BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02601 The day started poorly but ended up excellent. This morning I got off work and went to bed. I passed out with my phone in my hand and awoke an hour later. The house stunk. I knew what had happened. The shit pipe int he basement had overflowed once again. Luckily it wasn't a lot. It was more than enough to put a stink throughout the house. I had to run to Lowe's to pick up some heavy duty main line drain clearer and also get some baking soda at Walmart. So I did not get to sleep until well after 12. I then slept for 2 and a half hours and got up because I now have to find a solution to this problem. A long term solution. Allison and Andy were at the METG (Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild) HS Festival 2026 Preliminary Round of one act plays. Eva's school was performing Around the World in 80 Days. She made many of the costumes and she and her team won for Best Costume Design. They now continue on to the Semi-Finals in two weeks. I can't see the s...

Photo-A-Day #02600 The ice cream that I made on Wednesday.  I picked up our ice cream yesterday and well, I ate my ice cream before I took a picture yesterday. Today I have a nice photo. A soft lavender color to the ice cream because of the black raspberry and cherry juice. It also contains some hot honey, can't taste it, Nutella, can't taste it, peanut butter, also can't taste it. It also has toffee pieces, peanuts and oreos. The fruit flavors are subtle. It tis rather enjoyable overall. I have a feeling that at some point I'm going to get a big bit of something that I didn't mix well. I have many ideas to make another batch but this one will take a while to finish. Plus we have Andy's batch. That is a very honey heavy one.

Photo-A-Day #02599 When Allison and Eva went tot he Transformers Store in London they picked up a Funko Bitty Pop! Retro Toys set of Transformers. The way that Funko did these sets was that they had 4 different Bitty Pop! Retro Toys sets, each with a different Hasbro Retro Toys Theme. There was Transformers, G.I. Joe, Mr. Potato Head and Board Games like Monopoly and Operation. However, in these sets of four figures there was one figure that was a mystery figure. The mystery figure may or may not match the overall theme of the set. Int his case it does not match because I got Lite Brite with my Transformers. I didn't have the heart to tell Eva that I already had this set on my wall of Transformers. She was so happy to have found something fun for me in London that was Transformers themed. And they are very cool. I opened this one because I have an unopened one on my wall. I didn't know about how they worked the "mystery figure". So now I am on the lookout for Soundwav...

Photo-A-Day #02598 I had wanted to do an ice cream making class with andy during February vacation and well, since this has been an extended vacation because of all the snow days we got our chance to go today. An ice cream shop local to us, Frisbie's offers ice cream making classes. It is more of an experience than a class but it is very fun none the less. We are here with the ice cream sundaes that we got after we made our own ice cream. Because our ice cream will take a day to freeze properly they give us some of their ice cream to enjoy after class. I say give but we definitely paid for the experience. The cost was $75 per person. I think that the store probably took home 75% of that fee in profit after all was said and done. So they poured a bag of ice cream mix into the machine to mix, add air and freeze a bit. We each got a large tub and added that base ice cream. Then we could mix in our own base as well as other items. I had wanted to make a strawberry oreo ice cream but th...

Photo-A-Day #02597 Today was another Snow Day and that meant more shoveling and more snowblowing. This is our corner and I made sure to snowblow a path along the whole of our sidewalk minus one part that I just simply could not get through and was getting too tired to complete after doing 4+ hours and 3 refills of the gas tank. I did both neighbors again and after I had made my first pass the city came by and made their pass which meant I had to redo everything. Allison and Eva took care of taking the snow off the cars. It was warmer so the sun took care of more of the snow.  The bad. I scraped the heck out of the side of my car with the snowblower. Looks like I'm going to have to get more scratch stickers. My car has taken a major beating this winter. Seeing the city come by and fill in my whole path was tough but the guy driving the truck apologized and I know that cannot be helped. It simply cannot. I am glad that they did not plow in the corner like they usually do. I did get t...

Photo-A-Day #02596 We've had snow since 1978 but I think this is the first REAL legitimate Blizzard that we have seen since then. I've even seen reports that the amount of snow we got is more than that blizzard. I slept till about 12:30 and then went outside around 2pm. I was out snow blowing and shoveling until about 5pm. The kids and allison came to help me out as well. We dug a path to the garage so I could use the snowblower.  Took this one at 3:43am Snow at 6:38am. The Side Porch. Backyard at 12:48pm Clearing a bit of the sidewalk. Front of the house.

