Happy Birthday, Sam!

 

Many of us were holding the pets we adopted at Sam's party!

 Woo-hoo!  It's Spring Birthday Season around here and we are stoked to celebrate quite a few of our friends over the next several weeks!  We began our spring sessions with the master gardeners on Tuesday morning, and that was followed by a delicious hot dog lunch (with a fun surprise) to celebrate Sam's birthday.  On Wednesday, we volunteered at GCOC, began to spruce up our garden plot, and conducted soil testing experiments.  By Thursday the skies were cloudy again, and we enjoyed staying in to learn interesting facts about farm animals, and have breakfast for lunch.  Next thing we knew it was Friday and we finished our week with crafts and a celebration of Unicorn Day.  Another week with much to do, and that's just how we like it!

Tuesday, April 8

We had two exciting activities to look forward to today.  First, we kicked off the spring session with our master gardener friends at Freedom Park in the Williamsburg Botanical Garden.  Next, when we returned to AFCC, Sam's parents had set up a fabulous pet-themed birthday party that included a fun surprise!

We began our 9th year of working with the James City County Master Gardeners today!  It was a little chilly outside, but our hearts were warmed by seeing Rick, Barb, Karen, Carolyn, and Joanne.  💚

For the first part of today's session, we divided into groups to do planting.  Karen's group worked at the Fairy Garden to add beautiful succulent plants.  

After the group was finished planting, we found MG Carolyn checking out the Fairy Garden and taking a picture she will use to create the beautiful MG journal update page (which you can see below)!

Barb's group was busy planting seeds today so we can grow spinach, several varieties of lettuce, beets, radishes, and carrots!  The spinach should grow pretty quickly, and we may even be able to harvest some "small, baby leaves" in two weeks when we return to work with the MGs.  Let's hope the bunnies don't beat us to it!

Sam pulled up the red cabbage that we will use next week to make coleslaw for our bbq lunch on Thursday!

The group working with MGs Joanne and Rick planted onion bulbs (or sets) into the bed where potatoes are already growing.  Thanks, Krafty Karen, and husband Steve, for having planted the Kennebec potatoes earlier in the season!

After our planting was complete, we learned about types of soil, why soil is important for life, and how to test soil to see if it's healthy for planting what we want to grow.  The gardeners gave us small pots of soil and marigold seeds to take back and plant.  It will be fun to watch them grow. They also gave us extra test strips so we can test soil from different areas around AFCC, which we will do tomorrow, before we plant the extra onion sets Rick gave us!  Thanks, MGs, for a fantastic lesson and a great time visiting with you, too!

 

Thank you, MG Carolyn, for a beautiful journal update for this session!

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When we got back to AFCC, Sam's parents, Coach Teri and Tim, had already arrived and set up a wonderful hot dog luncheon for us so we could celebrate Sam's birthday.  Sam turned 38 yesterday, and doesn't he look fabulous?!  Lunch also included chips, lemonade, and cupcakes, and it was very good, especially since Sam's parents did all the work!  (We could get used to returning to the center and having lunch waiting for us!  LOL!)  The theme of the party...or should we say pawty, was pets!  We didn't know it, but there was a surprise to come after we ate!

Coach Teri and Tim had set up the Arc of Abilities Pet Rescue Station, and we were about to celebrate Pet Adoption Day!  They did this in the foyer, and we entered through the side door when we returned from the garden, so no one knew all these adorable pets were waiting for us to adopt and love!  (They were very quiet!)

🐕🐇🐈

What a fun party idea!  Everyone enjoyed choosing a pet, picking a colorful collar for it, and giving it a name!

Happy Birthday, Sam!  We hope all your wishes come true!  Thank you, Coach Teri and Tim, for delivering a tasty "pawty" with a fun surprise!  We enjoyed our celebration of Sam's birthday very much!

Wednesday, April 9

The sun was shining brightly today, but it was still chilly outside. The weather has been wacky recently!  This morning we sent a group to volunteer at Grove while the others worked in the garden and created thank you notes for Sam's parents.  We were busy!

