BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02847 Today we went to University Station to Not Your Average Joes to have lunch with the whole family. We have not had the whole family together in a very long time. Not since the Summer. Eva came down from Boston, Mom and Dad from the Cape, Tara and Erik were here from Kentucky and Shelby and family came from Southboro. We met up and had a very nice lunch and nice time together. 

Photo-A-Day #02846 Today was Halloween and the kids are all grown up but each of them are having great nights with friends. Eva is off in Boston at college and going to see Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time with a full stage cast and the movie, I'm not sure exactly the venue but they are very excited for the event. They are going with two of their good friends and I cannot wait to hear what they thought of the show. Andy prepped for days for their Halloween. Last night they started making all of the amazing goodies for their friends. Today Andy went to their friend Emi's house for a Halloween party and a night of trick or treating. I did not go over to drop Andy and all the goodies off but Allison did and she got some great photos of Andy and Jazzy who went as Jack Skellington and Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas. Andy with Jazzy in their costumes. Andy made every edible thing on the table except for the pizza. There was so much food and the presentation is am...

Photo-A-Day #02841 Today Andy got fitted for Invisalign. Andy has been wanting braces/Invisalign for a long time and has not been happy with their smile. The breaking point was Andy's freshman photo. Andy had a simple smirk in the photo and when asked why they were not smiling Andy said that they hated their smile and their teeth. I looked into Invisalign that night. We got things going to get andy's teeth fixed up. And here is another image of Andy's smile. This is the smile of one who has to confront the fact that what they want is not going to happen despite best intentions. Andy was at their girlfriend's house helping to build an outdoor storage bin in exchange for the cardboard box that was used to ship it. Andy has been collecting cardboard for some project, not sure what the project is but something is being built. We tried to get much of the cardboard into my car but this piece in the image would not fit even sticking out the windows. We all told Andy it would n...

Photo-A-Day #02827 Allison bought a set of paint by number paintings for us to do together for our living room. Unfortunately the whole thing was about the size of an 8X10 image. These were very very small and difficult to paint. But the kids and Allison gave it a try. I pretty much said no thanks and painted it the way I wanted to because there was no way I could paint something that small accurately. It was a nice activity. We did this and then went to Bliss for lunch before Allison and I dropped Eva off at the train station so they could head back to school.

Photo-A-Day #02826 Eva came home from college on Friday night for the holiday weekend. It also happened to be Eva's birthday weekend. I was at the office that night and also at the office on Saturday night. So, I was not able to spend that much time with Eva. However, I did take Eva for breakfast on Saturday morning to continue our yearly tradition of a birthday breakfast together.  Tonight we had a meal of Eva's choosing to celebrate their birthday. Eva chose steak and roasted potatoes for dinner and wanted whoopie pies instead of a cake. Andy and Allison made the whoopie pies and Andy added the birthday candles to the pile. I grilled the steak that we all enjoyed. It has been really nice having Eva back home for the first time. Allison was able to spend some extra time with Eva and when Andy came home from the football game on Friday they also got to spend time with Eva. It was a nice time for everyone.

Photo-A-Day #02825 Eva is home for the holiday weekend and also their birthday. Of course this is a weekend where I have to hold everything down at work because Shaun is off in AZ. When I came home from work I took Eva over to Morin's to enjoy a breakfast together. This has been our tradition for so many years. We've had great breakfasts and crazy ones like mini donuts in a Cumberland Farms parking lot. It was great to have some time to chat one on one with Eva, too. 

Photo-A-Day #02785 High School has arrived for Andy. Despite lounging around for most of the Summer and having pretty late nights and sleeping later, Andy was up and ready to go at 5am this morning to shower, get packed and head to their girlfriend's house to walk to school together.  When I talked with Andy after school they were very excited about the day. Andy is already making connections with their teachers. Andy is looking forward to their first rotation in CTE which is Carpentry. Their teacher doesn't call Andy by their name but rather, "My Man!" because Andy is so enthused with the program and answers most questions. I'm excited to see where Andy goes with these programs.

Photo-A-Day #02783 Today was a day we have been excited for/dreading ever since High School graduation. The start of college for Eva. Move in day. Excited because Eva will do great things. They have been preparing for this forever and will meet every challenge. Dreading it because our kiddo is not going to be home with us each night for dinner. The sewing machine will be silent and we will not have 9pm shower time serenades. James will be depressed all the time and will come sleep in our bed. James takes up a lot of bed space. Andy did not come with us today, they would have been incredibly bored with all the things we had to do. So Andy hung out with friends for the day. They did get up and give Eva a massive hug. But overall we are so thrilled for Eva to start their journey. We (Allison, Eva and myself) got to MassArt about a half hour before our move in time so we parked in the parking lot and waited. When it was time to go we pulled up to the front of Eva's dorm and they had so...

Photo-A-Day #02782 On Eva's last night before move in day we watched the movie Wayne's World. Eva was not a fan. Andy seemed to find it funny but Allison and I were rolling at the time capsule that was Wayne's World. We were pretty low key today. I had to work at the Pretzel Factory 12:30-5:30 and when I came home we had a quick dinner and were off to a marriage prep meeting. I brought along some pretzels for the group and they were very happy. When we came home we started watching Wayne's World. Allison and Eva had already packed up the car so we did not have to do that. I did bring Eva an Oreo milkshake that I made at work. We are doing milkshakes now. And pizzas. What will next week bring, probably frozen custard replacing the ice cream. Every week, something new.

 Photo-A-Day #02773 Before I went off to work today Allison and I took Andy over to Target to get some things for the start of the school year. A set of LEGO and a cool looking AM/FM radio that doubles as a Bluetooth speaker was also not on the list but I was excited that Andy thought it was something cool that I had to get them it. Andy was so excited about it that they brought it downstairs to show Miss Colleen.  Today at The Pretzel Factory my boss was making cinnamon sugar rivets which are done in a  baking soda bath instead of a lye bath. He got distracted and started to salt the rivets.  Caught himself and then baked the pan of rivets. I took the unsalted ones and made the cinnamon sugar rivets for the display case and to sell while I also took the salted ones and made them into cinnamon sugar rivets to bring home. I brought a box him and they did not last the night, everyone loved the little hint of salt to these sweet treats. Everyone said that we should add ...

Photo-A-Day #02764 Today Eva and I went and picked up Lexi for Auntie Tara. Tara's plane was delayed and Lexi needed to be picked up from daycare. So we went over and got her and than brought her home to hang out with us. after a brief period of adjustment she settled right in and enjoyed hanging out with us on the couch.

Photo-A-Day #02763 Eva is back after 7 weeks on Cape Cod. There they were a teaching assistant at The Children's School of Science. The classes that they helped with were Film Photography (2 sessions), Microbiology (with auntie Tara) and Biological illustration. These were some great courses for Eva's last year as a TA. This Summer Eva had a lot of time with family and friends but we are glad that Eva is back for a few weeks before college. I know that Eva's cat, James is very happy with Eva's return.

Photo-A-Day #02756 While I was at the Cape my dad gave me this frame from our trip to see the Baltimore Oriels with Grandpa Bennett. I'm going to find a place to put it in my office and also find a way to display a couple of custom baseball bats. That was an amazing trip.

Photo-A-Day #02754 Today was Andy's last day of Culinary Camp. This year each of the kids in the teen camp got their own knife. They got to keep it, too. Andy is pretty excited to have their own cooking knife. They had the usual dessert showcase this ear with a lot of great items to enjoy. The teens did not decorate cakes this year but rather some cupcakes. They also had a monster cupcake competition where they decorated their cupcakes with monster themes. Andy did Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. This is funny because Andy often Mike Wazowski's themselves in photos meaning covers their face accidentally. After the dessert showcase I went over to Warwick to pick up a comic book from a fellow reader of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. They had left it on their porch for me to pick up.  In addition to the comic they also gave me two stickers. I put one on each of my water bottles. I should have swapped where I put them because the one with the straw is one I take to the office an...

Photo-A-Day #02744 Allison was out tonight so Andy and I went to The Meadows for some frozen Custard and then over to Briggs for Dinner. Yes, we did dessert first. They have some excellent custard there. We got the Oreo cheesecake. We split a special pizza at Briggs and when we came home we watched Spider-Man 2 together. Andy is watching all the Spider-Man movies to prepare for seeing the new Spider-Man movie next week.

Photo-A-Day #02738 Earlier this year Andy expressed that they may not be as interested in culinary in High School as they had been in the past. Andy has expressed that maybe carpentry might be of interest. Luckily Andy will be going through a multi week trial of all of the CTE programs at the school and will find their fit.  Today Andy and their cousin Dylan helped Grandfather build the frame for a new screen door for the sunporch. They measured the door to the back patio first and then Grandfather taught them how to use the miter saw. That is after teaching them how quickly one can lose a finger. Andy took to using the saw really quickly and was happy to cut all sorts of things. They even cut a few pieces to use to carve up when they get home. Andy is planning on making some horseshoe crabs from those pieces. I really liked seeing Dad and Andy working together and Dad giving Andy instructions. With Andy having some interest in these sorts of things it is good to learn from someone...

Photo-A-Day #02731 This is Eva's new camera. Eva is a teaching assistant for the film photography class at CSS. Tara got Eva the new camera and an additional lens. I look forward to seeing the photos that they take this Summer. Today was the art fair on main street in Falmouth. Allison, Eva and I went before Eva's classes. We found some neat things. I got some spicy mustard and a dip that sounded like it would go well on pretzels. Of course I have to wait another week before I have any more. The street fair was nice. We did that, ran the kids back and forth to their classes and had steak tips for dinner. 

Photo-A-Day #02730 I went upstairs to read and promptly fell asleep in the afternoon after brining the kids back and forth to Science School. When I woke up we were having pizza on the sunporch with everyone. After dinner Allison gave Kylie French Braids. She had been wanting them for a while.

Photo-A-Day #02727 My back was okay enough for me to drive to the Cape this morning. It wasn't good enough to really do much of anything other than sit and use the muscle stimulator. We had my cousin Bill and his family over for dinner before the fireworks tonight. I opted to stay on the porch to watch them and did take this one obligatory fireworks photo. Not my best. Allison went to the beach and she was able to get some great shots of Bill's kids by the water as the fireworks went off. I also didn't make it to the parade in Woods Hole to see Eva walk with CSS. Allison did capture a photo of Eva though.

Photo-A-Day #02718 Andy is moving up to the High School next year (pictured in the background) and today was a ceremony at middle school to mark that. Eva is on the Cape so it was Allison and I attending along with Mem. Mem came down from the Cape last night to stay over so that she could come with us this morning to the ceremony. It was a good ceremony. the school has done an excellent job with their students and Brennan was great for Andy. Andy received some special recognition for Social Studies and is also in the National Junior Honor Society. That was nice to see in the program. Andy also received some certificates. Andy with Mem Andy with Allison and Drew After the ceremony Mem went to visit with my cousin and we took Andy out for lunch at K. C.'s Burger Bar before I had to go to work. Andy also had a special dance to attend tonight. I ha to work so I did not see Andy all dressed up prior to the event but I was there to pick them up at the end.