We had our first week without a birthday celebration in a while. Instead, we got to be princes and princesses (or kings and queens depending on who you asked) on Tuesday! It was National Princess Day, but for us it was also National Prince Day. We celebrated by channeling the prince or princess in all of us and spent the day being kind, helpful, and productive! This week also found us visiting Christina at The Art Museums of CW, hanging out with our therapy dog friends, cooking and being absurd on the same day, and working at Eaton. AND, we did it all without Carol. She was visiting with family in Utah for her brother's wedding!
Tuesday
Carol was absent this week so we had some help from The Arc's Kasey. She joined us today, but we didn't get a picture with her! So sorry, Kasey! You were a great substitute for Carol today. 👏👏 We will see you again on Friday, and we promise to get a photo then! 👍
The first thing we worked on this morning was a follow up lesson to our food drive shopping trip from last Friday. We learned that we did very well staying within our budget, only going over by 37 cents! Some group members mentioned that they were happy to find items on sale, while others were proud to have gotten more for their money by shopping store brands. One group mentioned reading labels to see how nutritious some of their items were! Great job to our guys and once again, many thanks to one of Laura's neighbors for the cash donation that we used to make the purchases!
As mentioned previously, today was National Princess Day, but we included our guys, too. Before decorating our crowns, Alexis and Kate shared the princess dolls they have. Alexis also wore a shirt that features the horses of Disney princesses and Kate wore her Elsa shirt. 👸👸
We had fun decorating our crowns with bling, and using letter stickers to put our names on them! There's a prince or princess inside us all. 💗 We're good looking as royalty, so here's another look at our group photo!
Next, we put our royal good natures to work making cards for Christina and our therapy dog friends so we could express our thankfulness for them. After that, we took a walk around the garden and then had an early lunch. Soon it was time to load up for a visit with Christina at The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg!
Christina picked up on our Prince and Princess Day theme by taking us on a search for museum objects that reminded us of royalty. We found prints and paintings of kings and queens, a mirror that was gilded in gold, silver from the time of King George III (before the colonies revolted against him), a lovely painting that included a castle on a cliff, and a handkerchief that featured pictures of a royal family. What a fun scavenger hunt it was!
In the education studio, we created our own royal shields that depicted some of our favorite things.
Thanks for making us feel like royalty today, Christina! It was fun learning about things that princes and princesses (and kings and queens) would have used and how those things set them apart from "ordinary" folks. We enjoyed making our shields, too!
Wednesday
It was all about Thanksgiving when our therapy dog friends visited today. We needed books for our reading rotations, so Alexis and Liz went to the JRES Library and checked out these great selections for us!
We had 5 handlers and 6 dogs today, including a couple of new ones. Here, we have "old" friends Carol and Darby, who were reading with Kevin and Devin; and Kent, Leo, and Tavish, who were reading with Liz and Bryan. In the bottom photo is Vicky with her younger pup, Lucy! Vicky usually brings Aubree, but now that Lucy is certified, she can bring either of them...or both! Welcome, Lucy!
We are also very thankful for our dedicated volunteer, Allison! She missed all the dog fun today so she could put together the arrangements for Commonwealth Senior Living. We could have squeezed it in after lunch, but Allison was so gracious in offering to do it so we could do other things later. The flowers from Trader Joe's were particularly pretty this week, and Allison made lovely jars. She also brought us a treat of peanut butter oatmeal cookie bars! Allison, we love having you as a volunteer! You are an important part of our team!! Thank you for the cookie bars...they were YUMMY!
Thursday
On Carol's third day away this week, we held down the fort with a day at the center...no travel. It was National Peanut Butter Fudge Day and we had been curious about trying a 2 ingredient recipe for it. Devin, Gail, and Patrick helped mix up a jar of creamy peanut butter with a container of vanilla cake frosting. Next, we heated it in the microwave for about 1 minute to get it kind of gooey.
After pouring it into a pan lined with parchment paper (thanks, Nan), Abraham smoothed it out and we put it in the fridge for a couple of hours so it could set. Hmmm...easy peasy...but would it taste like peanut butter fudge? We would find out later!
