This week we held our own during an excessively hot and humid few days, especially Tuesday and Wednesday. We know it's summer and we expect these conditions, but it's still very uncomfortable. We're so thankful to our friends at James River Elementary School and the Abram Frink Community Center, especially electrician Jerry, for staying on top of the HVAC system maintenance. It's doing an excellent job of keeping our room cool! Despite the weather, we ventured out to visit with Christina at The Art Museums on Tuesday and to work at Eaton on Friday. We had a fabulous time with the therapy dogs on Wednesday and enjoyed a "quiet day" (for us) by staying at the center all day Thursday. Check out our week!
Tuesday, July 16
We welcomed Arc Intern Michelle back for a second visit today, and also Arc Communications and Development Director, Caroline! We put them right to work, helping us prepare a healthy morning "snack buffet" since our visit with Christina would push lunch back to about 1:30. We didn't want anyone to starve while we were visiting with her! LOL!
Intern Michelle, our Michelle, Sam, and Kate made ants on logs, Snack #1!
Erik, Emma, and Caroline snapped the fresh green beans the master gardeners picked for us last week, before blanching and seasonsing them for Snack #2.
Snack #3 was roasted cauliflower, prepared by Alexis and Liz.
Meanwhile, Bryan worked on preparing a few peach cobblers. We wanted to give the JRES office staff a treat as a thank you for providing us space when we had to relocate the program recently, and we wanted to take Christina one "just because" we love her! And of course, we needed a couple for ourselves!
Xavier prepped plates, napkins, and forks for us.
Doesn't our plate of snacks look delicious?! It was all very good, but the home-grown and freshly harvested green beans were particularly tasty. Thanks again to our master gardener friends for working with us to grow fresh food that we enjoy cooking and eating!
Michelle and Caroline approved, and we think they were impressed with our culinary skills! Thank you both for spending the day with us. We loved hanging out with you and appreciated your help, too! Our door is always open whenever you want to visit!
Soon it was time to brave the sticky heat and head over to The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg for a lesson with Christina. We presented her with a warm peach cobbler as a token of appreciation for working us in during an unusually busy month for her. She was very excited to receive the cobbler!
Next, Christina took us to the Hennage Auditorium where she had arranged for a new friend that we are calling Museum Michelle to tell us a story about St. George, who supposedly slayed a dragon. The kicker was, Museum Michelle needed our help to tell the story. This is from a program at the museums called "Stories on Stage," and we had a blast participating! We have never posted six video clips in a row, but we are today! Check out our soon to be "award-winning" presentation of St. George and the Dragon!
Wasn't that great! We're so proud of Christina, Erik, and Xavier, who portrayed sheep; Abraham, who portrayed the king; Caroline, who portrayed both a village girl and a princess; Emma, who portrayed St. George; and Devin, who portrayed the Dragon!! We also would like to give a shout out to the rest of us in the audience who added a few narrative effects! Many thanks to Museum Michelle for working with us today. She made it fun and entertaining, and helped us become our best selves on stage. We enjoyed this very much!
Following our stellar performance, we went on a hunt in the museums for items with dragons on them. They were hard to find, but Christina gave us clues and we found a few. We wrapped up our joyful time with her in the Education Studio where we relaxed and colored a picture of St. George and the Dragon. Thanks for a splendid time today, Christina! This was a great experience. You are appreciated for what you do for us!! 🐉
When we returned to the center, we ate lunch and had a bit of Choice Time. We also delivered a peach cobbler to the office staff and got to thank Ms. Washington, Principal, and Andrea, Administrative Assistant, in person. They did so much to make our stay in Room 141 easy-peasy, and we are grateful to them! Then we wrapped up the day with peach cobbler for dessert. A sweet ending to a very sweet day!
Wednesday, July 17
Our top story today was a joyful visit with our therapy dog and handler friends. They worked with us for several group rotations where we read books and played word games as we celebrated National Words with Friends Day! Thank you, friends from Therapy Dogs International, for hanging out with us today. As always, we really enjoyed our time with you!!
Caroline, Pip, and Indy helped us make words using letter tiles. Here, they were working with Cameron and Annmarie.
Vicky and Aubree (whom Lisa didn't realize wasn't visible in the picture) played a lively game of Hangman with us. In this group, Patrick and Alexis were thinking of solutions, as Drew pointed to a letter on his book cover that he wanted to guess!
Leo and Kent read with Emma, Liz, and Kevin. Liz helped Kevin with his book!
Marisol and Tucker kept track of certain words, called "Wonder Words," that appeared as Sam, Xavier, and Bryan read their books.
Casey was very handsome with his new haircut! He listened carefully as Abraham and Erik read with Carol!
We gave our Carol the Scrabble, Jr. game so she could be one of our rotations today. That way we kept the number of group members low for more personal interactions. Michelle and Laura covered a large chunk of the board!