It was packing nonperishable foods as usual at Grove Christian Outreach Center.  Thom and Ursula were traveling, so we just worked with Joel and Peggy today, but there were 9 of us to help, and we got the job done!  We'd like to thank Peggy for bringing us homemade Rice Krispie treats today!  She sent enough for us to share with everyone, and we enjoyed them after lunch.  Such a thoughtful...and sweet...gesture! 

Alexis and 8 of her favorite guy friends - Erik, Xavier, Kevin, Patrick, Drew, Thomas, Devin, and Abraham - helped Peggy and Joel pack over 140 bags of food!

Back at AFCC, Allison and Carol took a group to our plot in the community garden behind the school to work on tidying up the space.  They took advantage of the moist soil from the recent rain which made weed pulling easier.  The master gardeners are coming on May 13 to help us plant herbs in the raised bed.

Gail, Bryan, and Liz made quick work of pulling weeds and tidying up in the garden plot

Back inside, the rest of the gang worked with Nan on making cards for some special people in our lives.  They took their time and used colored pencils, and their work was beautifully done.

Laura, Annmarie, Sam, and Kate created thank you cards for Sam's parents, and birthday cards for our dear friend, and former volunteer, Becky.

We followed up yesterday's lesson with the MGs by becoming soil scientists today!  Using the test strips Krafty Karen gave us, we tested soil from 4 spots:  the raised bed in the garden, two different pots of soil outside our window, and the soil in the small pots the MGs gave us for planting marigold seeds.  WORD of the DAY:  pedologist - a person who studies soil 🤓

This group tested the soil in the marigold pots. The results indicated it was not as nutritious as we hoped.  The pH was on the lower, or acidic, side.

These guys tested soil from one of the pots outside our window.  It tested in the normal pH range, and we knew it would be good for planting our onion bulbs!

This group was happy to see that the soil in our raised bed tested in the normal range, too.  That means our future herbs should grow well, which means some extra goodness in our cooking this summer!

Our final group gave the thumbs up because the soil they tested, from the other pot outside our window, had a perfect pH balance!

After a discussion, we wondered if we should plant the marigold seeds in the soil that Karen had put in the little pots, since it was testing acidic.  We decided to mix the acidic soil from the little pots with the soil from one of the pots outside our window.  When we tested the mixture, it was still in the good pH range, so we filled the little pots and Destiny helped us plant our marigold seeds.  But, before we planted, we watched a short video where the gardener did an experiment to see if the position in which marigold seeds were planted made a difference in how they grew.  It turns out, it doesn't much matter if you plant the seeds "pointy side up, pointy side down, or lying flat on top of the soil."  They all grew, so we hope ours will, too!

We hope our marigold seeds will have grown like the ones shown in the video after about 2 weeks.  We will keep them in a sunny window, or maybe set them outside for even more sun.  The gardener in the video said marigolds need lots of sun, and that will help to keep the new plants from getting too "leggy" before we have a chance to transplant them!

All of our work being pedologists took longer than expected, so we postponed Unicorn Day to Friday.  Eaton doesn't need us this week, so we'll have more time to enjoy having fun learning about unicorns.  We ended the day by beginning our new read-aloud, The Wild Robot Escapes.  It is the second of three in the series about Roz, the wild robot.  We really liked the first book, and from what we heard today, we think we're going to like this one, too!

Thursday, April 10

First thing this morning we spotted a hummingbird at the feeder we just hung yesterday!  It's a ruby-throated male, and we hope to see his friends (or mate) next.  We usually have 3 hummingbirds each season.  Great job snagging the photo, Carol!

Update:  We saw a second hummingbird on Friday!

Thank you to Michelle, Kevin, Kate, and Patrick for ditching most of our old and worn out crayons and replacing them with fresh new ones!  

