BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01028 Allison made this Home sign for us. She has been making some great crafted items lately. It seems like the whole family has one project or another happening around the house. Eva is constantly creating something new. Andy always wants to cook or bake something and Allison has many crafting projects in the works and has even more projects that she is learning. I’m not sure if this will be the final location for the sign but I sort of like it there.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01027 Allison took the kids to Trunk or Treat tonight for the school. Eva has been working really hard on her costume. she is Nico di Angelo from the Percy Jackson series. She is also “in character” and is rather excited to wear this costume. Her character is broody. Her costume also includes a sword that she has been working on. Today she took the Dremel to it. she spent much of the time teaching herself how to use the Dremel but that was time well spent. She’ll have the sword completed by next weekend but the experience and knowledge of using the tool will stay with her for a long time. Allison made Andy’s costume. He is an axolotl. He loves the creatures and was so excited to have this costume. The gills are on the top of his head and he got these giant googly eyes for the costume, too. We had to special order the pink sweat suit. It looks great but it definitely makes me think of Ralphie from “A Christmas Story”. The kids and Allison just got home and they had a gr...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01026 Tonight was Parent’s Night Out at America’s Best Defense. We try and get Andy to these as often as they come up. Tonight’s theme was a zombie one and when I came to pick up Andy he was playing Red Light – Green Light to the tune of “Thriller” and all the kids were moving as if they were zombies. While Andy was at Parent’s Night Out I was at my first Boot Camp for Black Belt Testing. This will go on for the next couple of months. I was quite anxious to attend because I did not know what to expect. The first session was good. Unfortunately the guy that I had partnered with last week at the assessment ended up no longer part of the program. When I came in he was retesting his physical requirements and when all the other people who retested came back, he did not. He’s a good partner. I occasionally work with him on Saturday morning classes. So, I got a different partner. She is really working hard and helping me out. Boot Camp was tough. We worked so many of the defe...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01025 I discovered the show Letterkenny on Hulu a few months ago and went through the whole of the available episodes. There are additional seasons that are coming. When I watched the show for the first time I immediately liked it because of the strange cadence of the characters and how they spoke, teased each other and heavily used puns. This was definitely a show I could get behind. Here is my unboxing of the figures.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01024 We were given several new Cubles DIY Papercrafting toys for free to play with and review. Opinions are my own. I keep looking for new and exciting ways to interact with Andy outside of a video, tv show or game. I know that he has a creative mind and when I saw that Cubles had Andy’s favorite character from books that he reads I asked that we review this project/toy. Andy loves Dog Man books and Cubles has a Dog Man figure plus Max Meow, a book series that Andy is now interested in reading. Cubles are boxy characters that you assemble by folding paper and then connecting the pieces sort of like a puzzle. I helped Andy through a few steps of the first figure but he was ready to go immediately after the second piece. He assembled Max Meow and Dog Man in the time it took me to build the Dragon Cubles figure. Here is a full description of Cubles and what they are. Cubles are a unique mashup between origami, puzzle, toy, and craft, that promotes STEM principles. So kid...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01023 With Halloween coming I put out some of my Playmobil toys for decoration. Specifically Scooby Doo and Ghostbusters. I love how Playmobil has added the Mystery Machine and the Mystery Mansion to their lineup. Really excellent products. I am thankful to Playmobil for providing them to me.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01022 Eva is putting together a costume/cosplay for Halloween. She is going as a character named Nico di Angelo, a character from the Percy Jackson series of books. He’s soon have a one shot story with his boyfriend Will Solace. Eva has gotten a bomber jacket and more to add to her cosplay. The last thing she needs to complete the costume is a sword. So, she is crafting one for the first time. We picked up all the materials for the sword and Eva helped me cut the foam. I cemented it together with Contact Cement and picked her up a Dremel so that she could sand it down and create anything extra that she wanted for the sword. The next steps are hers to complete.