BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02061 I fall prey to nostalgia ads all the time from Temu. The other day on my Facebook page I saw that they had a Nintendo NES controller rug and also pillows. Well, I got them. The pillows were actually pillow shams and luckily that worked out for me because I had the pillows for the futon already. They were the perfect size. The rug was also a great size for my office and maybe it will prevent my chair from rolling all over the place.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02060 Now that I have the new car I am making it my own. That begins with accessories. There were some pieces that I had on the old car that I am repurposing. While I no longer have a push to start button in the car I do still have the Transformers start button cover and I have it covering the volume button on the radio. I think I’m going to spray paint that a new color soon, maybe all red or maybe a metallic color. Not sure. I picked up the visor and you can tell by the photo that it looks a little wonky. It is just a tiny bit too big for my car so it looks a bit squished when it is fully opened. I also got some new silicone license plate holders in red. The car is going to have a black and red theme to it. I’m adding a few red elements to the car. I started with the vent blades on the air conditioner, they are metallic red. I also got a steering wheel cover and that has a red line to it. The windshield screen has red on it so there is that. As More things come I’ll m...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02059 Eva started her Junior Year today. Granted this was not a full day of school and the whole school was not there, just the Juniors and Seniors, but she was back in uniform today. It was a chance for the students to go through all of their classes quickly and meet with every teacher so that they could learn what materials they would need for the year. Eva did go to school yesterday for an hour or so to meet with her little sisters. As juniors she gets a few new students as her little sisters and helps them out in their first year. eva seemed pretty happy with her classes and teachers this year. She’ll definitely have more of challenge with AP Lit and some fun things, too like Astronomy and, of course, Art. While Eva and Allison were off at school I decided to make some egg sandwiches for breakfasts. I made six sausage Egg and Cheese sandwiches and 6 bacon egg and cheese sandwiches. I had a little production line going there. Andy came at the end and helped me wrap ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02058 Eva and I are headed to the Granite State Comic Convention in September. We are both going to be doing some cosplay at the event. I’ve been watching all the seasons of Supernatural on the weekend and there is a character on there that I figured I could cosplay rather easily. Beard, beat up Hat, jeans and flannel. So, I found a good flannel to use at Savers plus a vest, which is too small but should still work.  I also asked Allison to make me a shirt. Mind you, the character does not have a shit like this and “2 Idjits Garage” is not a thing but I think that fans of the show will catch the reference and get a kick out of it. Bobby Singer, the character I’m going to cosplay always calls the two brothers in the show, the two main characters Sam and Dean, he calls them idjits. Dean also works on his baby, his car, his 1967 Impala all the time and would be a mechanic if he and his brother weren’t supernatural hunters. So I thought of 2 Idjits Garage. I hope that ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02057 I spent the morning and early afternoon at the Kia dealership today. I test drove two 2024 Kia Fortes. I knew that was the car that I wanted. This will be my fourth one in 12 years. Kia Fortes are really reliable cars and I have enjoyed driving all of mine. This time around, however I opted not to go for the GT model because it would have made the payment about $40 more a month. So I went with the LXS model. It is not a sporty looking as the GT and definitely does not have all the bells and whistles of that model, but is was very comparable to my current car, which was a GT version. This new car does not have a push to start but rather an old school key is used. It does have something that my other car did not have and that is wireless connection to Android Auto. This is a cool feature because my phone uses Android Auto and that allows me to listen to my Audible audio books or to my Spotify account through the car speakers. With my previous car I had to plug it i...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02056 Today my aunt and Uncle called us and asked if we were around to meet up for lunch at Bliss. They were up this way with their grandkids and the kids wanted to see my kids. Specifically their grandson wanted to see Andy. The kids have played with Andy a couple of times now and they really enjoy spending time with Andy. They had a fun time at lunch today, too. After lunch my Aunt and Uncle took their grandkids over to the zoo. My aunt messaged me later to tell me that almost all the animals were out and active. She’d never had that kind of luck before. I spent the afternoon taking the stickers off of my car because tomorrow I’m heading to the Kia dealership to lease a new car. Lots of scraping had to be done. Luckily Allison had a special tool for her Cricut that worked great on getting the claw mark stickers off. They were the hardest ones to do.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02055 The folks at General Mills wanted us to be ready for the school season. They sent me a package of some great stuff including Super Mac from Annie’s, a bunch of granola bars and some new cereal from Cascadian Farm. They also provided us with a cute little sign for back to school. One of those signs that kids hold up on their first day back. Eva will use it Thursday and Andy next Tuesday. Andy already called dibs on the mac and cheese. Some of the granola bars are nut free which is great because of all the kids with nut allergies.