As if on cue, Liz mentioned that the smell of the peanut butter fudge was making her stomach growl, and our next activity happened to be a Mystery Science lesson about why our stomachs growl!! We learned that muscles in our digestive tract help to squeeze food along from the time we swallow until the food reaches our intestines. When there isn't as much food to move along, such as when it's getting close to time for our next meal, it's easier to hear the sounds those squeezing muscles make...which sound like growling!
After learning about digestion, we got into groups to discuss some of our favorite (supposedly) healthy foods. We searched for pictures online that we could print, cut out, and use to complete pennants which we made into a banner. This was a good activity for our more seasoned computer geeks to get a chance to teach others some copy and paste skills.
While working on our healthy food banner, some of us paused to help with lunch preparation.
Erik, Devin, and Bryan needed to add more water to the pot of green beans. They were checking how much was in the measuring pitcher so they would know how much more seasoning to add.
Alexis, Thomas, Laura, and Abraham put together the macaroni and cheese. We used a combination of cheese packets and shredded cheese. Note: That large pan (a 2 lb. box of elbows) was waaaay too much for us and we didn't eat it all!
Our chicken grilling team of Michelle, Liz, and Gail got lots of credit for filling the room with a great aroma! Made our stomachs start growling again!
Meanwhile, Patrick, Alexis, and Kate redistributed food drive donations so we could easily carry each bag. We'll drop them off at GCOC tomorrow. We're proud of how successful our food drive has been!
Lunch was delicious!
We finished the afternoon by being silly since it was also National Absurdity Day. We tried a game where we had to say "Zip" or "Zap" and change direction each time the word changed. We almost caught on near the end, but we were so seriously concentrating that it didn't seem all that silly!
During a game of Pie Face Showdown we let loose a little more! 😜
We also want to note that we've been working on Eaton tasks this week. Erik, Alexis, and Liz have applied gaskets while Michelle packed and Bryan (not shown) cut the gaskets into individual pieces from the long rolls. Thanks for getting this done, friends!
Friday
There was plenty of work to do at Eaton this visit. We had a smaller than usual crew, with just 12, but unpacking, consolidating, and assembling PowerSlide Doors happened!
Thanks to Kasey for filling in for Carol today! She learned many skills including how to tighten screws and apply labels to PowerSlide Doors!
Erik taught Kasey the ins and outs of tightening screws. Thomas, Kevin, and Xavier inserted hundreds of screws this morning, putting 4 sets on each door. Nan, Alexis, and Liz taught Kasey how to apply labels, and Kate inserted amber lenses to begin the assembly process.
Gail and Bryan had a huge stack of yellow frames to transfer to bins and they also had to fold the paper surrounding them so it could be boxed for recycling. Laura and Patrick consolidated parts by packing them more neatly, freeing up extra bins for Gail and Bryan. Our man Devin set the pace for the PowerSlide Door assembly by making sure new boxes were opened and finished boxes were moved to the storage pallet.
We were proud of our team's work this morning, especially being a smaller crew and missing Carol! When our work was done, we decided it was overcast and a bit chilly outside, so we returned to AFCC for lunch instead of going to the park. We'll get our Turkey Trot in on Monday!
Our Fall Food Drive will come to an end next week, so please keep the donations coming. After lunch today we delivered another 220 pounds of non-perishable food to GCOC! That makes our total 465 pounds donated since the drive began. Thank you, Arc of Abilities families!
Our last activity of the day was a relaxing segment of yoga with Jaime. She has a new episode about Thanksgiving, which is cool since Jaime is British!
Arc of Abilities will be in session on MONDAY and TUESDAY, November 24-25 to provide a two-day week. We will be closed Wednesday-Friday for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Here's what we have planned for the shortened week:
Monday: We're going to be outside today as we move around ahead of Thursday's Thanksgiving meal! We'll take a "Turkey Trot" (walk) around the campus of William and Mary and then head to Freedom Park to check on the garden and have a picnic. The weather forecast calls for sunny skies and 58 degrees. Let's hope it sticks! Please bring a bagged lunch.
Tuesday: We'll have some Thanksgiving activities and also remove our fall decorations so we can update our calendar to prepare for December. We will cook spaghetti squash with pesto sauce (that we made/froze with basil we harvested from the garden) for lunch. We'll also draw our Secret Santa selections so please make sure you returned your Secret Santa Helper Form by today!
Have a wonderful weekend, and we'll see everyone on MONDAY!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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