BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00682 Today is our fifteenth anniversary and to say that the past fifteen years have been an adventure would be an understatement. Luckily for us we have this blog to look back on and ee all of those adventures. 2020 has been an insane year for the entire world but I think it has been one of our best. We’re so fortunate to have two wonderful children who are both doing well in school and outside of school. Both kids are coming into their own in their martial arts training. We had to spend much of the year training via Zoom but they both stuck with it and are doing very well. Eva has her first phone and her first job to help pay for that phone. Andy moved to a new room and is enjoying the space and having more independence. He’s quite fond of omelets and asks to make them a few times a week. while he needs supervision with the stove he does pretty much everything else himself. As for Allison and I this time at home has been a great time for us to connect and spend...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00681 Ravensburger provided us with a free copy of Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power to play and review. Opinions are our own. Ever since Toy Fair 2020 I have wanted to play Marvel Villainous. As a huge fan of the Marvel universe from comics, to cartoons, to tv and movies I thought this was an incredible game concept and I wanted to check it out. In the game you take on the role of one of 5 Marvel villains: Thanos, Hela, Killmonger, Taskmaster or Ultron. Each of these villains has an objective to complete in order to win the game and they are playing against the other villains to win. So there may be moments where you gang up on other villains or team up with the other villains to thwart your opponents. The game is a bit complicated and so our play through did not come to a complete resolution. However, we played about 2 hours and it was great to learn the game. I found that the video below was extremely helpful in explaining the game and how to play. I would rec...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00680 We received the Solar Powered Rovers from Thames and Kosmos for free to play with and review. Opinions are our own. Today was a sunny day and Andy was on a home day from the hybrid model of school. He had also lost privileges to use his iPad. Therefore it was the perfect day for us to try out the Solar Powered Rovers from Thames and Kosmos. This STEM experiment kit has 5 different rovers to build. It comes with a solar cell and motor set plus many other pieces that you can use together to make special models. Four of the models are vehicles and one of them is a fan. Andy wanted to make the fan first and so together we assembled the fan. The kit is for 8+ and it is the perfect for Andy to work on all on his own. All of the pieces fit together well and it is fairly easy for him to assemble the rovers. The manual is full color and has easy to follow instructions. It is also sprinkled with great scientific facts. When I asked Andy what the best part of building...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00679 My boy has started trying to scare his sister by jumping up out of her bed. You’d think that this would be difficult to do but because Eva keeps so much stuff on her bed you can hide in there like ET did in Gertie’s closet. So, for the past couple of nights he’s climbed into her bed and hidden there until she comes in. Tonight he popped out and she screamed and then started laughing. They were both laughing so much. Of course, he had better watch out because as she continues to take Krav Maga classes she may have the muscle memory to respond with an elbow to the face when getting a jump scare from her brother.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00678 We received a free copy of the National Geographic Kids Almanac 2021 to read and review. Opinions are our own.The National Geographic Kids Almanac is a fantastic publication filled with the amazing photos from National Geographic photographers and is set up in such a way that each page is filled with great information for kids. It is not overly wordy but conveys quick bits of information that kids would love like the 21 cutest animals of 2021. Each little blurb about the animal goes along with a cute photo. I asked for this to review because Andy says that he wants to be an animal adoption person and so anything with and about animals is sure to catch his eye. The Almanac has so many great animal stories inside but also stories about people and places and one story on robots that told me that there is a restaurant run by robots in China! The meal is prepared, cooked and served by robots! That is crazy cool. There are also fun games to do inside the Almanac ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00677 After days of refreshing my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds looking to see if the numbers will go up and we will get a declaration of a winner in the Presidential race it has finally been called. I do not make political posts on this blog. I keep my political leanings to myself for the most part. However, today was a historic day and a good day because character and decency won the day. I had been sleeping from the previous night’s work and was waking up a little around 1:30pm. I heard Eva shout the name of Joe Biden from her room. Then Allison came in to tell me the good news. The election had been called and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had won. Well, I was done sleeping for the day. I tried to go back to sleep but kept scrolling through Twitter to see the joy from people that had kept me sane from the start of the pandemic. I think the one thing that stood out for me most clearly was a clip from Van Jones of CNN. I’ve never heard of him before today...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00676 I was outside cleaning up the sidewalk today. In addition to some little kid across the way yelling to me to stop cleaning up with the trimmer and lawn vac/blower I also heard a repeated tapping. I know that we have a woodpecker in our tree but I didn’t realize just how “in” the tree the woodpecker was. This guy is in a branch that my dad trimmed when we first moved in because it was overhanging the roof and squirrels could use it to get on the roof. They may not be using that one but they still find their way up there. The branch has been slowly dying and bits and pieces dropping. The woodpecker has made quite a pile of sawdust from this branch, too. I did attempt to get some rest today but that didn’t quite work out. When I woke up we had a tasty dinner. Allison and Andy made Breakfast for dinner and that included Tots, French Toast, Strawberries and Bacon! So good. And now being at work I have to try not to constantly be refreshing Twitter to see any new...