BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02537 We're down the Cape for a few days to enjoy time with family and celebrate Christmas. Today my sister Shelby and her family came down. All the kids are getting so big. The boys are now taller than Grandfather and the girls are taller than Mem. The boys are so close in height that they are pretty much equal in that respect. Eva still has an inch or so on Kylie. We enjoyed the day,m exchanged gifts and had a nice time together. Andy and Grandfather finished the puzzle first thing in the morning. We took many photos in front of the tree at the end of the day.  The Cousins Shelby's Family with Mem and Grandfather Shelby's Family Mem, Grandfather, Drew, Tara and Shelby Our Family The kids with Auntie Tara and Uncle Erik Tara and Kylie Tara and Erik Me and Allison I was very excited to give my sister and my dad these dog poop bags. I saw them online and knew I had to get them. They are hilarious. I am also so glad I was not scammed. It was a very nice day...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02536 This morning we woke up and had our family Christmas with cinnamon rolls, presents and opening of stockings. We hung around the house enjoying each other's company and exchanging gifts for a while. The big family gift was to go see Weird Al Yankovic in July. Allison got me tickets to the GenX takeover tour and tickets for she and Eva to see Wicked. It was a nice morning.  I'm sort of in charge of the stockings and I picked up a ton of stuff for everyone else at Aldi this year. Lots of interesting sweets. For myself I found some World's Smallest Transformers, G.I.Joe and He-Man figures. They were cool because they each came with a super tiny version of the original comic books from 1984. I ended up with Issues 2 and 3 of Transformers and Issue #1 of G.I. JOE. I am tempted to see if the Target had any more so I could get issue #1. Today is when Allison and the kids actually saw with the house now looks like after the yard was cleared of a couple of tree...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02535 Today is Christmas Eve. We are all off of school and finishing up last minute things for the holiday. Allison made her chicken soup for dinner and we went to 4pm Mass for the holiday. We got the yearly photo of the kids in front of the nativity scene. After Mass we drove home quickly to get bundled up for a walk around La Salette to see the lights. It was frigid cold out and we had to basically speed walk around the place. No stopping at the Nativity Scene Museum today, Allison had gone earlier in the week with her friend Jenn.  We made one lap and headed home for some hot chicken stew. The big pile of tree trunks from our trees were picked up this morning. A guy came with a truck with a giant grabber arm and he vey efficiently picked through the logs and put them onto his truck. He must have an amazing sense of space because they fit on that truck very well. We all watched. After dinner we watched a movie. We watched many Christmas movies this year. I'm not ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02534 No, ot Christmas trees. We had two of our trees in our yard taken down today. We went with the company, Out On a Limb and they were excellent. It took a while for them to actually come but when they did they got everything done in the day. I no longer have to worry that someone is going to get crushed by our giant dying tree in the side yard. That sucker is gone and it was so dead inside. I think that this tree needed to come down when we moved in and that was 14 years ago. It took me that long to bite the bullet, get the cash and get it done. We were all watching from the windows as the guys took these trees down and ground most of them up. The pile above will be picked up tomorrow.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02533 I went out shopping today for some Christmas gifts. Some of the ones that I had ordered are not going to make it for Christmas if they even make it to me at all. I am starting to think I got scammed on this purchase. And that sucks because the thing I ordered would be perfect. So instead I was off at the liquor stores for gifts. I came across an interesting beer called Dragon's Milk. So I bought a few. I don't drink often. I drink from time to time.It was pretty good. 

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02532 One of Eva's friends wanted to print out a file on our 3D printer and I hadn't had it up and running for the better part of a year. I had a cover for it that my cousin Shaun printed for me. However, it broke and so I ordered a new one because I finally found an official one from Creality. I also got a few upgrades for the 3D printer that I will install at a later time. I only needed the cover to get started. I'm still kicking myself for not clearly labelling ever screw after I took this thing apart the first time.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02531 There is a Tik Tok creator that I have been following for a while and I am a fan of their work. She cosplays characters from Star Trek and this past couple years I have been enjoying the heck out of the Star Trek franchise on Paramount +. Seraphima cosplays Lt. Ortega the ship's pilot. She also has a service dog named Riker after Commander Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation. This year at Megacon Jonathan Frakes, the actor that portrays Commander Riker, will be at the event. Seraphima wants to get a photo of her service dog, Riker with Riker. So she has attempted to raise money by selling photos of Riker that were signed by her dog. I bought one and it arrived today. She also included a Christmas card and some Star Trek stickers.