BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00473 Jakks Pacific sent us a box full of the new The Last Kids on Earth toys for free for us to review. A full on review is forthcoming but I wanted to post this up today because Book 2 of the series has landed on Netflix today. It is worth a watch, plus it has some great voice actors. When I was at Toy Fair a few months ago I was able to tour the Jakks Pacific booth and saw all the great toys that were coming from the company. When I left I walked by a small display on the side of the booth that had toys for The Last Kids on Earth. This is a book series by Max Brallier. I picked it up on a whim to see if Andy wanted to read it together and he has enjoyed it. We just haven’t spent as much time as I’ve wanted to actually read through the series. Andy is not a sit and listen for a long time sort of kid nor is he a sit and read for a long time sort of kid. He enjoy audio books before bed and people reading to him. He enjoys short reading and is a good reader. We’ve got t...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00472 Been talking about my kids riding their bikes this week. A lot! Well, today Andy got back on his actual bike and Eva strode out the door when she needed a break in order to take a bike ride around the block a few times. If you are reading my daughter’s family blog posts on her Quarantine Weekly (more like daily) site you already know that she is bike riding on her own. She’s got a route to ride that she likes to do and doesn’t go venturing beyond that route at this point. Of course, no one can ride with her anymore because she has grown into being able to ride the largest bike we have. I ran an errand today to bring a special Marvel mask that Allison made to the owner of Wild Time Comics. He often plays Thor during Free Comic Book Day and when Allison made this mask it just so happened to feature Thor on it prominently. So, I brought him one and picked up my comics and checked out what he had been doing in the store. I had my Marvel mask on which features Iron Ma...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00471 Yesterday we went for a bike ride around the block twice and had disastrous results. Today we tried again but this time Andy rode on his Nerf Battle Racer go Kart that we got from Hauck. They gave it to me free for a review but are not promoting their outdoor toys right now because of the COVID pandemic. Well, we are still going to do walks but we will stay safe with the masks that Allison has made for us. These were some of her first ones. Actually, Eva made her own. This time our walk/bike ride was a lot better. Andy appears to already be outgrowing the Battle Racer, he’s all legs. Eva is getting quite confident riding her bike. I was super sore from Monday’s Krav Workout which was all legs. I was a lot more patient this time even when Andy complained about the soreness of his tush on the Battle Racer’s seat. He did fly along though and got some good exercise. When we got back to the house I told Eva that she could go up the street on her own and do around the ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00470 We had a hoppy little visitor to our house today. No, it wasn’t a late Easter Bunny. It was a gray tree frog. This little guy appeared on our back patio after last night’s wind storm. I’m pretty sure that he got blown out of the tree or was on one of the branches that fell from the tree. There were a large number of good sized branches that had come down from the tree. I picked up the largest ones early in the morning. Later on, andy wanted to play basketball so he picked up a bunch of the smaller one and when he was picking them up he accidentally picked up this frog and got a bit freaked out. I’m pretty sure the poor little guy was stunned from his falling from the tree. I nudged him over to the stone wall and then picked him up and put him in the leaves near the tree. He’d hop away on his own time. We checked on him later and he was gone. Later in the afternoon we went for a walk/bike ride. Andy had seen his younger cousin tooling around on her bike and he’s f...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00469 We had an unexpected day off today. Fr. Rodney gave the school Easter Monday off which was a total surprise to everyone this morning. So, with a day off the kids got to doing all sorts of things. Eva has been busily writing an adventure for us in Tiny Dungeon. She’s written 6 pages of a story and today we played that story. Her creativity extended into making a map for the game as well. Eva kept us entertained for a better part of a couple of hours as we created characters and played through this adventure of hers. She even created a special race of beings for Andy. They are Narwhalians. Andy made this character out of clay to represent his playable character in the game. Later in the afternoon Andy had his karate class and then I had my Krav Maga class. Two front kicks into class the heavy bag when flying off its ring and crashed onto the floor. The hook that had been holding it in place bent so bad that it could no longer hold the bag up. I guess that hook wasn...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00253 I am doing a campaign with Chips Ahoy and Gears of War 5 but I have to be quiet about it right now so I shot this image that might be used on Twitter in the future, I cannot post it here yet so I am writing this post on the day I shot the photo but not posting until I am allowed. I started playing Gears of War 5 because of this campaign and it is really good. It is not one that I could even have on if the kids were home it is too violent but it plays like a movie. A very cool movie.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00143 I made a couple of big decisions today. One was to start a journey and the other to end one. Back around the first of the year I signed up for a few weeks of Krav Maga classes. I just wanted to see how it would go and maybe learn something. I learned that I enjoyed the classes and began to feel more confident in what I could do. I’ve had dreams/nightmares where I could not do anything with the left side of my body, specifically, punch. What I learned was that not only can I punch with my left, I can do it pretty hard. The classes are very physical and challenging. No class has ever been the same as the one before it either and that is exciting. In my very first class I smashed both of my big toenails, shattered them. They were trashed. Not only did I go back to class later in the week, I learned how to point my toes so that they aren’t doing the kicking. Today I decided that I wanted to pursue a black belt. This is a multi-year commitment. It will take seve...