BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00578 Crayola sent us a bunch of free art supplies including their brand new Colors of the World crayons so that we could make our True Selfies. Opinions are our own.Crayola has created the Colors of the World crayon packs so that kids (and kids at heart) everywhere can truly represent themselves in their skin tone. With the 24 pack there are the 24 skin tones and in the 32 pack there are the 24 skin tones plus 4 hair color and 4 eye color crayons. The crayons include colors like Rose, Almond and Golden from Lightest to Deepest. I was asked to work with the kids to create their True Selfie and with that we used the Crayola Camera Color app which takes photos and making them black and white for coloring. I took the photos of the kids and then we converted them and printed them so the kids could color them. They took great care in determining which crayon best represented their skin tones. Andy went all out with his True Selfie. He colored the background as well. The col...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00577 This has been quite a year for sewing in our house. Allison got out her grandmother’s antique Singer sewing machine early on in the pandemic and began making masks for everyone. Then she found a deal on a refurbished Singer that could go something like 36 different stitches. I didn’t know that there was more than one type of stitch but I agreed that she should buy it. The sewing machine is now on The Cape and Eva spent much of the day sewing various projects. She made special masks for a woman the next street over. They call her “Joanie The Firecracker” and because of that Eva made masks with Firecracker fabric. Eva also had a secret project where she took an old Maxi Skirt and made it into a dress for her cousin, Kylie. Eva loves making special things for her cousins.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00576 At least once a Summer we do ice cream for dinner. Allison heard about a place that takes fresh donuts and makes ice cream sandwiches out of them. The place is called Ice Cream Sandwich in Sandwich, Ma. We looked it up online and found some very interesting commotion about the place. Let’s just say that there is a bit of drama happening. Despite that we went for a drive back down to the Bourne bridge and then over to the Sagamore to find Ice Cream Sandwich. We found it and were lucky to be there early since there were no other patrons. We could take our time ordering. I went with an ice cream sandwich in a cookie with cookies and cream ice cream and unicorn sprinkles all around the edge. We told the kids that they could get anything they wanted. Andy opted for a cup of watermelon sherbet and Eva for a waffle cone of ice cream. I was a bit jealous of her waffle cone because it was still warm. I do enjoy waffle cones. We’ll have to come back sometime for the do...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00575 Each Summer we head to Cape Cod to stay with my parents. This year has been a bit different. Allison and I take walks each morning (When it isn’t raining) and wear masks. We wear masks anytime we go anywhere outside the house. We wear them to and from the beach. Once there we make sure to be more than 6 feet apart from other people. We don’t go at peak times or the weekends so it is easier to distance. The kids are having great fun at the beach, they have some small nets and also their Froggles so they have been catching little fish. We are monitoring their interactions with the fish once it is caught and making sure that they release said fish about 5 minutes after they are caught. Most of the afternoon the kids were shouting to each other to “bring the bucket” because they had caught another fish. They had a great time swimming over and over. All of the kids are getting better and better at swimming. We had a nice dinner tonight and then went for a walk alo...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00574 I’ve been trying to make Andy’s room have a fun feel to it. He’s already chosen an amazing color that suits him. He’s got this incredible bunk bed/futon set-up, too. I thought that I’d take it a step further and add some cool lighting underneath the bed part and above the futon part. II had tried to use some LED strip lights. These aer lights that have a sticker backing and can be cut and customized to make all sorts of designs, at least in theory. I spent two hours trying to put these lights around one square of the bed. I could not get the lights to all stay on properly. So, I ended up ripping it all down and purchasing a set of Rope Lights instead. With these I was able to zip tie them in place and form them to look exactly the way I wanted them to look. This was something I should have done from the start but will learn from the mistake. However, I now have 65 feet of LED Strip lights that I am attempting to add to my bookcase for display o my Toys to Life To...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00573 At bedtime the kids come in to the office and we say prayers. I’m working at the computer and Andy walks in wearing my old Steam Dads lab coat, goggles and carrying his minions Crayola art case. Then he just looks up. The kid is hilarious when he is not trying to hard to be funny.