This is our retake for Lexi's birthday since the photo we took on her actual birthday was lost when our photo card became corrupted. We're missing Kevin, Patrick, and Abraham in this one.
Yes, it was another birthday week at the Arc of Abilities (and we have another one next week) as the fall birthday season continued! We celebrated Alexis on Tuesday, and no, we're not tiring of celebrating our fall birthday friends!! There were other fun activities this week, too, including our final session of the year with the master gardeners, our Wednesday service projects and a helpful visit from Kasey, a joyful time with Marisol and the corgis, and of course, our Halloween party!
Before we get into our regular week...check out this shoutout to our very own Devin! This is from an online review posted by a Pet Supplies Plus satisfied neighbor (customer) last Friday after an encounter with some of our workers! The worker who carried the 34 lb bag of dog food was Devin!
Take a bow, and thanks, Devin, for representing yourself, your family, and the Arc so well! We're proud of you!
Tuesday
What we didn't know all day as we welcomed the master gardeners for their final session of the season, and then celebrated Lexi's birthday, was that the memory card in our camera was becoming corrupted! Once Lisa got home and began working on this post, she realized ALL of the photos from today and the past several months were lost. 😢😢😢
Fortunately, our beloved MG friends Karen and Joanne also took pics today. They graciously shared them with us so we could document the wonderful time we had with them wrapping up another awesome season of learning, planting, harvesting, and eating! (MG Carolyn, who usually takes photos, was not able to be with us today.) Thank you soooo much, Karen and Joanne!
Our MG friends came to us again today, due to the rainy weather. We were happy to host them, but missed being able to check our fall planting at the garden. We will stop by on Tuesday before bowling, and see if there is anything to harvest!
The first thing we did with the MGs was take our grow bag outside (in the sprinkling rain). We had been growing sweet potatoes in the bag since the spring, and it was time to harvest. Barb and Karen braved the sprinkles, along with Lisa, who was snapping away on our (not known to us) corrupted camera card!
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The rest of us watched with anticipation from under the awning at the front of the building!
Barb dumped the contents of the grow bag into the mulch. (No mess in the classroom!) Much to our surprise, and disappointment, we only got 1 large and a few very, very small sweet potatoes out of this harvest. We're not sure why, but as the MGs told us, sometimes what we plant doesn't work out. They also reminded us that we had an excellent harvest of regular potatoes, grown at the garden, earlier in the summer!
Thanks, Barb and Karen, for getting wet for us...
Back inside, Karen set up for us to plant our "lasagna" pot with a variety of bulbs that will bloom in the spring. Just like with lasagna, we layered the ingredients...or in this case, bulbs!
We had lots of volunteers to help layer the bulbs in the pot. Larger ones went deeper, and all of them went in "pointy" side up!
Barb helped us plant pansies for the very top layer. As we know, pansies are hardy in cold weather and will provide color in the pot all winter long. We set the pot outside our green door and didn't need to water it, thanks to Mother Nature!
Liz and Kevin showed pictures of the flowers that will grow in our bulb pot: daffodils, tulips, and two kinds of hyacinths! It's going to be beautiful and colorful in spring of 2026!
Before enjoying a snack of Karen's delicious zucchini bread, we presented the MGs with a thank you card and a donation to help cover the costs for the many projects they work on with us. Devin, Kate, and Liz gave heartfelt speeches that thanked the MGs for all they do with us! Thank you, master gardeners, for another fabulous year of therapeutic gardening. We are so grateful for our partnership with you, and can't thank you enough for your enduring dedication to working with us. We love our friendships with you!
Even though she wasn't with us, MG Carolyn still produced a lovely journal page to summarize today's visit. The photos are some of the same ones we used in this post, since the only pictures to survive the day were from Karen and Joanne, who shared them with both Carolyn and us. But we wouldn't dream of not including Carolyn's journal page! It just means we have double the pleasure of remembering the memories made today!
Alexis, the Birthday Girl, was honored with a lovely bouquet from Karen's yard!
