BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02359 I headed back to the Cape after a short nap this morning. I had worked from home over the weekend. It is just easier, I can sleep and take care of the house and all that without anyone having to think they need to be quiet. I can also avoid 7K questions about being tired. Today’s photo is of the milkweed that my Dad has in his gardens. Their house is now an official weigh station for monarch butterflies. Milkweed is a plan that they thrive on and also they lay eggs on milkweed so each year we get tons of monarch butterflies on the milkweed plants. It is actually a fairly nice looking plant and having it in the yard really helps attract pollinators. I may have to ask for some to plant in my yard for my garden.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02358 At the Sly Fox cast party Felix brought a case of Zero Mountain Dew : Summer Freeze. The flavor is Cherry Lemon Raspberry which is blue and as Chase says, “It tastes like blue.” To me it tastes like a bomb pop popsicle. I couldn’t find it anywhere but found it today at Stop & Shop, they only had 2 cases so I grabbed both, one for home and one for The Cape.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02357 Looking for high protein, low carb snacks I’ve been eating a lot of almonds and also pickles. They are also good for sodium as part of Virta. I’m at home so I have a few choices because we brought a lot of food to the Cape.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02356 Allison and I walked along Great Bay today and we saw many painted rocks. I liked the ones we saw that looked like half bitten M&Ms. they were pretty funny. We see so many different things along this walk.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02355 One of the things that I enjoy a lot about coming to the Cape is the Walk along Great Bay. I try and do it daily if I can. It is a nice couple of miles to walk along the water. Tonight I made ribs for everyone. I was at Stop and Shop and saw that they had ris for $9 a rack. I’ve never seen a price like that before. so I got two and made them according to Alton Brown’s recipe, sorta. Allison and Andy came down today and Andy ate a bunch of Ribs, he was really enjoying them.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02354 This Summer marks Eva’s first job. She’s a teacher’s Aide at The Children’s School of Science in Woods Hole. I dropped Eva off in the morning and then headed back to the house to go for a walk along Great Bay. Later in the afternoon I got a text from Eva that the day ended early. I could come get her. Then she texted again that she was going to walk over to a new friend’s house. Her friend Max lives within walking distance of the school and they hung out together for an hour or so before I came to pick her up. Eva had a great time and was happy to find a new friend. Tonight we had a nice dinner on the back porch just Me, Eva and Mom and Dad.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02353 Today I took Eva down to the Cape because she starts her first job tomorrow. She’ll be working at the Children’s School of Science as a Teacher’s Aide for the Summer. We came down in the afternoon and had a nice dinner with Mom and Dad and Shelby and the kids.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02352 With Sly Fox in the rear view mirror I can look back on my time doing the show. It was a lot of fun and everyone was great. You can see the tshirt that they gave me as a gift plus the book of pictures from the photo night plus a giant cast photo that Doug made for everyone. I also have my script that is covered page to page with highlighters for every character.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02351 This afternoon was the final performance of Sly Fox. This has been a great run of a fun show. Everyone who was part of this show was very nice and helped me out so much. From having to step into a role that I had done in rehearsal and had actually auditioned for it was cool. But I could not do it every night without having been doing it all along. I am looking forward to the next time I audition which will be in the late Fall. After the show we had a cast party at Lisa’s house. It was a great time. Jeanne and Doug got us some nice gifts and for me they made a special t-shirt that says MVP. Not sure I can actually wear that out without feeling really self conscious.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02350 One more show to go for Sly fox and this has been a very hot weekend weather-wise. The audience today wasn’t that hot but apparently they laughed over 500 times according to Fai. It was so hot that the inside of my hat was getting a ton of condensation. I could write my name in it. I tried to take a photo of that but somehow messed up and took this whacko photo instead. So when it hit midnight I saw that this was what I took. crazy.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02349 I found a recipe online for cheesy onion rings. I picked up two silicon donut pans in order to make these. You put shredded cheese on the bottom and then add in onions, bacon and you can also add jalapenos. Then you bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees. What happens is that you get these crispy “onion rings” that I can eat. when I make these again I’ll be sure to add less cheese to make them thinner and crispier. I’d also like to actually use rings of onion instead of chopped onions. Maybe add some pickles as well. Some crispy fresh bacon would be excellent as well.