BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02812 This afternoon Allison and I went to the Attleboro Community Theater to see the season opener, Wonder of the World. It was a fun play and a few of my friend from the theater were in it. They did a great job.

Photo-A-Day #02805 Today was the last day of the convention. Eva went as Pony Boy from The Outsiders. They even made the shirt that Ponyboy wears in the movie. I was again Bobby Singer from Supernatural. I got a new verst and flannel for this year. Was as recognized as I was in past years but that is okay. I had kept my glasses on. We started our morning by going to The Bookery for breakfast. They have a small cafe inside. In the alley before the bookstore there is a bunch of cat themed murals. This is the cat alley. We could have gone over here yesterday and gotten hot dogs from a small place in this alley. Our first stop was the convention center. There are always a few vendors there and I was hoping at an author that I had met last year would be there again this year but they were not. I did get to play the new Transformers pin ball machine. That is a really nice machine. When we were done in the arena we went back to the hotel and went to the main vendor floor. There I saw a person...

Photo-A-Day #02804 Today was the first day for us to experience the Granite State Comicon 2026. This is an event that Eva and I do every year and it has become our tradition. This year was extra special because it was the first time I had been able to see Eva since they headed to college. We started our morning 0out be going to Mokapot for some breakfast sandwiches and beverages. When we got back to the hotel it was time to get into our costumes. I was a character from the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, Big Tina. Big Tina is a t-rex that wants to put on a recital because Big Tina is actually a bear cub child that was turned into a dinosaur. I put my costume together from a mishmash of stuff from Amazon. Eva sewed the tiara on for me. This year Eva has been excited about The Lost Boys (both movie and musical). Eva's character is Star from the Lost boys movie. That is the version that Eva based the costume on. Star is also in the musical and maybe Eva will do that character int he futur...

Photo-A-Day #02803 Today after work I took a big bag of mini pretzels (minis) with me to pick up Eva from school. I drove into Boston found a parking spot and walked to the Treehouse. Eva came down and I gave them the pretzels to bring up to their roommates. Then we got on the road to New Hampshire. On the way up we stopped at The Common Man in Windham, NH. It was a very nice meal. Eva and I got to talk all about the first couple of weeks that they have been in school. School is going great for Eva. They like their roommates, are making friends and classes are going great. We continued on to the hotel where we would be staying for the weekend. We got up just a bit too late to get our badges. We did run into a couple of my friends who organize the convention and got a good night's sleep.

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 #02778 Today we took a trip around Rhode Island to see the Trolls that were created by artist Thomas Dambo. There are 5 of them in Rhode Island and we've seen 2 of them before on a previous adventure, but today we decided that as one of the last big family adventures before College and High School we'd take this trip. You can get to each of the trolls pretty easily and see them all in one day. There are 4 stops because two trolls are at one of the stops.  We decided to drive out to the Troll that was furthest from us. That would be Young Boulder. The map we had said to put the actual GPS coordinates into your map program and that saved us from a very long walk to find this guy.  Andy decided that they would be getting as close as possible to each troll for a photo. Not climbing on it or anything, very respectful, just getting close to each one. At each stop Eva took out their sketchbook and did a quick sketch of each troll. Then took a reference photo to finish the...

Photo-A-Day #02775 Tonight Allison and I went to Foxwoods to attend the GenX Takeover Comedy Tour. Allison got me the tickets for Christmas. This was a fun comedy show of 4 Tik Tok creators who make GenX related content and then started a stand up comedy career. The whole tour was sponsored by AARP, too. Had I known that I would have worn my AARP Fight Club shirt. The four people did a really good job at this. I was skeptical on how their Tik Tok presence would translate to live stand up. They did a good job. We had a fun night.

Photo-A-Day #02770 Tonight we went over to Capron Park for another food truck night. Tonight Allison and I opted for some cheesesteaks. She got the Angry one with lots of heat to it. I got a blue cheese and bacon one. Both were really good. We also got some Cajun fries with crabmeat on top. that was also really good but everything was super filling and I could not finish the cheesesteak or the fries. No dessert for us either. Andy and Eva both opted for Friskie's Fries and the General Taos version. I was surprised that Andy did not go for something more exotic today. Usually they get a big mishmash of things to make their own meal.

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 #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.