Photo-A-Day #02595 Today was rehearsal for The Winter Wolf. I have been working hard to get my lines memorized. I've talked with a few friends who are actors on what they do to get the lines down. I got some great advice and I think that overall Today was good. I'm at 88% of my lines down pat. There are a few that I am still mixing up the timing for but i am getting there. I don't feel as bad as I did earlier in the week. I feel better about my handle on the lines. Today we got our Cora back from her vacation but the Mother, Stephanie, she is on a work trip for another week. So I'll see her next week. We've got a lot of work still to do but I'm feeling good. The set looks amazing and I can't wait for people to see the play.

Photo-A-Day #02594 Allison and Eva went to London ... and all I got was a sweet Transformers t-shirt, and more. While in London, Allison, Eva and Mimi went to Battlesea Station, a converted Power station that is now an indoor mall. Inside is a store that is 100% dedicated to Transformers. I had seen it on Tik Tok and joked that if they saw it they need to go. I wanted a pin from the place but they came home with two pins, some mini Transformers Funko characters and a keychain and a t-shirt of Optimus Prime with the Battlesea Station. Inside the building they have a large mural that tells the story of Battlesea Station actually being a Transformer. I thought that was cool for lore of the place. It makes sense to have a London store dedicated to Transformers. One of our greatest Transformers writers Simon Furman wrote the UK version of the Transformers comic books for years and then over to the US for many more.

Photo-A-Day #02593 Earlier this week Andy and I went to the Providence Place Mall and while we were there I picked up this LEGO Postcard. LEGO has a few of these in a series but when I saw it was London I had to get it and build it as a welcome home for Allison and Eva. I picked them up from the airport today. Their flight came in around 3:45 I had gotten to the cell phone lot at 3:30 and just waited till they were ready to leave the airport. It was pretty good just going to that lot before getting them. I hadn't done that before. Allison and Eva brought home some fun gifts for Andy and me. They had gone to the Transformers Store at Battle Sea Station and got me a couple of fun things including a tshirt and some pins.

Photo-A-Day #02592 This week Andy and I have been playing through the game, One Hit Heroes. It is a cooperative game that we've been playing for some time but haven't gotten far enough through the whole thing to really delve into each story. this week we've gone through almost the whole game. There are two more bosses that we have to face and we will work on them tomorrow. Today I also finally built the LEGO fortnite Battle Bus. I've been wanting to build this but I have no good place to display it and I have a lighting kit for it. It would look cool hanging from the ceiling or something like that. I probably won't be doing that but it would be neat. I did not add the lights yet. I may take it apart and build it again and add the light kit. We'll see. As I was building the set I was listening to the read through of the play so I could focus more on getting my lines down. We had rehearsal tonight and I think I did better. Our director was sick and our assistant d...

Photo-A-Day #02591 Tonight andy had three friends come over for games and, pizza and a movie. Their friends, Nyla, Avery and Jazzie came over. I probably should have timed the pizza better. I placed the order and it was ready right before the friends came over. I ran out around the corner, grabbed it and got right back but wasn't there in time to meet one of the kids' parents but Andy said that they just dropped the girls and left. The last to show up was Nyla and her mom came in and we chatted for a bit. She liked the bookshelf in the hallway. So, I made myself scarce and headed up to my office. I could listen how things were going and it sounded like the kids were having a fun time. Then it got quiet. I went downstairs and again I had missed one of the parents or I still would have missed them because they did not come in. The girls just went out to the car. But, I came down and said goodnight to Nyla and her mom. Afterwards Andy did a nice job of taking care of cleaning the ...

Photo-A-Day #02590 Today I took andy to the movies. We went to see Goat. The promo behind us is not for Goat. It is for Hoppers. They had no standee for Goat though. The movie was awesome. Great story, amazing animation and some great voice work. Andy rates this movie higher than Zootopia. they must have liked it because they sent a rather long text tot heir friends about it. Eva does the same thing when a movie or show or book gets her in her feelings.  After the movie we went over to Savers and to Michaels. We donated some books of Andy's after they had cleaned their room at the beginning of the week. I cleared out some of mine and some clothes. At Michael's we looked for some Christmas stuff for the play. I found a tree skirt and some ornaments. Then we went over to Stop and Shop to do some food shopping. We got a few treats for Andy and their friend because they are having friends over for movies and pizza tomorrow night. Tonight I had rehearsal and it went well. We did lin...