Today was National Farm Animals Day, and we were quite surprised at how many resources we could find (short of a trip to a farm) to help us learn fun and interesting facts about them!  Of course, we watched a video, and afterward, we reviewed what we learned.  These pictures show just a few of the cool facts that we remembered!

1) Pigs have no sweat glands so they roll in mud to cool off; 2) Abraham Lincoln was fond of goats (and all animals) and had two for pets in the White House; 3) Cows have no TOP teeth...we got our fact confused on our sign...oops!; 4) Horses have the largest eyes of any land mammal.

We always love to see our guys doing brain work.  Today's crossword was quite challenging for one group, while the other group zipped through their patterns and beginning sounds assignment!

Our lunch today was a nod to farm animals...sort of.  We had pancakes, sausage, boiled eggs, bananas, and blueberries.  A fun activity we did was try to peel the boiled eggs a few different ways.  The roll it on the table method to crack and loosen the shell worked well for most of our guys.  Liz tried a method that involved peeling the bottom part of the shell up and then sliding a spoon between the egg and shell.  She was successful at getting the shell off by pushing with the spoon, but rolling and cracking seemed a faster method.

A third method involved peeling the top and bottom part of the shell off, and then trying to blow the egg out of the rest of the shell.  That was a lot of work, too, and not successful for Devin or Kate, but we applaud them for trying!  (Lisa was able to do it but alas, no video!)

NOTE:  After one of our guys peeled an egg, they dropped it into a plastic bag with their name on it.  No one ate an egg that they didn't touch or peel!

We had time for farm fitness!  We trotted like goats and rolled in the mud like pigs.  In this photo, we were waving in the wind like a field of wheat!

Tracy stopped by near the end of the day to introduce us to JCC Parks & Rec's new Special Events Coordinator, Alexis Boyd.  She's from Danville, VA originally, but has relocated to our area because she's engaged to a local guy.  Yes, our guys got the scoop on all things Alexis today!  Here, she was showing the girls pictures of her wedding dress and of course, her husband to be!  Welcome to the team, Alexis!  We hope we get to see you from time to time!

We also got a heartwarming update from Tessa's mom today!  Tessa was finally able to get outside for some fresh air, thanks to the donation of this motorized wheelchair.  Also, with support, Tessa is now walking up and down six stairs and is able to walk to the "real" bathroom, too...those are huge steps! 

💖 Please join us in sending lots of positive energy to Tessa and her caregivers as she continues to make great progress! 💖

Friday, April 11

Eaton did not need us to work onsite today, but Carol and this crew dropped off work we had completed at the center.  Ethan gave us more parts to gasket, so we will work on those next week.

On the way back from Eaton, Carol and crew stopped at a Mexican restaurant called Los Paisanos.  It's located on Rt. 60 near the WATA transportation center.  Our crew inquired about the possibility of us celebrating Cinco de Mayo at the restaurant on Tuesday, May 6.  When the crew showed us the menu and shared that the restaurant would welcome us, we made a plan!  More details in a few weeks...

It's been a busy week and we kept putting off a craft project that involves decorating large eggs cut from cardboard.  We got around to it today, and they are shaping up to be really pretty!

Step 1 was to color the background of the egg using markers or crayons, which Alexis, Drew, and Sam were doing here.

Step 2 was to glue dried pieces of pasta in decorative designs on the eggs.  We had pasta in several shapes, and Patrick, Kate, and Abraham enjoyed creating their designs.

Abraham was concentrating so well on placing the dried pasta on the glue.  The last step is to gently paint the pasta, but we will do that on Tuesday.

Our postponed celebration of National Unicorn Day was fun!  It's on April 9 each year.  We watched a Mystery Science episode called "Were Unicorns Real?" and learned that the unicorn myth goes back even before Ancient Greece.  We played "Pin the Horn on the Unicorn" and did brain work with a unicorn theme, too.  The sweetest part was when Lisa passed out unicorn fruit snacks!!  🦄

Alexis, Liz, Kate, and Gail posed in a unicorn garden with fun hair accessories and stuffed unicorns they brought from home.  It was magical!

