BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02539 Our last day on the Cape. We hung out till around noon and then headed home. Lexie has been huirting a bit, she need surgery on her knee and is having a tough time getting up onto the couch, but she has been managing.  We drove home and got settled back in at home. Caught one more mouse and had a couple of traps tripped. Still hearing a bit of scrabbling in the ceiling and walls so I hope those ones make their way down to the basement and are taken care of soon. The gifts that I had ordered for Erik and Tim arrived. While they were actual products and not a total scam I do feel a bit cheated on them. They were supposed to be in nice boxes and they were supposed to be the charred version of these bourbon drinking cups. They came together in just a single bag. Very disappointing. Eva got a call from Mimi, she's taking Eva and Allison to London over February break. Now we have to scramble to get Eva a passport.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02538 Today we went on our annual family bowling trip to Mashpee Commons. We started doing this last year as an activity rather than sitting around the house all day. I did not take the photo so the photo from the even cannot be today's daily photo. But here is the group photo. Who knows, this may be next year's Christmas card photo but we may get a better one this Summer on the beach or something like that. Bowling was a good time. The kids all bowled together. Tara, Erik, Shelby and Tim had their own lane and Allison, Me, Grandfather and Mem also had our own lane. It was a nice time. Always fun family activity. We were treated to another beautiful sunset tonight. I like this photo of all of us the best but Moms eyes are shut. the think I like is that you can actually see Andy, not just their eyes. But as far as eyes, Kylie has a killer Side-eye going on here.

  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.