BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02831 We've been working on Halloween themed stuff at The Pretzel Factory. We have pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns and now these Spiders that are on display. These aren't for sale but more for decoration. We also have pumpkin dip and special versions of our brownie batter and buttercream. Essentially they have Halloween colored sprinkles added to the top of the dips. Festive.

Photo-A-Day #02830 This Halloween Andy and their girlfriend, Jazzy are going as Jack Skellington and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. The other day I went to Spirit Halloween and picked up some face paint for Andy. Andy then asked if I would pick up blue face paint for Jazzy. I went back and I ended up finding a whole set specifically for the character of Sally. Andy was very happy about this.

Photo-A-Day #02829 I had the day off at The Pretzel Factory today in order to bring Andy to a dentist appointment to have their wisdom teeth extracted. That is not going to happen until January but Andy is also getting Invisalign and when they had their root canal last week the doctor said that the teeth should be extracted before Andy starts Invisalign. All in all to get Andy's teeth done completely we're looking at about $10K in expenses. It could be less from insurance but not too likely much less. Pushing the procedure to January does allow us to use the full extent of the dental insurance with the Wisdom Teeth extraction. Invisalign only knocks $2000 off with insurance and that works out to be close to $6K.  We were told that the teeth should be extracted before Invisalign but I called the Invisalign place to reschedule Andy's appointment and they said that the covers would not touch the wisdom teeth so that we can still go ahead with that before the other procedure. T...

Photo-A-Day #02828 I've been re-listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and found an artist online who has some great items. I got a sticker for my water bottle (not pictured but looks like the gauntlet pin), a sticker for my car and also two pins. Re-listening to the book has been a lot of fun. I'm picking up on so many things that I missed the first time around. This is the sort of series that a repeated re-read/re-listen is very helpful in understanding the whole crazy set of events. I may even meet some crawlers in the wild because of my bumper sticker.

Photo-A-Day #02827 Allison bought a set of paint by number paintings for us to do together for our living room. Unfortunately the whole thing was about the size of an 8X10 image. These were very very small and difficult to paint. But the kids and Allison gave it a try. I pretty much said no thanks and painted it the way I wanted to because there was no way I could paint something that small accurately. It was a nice activity. We did this and then went to Bliss for lunch before Allison and I dropped Eva off at the train station so they could head back to school.

Photo-A-Day #02826 Eva came home from college on Friday night for the holiday weekend. It also happened to be Eva's birthday weekend. I was at the office that night and also at the office on Saturday night. So, I was not able to spend that much time with Eva. However, I did take Eva for breakfast on Saturday morning to continue our yearly tradition of a birthday breakfast together.  Tonight we had a meal of Eva's choosing to celebrate their birthday. Eva chose steak and roasted potatoes for dinner and wanted whoopie pies instead of a cake. Andy and Allison made the whoopie pies and Andy added the birthday candles to the pile. I grilled the steak that we all enjoyed. It has been really nice having Eva back home for the first time. Allison was able to spend some extra time with Eva and when Andy came home from the football game on Friday they also got to spend time with Eva. It was a nice time for everyone.