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02348 A little late celebration for Father’s day. Allison had asked me what I wanted and I wanted some lobster. So I went to chartley and got the kids some burgers and over to Portside to pick up some swordfish tips and lobster. Lobster is crazy expensive right now but I was able to get a half pound that was enough for both Allison and I plus more for lunch the next day. It was a nice meal. The swordfish was much more reasonable. 1 pound of tips for $13 plus they were deliciously seasoned.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02347 Allison had some gift cards from school and used them to get herself some Strawberry airpods and a strawberry mouse.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02346 Eva is working on her project for the Granite State Comicon and she needed me to pick up some white thread for sewing. I went to Michael’s and they had a huge end cap of many different thread colors.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02345 Allison and the teachers plan on having pool floats at pickup and drop off at school tomorrow. So, Eva and I went on a mission to Aldi to find a special float. We picked up the pool float and a bunch of tasty treats. They had some special cheese items, crab rangoon dip and more.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02344 This weekend for Sly Fox we were joined by my parents. We celebrated their Anniversary, Dad’s Birthday and Father’s Day all together. Allison picked up some burgers from Chartley. The play went very well and I got to do my actual role this time around. One week ago when I filled in for the sick Abner Truckle. Everyone enjoyed the show. Andy helped with Concessions and also hung out in the light booth to learn a bit from Doug. We had a very nice afternoon.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02343 I was going to take a photo at the theater during the show tonight but I forgot. so when I went home I took this one of Omega Supreme from my Transformers collection. I was thinking about the tanks rolling through Washington for our toddler in chief. I saw a video where the crowd, if you can call it that, was nearly silent and you only heard the creak of the treads of the tank. Compare that to the millions of voices across the country in protests all over. I do hope that they were peaceful. I know that both my mom and my uncle attended. I had to sleep before work and so could not make it to our local one.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02342 Ever since Wild Time Comics closed months ago I’ve been getting my comics from The Laughing Shield. While I miss Randy and his family I do appreciate Laughing Shield for what it is. It is a great little shop and very cool for customers. Kevin, the owner, does some very cool things like writing up synopsizes of each comic and even puts together groups of comics together so that nw fans can jump right into a storyline.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02341 My plants are getting larger and larger. I picked up a protective netting to cover the raised bed. Trying to keep the squirrels and bunnies from raiding the garden as best I can.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02340 We’ve been in this house for over 13 years now and our road is finally being paved. It has been in a sad sorry state for the past couple years and last year when they dug up the streets for the new gas lines that made them even worse. Now we have them milling the streets and getting ready to repave. Although it appears that they have stopped and also left strage ares unmilled. Only half the street has been milled and there are gaps all over. Then the signs that had been put up saying that there was a parking ban from June 10 – 13 got duct tape put on them to change the dates from the 10-13 to 16-22. So it is going to take even longer. It would be nice to see a nice new street and hopefully not too long after new sidewalks. Ours are chewed up.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02339 I decided that I really don’t want to jump into anymore last minute roles in Sly Fox. So, I made a special Sly Fox Wellness Box to store int eh green room to take care of anyone who may be starting to get a little sick. I got chicken soup, saltines, ginger ale, emergency, halls cough drops, a first aid kid, gloves, masks and a few more things. I also highlighted every role int he play in my scrip and sealed that within a ziplock baggie. The baggie reads, in case of emergency and inside is the script with my name on it and “Stunt Understudy” also on it. Since I covered every person in this play at least once I figure that that was the appropriate script to put into the baggie. We had a speed lines night as a brush up on lines after opening weekend. I read for Mrs. Tuckle tonight. I think some people took video.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02338 That night was the METG Musical theater awards. This is a really big deal event. It is like the Tonys for high school and middle school musical theater. Bishop Feehan High School was nominated for 7 awards tonight and Eva was up for Best Costume Design. The event was at Lawrence high School in Lawrence, MA. We picked up Eva’s friend Ollie and headed up there a little after 4pm. We wanted to make sure that we got there early enough and also make sure that we could have dinner before the event. We went to a burger joint that Allison found through Phantom Gourmet. It was called BE/EZ and was about 6 miles from the school. After dinner we went over to the school to get our seats. Eva and Allison and Ollie sat up front with the nominees and Andy and I sat un the upper orchestra. We had great seats. The theater at the high school is huge. Lawrence High School performed two major musicals this year. Miss Saigon and In The Heights. They were phenomenal when they performe...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02338 I didn’t think this could happen twice but it did. I came back to the theater this past December to a play called the People vs. Frankenstein where I had to fill in as the lead on the very last show because the director/lead got food poisoning and couldn’t do the show. Well after that show I auditioned for the show Sly Fox, a farce set in the gold rush of San Francisco where a man cheats three disreputable people out of their money. I was cast as a servant and also a policeman. However, through the course of rehearsals I ended up reading for every single other part in the show. I was basically the resident stand in. We opened on Friday night. This morning I got a text from the director that one of the actors took sick and I’ll be taking on their role. My exact response was, “This cannot be happening”. It was no joke. So I hustled over to the theater to go over the lines with the other actors. I was able to keep it secret from my wife and also get my kids to...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02337 This is opening weekend of Sly Fox and the show is going very well. The cast is great and the laughs are plentiful. Andy came with me but we found out that they had plenty of people to help with concessions tonight. Andy wasn’t too disappointed because they could go home and get back into pjs and play video games. I think that next Friday either Andy or Eva will help out. One of the stage managers has been keeping a tally of the laughs from the show. She counted something like 400 laughs throughout the show. We had a much livelier bunch tonight than last night. It was so much fun.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02336 We needed some concessions for Sly Fox and the kids were amazing and helped me out by making chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes. Andy used their amazing decorating skills to make the cutest little Fox themed cupcakes as well as some gold cupcakes. I picked up gold sprinkles and some gold drizzle. These cupcakes were great for the theme of the play. Tonight was the opening night of Sly Fox and it went very well. Andy came along with me and they helped out at the concession stand. I had so many people compliment me on Andy. They found andy to be thoughtful and he helped out a lot. Afterwards Andy volunteered to do the rest of the weekend. Andy was very happy to help.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02335 One of the things that I can have plenty of on this Virta eating plan is cheese. I’ve been making crackers from cheese but I also discovered grilling cheese. You can take grilling cheese and put it in a frying pan to brown up each side. This stuff tastes amazing. It is like a mozzarella stick without the breading.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02334 The trellis at the gate to our backyard is blooming with so many roses. I’ve been working at this for a few years now, trying to get the roses to grow over the top of the trellis. They are halfway over now and soon should reach all the way across. I have to get back up there and guide more of them over to the right spots. I’ve also been enjoying how my garden has been growing. I picked up a special cover for the garden to protect it from the varmints around the yard. I’m worried that the squirrels will get into it soon enough. So we’ll see how that works.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02333 Today was Anything But a Backpack Day at Andy’s school for Spirit Week. Andy asked their teacher if they could use a kayak as their anything but a backpack. Only this kid. Then they asked me if they could use a hand cart/dolly instead. I didn’t think that would go over well either. I suggested that Andy take the inflatable pirates treasure chest instead. It was definitely large and noticeable. Would certainly get a few laughs. Andy agreed and that is what they took to school instead. I picke dAndy up from school and they told me that they wanted to walk home with it. I knew it was because they wanted to see what sort of looks they would get. So, I let Andy out on Dennis Street to walk the rest of the way while I went off to get Eva.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02332 For the second day of tech week for Sly Fox we had our full dress rehearsal. One of the actors said in the text chain that they were going to be late so I would probably have to do their lines. They curl up their mustache and so I decided that since it’d been a while since I actually got my goatee trimmed that I’d trim it up and leave the mustache long so that I could twirl it up. I decided that my servant character would keep this look an I would comb it down when I was the police officer. I also decided to make the workroom my own little space to hang out in. Luckily it is much more clean and organized for this show. Still full of stuff but we can get 3 chairs in there now.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02331 Today was the stat of Tech Week for our production of Sly Fox. We performed the show today in the first part of the afternoon and then had lunch. After lunch we did the curtain call. We were scheduled to do the show twice today but our director liked the first time through so much that she let us go after completing the curtain call. I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to eat at the lunch but there were enough things that I could get a decent plate to enjoy.