Photo-A-Day #02589 Andy and I are on our own for the week. Allison and Eva are having a great time with Mimi in London. Today I slept till 9am, I have not slept past 6am in YEARS. Alarms off and no one waking me up. It was great. Andy had forgotten to turn off their alarm so they were up early but quiet enough not to wake me. We played some One Hit Heroes in the afternoon. We were going to attempt to play a Transformers card game but the game rules proved a bit challenging. so we scrapped that idea. I'll play the solo version and figure out how it is supposed to be played and then we'll try playing together. Andy asked that we go to Johnny Rockets for dinner. On the way out they said that they had money and would be paying. It was revealed that the money had come from Mimi to take us out one night while the girls were over in London. Andy chose Johnny Rockets at the Providence Place Mall. They were paying so who was I to argue. Johnny Rockets is airport food and well, not that ...

Photo-A-Day #02588 I had rehearsal tonight for The Winter Wolf and the sign for the show is now up for everyone to see. I'm excited by this. I'm excited for this show. We have been working very hard to make this a great show for people. The story is wonderful and the other actors are great. We are a cast of 5 and I'm feeling very much like the weak link. I have most of my lines down but keep having a tough time with a few of them. I've been "off book" for the last couple of rehearsals but still, I just can't seem to get them down. Tonight I learned that I do not project enough. This is the first time ever that I've had an actual role beyond 5 lines. It has been a challenge and I believe that I am meeting the challenge but I can't help feeling like I am letting everyone down when I flub a line or 6. We'll get there. Allison and Eva are on their adventure in London. I decided that I'd take a sick day tonight and Andy and I enjoyed watching Th...

Photo-A-Day #02587 Was a rather quiet Valentine's Day around the house. I slept much of the day and got up to drive Allison and Eva to the airport for their flight to London. They are headed there for the next week. The drive in was pretty easy by our usual standard drive to Boston. We had plenty of time and they got through to their gate pretty quickly. Allison texted me part way through my drive home. Any and I are home alone for Feb vacation.  I mentioned to andy that maybe they clean their room over the break. Well, when Andy gets motivation they get things done. Today they went through their books and bookshelf. Moved the bookshelf around and will get to other parts of the room tomorrow and through the week. I've got to go through the books that Andy is getting rid of, some are good for the cousins, some for Savers and some I'll put away with Andy's stuff for when they are older.

Photo-A-Day #02586 The McDonald's Happy MEals now come with these little robots called Changeables. They take the different McDonald's items and turn them into little robots. I got the cash register called X-CH4NG3. Cute simple transformation.

Photo-A-Day #02585 I had heard that there were going to be some Marvel themed Oreos being released. There are four different packages and 32 different designs on the Oreos themselves. I picked up a package for the family today.

Photo-A-Day #02584 This morning as I was taking Andy to school they asked me if I could take them to the Mall after school. I asked what for and Andy said a suit. Apparently tomorrow after school is a Valentine's Dance and Andy and their friends are all going wearing dressy clothes. Andy has outgrown the suit that they had. As I talked more with Andy I learned that Andy only wanted new pants and a new shirt. We went over to the mall to MAcy's to look but they had nothing. It wasn't until dinner that I was reminding that Macy's men's clothes were in a different location in the Mall. We ended up finding a shirt and pants in J.C. Penny. So Andy is all set for the event and they are borrowing my vest from the Father/Daughter dance and my tie as well.

Photo-A-Day #02583 The other day we got some boxes from Amazon. One of them I set aside because I thought it was the stickers for my car. Well, I opened them today and come to find out, they were not the stickers. They were actually a set of feather dusters. We did not order feather dusters. I threw out the box so I am not sure if these were actually ours.  *Update - Apparently, grandpa Dano ordered them for Mimi and somehow sent them to us.

Photo-A-Day #02582 I finished reading my first Comic Book box. This second box includes the next iteration of Transformers comics. These are the ones that were done by Dreamwave. The problem with these was that Dreamwave went bankrupt during the middle of the runs of many of their books. That means that a set of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe comics did not get completed. They only produced book #1. And a bunch more books were never done. The comics were good and the designs were great to see. 

