BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01490 Last Friday I had a twitter party for the Disney 100 Years of Magic Tsum Tsum collection. I received the entire first series from Jakks Pacific toys for free because I was doing the Twitter Party. It was a fun twitter party because there is so much you can do with Disney that people understand and enjoy. I took a ton of photos and posted them with silly fun captions that got a lot of attention from the people in the party. Now I’m not sure what to do with this collection since I probably won’t be collecting the rest of the series. I’ve been working on cutting down my collections and my collecting tendencies lately.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01489 I went to Target today to find myself some new laundry detergent. I had been using Hero Clean for so long but I forgot to order more from Amazon, which is the only place I can still find it. So, instead I went looking for a decent detergent that has no scent. I really liked the hero clean scent because it was not overpowering at all. My last two loads of laundry had heavy scent from Tide and I could not stand it. I don’t want to be gagging on the scent of my clothes while I’m trying to work out hard at Krav. So I got this Seventh Generation 6X concentrated detergent. I get home and what do I find, Allison had already picked that up. I do all my own laundry because it is my own ritual and I do it my way that is why I don’t really pay attention to that other detergents there are in the house.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01488 Andy made a new ice cream creation in his Ninja Creami. He decided to take the Milk chocolate Seas Salt Caramels that we have and freeze a few. He then broke them up and added them to his ice cream mixture. This was a special flavor that he made for Miss Colleen. She really likes the Sea Salt Caramels and he figured that she would also like the ice cream. He’s going to have to make more, however since this batch was left home and Miss Colleen did not get any of it this weekend for her birthday. This way she can come over and try some so Andy can see what she thinks of it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01487 I occasionally receive free sample boxes of General Mills Cereals to review the newest items coming to the stores. The latest cereal that I got was the new Trix Minis. Many of the General Mills Cereals are going to a mini size. Trix is one of those. The cereal still packs the same flavor as regular sized Trix but they are much smaller. This makes for being able to get a bunch of them on the spoon at the same time. You can get all the flavors in one spoonful and smaller pieces are much easier to chew. This is going to e a hit with little kids.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01486 Tonight was a special event at ABD. Each year there is a Phase Camp that is offered. This goes over the whole of the underbelt curriculum plus the curriculum for Black Belts. This is to help people prepare for upcoming Black Belt testing. Since I am testing in June for my black Belt I figured that I should attend. This was about 3 hours of hard work and it was also a lot of fun. I partnered with a guy named Mike who is also going for his black belt this June. We were pretty well matched for the night. There were so many people who were from our Franklin location. I didn’t really get to meet anyone new but did get to see some people who train at night. There were only a couple of people that I knew from the morning class who were there. It was a good night and I am feeling better about the upcoming testing.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01485 Today was Stripe Test for both kids at America’s Best Defense. They are now both in Jr. Krav Maga. This was Andy’s first test and they did great. Andy has shown a ton of maturity since starting Jr. Krav. Andy’s starting from the beginning and has no complaints or gripes about it. Andy’s rock climbing goals align very well with their physical fitness goals in Jr. Krav. It is awesome to see these changes in Andy. Eva is nearing her next belt and she’s working so hard. Her test was tough, I know, because I did the same one this morning. She crushed it. Both kids completely rose to the occasion and I’m so impressed with how hard they are working. My Stripe Test was this morning and it was a challenge. There was one part where we had to do power hooks. It was my favorite part of the test because I let loose big time. Like, working out some Big Feelings type of letting loose. Been trying to work on my aggression as I prepare for my black belt test.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01484 When Allison was sick with another bout of COVID on her birthday he got herself some flowers to keep in the bedroom. Something pretty to look at and to enjoy while having to stay there in the room for so long. I think they may be a bit dried out now, though. But they were nice to photograph as a last minute daily photo.