BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02780 I was at McDonald's before work and I had parked my car and when I came back out there was a white care parked right next to mine and it had a Decepticon sticker on the front and one on the window. I had to laugh because of my Autobot stickers and other items. I sat in the car reading my comics and waited for the driver of the Decepticon car to come back. When he did he looked about my age, wearing a Top Gun t-shirt and I shouted over, "I had to wait to see the Decepticon driver." He looked over and then realized that I had Autobot stickers on my car and laughed. Today at work we got a new kid that comes in twice a week. My boss and his wife signed up for a program where a local high school student who has special needs comes and works in the store to get some experience while they are evaluated to see if they are able to handle working in a real world scenario. Our last kid had zero personality and needed guidance for everything they did. Nice enough k...

Photo-A-Day #02779 As Eva prepares to leave for college on Saturday we are still picking up a few things here and there that they may need for the coming years. I was looking for some chopsticks that I could keep in my work bag and while the ones above were not the ones I found they were the ones that Allison and Eva found. I cancelled my order and got these instead. They have a fork, knife and spoon plus chopsticks. And they were less than my sets of chopsticks alone. I did pick up a cute set of 5 chopsticks that have cat shaped holders to give to Eva to bring to college. that way Eva and their roommates can each have a set to enjoy. I'm also going to give her $100 to specifically get sushi for the suite so they can break in the chopsticks.

Photo-A-Day #02778 Today we took a trip around Rhode Island to see the Trolls that were created by artist Thomas Dambo. There are 5 of them in Rhode Island and we've seen 2 of them before on a previous adventure, but today we decided that as one of the last big family adventures before College and High School we'd take this trip. You can get to each of the trolls pretty easily and see them all in one day. There are 4 stops because two trolls are at one of the stops.  We decided to drive out to the Troll that was furthest from us. That would be Young Boulder. The map we had said to put the actual GPS coordinates into your map program and that saved us from a very long walk to find this guy.  Andy decided that they would be getting as close as possible to each troll for a photo. Not climbing on it or anything, very respectful, just getting close to each one. At each stop Eva took out their sketchbook and did a quick sketch of each troll. Then took a reference photo to finish the...

Photo-A-Day #02777 Eva loves the book, the Outsiders and as such they have gone out of their way to collect various versions of the book and other S.E. Hinton works. Recently Eva found this 40th anniversary edition and it is in really good shape. We were discussing the things that Eva would take with them to college, I'm thinking that this may be one of the books that makes the cut.

Photo-A-Day #02776 Today I went over to Seekonk to Master's Homemade Donuts to pick up a 2 Good 2 Go package bursting with dozens of donuts. I was trying to get over to Triple S BBQ because that is in Seekonk as well but they were so packed I just decided to go to Newport Creamery for lunch before getting the donuts. There I got a BLT and a Cookie Monstah Awful Awful. It was so good. I think I have milkshakes on my mind since that is my bosses latest obsession. I'll probably be making them next week at work. But the trip to Seekonk was for the donuts. There was a kid who came to The Pretzel Factory and he was starting a small Tik Tok channel to review 2 Good 2 Go locations. So, I learned about Masters Homemade Donuts from him. I couldn't find it on the app for a while but finally did. And then I couldn't snag the bag until yesterday. It worked out well since I had last night off from work so I could go get the donuts in the afternoon and then I took them to work. I did ...

Photo-A-Day #02775 Tonight Allison and I went to Foxwoods to attend the GenX Takeover Comedy Tour. Allison got me the tickets for Christmas. This was a fun comedy show of 4 Tik Tok creators who make GenX related content and then started a stand up comedy career. The whole tour was sponsored by AARP, too. Had I known that I would have worn my AARP Fight Club shirt. The four people did a really good job at this. I was skeptical on how their Tik Tok presence would translate to live stand up. They did a good job. We had a fun night.

Photo-A-Day #02774 We're trying to do some things before Eva heads to college including going to our favorite Chinese food place. House of Fortune has been our celebration place for the kids' entire lives. Back before House of Fortune existed there was Fortune House and it was the first restaurant we ever took Eva to. Ever since then we've done all of the big things there, birthdays and graduations. So, we were trying to find a time that would work with my work schedule and Allison's upcoming work schedule. We had time today so we went over and met the new owner who had a menu item special called the rainbow mountain. It was essentially the spicy seafood roll but with crabmeat and roe of various colors on top. It was excellent. Everything still had that great quality that we've enjoyed for 18 years.