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00572 This morning Andy came into my office with the sheet of paper above. He had found one of our Ed Emberley books. I had picked up a bunch of these books in hopes that the kids would enjoy them and create different drawings from them. Up to this point they had not paid them much mind but Andy was up early I guess and looking for something to do. Creating thumbprint art is something that Andy definitely liked because it meant putting his fingers onto stamping pads in order to make art. Get a little messy and at the same time create something. That does sound perfect for Andy. He did not simply follow the instructions, either. He created a few things on his own like the dragon and the narwhal. He also did a thumbprint portrait of me complete with bald head and goatee. We let Andy know that there were many more Ed Emberley books in the house and he can use them anytime. When I was a kid I’d love to get different Ed Emberley books out of the library and then draw all so...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00571 Thank you IMAX® for the promotional materials that you sent me for free for several of your documentaries now airing on HULU. I’ve found that my children love to learn about the world around them. It is natural that children are explorers and they want to know so much about the world. For the past four decades IMAX® has been creating incredible documentaries of our world. What with the world being as it is right now and everyone being unable to get out and enjoy an IMAX® in its full glory people can still view these amazing stories on the streaming service HULU. I do not have HULU and so I have not see these movies on the service. I have, however seen some of the movies in the theaters. Seeing an IMAX® movie at the New England Aquarium or Boston Museum of Science of ever over at Providence place is always a treat. I do hope to go back to an IMAX® theater soon with the kids to see some of their spectacular movies. When the kids came home today they were thrilled t...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00570 I’ve been walking each morning with Allison and I have been enjoying the walk but wanted to give myself a new challenge. I have a goal to lose 30 pounds. This will certainly take some time but to remind me of how much weight that actually is I bought a 30 pound weighted vest to wear while I walk and eventually wear while doing other things like planks and push ups. Some other reasons that I’ll be wearing this vest is so that when I actually have to do push ups and planks for Krav Maga I will have done them with more weight than I have myself. This, in theory should make it easier to perform these exercises without the vest. My daily walks have been helping out a bit because today after Krav Maga class I ran with one of my friends. I was able to run the whole way around the block without stopping. Next step is to do the block twice and then build up my speed. May have to run with the vest, too.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00569 Today was a full day on Zoom to attend Sweet Suite 2020. This year it was a virtual conference and it was a lot of great fun. I was able to meet with a bunch of toy companies to learn more about what they have to offer and make more connections. It was quite different than years past and I enjoyed myself very much. This was such a cool way of doing a conference. If I ever did this again I would make sure to make a bunch more appointments rather than wander around without a real plan. The appointments that I did have were very productive. I am glad that I was able to get the office in shape before the event. Many of the people that I had met with were very happy with my virtual background. They noticed and appreciated it.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00568 The office has been painted and last night Dad came over and helped me install a few Impact 3″” Baby Pin Wall Plates into the wall so that I could mount my studio lights there permanently. Although I am starting to wonder if I had done anything a little differently with them as they appear to be a bit high above me. I may be able to install something on those baby pins that will let me move and angle the lights to other configurations. We shall see. You can also see in the photo that I have installed a swing arm for my microphone. It is mounted on a shock mount and should be able to stay on the desk permanently where I can move it wherever I need it. I’ll be testing everything out tomorrow during Sweet Suite @Home. Sweet Suite is an event that I have gone to the past several years and I am very excited to see how it will be virtually. I have my green screen ready and even made a personal virtual background. The office is not quite finished. There is one major dis...