BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02805 Today was the last day of the convention. Eva went as Pony Boy from The Outsiders. They even made the shirt that Ponyboy wears in the movie. I was again Bobby Singer from Supernatural. I got a new verst and flannel for this year. Was as recognized as I was in past years but that is okay. I had kept my glasses on. We started our morning by going to The Bookery for breakfast. They have a small cafe inside. In the alley before the bookstore there is a bunch of cat themed murals. This is the cat alley. We could have gone over here yesterday and gotten hot dogs from a small place in this alley. Our first stop was the convention center. There are always a few vendors there and I was hoping at an author that I had met last year would be there again this year but they were not. I did get to play the new Transformers pin ball machine. That is a really nice machine. When we were done in the arena we went back to the hotel and went to the main vendor floor. There I saw a person...

Photo-A-Day #02804 Today was the first day for us to experience the Granite State Comicon 2026. This is an event that Eva and I do every year and it has become our tradition. This year was extra special because it was the first time I had been able to see Eva since they headed to college. We started our morning 0out be going to Mokapot for some breakfast sandwiches and beverages. When we got back to the hotel it was time to get into our costumes. I was a character from the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, Big Tina. Big Tina is a t-rex that wants to put on a recital because Big Tina is actually a bear cub child that was turned into a dinosaur. I put my costume together from a mishmash of stuff from Amazon. Eva sewed the tiara on for me. This year Eva has been excited about The Lost Boys (both movie and musical). Eva's character is Star from the Lost boys movie. That is the version that Eva based the costume on. Star is also in the musical and maybe Eva will do that character int he futur...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02441 The second day of the convention is the relaxed day. Eva had a very simple cosplay today as Adaine from Fantasy High. As we walked around together there were three people that recognized the character. Eva had made three special bottle cap buttons and gave them to the three people.  after our breakfast at the bookstore down the street we came back tot he convention as it began. We decided to load upt he car and then went across the street to the SNHU center for the other part of the convention. There were things like the Big Dumb Robot convention where people displayed robots that they had fabricated with 3D printers and other materials. There were some amazing ones there, too. Down on the floor of the arena were additional vendors. Eva found a tea to try and I picked up a set of books signed by the author and we even found some figures that andy likes to put together. They are called Eugy figures and they are made from cardboard or wood pieces that you glue ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02440 This morning Eva and I headed up to New Hampshire for the Granite State Comicon. This is an event that we attend together every year and each year we have more fun. This year Eva worked so hard on a cosplay costume that really spoke to her. She is cosplaying as a character from her favorite book, The spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White. Her character is that of Silas Bell. Eva spent months designing the costume from the ground up. From working on the pattern to making mock ups to embroidery to so many other details too numerous to mention. Eva did an outstanding job. This was the first time participating in the contest since 2018. This year Eva met a number of other cosplayers and made some new friends. Eva also got to catch up with several of friends that they made over the past few years. Eva's friends also participated in the contest. While none of them won any of the prizes they did have great experiences. Eva and I arrived close to 10am and too...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02083 On the second day of the Granite State Comicon we hung out at our hotel for the morning because the show did not start until 10am. Luckily we stayed at a place that included breakfast so we had some stuff to enjoy before heading to the con. Today we did a coordinated cosplay. I was Peter B. Parker and Eva was a teenage Mayday Parker. She spent hours styling her wig and Allison spent hours creating her hat. I put together a costume with sweats, a pink robe, spider man shirt and two different shoes. I sort of combined the Peter Parker outfits from the two Spiderverse movies. I did run into a few other people who were wearing the same sort of things. They recognized my costume first. I actually got a few people who recognized my costume yesterday, too. One little boy even stopped us to get our photo. The first thing we did was go to the exhibit hall and get our photos taken by Nerd Caliber again. I liked yesterday’s photos of me much better. I am not sure I liked th...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02082 today Eva and I drove up to New Hampshire for the Granite State Comicon. This has been our yearly adventure now for several years. Eva loves to do cosplay and she has a group of friends there that she catches up with each year. I am a big nerd and love pop culture and fun stuff like this so I love to go. also, the show was created by some college friends of mine and I enjoy seeing them every year. This year we were both in cosplay each day. Day one we did separate things. I was Bobby Singer from the show Supernatural and Eva was Ray from one of the SMPs that she watches. We made sure that we went to Nerd Caliber and got our photos taken there. We do this every year and they always take such great photos. This was good because I hardly took any photos this year. this was Eva getting her photo taken. Below is the photo that was taken. Photo by Nerd Caliber . I also had my photo taken. I like how this one came out. Photo by Nerd Caliber . We walked around the show f...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01355 Today I took Eva to New Hampshire for the Granite State Comicon. We headed up to New Hampshire about 8:30 and planned to get to the con for 10:00am or so. There were some panels that I wanted to see and some that Eva wanted to see. We both wanted to really see one of them because a voice actor from a show we both love was going to be there. The first panel was with Mick Foley from the WWE. I used to watch a lot of wrestling when I was a residence hall director at Saint Anselm and I saw Mick Foley wrestle live a few times. He was always entertaining. His panel was great and he was so down to earth. The second panel that we saw was with Janet Varney. She is the voice of Korra from The Legend of Korra. Eva and I both love the show and because of that we were excited to hear her speak. I also convinced Eva to go to her booth so we could talk to her and tell her about how much Korra means to us. We paid to get the selfie below and I explained to Janet how I trie...