What a great week for the Arc of Abilities! We celebrated 8 years of this wonderful program! It was a full week, with visits to the Torggler Fine Arts Center at Christopher Newport University, Mike at the Watermen's Museum, and our friends at Rock Steady Boxing! We also had a productive morning when we volunteered in the JRES Library, at Grove Christian Outreach, and stuffing Easter eggs for Sam's neighborhood egg hunt. We squeezed in a little anniversary party on Friday and marked St. Patrick's Day, too. We are ready to bring on year #9!
Tuesday, March 12
We visited the Torggler Fine Arts Center at CNU today. It's not as big as The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, but it fits a lot of very interesting art in its smaller space. We thought the glass domes at the entrance were pretty cool, for starters!
Once inside, we met Barbara Stephenson, the Education Manager. She was our guide for the tour, and her explanations were interesting and easy to understand! Right away we were transfixed by this display that comes down from the top of the domes. It's called Shylight and was created by Dutch artists. As it descends, the flowers open, only to close as they go back up. It starts out slowly, but builds up to a crescendo!
Except for Shylight, all of the exhibits we saw today will be changed out around March 24. We will make plans to visit this center again later in the summer, as the exhibits we saw today captured our attention, and we would like to see what might come next! Here, Barbara was explaining about these "Torah pointers." The next picture explains them! We were fascinted by the different materials some of them were made from.
There is an exhibit by an artist named Nakeya Brown. She photographed African-American women's beauty products in a way that "captures the spaces, textures, emotions, and memories of these products and the women that used them, offereing insights into African American histories and enduring questions of beauty, memory, and self-definition."
We were intrigued by the way Nakeya Brown photographed these everyday items. Beka is looking at a series of pictures that honor Brown's late grandmother and thinking how each one tells a story.
The next exhibit was about an artist who grew up in Richmond named Benjamin Wigfall. He is recognized for bringing attention to printmaking as a form of art. He was also a lifelong community activist who worked to provide access and opportunity to all.
This is one of Benjamin Wigfall's early works, called Crucifixion, but it's open to a lot of interpretations, and Barbara enjoyed hearing our takes on it before telling us what it was called.
Perhaps our favorite exhibit was all of the art created by area high school students that is on display for a few more weeks. We learned that Xavier's stepdad, and our art friend, Steve Prince, was the judge for this exhibit!
There are a lot of fantastic works from high school kids in this exhibit. We have some amazing talent in our schools! Patrick enjoyed finding the pieces that were submitted by students from his alma mater, Jamestown High School!
We learned that Barbara used to work for WJCC Schools, as an art teacher at both Jamestown and Warhill. She even recognized Tessa from Warhill! Barbara, we can't thank you enough for introducing us to the Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center! It is so much better when we have a guide, and you are a great one. We look forward to visiting with you again later in the summer!
It was a very nice day so after visiting the Torggler, we visited a new park for us: Deer Park in Newport News. We enjoyed lunch together and taking a walk, too.
Azaleas are beginning to bloom!
Emma found a camelia!
We returned to the center with enough time to celebrate National Girl Scout Day! Lisa's great-niece, Haley is almost 6 years old. She is a Daisy in Girl Scouts, and she was our guest speaker. She told us about her experience being in Girl Scouts, what all of the badges on her vest represented, and how much she has enjoyed selling Girl Scout cookies! She did a fantastic job!
Haley's sister Jordan, who is 3 1/2, came too, and they brought additional cookies to add to the ones that their friends, Sean and Amy, had already donated to us! Their great-grandmother, Nan, was happy to accept their donations!
We had a very nice selection of cookies to sample. Most of them were a donation from Haley, Jordan, Alexis, Nan, and Lisa's family friends, Sean and Amy. Most of us have never met Sean and Amy, but we appeciated their generosity in making a gift of Girl Scout cookies to our program! Thanks so much, Sean and Amy. We enjoyed the cookies very much, and your little friend Haley did a great job telling us about being a Girl Scout! The cookies were quite delicious, with Thin Mints and Adventurefuls being our favorites!
Haley gave us a description of each cookie!