Spring Break means the gym is free for us to shoot hoops, throw the football, and walk...with our favorite tunes playing in the background!

Thank you Laura, Gail, and Kate for finishing the discard book job for JRES Library during Choice Time!  There were a lot of books on the cart this time.  Several of our friends selected books to take home, which is our reward for completing the job.

Ahh...the end of the day and week.  We're relaxed and ready for the weekend.  Hopefully the rain will stop soon!

Next week will be here before we know it, but we'll be ready.  Here's a look at our plans:

Tuesday:  Today we celebrate Bryan's birthday with music trivia and key lime pie for dessert!  After lunch we will visit Christina at The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. We'll be in the Hennage Auditorium for a special program called "Crack the Code."  It's about messages during the Revolutionary War.  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is available for Beef Soft Taco, Taco Salad, or Pizza.

Wednesday:  Our therapy dog friends visit today for reading and fun!  Yesterday was Titanic Remembrance Day, so we're going to have a lesson about that fateful event.  We'll also do a cute bunny craft to complement the big eggs we already created.  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is serving Popcorn Chicken Bowl or Yogurt Combo.

Thursday:  This morning we will stay at the center to celebrate National High Five Day and bake bunny shaped cakes for tomorrow's lunch.  Then, we'll head to Newport News Park for lunch, walking, and games.  Please bring a bagged lunch.

Friday:  Today is a Pet Supplies Plus work day, so please wear PSP shirts.  The crew that remains at AFCC will clean tables and yoga mats and prepare a lunch of pork bbq sandwiches, coleslaw made with the cabbage we harvested at the garden last week, and mac and cheese.  We'll spend the afternoon playing Easter egg themed games.

We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang

Here Comes April!

As we often wonder, where does the time go?  We couldn't believe this week was April already!  There was a lot going on with us, as usual.  Carol picked a nice week for a vacation in the mountains, and we welcomed Allison to fill in for her.  On Tuesday we had a blast bowling and being pranked at lunch by Lisa for April Fool's Day!  Wednesday found us volunteering at Grove and finishing the egg stuffing job for Powhatan Secondary.  By Thursday we were ready for a movie day and enjoyed comparing the film version of The Wild Robot to the book we recently read.  Our week wrapped up on Friday with a PSP work day and a celebration of Burrito Day for lunch!  We did much more, too...read on to see the rest of the story!

Tuesday, April 1

One of our favorite days each month is the first Tuesday when we go bowling, and then have pizza for lunch.  We were happy to welcome Gail as our newest member to the Arc of Abilities today, and we found out that she loves bowling...and pizza!  

Kate, Gail, Emma, Abraham

Cameron joined us for a couple of days this week.  He bowled on Lane 1 with Laura, Liz, and Xavier.

Devin, Bryan, Sam, Erik

                                                        Drew, Annmarie, Alexis, Patrick

Carol told everyone to bowl spares and strikes while she was gone.  She would be proud of us!  We had 16 bowlers today and they combined for 17 strikes and 28 spares!

Allison gives Laura high fives for her strike; Xavier was thumbs up for a spare; Michelle noticed some new stuffies in the arcade!

Due to the chances of pollen covering tables at the park, we took our pizza back to the center for lunch.  We are super grateful to Kate's mom, Elizabeth, for sponsoring lunch today...what a treat that she included enough for us to add Sprite and Pepsi, too!  Thank you very much, Elizabeth.  You know how to put smiles on our faces!                 🍕😋🍕😋🍕😋

After lunch, Lisa said she had made brownies for us.  We rushed up to get one from the box, only to be pranked for April Fool's Day...there we brown E's in the box, made from paper!  We laughed and were good sports about it, but we were very happy to find out that Lisa had another box to share and inside of it were chocolate brownies!  (She also pranked us at lunch by swapping out Cheetos for carrots!) Happy April Fool's Day!

Later, we watched a video about the history of April Fool's Day and did some coloring and brain work.  It was a fun afternoon!