Speaking of the Birthday Girl, we had a wonderful lunch and party for her after our session with the master gardeners. We're sad that our photo card decided to go bad on her special day, but we have lots of memories! For starters, Lisa made a big pot of chili for our lunch, and we enjoyed that with a side of cornbread. We also had brownies topped with ice cream for dessert, and Lexi blew out a candle and made a wish! 🎂🥳🎉
Here is a recreated version of us singing to Lexi that we made on Wednesday. We couldn't imagine not including this tradition. All the love our friends have for each other is still here...it's just missing the brownie and candle! Lexi, we hope all your wishes come true!
Lexi was quite surprised when her favorite cousins, Haley and Jordan, showed up for the festivities! They joined us for brownies and a lively game of pool noodle volleyball, as well as a fun game of Disney trivia. They are very up on their Disney knowledge! Thanks to Lexi's Aunt Mary for this sweet photo.
Many thanks to MG Joanne for this photo of Lexi with her mom and grandma. 😍
Wednesday
It was another rainy morning but it didn't stop us from having a great day. Allison is coming on Friday this week, so we welcomed Kasey from the Arc's office to work with us, and we kept her busy working with flower and poster making teams! We also worked at the JRES Library, and sent a group to volunteer at GCOC.
We were happy that Trader Joe's was able to donate a few more flowers than last week. We didn't have to be too "skimpy" in making the arrangements. Erik set them out for us.
Kate, Bryan, and Gail showed Kasey how we set up our flower arranging assembly line.
The jars were full and very pretty this week!
Our group that worked on flowers also worked on coloring celebratory pictures for a few posters we were commissioned to make for Pam and the Arc. We really can't say too much about them because it's a surprise for the recipient, but someone very important to the Arc is going to be recognized at an upcoming sporting event, and our posters will be flashed from the stands when that person is honored!
Meanwhile, the USDA food delivery to Grove was right on time as we arrived, so we helped unload and then pack 144 bags. There were 9 items in each bag today, which was a little more than we've been packing recently. That's a good thing!
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When the GCOC group returned to the center, it was almost 11:00 and Marisol and the corgis had already arrived! Marisol, Tucker, Nellie, and Louie had planned some Halloween-themed fun for us today, and we loved it! First, Marisol read us a Halloween story that featured corgis who faced their fears at a spooky haunted house, that turned out to not be so spooky after all!
Tucker, Nellie, and Louie were chilling as Marisol read, but when she made a spooky sound effect, they, and a few of us, jumped!
Marisol and the corgis brought us a treat today! It was homemade (by Tucker, Nellie, and Louie, according to Marisol) sugar cookies in the shape of corgis! You know we we enjoyed them!
The fun continued with a rousing game of Halloween Bingo! Thanks, Marisol, and pups, for another joyful visit. We enjoyed the tasty cookies very much, and will play the Halloween Bingo game again soon! It's nice to have a new version!! Happy Halloween, Marisol, Tucker, Nellie, and Louie!
After lunch we finished our read-aloud, The Wild Robot Protects, and spent the rest of the afternoon in awe of Kasey, who carved our jack-o-lantern out of the pumpkin we grew with the master gardeners!
Before...
After...
With lots of help in between!
🎃🎃🎃 Shoutout to our friends Scott and Kelly at APEX-PT and Movement Center for lending us their ultimate carving kit for today's job!! WOW...it really made the job easy and quick...and Kasey isn't missing any fingers!! Thanks so much, Scott and Kelly! 🎃🎃🎃
Thursday
Today was spent on celebrating Candy Corn Day and Wicked Day, while doing more preparations for tomorrow's party.
We learned from our video that candy corn has been around since the 1880s and was originally called "Chicken Feed!" Apparently, folks either love it or hate it, but most must love it. We couldn't believe how many candy factories across America make candy corn!
We tried a new recipe today for Candy Corn Popcorn! It was very simple to melt candy corn and a little bit of white chocolate and pour it over popped popcorn. We tasted a small amount...it was yummy...and we saved the rest for the party!
We had a blast giving our corn hole boards a Halloween makeover!