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00567 For months I have been talking about moving my office from one room of the house to another. specifically swapping my office with Andy’s room. We moved into this house before Andy was born and so we made the baby’s room the smallest in the house because a baby isn’t gonna need that much room. Well, that baby is nearly nine and he needs some room to grow. The obvious choice for moving the room was m office. It only made sense. The room is bigger and in it Andy can spread out and grow. I painted his room an Aruba Blue and then we moved all of his stuff into the room. At the same time we also moved my stuff into his old room but I did not have time to paint it. As you can see from yesterday’s photo the room was a light green. That does not work well for a room where I will be making videos because the green will tinge everything. I needed something neutral and so I went with a light grey color called pewter. I spent the later part of yesterday moving the furniture a...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00566 It is National Ice Cream Day once again. It is funny, when I was going in to the office this would be once of those nights where I’d stop off and pick up a couple gallons of ice cream for the group. Other people would also bring in ice cream and toppings and more. It was a nice night to have an ice cream bar. This year I am at work but at home and alone, the family went to The Cape this week. So just me and a bowl of ice cream to celebrate.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00565 We were given a case of Fungisaurs for free to unbox and review. Opinions are our own. Here’s an interesting idea. What if you take dinosaurs and cross them with Mushrooms. That’s how you get Fungisaurs. These are cute collectible figures are great fun for dinosaur loving and science loving kids alike. These edutaining toys help kids learn about biodiversity, dinosaurs and mushrooms all in one. In addition to the toys being collectible there is also a robust app and a full website with even more information. Kids can use their Fungisaurs to learn about the world around them. They can also take their Fungisaurs on fun outdoor adventures. We received a 12 pack of Fungisaurs so that we were guaranteed a full set of the 8 Fungisaurs from series one. They were, Bracko, C-Rex, Chick-Rap, Paradots, Pterocap, Sailamander, Scaly-Anky and Trishroomops. Each Fungisaur is a combination of one dinosaur with one type of mushroom. I thought the idea was fantastic when I first h...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00564 A few weeks back our iMac died. This was a 2011 model that we had purchased soon after moving in. It served us quite well until the hard drive failed terribly. I spent time with the Apple folks on the phone and we determined that the drive was bad. I could have it fixed at a computer store that worked with older models like ours. I could not just go to an Apple Store and have them replace the hard drive because the model is one they no longer work on. Luckily everything except for one file was backed up. Unfortunately that was my Quicken file where I had a meticulous grasp on our finances through the software. Paying to have that one file recovered was out of the question. Paying to have the computer fixed was also a bit out there for me. I looked out the model and hard drive replacement online and found a kit and a new hard drive for under $100. I figured that for $100, if it doesn’t work I’m not out too much money. If it does work then I don’t need to replace t...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00563 In the photo Andy has drawn a character from The Last Kids on Earth, a book series that we have been reading together and now a show on Netflix. We were at Eva’s Jr. Krav class today and I had asked Andy to please bring a book with him so that he could read while we were at the class. Instead he brought his boogie board (must have rediscovered it during the room move) and drew pictures for me to guess what he had drawn. Then when he got tired of that he asked me for suggestions and so I gave him Jack from The Last Kids on Earth. Andy’s Futon mattress arrived a few days ago and tonight he had Eva over for a sleepover. We did dinner and then watched the movie Feel the Beat on Netflix. Then let the kids stay up an additional half hour playing with the new Playmobil castle. We said prayer with the kids and went back downstairs to watch our shows. When we came up around 10pm I checked in on the kids and Eva was awake. Andy had fallen asleep probably moments after pray...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00562 Playmobil has sent us their latest set in the Novelmore series for free to play with and review. Opinions are our own. A giant castle has sprung up in Andy’s new room. The Grand Castle of Novelmore from Playmobil has completed construction today. This is the largest set to date that we have reviewed from Playmobil and it is amazing! For any kid who loves kings, knights, swords and castles this is perfect! It has a nearly three foot wide footprint and there are so many features! It took us a couple of hours to fully assemble the castle. There are many parts included, 374 to be exact. From a working drawbridge, to a bucket pulley system, firing crossbows and cannons to working catapults this castle will help your young adventurer defend the Novelmore King from the Burnham Raiders. There are also secret passages, trap doors and locking doors, several levels of play area, too. Once the castle was set assembled came the fun part, setting up all the additional pieces a...