We also received our copy of MG Carolyn's Journal Page highlighting last week's luncheon!  What a great time we had, and Carolyn captured it so beautifully!

Wednesday, April 2

This morning began with some of our hardworking library leaders taking care of business in the JRES Library.  Carol is away, but her workers don't play!

Alexis, Bryan, Emma, and Laura showed Allison, who is filling in for Carol, how they shelve books in the JRES Library each week.  Allison said they did a great job!  👏👏

After our dance warm up, Lisa took a group to volunteer at GCOC while Allison and Nan stayed at AFCC with the others to finish the egg stuffing job. 

We were happy to see Peggy, Joel, and Tom back at GCOC this week, along with Thom, who was there last week.   But we missed Ursula, who had to leave before we arrived.

Ursula left a tasty treat of chocolate dipped strawberries, which Peggy served us!  They were soooo delicious, and perfect for toasting Joel, who had a birthday last Friday.  We sang to him!  Thank you very much for the strawberries, Ursula.  They were kind of fancy, and made us feel very special!

Meanwhile, at the center...

Bryan cut hundreds of stickers apart while Gail, Erik, Liz, Laura, Kate, Devin, and volunteer Destiny stuffed hundreds of eggs with candy.

Nan, Emma, and Michelle stuffed stickers and tattoos into the hundreds of eggs the others had stuffed with candy.  Later, Allison, Emma, Alexis, and Bryan took inventory so we would know how many small eggs we stuffed.  Altogether, we stuffed a little over 700 large eggs and about 400 small ones!  It's going to be a nice egg hunt for the kids at Powhatan Secondary!  Thanks again, Coach Teri, for hooking us up for this job each year!

After lunch we finished our read-aloud, The Wild Robot.  Tomorrow we are going to watch the movie, and then compare the two.

Our last activity of the day was a lesson about ferrets because....believe it or not...it's National Ferret Day!  We learned that black-footed ferrets are the only species native to North America, and they are endangered with less than 500 left in the wild.  This surprised us because when we work at Pet Supplies Plus, we sometimes see ferrets for sale, and we don't think of them as a wild animal.  After our video, we completed brain work.

The scientific name for ferrets is mustela putorius furo, and our video said it can be interpreted as "mouse-killing stinky thief!"

Emma found ferrets to be an interesting animal, and also a very "cute" one.  She took extra notes, writing all over her brain work page!  

Thursday, April 3

We had a great day!  First thing this morning, a few of our early bird arrivals took it upon themselves to do some Eaton work!  Liz, Alexis, and Emma got started with applying gaskets.  Soon, they had Bryan cutting more gaskets off the big roll, and Drew and Kevin sorting parts!  Carol was not here to ask them to do this extra work during what is usually free time while we wait for everyone to arrive, but she would be so proud of them!  👏👏

Once everyone had arrived, we had an active dance warm up, and then it was time for The Wild Robot movie.  Destiny and Liz handed out popcorn, which Allison had popped and bagged for us.  We all got comfy and settled in for the film.  We were looking for differences between the book and the movie, and there were quite a few, but the essence of the book came through, and everyone agreed it was a very good movie.  That made us happy, because the book was very good, too, and we had high expectations!

After the movie we went outside to celebrate National Walking Day, which was yesterday, but it didn't matter to us.  We usually get in at least a short walk each day, so we know we're doing well at keeping ourselves moving.  Today, we did several laps around the garden, and then headed toward the camera for this official "Walking Day" photo!

Another celebration today was for Find a Rainbow Day.  Emma, aka, Lady Rainbow, read about it from the National Day Calendar website, and then we watched a video where we learned how rainbows form when white light is separated into colors through refraction.  We spent some time on what that meant, and then learned some fun facts: there are 9 different types of rainbows; a rainbow at night is rare, but it's called a moonbow; and rainbows are actually circular, and the only way to see one in its entirety is from the air.  Emma saw a full rainbow when she was flying last year.  Check it out!