Gail and Thomas worked on making one corn hole board look like a ghost.
Michelle, Laura, Drew, Devin, Xavier, and Nan prepared some colorful bubble letters.
Erik, Liz, Bryan, Kate, and Alexis painted the other corn hole board to look like a spider web.
Michelle and Kate brought a book and magazine for our lesson on National Wicked Day, and Kate wore her shirt, too. They posed beside our finished corn hole boards!
Later today, we made this collaborative mural to use for tomorrow's decorations! We are excited to have our room really decked out for Halloween!
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We got another wonderful update on Tessa today! She continues to enjoy weekend outings and had a fun time meeting an alpaca! Mom Michelle reports she's venturing some shorter distances without her walker! She's still a little unstable, so the walker is helpful on longer walks, but we are happy for her ongoing progress. Keep working it, Tessa! We're pulling for you and looking forward to your return to the day program!
Friday
Today we ended our week just the way we started it...with a party! It was Halloween all day! Enjoy our joy!
We began the morning with our dance warm up, and after that Laura's parents, Tom and Lisa P., stopped by to drop off cupcakes and help us with a spider craft! Thanks, Lisa P. for sharing the materials for the craft and the tasty cupcakes with us!!
The spiders were so cute! We lined them up along our table for decorations. We forgot to get a close up, but Liz sent us one later from home. Thanks, Liz!
After we finished crafting spiders, we headed to Bicentennial Park for a pre-lunch Halloween Hike. It was a little chilly, but the sun was shining and we were happy to get out and stretch out legs for the first time all week!
Lisa was disappointed that no other hikers were on the path today so they could see her walking with such a cool squad!
Back at the center we kept the movement going with a Halloween version of musical chairs.
By our rules, no one is ever eliminated and if your chair number comes up on the spinner, you get a treat!
Next up, lunch! Our room looked great, and so did our spread!! Many thanks to Carol and Nan for making the lunch magic happen while Lisa and Allison took us for the Halloween Hike!
(Not sure what's going on with this next photo. We are using a new photo card so maybe it's the blog program?! or the computer?! Someone who works on this blog is very frustrated!)
Our spooky spread consisted of vampire veggies, haunted chips, frightening fruit, candy corn popcorn, and the ghoulish goodies shown below: mummy dogs, witch fingers, ghosts, bloody punch, and celebratory cupcakes! Thanks to Allison for the witch fingers and ghosts and to Lisa P. for the cupcakes! We enjoyed all of them very much!
We ended the party, and our week, with a competitive and good sportsmanship version of Halloween corn hole. Our ace players were not at all distracted by the decorated boards we created yesterday! Which team would prevail?!
The ghosts?
It seemed like the Spiders were going to win by a landslide, but the Ghosts fought back to close the gap. After the final toss, the Spiders were still on top, 25-20!
It was a great game...we played 4 quarters so we could have a half time show! Check out "Shake It Off" led by Taylor Swift and Shakin' Cowboy Jack, along with a few of their BFFs!
Tuesday: We're looking forward to beautiful weather as we head out for our monthly bowling activity! We'll pick up pizza for lunch and enjoy it at Freedom Park so we can finally do a garden check. There may be some veggies to harvest!
Wednesday: Today we'll do our service projects of library work, flower arranging, and food bag packing. Please wear Arc shirts. Other activities today will include updating our calendar for November and preparing for tomorrow's birthday party! Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is serving Spaghetti with Meat Sauce or Philly Cheese Steak.
Thursday: Today we will celebrate Thomas's birthday! He was born on National Nacho Day, so we'll have nachos, beans and rice, and cake for lunch! Thomas loves games so we'll play card games and corn hole for his special day.
Friday: We're off to Eaton for a work day so please wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch. We'll take advantage of the forecasted nice weather with lunch and a walk at the park to end our week.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!
The Arc of Abilities and The Arc of Greater Williamsburg will be collecting nonperishable food donations in support of The United Way of Virginia Peninsula's response to a surge in needs for assistance in our area. Please join us during the month of November as we collect donations for this important food drive. Thank you in advance!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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