We received the Warrior’s Mark Throwing Blades from Toysmith for free to review. Opinions are our own. I’ve been saving the Warrior’s Mark Throwing Blades until we could get down to the Cape and the kids could play with their cousins. The kids enjoy playing all sorts of competitive games together and I knew that they would get a big kick out of these throwing blades. Obviously I’m not giving my kids or niece and nephew actual blades but rather the Warrior’s Mark throwing blades are foam Chakram style disks that kids can throw at a target and score points. The blades have velcro on the edges and will stick to the target easily. Inside the box there are two throwing blades, a target and also a bag to keep everything together. I especially like that there is a bag to keep things together because otherwise we’d probably be looking for all the pieces in the shed whenever we wanted to play. the Target comes with a suction cup to keep it attached to walls and other places. It worked well on t...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00561 During the Summer America’s Best Defense offers free training to family members and this year we decided to take advantage of that benefit. Today Eva took her first Jr. Krav Maga class. I am so proud of her. It is no secret that this is something that I have wanted Eva to learn for a while now. I’ve not pushed her toward it but I have offered her to try it out. Every time there is a buddy week or whatnot I encourage Eva to go. Well, this time she’s actually taking classes on her own. We went to ABD and Eva and I met with Sensei Howard. He brought her through some of the basic moves and combinations. Then she got on the dojo floor with Mr. Brochu and the students in his Jr. Krav class. He told us that “She’s gonna be an animal” at the end of her class. Eva has a quiet intensity and she tries really hard to get things right. I know that she can do this and the main reason I have encouraged her to start training is not only the self defense benefits but the benefits...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00560 That title may be misleading because, well I did not fix the problem… yet. Back about a month ago our family computer died. The hard drive failed and there was nothing more I could do for it. Pretty much every photo was already backed up to Google and the cloud so I was okay there. The one thing that I did lose was my Quicken file. That bugs me a lot because I had been maintaining a quicken file for several years and for some reason I got too comfortable with the reliability of the iMac that I didn’t back up the file anywhere. So I lost it. Luckily, however, all of our accounts and whatnot allowed me to pull the transactions into a new Quicken file and I could start again. When The hard drive crashed I contacted Apple Service to see if they could help. My options were to have someone install a new hard drive for a couple hundred bucks or pay for costly data recovery from the crashed drive and also pay someone to fix the hard drive. I opted for searching on YouTub...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00559 When I started getting ready for the move from my office to Andy’s room and Andy moving to my office as his old room I had quite a few things to box up. Inside this box are some items that were on display on my desk. I have my LEGO Voltron, LEGO Hulkbuster and more. So, I’ve got to get the room painted and put back together to get these things out of their boxes.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00558 Each day when we go for a walk around the area there are so many beautiful flowers. I love how these ones look. We’ve been doing our best to walk about 3 miles each morning. We try to do it early in the morning before the temp and humidity get too high. So far we still have a cool temp as we walk but it will get hotter soon.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00557 With the redesign of my Office and Andy’s Bedroom I have some ideas for creative lighting. In Andy’s room I plan on using these LED strip lights to put lighting under the bunk and above the futon. These lights can be programmed to all sorts of colors. This will look super cool with the black metal and the black mattress that is coming. He’s going to love it. I’m also using these lights for the bookcase behind it them in the photo. I plan on painting that a gloss black and installing lights on each level. This will house all of my old toys to life figures from Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Lego Dimensions and Starlink. The lights on the gloss black will really showcase these fun figures. That is the plan and even more of the plan it to do these games on YouTube or Twitch or Facebook Live soon. It is going to be a great display piece. I can’t wait to show everyone what it looks like when it is done.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00556 Andy and I both took our stripe test today. We both passed. We’re on our brown belt and with the brown belt things get more challenging and earning the next belt take longer. It actually takes double the time. Up until now we earned a stripe once a month for three months and then progressed to the next belt as long as we had all three stripes. Now we need six stripes to progress to the next belt. Honestly, that is fine with me because I feel that I have so much to learn before I progress again. I also feel that in 6 months time Andy will be older and by the time he is ready to earn his black belt (A year or two from now) he’ll have matured more and also improved in skill. He has improved so much over this past year and grown up as well.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00555 Allison and I have been getting out and taking walks each morning while we are on the Cape. Usually we walk up along Great Pond but today we went in the other direction because I wanted to surprise the kids with donuts. I learned that the Black Dog restaurant had them and wanted to check them out. I wasn’t that impressed. When I looked at them selection I had decided not to buy them but then I would have had nothing to bring back to the kids. They just didn’t look fresh. Like the humidity had gotten to them. But I got them and they were pretty tasty.  The thing about donuts in Falmouth is that there is no selection. Dunkin Donuts is pretty much the only game in town and I am not a fan. I walked all over downtown Falmouth one weekend just to see if there was a bakery or something that made donuts. No luck. Internet search, no luck. Donuts has become a quarantine thing with us. Probably not the best option but it has been fun for everyone to try fun tasty donut...

We received a set of the World’s Smallest Magic Cards for free from Super Impulse to play with and review. Opinions are our own. Super Impulse has been making all sorts of fun World’s Smallest products and one of the coolest ones I saw at Toy Fair was a set of Magic the Gathering cards that were super small, World’s Smallest if you will. These cards are fully playable and have fantastic artwork on them even at such a small size. There were two decks inside the set so that you could immediately play. The decks were Jace and Vraska. These cards caught my eye because my daughter, Eva had started playing MAGIC just a few months prior to my trip to Toy Fair. She has played the game with a few decks that we had and also played online. I thought that she would get a kick out of the novelty factor of having these two decks to play with whenever and wherever. These World’s Smallest Magic the Gathering decks are so small that I can fit the whole deck in the palm of my hand. Each card is slightly...

We were sent a SuperThings Series 1 Starter Pack from Goliath Games for free to play with and review. Opinions are our own. SuperThings are not new. They have been around for a while in other countries and they are making their US debut. They’re going to cause a big stir here as well. These collectible figures are well designed, have a great feel in your hands and are fun to collect. Based on everyday objects the SuperThings make their home in Kaboom City. There they battle their fated rivals. Each SuperThings character has a rival and each one has their own special power. One of the characters that Andy got was Crazy Jet. Crazy Jet is a watering can that is one of the bad guys in Kaboom City. He’s part of the MadClan and he has a rival that is an umbrella. So when Crazy Jet uses his power of Aquattack and creates tsunamis of pressurized water only Power Shield can stop him. Power Shield just so happens to be an umbrella and is part of the Central Patrol team in Kaboom City. Power Shie...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00554 The kids have discovered Biscoff cookies. I brought some home for a snack to enjoy during work and Eva found them. She found them and decided that she loved them! Eva and I discussed the possibility of using them to make S’mores. So, for the 4th I picked up some Red, White and Blue Hershey’s Chocolate bars. We made them tonight and they were pretty tasty. I think that next time I’m going to make inside-out S’Mores. I make those by roasting an extra large marshmallows and then stuffing it with the chocolate and cookie. We’ll make those at home over the fire table.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00553 Last night we had pizza from Paul’s Pizza. It is my favorite Summertime treat. We learned that they would be closed the rest of the days that we would be on the Cape so we had to order it last night. I got plenty so that we had some left over for lunch the next day. I enjoy cold Paul’s Pizza almost as much as piping hot. We’ve been enjoying our time down the Cape. The kids are loving having days at the beach. Luckily the crowds have moved on now that the 4th is over. We were able to enjoy a few hours at the beach and in the water. It was a very smooth water day and that was such fun for swimming. No seaweed kicked up from the boats or anything like that. Dad and I went out shopping for dinner tonight. We had fish from The Clam Man and that included some chowder and stuffies, too.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00552 Funko sent us a Marvel BattleWorld Mega Pack to play with and review. Opinions are our own. I’ve already written a post reviewing Marvel BattleWorld: Mystery of the Thanostones Game from Funko in a previous post but this has been a game that Andy has really taken to. He loves playing it and tonight after dinner he had the whole family playing the game. He got the four of us plus my parents to play the game and earlier in the day he was teaching his 5 year old cousin how to play.