We couldn't find our prisms, so we didn't go outside to try and "find" a rainbow, but we did do a fun demonstration in which the colors of Skittles candies dispersed in water and made what looked like a rainbow.  That was fun!  We also went on a rainbow scavenger hunt to find things that matched the colors in a rainbow (ever heard of a rainbow's best friend, ROY G. BIV?).  Finally, we ate the leftover Skittles so we could "Taste the Rainbow!"

Will it work?

WOW!  That was fun!

Lady Rainbow spotted a rainbow bracelet on Patrick!  We love it when our guys have fun with our lessons by dressing the part!

Friday, April 4

Our morning was super busy with some of us working at Pet Supplies Plus and others delivering the stuffed eggs to our friends at Powhatan Secondary.  The egg delivery crew also prepped lunch.  The AC in our room was not working today, and it was a bit warm and humid, so we took it as easy as we could the rest of the day and wrapped things up after lunch with indoor corn hole because there were too many bees swarming around our outside spot!  Here's our Friday:

Thank you, Powhatan Secondary for trusting us with the job of stuffing over 1,000 eggs for your Easter egg hunt!  It was fun delivering them and getting to meet Bree.  We are looking forward to our celebratory pizza party!

Our PSP crew was busy, as usual, stocking shelves, dusting, and folding towels.  All with big smiles on their faces!!

Our crew wants to remind you that it's time to do Easter shopping for your favorite furry friends.  PSP has a great selection, but get there soon or it may all hop away with someone else!

Thank you, Tracy, for taking a group of us to work at Pet Supplies Plus while Carol was on vacation this week!  We really appreciate your willingness to help us out when you can!!  

We continued working on preparing books from the JRES Library for discarding.  Michelle showed Nan and Gail the process, and the three of them made a dent in the remaining books!

Our room smelled like a Mexican restaurant by the time we finished cooking chicken burritos for our celebration of National Burrito Day.  It was officially yesterday, but we celebrate when it fits our schedule!  Thanks again to Allison, who substituted for Carol all this week.  She's a keeper!!

Spring Bingo!  Listen carefully to the clues...

Corn hole to end the week (and a giant fan blowing in the background, which helped).  The boys won today!  Abraham is missing from the photo because he volunteered to play on the girls' team so we would have even numbers.  Despite him scoring 4 points for them, they came up short, 23-22, against the boys' team.  The girls didn't mind...and we don't think Abraham did either.  😜  All of our players were good sports! 😍

Next week the WJCC schools are on Spring Break, but we'll be at AFCC as usual.  Here are our plans:

Tuesday:  We'll begin our spring sessions with the master gardeners today at Freedom Park!  We'll discuss soil and nutrients, conduct a soil test, and plant onions, radish, spinach, and lettuce.  The herb of the day will be chamomile.  We'll return to AFCC to celebrate Sam's birthday with a hot dog luncheon sponsored by his parents! 🌭🌭🌭  Yum!  It's going to be a happy day!  Arc shirts optional.  Feel free to wear spring/garden attire if you'd like!

Wednesday:  It's GCOC volunteer day, so please wear Arc shirts.  Some of us will work in our herb garden with Allison and Carol as we prepare for planting this year's herb crop with our MG friends.  We'll also have fun celebrating Unicorn Day and begin a fun Easter craft using pasta.  Lunch on your own.  NO JRES CAFETERIA because the schools are closed for Spring Break.  Microwave available.

Thursday:  Today is National Farm Animals Day so we will learn some fun and very interesting things about a few of them.  We'll finish the Easter pasta craft we began yesterday and also make birthday cards for Jorie, our first friend at Eaton!  Breakfast for lunch today:  pancakes, sausage, boiled eggs (that we will have fun shelling using various techniques), and orange juice.

Friday:  Today is an Eaton work day, so please wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch.  We'll watch the weather (and pollen) and hopefully enjoy lunch and a walk at the park.  There will also be farm animal themed yoga with Jaime!

Enjoy the weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang