BenSpark Family Adventures

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 #02769 Another weekend, another realization that things are not at all better with time. For my companies' 57th year in business they gave employees an ice cream social. They did not forget about the night folks. There was ice cream for everyone ... last weekend. So this weekend when I came in I found a half gallon of rubbery, frost burned ice cream. Gross. And in my Facebook memories there was a photo of the very last company picnic from four years ago.

Photo-A-Day #02768 Finally Wheeljack is getting his own story. They've got Wheeljack by himself rebuilding what will ultimately be Autobot City in Chicago in the current storyline. He's holed up by himself in this big location. Or is someone or other someone's there with him. He's known as the mad scientist of the Autobots and in this issue he meets a real mad scientist, Dr. Henri Arkaville, a future villain who has it out for the Transformers. Wheeljack is called in to help save the life of new Autobot, Shredhead in this issue as well. A lot of story was in this issue.

Photo-A-Day #02767 This morning we took the kids to First Watch for breakfast. They were not impressed. The place was really loud, they didn't quite enjoy their meals and that made for a rather poor experience. While we were there though we talked about the things that we'd like to watch together (movies) before Eva goes off to college. We settled on watching Stand By Me as the first of a series of movies we'll watch over the next few weeks.  I worked at The Pretzel factory today until closing. Then I ran a bunch of pretzels over to America's Best Defense. I had put out a call earlier in the week for people who might want a delivery of pretzels. Sensei Howard replied and I got him on the list for tonight. Last night I went to the North Attleboro Fire Station and they practically tackled me for them. Both nights someone did not pick up their 2 Good 2 Go order so I had multiple bags of pretzels to share.  When I got home we watched Stand By Me. I think both kids really en...

Photo-A-Day #02766 I was on Tik Tok the other day and saw an ad for the Pizza Pack. this is a way to store multiple slices of pizza for easy reheating and the storage container won't take up a ton of room like a regular pizza box. I got one for us and one for Eva to take to college. Hope it works well.

Photo-A-Day #02765 I've been thinking of a book to get Eva to send with them to college. There is this guy on Tik Tok and I really enjoy listening to his stories. He wrote a book called Empty your backpack and so I ordered it for Eva. I plan to read through it before giving it to them with a little note from me. I hope that Eva enjoys reading Sam's stories and is able to take a little wisdom from them.

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 #02762 I saw this pin online that says "Not The Worst Employee". I thought it was really funny so I picked it up and pt it on my pretzel factory hat to see how long it would take for my boss to notice. He noticed towards the end of the shift and started laughing. I explained that I had put it there just to see when he'd notice and that it was really for my other job. I love working at the Pretzel Factory and am not as in love with my full time job. But, I'm not the worst employee there.

Photo-A-Day #02761 Today I took Andy and their girlfriend Jazzy to see Spider-Ma: Brand New Day. It was a fantastic movie. So much fun to watch. Andy did their research, too. Andy watched all of the original Spider-Man movies with Tobey Maguire, the two reboots with Andrew Garfield and the 3 with Tom Holland before seeing the 4th movie starring Tom Holland. So many great cameos, movie tie-ins and iconic comic moments. After the movie we went to get Ramen for dinner. The bowls were HUGE! It was a great meal and it was a lot of fun to spend time with Andy and Jazzy. They are very cute together.

Photo-A-Day #02760 In the Dungeon Crawler Carl series there is a character called Big Tina. She was a little ursine (bear-like) kid who was turned into a T-Rex. I was looking for a cosplay for the book series and since everyone does Carl I figured I'd do something very silly. Big Tina has a frilly pink tutu, feather boa, magic wand and tiara. So I found a T-Rex PJ onesie and a few other things to make this a really fun cosplay.

Photo-A-Day #02759 Tonight I closed the Pretzel Factory with one of the teens. My boss had a makeup softball game to go to and since I know how to close and also have my own key it was up to me and Malia. Malia is a high school sophomore who is one of the best workers. She is super thorough in the cleaning and was really helpful talking care of the customers while I baked. The one thing I cannot do is open the safe so we keep the cash register open so that if the place gets broken in to then  they will see that there is no cash. So, I had to get creative and sneaky to hide the money.

Photo-A-Day #02758 Today is national chocolate chip cookie day and I got an idea to add chocolate chips to the pretzel dough and then cover it in butter and cinnamon sugar then bake it to make some pretzel cookies. I was going to try and roll everything and make the cookies look more like the cinnamon buns that my boss makes. Either way this came out really well.

Photo-A-Day #02757 Back int he early Spring Allison and I went to Briggs Nursery and used a bunch of her gift cards to get things for the garden. Her students and parents had given her a bunch of them. One thing we picked up was 3 different lettuce plants and we put them into a planter. One of the varieties of lettuce was Romaine. It never grew to be the Romaine that we know and enjoy. Instead it grew all crazy and then flowered. We'll have to research how to properly raise it for next time.

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 #02755 Today I wore my Transformers shirt from Battlesea that Allison and Eva got me when they went to London. Yesterday, it was announced that a figure for Battleplex was going to be made. Battleplex is the character that is the actual Battlesea Station Transformer that was created as the mascot for the Transformers store at Battlesea Station. Anyway I was in Stop & Shop and the cashier was a young girl and she complimented the shirt. Then proceeded to tell me about all the G1 figures she got from her dad. She was so excited about them. It was very cute to hear about her collection and love for Transformers. Then I walked to my car and a woman saw me and came over to my car to look at the Transformers that I have in the rear window. She asked if I had painted the figures because her boyfriend paints figures. Both interactions were within minutes of each other. Strange night.

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 #02753 I now have a key to The Pretzel Factory. My boss was telling me that tomorrow he has to prepare for a softball tournament where he's got a high school kid selling products. So, he was talking about coming in early and I offered to come in and start the burner on the oven and get things ready so that he could bake when he arrived. I was going to get there to start at 6 but he said 7 would be okay. so later in the day he gave me a key to the building so that I could come in at 7 and take care of it. This will come in handy since I'll be closing from time to time and maybe even opening. Or both.

Photo-A-Day #02752 I didn't have to work until the afternoon today so Allison and I took Andy to camp and then on the way back we stopped for breakfast at First Watch. The place just opened so they are just getting their feet under themselves. The kitchen staff is new and so they did not want to overwhelm them and are accepting less people than they have space for until the staff can keep up. so our wait was like 30 minutes. We should have signed in to the line through the app but that is okay. Allison had a free side and so we got the Million Dollar Bacon. It was very tasty with a slight kick to it, too.  I opted for the traditional breakfast with home fries and bacon and eggs plus some multigrain toast. It came with an excellent strawberry jam. After breakfast we went shopping at Target for some things for Eva for college and also some stuff around the house. I can't believe that one month from today Eva is off to school.

Photo-A-Day #02751 I made a special dip today at work. I had gone to Michael's and picked up some Orange Extract and orange food dye. The extract was actually an emulsion and I used that with some of our buttercream to make the Orange Dream dip. I wanted to call it Orange Dreamsicle like an Orange Creamsicle. My boss didn't get it so said shorten it to dream. I do like that I ave a bit of leeway to make some other items from time to time.