BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01307 Tomorrow the kids start two different adventures. Eva will be participating in Freshman Academy at Feehan and Andy will be starting archery camp. Both kids are a bit nervous and express those nerves in very different ways. Eva being a teenager her anxiety is manifested in snark. For Andy his anxiety manifests as not being able to sleep. Finally Allison read him a book in monotone to knock him out. I know that both kids will enjoy their experiences despite these initial anxious feelings.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01306 Allison learned of an autistic boy who recently learned that he has leukemia. His mother put out a call on Tik Tok to ask for cards for him and Allison wrote one out and asked Andy to draw something for the boy. Andy searched for images of a baby pikachu character, a Pokemon character and this is what he made. It is very cute.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01305 Today was Andy’s last day at the cooking/baking camp. We were invited to come in and sample the treats that the kids made. They had some brownies with marshmallow and white chocolate. There were some sugar crisps with chocolate, caramel, raspberry and vanilla sauces. They also made various drinks. One Andy’s teachers works at an ice cream shop that makes cereal milk ice cream. Andy got to sample the fruity pebbles ice cream. He loved it. Andy was really in his element this past week. He came home with such excitement over what he did during his camp. He couldn’t wait to go back each day either. When he arrived the kids and the teachers greeted him warmly. Allison said that when she dropped him off he was like Norm from Cheers. I’m very glad to hear that. After the year he had in school he needs some social wins.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01304 For my birthday I bought the LEGO Optimus Prime set 10302 because I am a lifelong Transformers fan. I’ve been working with the folks at Lightailing and asked them if they could send me their Lightailing kit for this LEGO set. They did and so I assembled Optimus throughout the week and then I was able to add the light kit to that assembled figure. Lightailing has two different variations of lighting kits. They have the BriksMax one that has several lines of lights that you attach into one strip and then attach to a power source. The Lightailng kits are all in one line and measured out precisely to add the lights to the LEGO set. For Optimus Prime the Briksmax set has two additional lights at the feet of Optimus Prime. While that is cool I did not really need the extra lights and I wanted to try the Lightailing set this time. I really liked it. You can see how everything came together in the video below. If you want to pick up the sets for yourself you can ge...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01303 Tonight Allison and I went to see Ben Brainard at the Comedy Connection in Providence. Ben Brainard is a comedian that we discovered at the start of the pandemic. He was doing skits as if he was a different state talking to the federal government regarding how they were rolling out the vaccine mandates. When he did the MA character we were hooked. We’ve been watching him ever since and when we heard that he was coming to Rhode Island we had to go and see him. Before we went out to the Comedy Connection I picked Andy up from camp and he told me about his day. He had fun today because he was able to decorate cupcakes and he’s been learning how to decorate cupcakes all this past year at the Creative Sewing Studio. So he has some skills already. He asked if he could have a third color of frosting so that he could create raccoon cupcakes. So he got black, white and grey. They came out really cute. Before we went to the show we had dinner at the Black Duck Tavern...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01302 Before we picked Andy up at Cooking Camp we stopped at the Providence Place Mall. We were there for a couple of reasons. First off we were checking on Andy’s iPad to see why it didn’t charge properly. Apparently his iPad had a “wicked Bend” to it. Our genius, Sam, told us. Then they showed us the iPad and we could see how there was a bend to it. Only Andy. That was why the charging on it was so wonky. Well, that stinks. But since Eva was getting a brand new iPad she graciously decided that Andy could have her old one which was the same model as his. We brought along our old iPad minis and Allison’s old iPhone figuring that maybe we’d be able to trade them in for some money. No such luck. The iPad minis were too old and the iPhone had a cracked screen and was too old. So we came home with the brand new iPad and a case/keyboard for Eva. Luckily we mentioned that it was for school and she needed one because the school required it. Our apple sales person was ab...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01301 Today was Andy’s first day at his cooking/baking camp at Johnson and Wales. Eva attended this came a few years ago and she loved it. I know that Andy is also going to love it based on how excited he was coming home today. This morning however… was all nerves and anxiety. Doing something new can certainly cause some anxiety. This was brand new for Andy and for but he needn’t have worried he had an amazing time. He was talking up a storm on the way home. When he came down the elevator he was all smiles and he had a big box of cookies and a huge tube of frosting plus a package of cookie dough to make at home. He could not wait for us to try the cookies that he made. they were decorated with carrots. He and his friend J.P. made them together. So, Andy made friends, made cookies and I think that this morning he also made pancakes for their lunch. In the morning they cook their lunches and in the afternoons they bake desserts. He’s going to have an incredible wee...