BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02481 Andy has been carving a giant branch from our tree all week long for their Halloween costume. Last night Allison and Andy worked on the costume. Last night Allison and I went and got rope form Michael's for the costume. Last night Andy let us know that they were not wearing that costume to school. This was after we had had a conversation, Allison and I, about how much we loved that Andy got into Spirit Week at school so heavily despite having to go to the High School each morning in their costumes or carrying their nonsense. We love that Andy embraces the joy of a spirit week.  So, when andy told us that they were not wearing the costume that they had been working on to school we figured that there must be something that Andy could wear instead. I suggested to Andy that because they still had their Bob Ross hair and beard that they could go as Bob Ross. Andy really liked that idea and this morning gout out the whole costume, minus peapod the squirrel because ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02363 Today is the Fourth of July and I am not at all excited about celebrating. I started the day with my morning walk along Great Bay and nearly ran into my old manager, someone I despise. Luckily he did not see me and I shot past him quickly. I did text my cousin to let him know what I saw. It took the rest of the walk to calm back down. Around 10am we headed over to Eva’s friend Max’s house so that we could park in his yard and walk down to the Science School so Eva could link up with the staff there to be a part of the parade. Allison, Andy and I walked around Woods Hole for a while and then found seats to watch the parade. I don’t like parades. Rather, I don’t like people at parades. No matter where we are there is always someone moving right in front of us or squeezing by me. We were 15 people all seated along steps and for some reason every person who wanted to get behind us went by me. Every one. I was watching. Then there are people who crowd in on the parade...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02291 We’re on the Cape for the next couple of days for the Easter holiday. Today was Easter. I worked last night so when I finished I slept for a few hours and then we went to Mass at St. Anthony’s. It was a very well done Mass. We then came home and had a very nice Easter lunch. I picked up a butter sculpture from Munroe dairy. It was a nice touch to the table. The kids loved it. After lunch we enjoyed playing a new game callled Tapple. Andy and I also played the game One Hit Heroes. This was a game I got through Kickstarter. Good strategy game.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02257 Today was Saint Patrick’s Day and we did our usual Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner. Allison picked up 3 corned beef packages this year, 2 point and one flat. I used the crock pot for one point and one flat and filled the crock pot with guinness and coke plus cabbage and ran that for the whole day 8 hours. In the Instant Pot I took a point corned beef along with the Guinness and Coke plus carrots, cabbage, potatoes, onions and garlic. I wanted to try something different with this one. I set it to slow cook for 8 hours and then finished it with pressure cook for 1 hour. In all they pretty much came out the same. I didn’t notice much difference ot much enhancement using garlic and onions. I picked up Irish Soda bread and Irish Brown Bread over at Brigid’s in Norton. That is a cute little place. while I was there I also got a couple treats for Allison and the kids.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02207 This year when I was ordering the Hallmark ornament I saw that they had a special Optimus Prime ornament. Instead of adding it to the tree, which I still need to take down, I put it with my Optimus Prime figures in my office. Maybe this one will make it to the tree next year.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02176 On the day after Christmas my sister Shelby and her family arrived on the Cape. We opened gifts and enjoyed lunch in the morning and early afternoon. I went on another long walk around the area to get those 10,000 steps in. We’d do some more steps when we went over to Cape Cod Lanes for an afternoon of bowling. Bowling with the whole family was a lot of fun. We had two lanes and enjoyed the mild competition. Everyone had fun playing. Mom and Dad came a little later and watched. I’m glad that we caught our server and asked her to take a photo of all of us together, too. When we arrived back home we hung out and had some pizza for dinner. No movie tonight, just a lot of time on the sun porch. The cousins stayed overnight with Andy and with Eva. Eva wasn’t super thrilled to be sharing her space with her energetic cousin but she made do and they eventually went to sleep. We had a very good day all together.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02175 Today was Christmas. We woke up and had our cinnamon rolls for breakfast while we opened our stockings. Stockings were rather light this time around because neither Allison nor I thought much beyond what to put in the kids’ stockings. We overdid it with the the kids, but for us, not so much. I even commandeered some of the kids items for our stockings so they wouldn’t be so bare. That is okay because there were some big deal things coming. Overall the presents were fewer to open but more to experience this year. We’re going to Disney and two days in the parks is a pretty big gift. We also are going to a couple of comedy shows in the coming year. Allison and I are going to see Nate Bargatze in August and the whole family is going to see Josh Johnson in March. Needless to say budgets for gifts went out the window. This will be the kids’ first live comedy show. They enjoy Josh’s comedy on Tik Tok and so do we so we’re very excited to see him live. After we had...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02148 We hosted Thanksgiving today. Mem and Grandfather came down from the Cape for our Thanksgiving meal. I picked up the meal from Fireflies yesterday. We got a smoked turkey breast and brisket plus lots of sides. Allison made an apple pie and a chocolate cream pie. Mem brought some Cranberry Bog ice cream and more sides. We had a delicious meal. It was a really nice day together. Tonight we got into our new Christmas Pajamas and watched the movie, The Wild Robot. Our pjs were from Five Below (shirt) and Old Navy (pants). The shirt says “check Yourself Before You Deck Yourself” The movie was very good.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02120 Today was Halloween. Andy got to wear their costume to school and ended up walking home with this Hoof feet in Crocs despite having regular sneakers from gym class. When asked about this they told us that they had forgot that they had the sneakers. Sounds about right. andy wanted to go trick or treating tonight and I was going to walk around with them. We asked Eva if she’s like to go so she threw on her Spider girl costume and SCAD sweatpants and went as art school spider girl. Allison also came with us and we walked around the neighborhood. There were not many houses that were participating in handing out candy but the kids did a fairly decent job with what was there. I think this may be the last time that we do this together. I’m happy that they still enjoy dressing up and going out trick or treating. I’m not sure that it will continue much longer.