Then the fun began!
Last, but certainly not least, we want to thank Annmarie and her family for sending extra Thin Mints! Her dad said that we have a big group now, so they thought we could use some extras. 💖 We sure could, Andy! They were our favorites, and thanks to your donation, we have some extras in the freezer...😋
Wednesday, March 13
Some call Wednesday "Hump Day," but for us, it was Service Day! It began when Emma, Alexis, Laura, and Liz volunteered at the JRES Library first thing this morning. They were tickled to run into our favorite assistant principal, Ms. Vallone!
We also volunteered at Grove today. There was plenty of food to pack into distribution bags with our the help of our favorite co-volunteers Joel, Peggy, Tom, and Ursula.
Thought we would throw in our colorful bulb pot we planted with the master gardeners last fall. Hyacinths, lillies, and daffodils have bloomed already!
Back to our service work - we finished stuffing the 1,018 eggs for the Powhatan Secondary Egg Hunt that is later this month. Sam's mom, Coach Teri, recommended us for this job, which we have done for 3 years in a row Technically, it wasn't a service project...we earned some pizza money by doing it! Thanks again, Coach Teri, for hooking us up for this fun job!
We enjoyed a nice walk after our busy morning. We could get used to this mild weather!
Thursday, March 14
So, today was Pi Day and we jumped on the bandwagon to celebrate with pie! Yesterday we baked pies for ourselves, and an extra one for Mike at the Watermen's...because we thought since someone treated us to Girl Scout cookies, we would treat someone to pie! Pay it forward, right?! Here's Mike's razzleberry pie (that's his favorite)!
Mike was pleased with his pie, and Alexis did a great job reading our note to him!
We looked great in our many shades of green clothing today (with a splash of Irish orange), and part of our lesson with Mike found us taking a walk to look for as many shades of green as we could find in nature. He told us about how green Ireland is, and also told us that it has a fairly mild climate, due to the influence of the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream. That surprised some of us!
We brought those samples of green from nature inside, where we helped Mike decorate a table!
While we wrote wishes on shamrocks (so we could make a banner), Mike told us about limericks, and we came up with some interesting ones on the spot...at least they fit the rhyming pattern!
Emma was inspired to write her own limerick, and we loved it!
Of course, there was singing!
And more singing! Liz found a song called "I'm A Little Leprechaun" and Devin was happy to sing it for us!
Mike wants us to invite everyone to an event he is coordinating that will benefit Relay for Life. It's called "Tartans and Tie Dyes" and it's on April 20th from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. at Billsburg Brewery. It's a family-friendly event, too! Mike's folk band, Shanty Grass, will be performing. 👏
We always have an engaging and joyful time with you, Mike! Thank you for the time you spend with us, and for all the fun. We found a perfect spot for our Shamrock Wishes banner, and even found a couple of lucky charms right in the middle of the patch!
Happy Pi Day! (Or is it Pie Day?!)
Friday, March 15
Celebrate good times, and that's what we did today! March 16 marks the Arc of Abilities' 8th anniversary, so we partied this morning. We even gave St. Patrick's Day a nod! After lunch, we visited our friends Kelly, Scott, Bret, and volunteer Renee (Scott's sweet mom!) at the Rock Steady Boxing gym at APEX PT and Movement Center. They gave us a workout that put the "MOVE" in Movement Center! We had a blast, and it was a great way to kick off our 9th year!
Dancing to "We're All In This Together" from our anniversary playlist.
Erik, Patrick, and Sam cooked our Sloppy Joes filling!
Mallory was here today! She, Alexis, and Liz mixed up the Blarney Stone cookie dough.
We baked the cookies in our throwback "oven" which is also known as a Pizzazz Plus. It was donated to us by Drew's family when we started the program in April, 2016. They thought we would like to bake pizzas on it, which we did a few times, before we got the convection oven we use now, The Nina. The second day of our program was St. Patrick's Day, and we really wanted to bake some cookies. We gave the Pizzazz a try with Blarney Stone cookie dough, and it worked! We've been baking Blarney Stone cookies on the Pizzazz every St. Patrick's Day since because we like traditions! Thanks for our first cooking appliance, and the memories it has given us, Dayton Family!
