dough. Andy decided that making the dough would be better so first thing this morning they were making the dough. I had to get some brown sugar and I also picked up some take and bake Reese’s pieces cookies. I’ll make my own cookies soon. I did give some cookies to the Sensei’s at ABD because today they asked how Andy wa...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01768 Our chalkboard wall is becoming the family info place. We have a concert coming up for Andy at school. Their band is doing a concert on December 6th and that is a Wednesday, so hopefully I can get Andy to and from Rock Climbing and then over to the band concert that day. I’d hate for Andy to miss out on one of their extension days at Rock Climbing. That falls within the 3 session Fall extension that bridges the gap between Fall and Winter sessions. Andy is signed up for both and is excited looking forward to those sessions. Later that same week we have a play that Eva has been working on to go and see. She’s been working the costuming for the show.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01767 I’m pretty sure that I cannot go back to regular whipped cream now that I’ve tried the salted caramel version. I know I’ve mentioned it a couple times this week but this has to be one of those really great purchases that has made me change to something new that I like even more. Tonight at dinner Andy used the Ranch whipped cream for their carrots. Apparently Andy is the only one who enjoys this treat. Both Allison and Eva tried it but did not care for it. I personally do not like ranch. There is a whipped Blue cheese one, too but I’m not sure what I’d want to put it on so not worth picking up.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01765 Tonight Eva had a special coffee house at Feehan. It was Halloween themed so she dressed up along with her friends Elizabeth and Steven. Both Eva and Elizabeth performed at the coffee house. Elizabeth sang and Eva read a poem that she wrote. The coffeehouse was a short one because I had barely returned home only to turn around and go pick them up again. But, I am glad that I get to participate in Eva’s life in any way. She had such fun with her friends and that is good to see. Eva wore this star dress that she made. She really loves this dress and it looks great on her.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01766 I put my piece of pizza in the air fryer toaster oven before taking a shower. I’d say I left it in a bit too long. It was this or butternut squash ravioli. I think I made the better choice even if it was way well done. Next time I set it for a shorter time.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01764 Yesterday I found some special whipped creams at Target. Tonight I tried the Gingerbread out on my Chocolate Milk. I am not as big a fan of the gingerbread over the salted caramel.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01763 I was at Target today and picked up a couple of special cans of Whipped Cream. I learned about these new favorite day flavors. I found Salted Caramel and Gingerbread. Perfect on Sundaes or chocolate pudding. I also found Ranch dressing in whipped cream form that I picked up for Andy.