Photo-A-Day | BenSpark Family Adventures

This is Jake. Jake is Elise and Charles’ dog. He is such a cutie. Jake is so full of energy and fun. Elise and Jake play with bubbles (animal friendly ones) Jake has a great time catching them in the air or stomping them out on the rug. I got a bunch of photos while he played.

Get it Jakey!

Take the Picture Quick, this is the most still I’ve been all day.

So Many Bubbles. What to Do? What to Do?

More Please!

You Looking at Me!

Jake loves them bubbles.

So today Allison and I drove to PA. The Pike to 84 to 81 and here we are. We made a couple of stops but we made it by 3:00pm. We listed to three CD’s from Eragon and it was good to go back and re-listen to the start of this series. Some things I picked up on more the second time around. We played, stop after every chapter to sort out the myriad of details. We played this game less and less as the day went on as Allison was picking up the story very quickly.

We had lunch at Marvelous Mugs and the meal was a very good one. Now we are at Elise and Charles’ house and are getting ready for dinner. Tomorrow we get up early for a trip to York to go to the Harley Davidson Factory for a tour. No camera’s are allowed inside so I’ll only get to take pictures in the tour center, bummer.

If you do not want to read about a terrible story of animal cruelty and my thoughts on it, stop reading now.

If you are an animal lover and live in Massachusetts you may have seen the very disturbing story that aired this morning on the news. I heard it this morning as we said goodbye to my parents. It was a story about a small dog that was viciously murdered by some sick individual who impaled the dog on an iron fence. I felt sick and the feeling stuck with me most of the ride to PA. (I guess that is why I wanted Jake to be today’s Photo-A-Day, he’s such a loving pet and so full of life.) How could anyone do that to a dog? Apparently the dog was taken on April 17th from the backyard of the owner and this past Tuesday some sick bastard picked up the 13lb miniature Pinscher above their head and slammed it down on the spikes of a wrought iron fence in Roxbury. How can someone do this sort of thing? I understand that people do much worse things to other people and that in perspective that this was a dog. I’m not going to argue the importance or value of one over the other, although some pets I like way more than some people. This sort of story will haunt me for a long time.

It is like the story where in a fit of ‘Road Rage’ some bastard got out of his car after a fender bender with a woman, reached into her car and pulled out her Bichon Frise and hurled it into oncoming traffic, got in his car and drove away. That story still sticks with me as an horrific, sick and evil act. I did a search on the story about the Bichon Frise – Leo. The guy who killed Leo got the maximum sentence for his crime, Three Years! Not near long enough in my opinion. That was in 2001, he’s out now.

Massachusetts is a state where animal cruelty can get you a five year jail sentence. I certainly hope that they capture the scumbag in Roxbury who killed the miniature Pinscher and toss his craven ass in jail. There’s more I want to say about what I want to happen to this loser this but it is not fit to print.

Sick, depraved, weak and despicable, there are no words evil enough to describe these actions. To take an innocent, helpless, dependent life and snuff it out without so much as a thought is detestable.

Today Allison and I went to visit my Grandparents in Harwich. We got there early enough to catch one of Grandpaâ€™s softball games. He plays with the Cape Cod Senior League. Also called the Old Timerâ€™s League or maybe it was once called that. Either way heâ€™s been on a team playing so well for many years. He can hit, he can run and he can field. He also did many years of pitching. Heâ€™s also been known to take care of some grand slams at some games. This picture is of him coming in to score the first run of the game for his team. We thought we were going to be run out of the place because the team was losing and they have been undefeated so far this year. But not to worry the team came back in the end to win it.

After the game we stopped over to Grandma and Grandpaâ€™s house so Grandpa could get changed so we could go to lunch. We went to lunch at Oceanâ€™s Edge resort in Brewster. My Aunt Cindy works as the concierge there. She showed us around the place and introduced us to the staff. They took good care of us. We went to the pub and Allison and I split a turkey club and each got a cup of chowder. We copied Grandma and Grandpaâ€™s lunch choice. After lunch we saw more of the resort. Aunt Cindy showed us some of the cool places there.

On our way home we saw another one of the whales from the Whale Trail of Cape Cod. It is called Blue Hydrangea, which is in front of the Brewster Bookstore. I caught a shot of it as we passed by. We went back to Grandmaâ€™s and Grandpaâ€™s house so that Grandpa could catch the game and Allison and Grandma could read and take naps in the sun room. I worked on fixing the things that had become buggy around Grandmaâ€™s computer. It is all back to working order now. The computer took a while and Allison found out where I get my trait of wanted to be somewhere on time. Yeah it is genetic.

We went over to my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Wayneâ€™s house for a cook-out. Mom and Dad and Tara came up too and they brought a crock-pot of pulled pork. I had gotten hat started that morning. This time I used a fresh Boston Butt instead of a smoked Picnic cut. This was so much better even Jeff said so. This time I used a shot of Captain Morganâ€™s Rum in the mixture. I wasnâ€™t able to use the Tabasco ketchup because I forgot it at home (even though I had a list).

The Cookout was a good time. Uncle Wayne got a Tractor Trailer tire rim from a junkyard to use as a fire pit, that worked out great. My cousins roasted their own hot dogs and we made tons of S’mores and got to use the toasted coconut marshmallows. They were very tasty. When my cousin asked what the difference between the junkyard and the dump was I explained that the junkyard is like the dump but it has a gift shop. When we hike some of the campsites have a fire pit and most of the time they use a tire rim, and the fire pit of course is the best part of hiking. That is where the group gets warm and shares stories and has a good time. Allison and I had such a good time that we stayed until the fire burned down to embers. We hung out talking with Cindy, Wayne, Erin, Corrine, and Jeff. Such a great time was had that we didnâ€™t get home till close to 1:00am. What a nice day. I took many many pictures.