Kate and Bryan enjoying a game of Bingo.
Reminiscing by looking at pictures from the early days! Abraham didn't know we used to go swimming!
Here are our official 8th Anniversary Group photos! We should have gotten one of Lisa, Carol, and Nan. We'll try to remember that next week.
Tessa, Bryan, Patrick, Alexis, Beka
Erik, Xavier, Devin, Emma, Annmarie
Laura, Kate, Michelle, Drew
Liz, Kevin, Sam, Abraham - Kevin was under the weather this week, but here in spirit!
Lisa, Carol, and Nan...still looking the same after 8 years! :-)
Warming up under Scott's guidance.
Scott specializes in neurological rehab therapy, and he treats many patients who are living with the challenges of Parkinson's Disease. Rock Steady Boxing (RSB) is a health and wellness program designed to empower patients to "fight back" against Parkinson's. Scott was the first to bring the RSB program to the Virginia Peninsula, and both he and Kelly are certified trainers. For more information on how the RSB program works, click here.
Kelly was impressed with Devin, Lexi, and Drew's moves at the speed bags! This was at least the 6th time we've visited the RSB gym and we enjoy it more every time we go!
Sam, Emma (middle), and Tessa took on the heavy bags.
We brought "Kevin" with us and Liz boxed with him!
Although RSB is a non-contact, boxing-based curriculum, it also incorporates other gross and fine motor activities. We had fun as we rotated to six different stations.
Balance and gait are worked on at this station.
Kate was going after one heavy bag while Scott challenged Beka on another. In the background, RSB volunteer, and Scott's mom, Renee, encouraged Abraham and Bryan to step on the "Blaze Pods" each time they lit up at random intervals.
As Laura, Annmarie, Patrick, and Mallory demonstrate, we're pretty good at balloon bopping!
Hand and eye coordination and fine motor skills are developed through coloring, and Kate, Beka, and Michelle also appreciated the short break from the movement activities.
Tracy joined us this afternoon and Xavier and Tessa agreed that she had as much fun as we did!
Devin's Uncle Bret is another physical therapist at APEX. He was seeing patients on the clinic side, but stopped by to say "hi" to us and cheer us on during our workout!
Thank you, Scott and Kelly, for welcoming the Arc of Abilities to APEX and treating us all like family! You pack a lot of high-energy engagement into a session and we loved every second of it. Thanks for your enduring support of The Arc, too. Keep up the great work you do for Parkinson's patients, and all of your other patients! We know they are in very good hands! 💖👏💖👏
We had a remarkable week! From our start in 2016 with 11 members and a 3 day a week program, to all of the wonderful experiences we enjoy now, the Arc of Abilties has grown in the most wonderful way. We got where we are thanks to the support of many, including our staff and board of directors at The Arc of Greater Williamsburg, our dedicated families, and many, many friends and community partners. We say to all of them: Thank you very much!
We'll take the weekend off, and be back at it next week! Here are our plans:
Tuesday: Spring begins today so we'll have a Mystery Science lesson about spring critters. We'll also make thank you cards for our Rock Steady Boxing friends, and cheer cards for Krafty Karen's 94 year old mom, who broke her hip in a fall. After lunch, we'll head to The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg for a visit with Christina! Wear Arc shirts. Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available for Tacos, Taco Salad, or Pizza.
Wednesday: Our therapy dog friends visit today! We will read with them and play games to challenge our memories since tomorrow is National Memory Day. We'll also make some Easter decorations for our room and play our first game of Spring Corn Hole! Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available for Cheesy Pasta Supreme or Sub of the Day.
Thursday: We're celebrating Goof Off Day (a day early) with a Movie Morning! We'll also celebrate Ravioli Day (a day late) with ravioli and side salads for lunch. We'll continue goofing off after lunch with fun and games!
Friday: No goofing off today as we head to Eaton for a work day. We'll return to the center for yoga with Jaime after working, so dress to stretch and wear your Eaton shirts, too. Bring a bagged lunch.
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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