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02005 Today was the Fourth of July. Andy and I went paddle boarding this morning. It was a bit too windy so it was tough to paddle. We’ll have to do it again in the next few weeks. In the afternoon we went to the beach for a bit. It was packed to the gills with people everywhere. We had a cook out for dinner and then we watched the fireworks from the front porch. We had a very good view from the porch and the fireworks this year were excellent. there was a very heavy police presence and so it was pretty orderly overall. A good year for the fourth this year.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01987 Today was Father’s Day. I had to sleep most of the day because I worked last night but at least I was able to work from home. When I woke up we had bugers from the Meat Bar and Allison made some Mexican Street Corn macaroni salad. We had a very nice dinner before I had to go back to work. The kids and Allison made me cards and gave me a gift card to Fireflies. We'll have to go there very soon. Later on we had some hot fudge sundaes. Allison brought a giant tub of hot fudge from school home and we now have 3 mason jars full of it. She also brought home a ton of whipped cream cans, too. These were leftovers from the ice cream socials at school. today was also my parent’s 51st wedding anniversary. I called them later on tonight before work.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01945 Each year I have two special drinks. A Guinness at Saint Patrick’s Day and a Margarita for Cinco De Mayo. Tonight Allison made tacos as well as some very tasty margaritas. Andy had a virgin one with just the sour mix. they seemed to like it. But they really liked loading up on tacos.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01897 This morning I came home from work. First one out the door because we now have to work the entire night and can’t slip out during our break. That is, until this no longer becomes a point of interest for the upper management. Had things just been done quietly it would still be going smoothly. I took a quick little nap and then we caught up with my parents and they took us to lunch at Box Seats. We had a very nice lunch together and then they went home after their month or so in Florida. They brought the nice warm weather with them, too. I went home and got some more sleep before work tonight. Allison made a great boiled dinner for us and also some Irish Soda bread. Everything came out terrific. I even had my yearly pint of Guinness.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01823 I had the day off for New Year’s Eve and we took it easy most of the day. We prepared for our friends The PRestons to come over to celebrate the new year. They have two girls who are older than Andy and the other is older and Eva. However, they all get along so well and the kids have so many interests that compliment each other. We even learned that one daughter loves to paint swords. I think I know who to send The Sword of Omens when it is time to paint. Allison and I always have great conversations with Aaron and Denise. We haven’t seen each other in a long time but it was so nice to get back together as if no time had passed.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01817 Christmas Day here was a bit different than past years. We were going to be spending the entire day on our own because we’re spending the next couple of days with family on the Cape. We started off our morning with Stockings and cinnamon rolls. Allison made them fresh the other day and we had plenty for our morning. We took our time with everything and slowly opened our gifts. We didn’t go fully overboard this year because there was one big gift for everyone and Allison and I had already given ourselves a night out as a gift so we were a bit more reserved with the overall gift giving this year. Allison got the kids each some stuffed animals from IKEA that they loved. Andy got a octopus and Eva a shark. I just know that Eva is going to do some project with that. Andy was a the prankster by wrapping a can of soup for me that looked like a mug. I have this thing about the number of mugs we have in the house. There are too many so when we were shopping and Andy sugg...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01816 Christmas Eve this year was a little different. I worked overnight and normally I try and take both the weekend of Christmas and the Weekend of New Years off. However, with the small group that I am part of I did not want to leave everyone in a lurch so I did work a couple nights this weekend and had today off to get ready for tomorrow. I slept for a bit and when I got up I went over to Chubs Blue Pig BBQ to pick up our Christmas meal. This year since we were not going to be with everyone in the family we decided to switch things up and go for BBQ instead. Chubs had a order form a couple of weeks back so that we could get a few things that we liked and we could pick them up on Christmas Eve to warm them up on Christmas day. We went with ribs, pulled pork, wings and mac and cheese. I was able to pop in and pick everything up and get home to get ready for the rest of the day. We went to 4pm Mass at Sacred Heart. It was not packed as it had been on past years but th...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01815 The other day Allison took Andy shopping for Christmas and Andy picked up a few things for themselves. One thing was this LEGO Floral centerpiece. Andy built it yesterday and it now adorns out table for the holiday. while it is more of a Fall sort of thing it is still very pretty and makes a nice centerpiece.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01807 Allison was out tonight so I had the kids decorate their mini Christmas trees so that Allison could see them when she returned home. We’re slowly getting everything ready for Christmas in 10 days. We still have a lot left to do but we’re keeping on track. I started keeping these trees and the ornament boxes for those trees up in the attic so it was easier to go and get them each season. I also keep Allison’s grandmother’s ceramic christmas tree up there and I went ahead and set that up in our bedroom as a surprise for her to see when she got home.

  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 #01762 This year Andy got to go trick or treating again. Last year they had Covid so were unable to go out and trick or treat. Andy was pretty let down on that front last year. Luckily they were happy and healthy this year so Andy and their friend, Tristan went trick or treating, with me, around the neighborhood. It was a pretty light night and we hit plenty of houses but it was pretty sparse in finding houses that were celebrating. After the trick or treating Allison and I watched the first two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and also It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Eva had her friend Steven over to hang out and they had fun doing just that. I could not get her to come and watch Buffy with us. I know she’s like it if she gave it a shot.