Photo-A-Day #02581 My 43 hour 3D print of a Dice Tower has completed. It completed this morning around 6am. I had started it on Friday and it printed all through the night and the next night. I tested out all of the dice in my play collection. The set that I use for my daily RPG game that I've been playing since the first of the year. I am a few days behind and will get caught up later on tonight after the Super Bowl. For the Super Bowl we had some ribs and other treats. I slow cooked the ribs at 20 for 2 1/2 hours then 350 for an hour and then 425 for 30 minutes. They were so tender and tasty. We enjoyed them as we watched the new episode of The Muppet Show before the Super Bowl. The kids were in it to see Green Day perform. It was  good performance. Then Eva came down for the halftime show. Andy came down after the halftime show asking when it was happening. They had just missed it. The halftime show was good. At this time that I am writing this the Patriots are down by 12 in the...

Photo-A-Day #02580 I asked Eva is she would paint the masks for The Winter Wolf. The opening of the show I have to dance while wearing a mask. The woman who plays the mother in the play is also wearing one. Hers will have gold accents and mine has silver accents. They also have a little blue in them as well. I think she did a nice job on them.

Photo-A-Day #02579 I wanted a dice tower so I started printing this one this morning. It is a 43 hour print. We are probably 1/4 of the way through. The interesting thing here is that it is a spiral staircase up the tower and while there are some windows that will eventually be added to it as the tower itself prints I have to say the level of detail is good but I will probably not ever see the inside of the tower and the brick work that was added to it. We should start getting more height soon since the large area where the dice come out is very nearly printed. Then the concentration will be on the Tower itself.

Photo-A-Day #02578 The other day my neighbor came over to let me know that the gas company couldn't get to her gas meter because mom and dad's car was in the way and that they would be coming back on Monday to try again. So, today while it was fairly warm I took out the snowblower and cleared a larger spot and moved their car further back in the driveway.  When I was done with that I took the snowblower down to the front of the house and cleared the pathway again because the path I had created got pushed in with more snow from either the apartment across from me or the city. This happens often. I clear and clean and it gets plowed over. While I was doing that I noticed the neighbor across the way was trying to clear out the sidewalk with a single shovel. I walked over and offered to clear it all off for her with the snowblower. She told me that she was the daughter of the people in the house. They are nice people, quiet, keep to themselves, they also use Black Earth Compost.  ...

Photo-A-Day #02577 Allison and Eva went to see Eva's friend Aviva play hockey tonight and so Andy and I were on our own. Since I wasn't so into leftover roulette I decided to take them out for dinner. We went over to Brigg's Corner for dinner. andy decided on pizza and I was going to get wings but decided that I had not had good pizza in a long time and Briggs makes some great pizza. It isn't on my eating plan but one night wasn't too bad and my blood sugar did not take a bit hit. The pizza was so good, though.

Photo-A-Day #02576 I took Allison's car in to the dealership today to get an oil change This meant that she had my car to drive to school. She called me and told me that when she got to school my rear passenger side tire was flat. She could hear air hissing out of it. So, I grabbed my documentation on the tire protection plan that I had through Kia because of the lease. I brought that with me to the dealership to find out what I had to do about the tire. They had that information on file so I just had to bring the car in. So, I hung out at the dealership as I planned to do to wait for Allison's car to be finished. I think they finished up around noon. I spent the time trying to work on my lines for the play. I got Allison's car and swapped it for mine. I filled the tire as best I could and drove it to the dealership. Waiting for Triple AA was going to make things even longer. I was sort of white knuckling it tot he dealership and for some reason leaning to my left as if I c...

Photo-A-Day #02575 Tonight I made meatloaf for dinner and also some potatoes. I baked the potatoes in cream, butter, parmesan cheese, garlic powder, salt and pepper. The potatoes came out really good, in my opinion. They got a couple of questionable looks but they were tasty and creamy and the had great flavor.

Photo-A-Day #02574 Was a very quiet day for me as I slept all day long. I needed that. So I didn't get many places or get out for a photo. I was putting out the trash and I noticed a bunch of bunny prints. I see the bunny int he backyard all the time but I have no idea where it lives most of the time. Seems to be doing just fine int he snow, though.