In other news from today, Cameron and Erik emptied the refrigerator so Heike could move it to the storage closet. Parks & Rec has remodeled the area where we used to keep the fridge into an entryway and foyer of sorts for weekend use. We also had fun learning about a wayward pilot from the 1930s named Daniel Corrigan, who was nick-named "Wrong Way Corrigan" when he flew his plane solo across the Atlantic from New York to Ireland when he only had permission to fly back to California. Turns out he did it on purpose, and became something of a folk hero in the process! The 1960s sitcom Gilligan's Island had a couple of episodes based on his story, and we watched one of them this afternoon as we "celebrated" Wrong Way Corrigan Day! (Always something to celebrate!)
We are missing our friend Tessa, who had an allergic reaction to a medication and has been unable to be with us since returning from Summer Break. Her mobility was affected, so she is working hard to regain her strength. This week she was able to visit the pool for some water therapy, and we're so proud of her! She also got the cards we mailed last week. Keep up the good work, Tessa. We miss you and want you back with us as soon as you are able! 💖💖💖
That's Intern Javante working with Tessa in the pool. He said she was happy to be in the water!
Thursday, July 18
It was cloudy and at times rainy as we stayed put today. The highlight was our delayed celebration of National Macaroni and Cheese Day (July 14), which we enjoyed, along with pork bbq made "Grandad's Way" by Lisa. Other than that, we were low key with dancing, gym time, a blog check, and making birthday cards for our friend Sandra, who calls us her "Angels" and has cooked her very delicious Colombian pork and rice dish for us many times!
Sam, Michelle, Drew, Alexis, and Devin were teaching Annmarie how to "Walk Like an Egyptian" during our dance warm up! 👀👀👀
Using the recipe Liz found for us, Bryan and Emma joined her in preparing macaroni and cheese from scratch for our lunch.
This was just before we added bread crumbs and popped it into the Nina. The friends learned what a "roux" is and how to make one for this recipe!
Lisa cooked a tasty Boston butt overnight "low and slow" in her oven so we could have pork barbecue today. She thought it would go well with mac and cheese, and since it's Grandad's birthday week, she just wanted to do what he would have done for us. 💙🐷💙
That's Grandad's specially made chopping tool that Lisa used to chop the meat.
Carol provided today's cole slaw (yummy) and we added tropical fruit since it's Tropical Fruit Day. Lunch was a hit...as usual! 😍
We worked in small groups to write birthday letters to Sandra. When we finished, each group read their letter aloud, and we were very proud of how awesome they were!
We're pretty sure Sandra is going to love them!
Happy Birthday, Sandra!
The last time we were in the area, we forgot to bring our thank you poster for the James City Country Police Department. They gave us a wonderful tour a few weeks ago, and we want to make sure they know how much we enjoyed it. This afternoon Patrick, Alexis, and Liz were able to stop by the police department and drop the poster off for us. Thanks, friends!
Friday, July 19
Before we headed to Eaton today, we took a moment to commemorate the birthday of another friend of ours, Moose Patti! We made cards for her earlier this week, and Lisa dropped them off at her house yesterday. We hope she has a wonderful birthday and takes a bit of time off from her tireless work organizing the WOTM Golf Tournament! She has (at last count) 22 teams signed up and over 40 sponsors, including many of our families! The Arc of Abilities benefits greatly from the proceeds of this tournament, and we can't thank Patti and the other Moose ladies enough for their tireless efforts to make it a huge success each year! Happy, Happy Birthday, Patti! We'll see you soon!
Once we arrived at Eaton, we discovered that Ethan didn't have too much work for us today, but enough for about an hour and a half of unpacking and organizing. So, we decided to check on the garden at Freedom Park with our extra time, and once there, realized the weather wasn't too miserable (cloud cover - yay!), so we ate lunch outside. It was nice!
It was Javante's first time working with us at Eaton. He's a keeper!
Ears of corn are growing at the garden!
We picked a few sungold cherry tomatoes, which Abraham shows here.
There are several beautiful cantaloupes growing under these leaves!
We spotted this pretty butterfly that another garden visitor told us is a buckeye butterfly. He was there counting butterflies!
It had been a while since we got to eat outside. It was a good and unexpected surprise!
When we returned to the center, we played a fun game of corn hole with Intern Javante, just like we did last Friday. He had worked with us at Eaton, because he has flexible time on Fridays, and he is a good and hard worker! Soon, he'll head to the University of Tennessee for grad school, and we are going to miss him. But for now, we've really enjoyed ending our last two weeks playing corn hole with him!
Team Tomatoes!
Team Green Beans!
Victory today for Team Green Beans!
We'll be back next week for more fun times together. Here are our plans:
Tuesday: We're going to visit the Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis today. Our friends Beka, Emma, and Bryan haven't been before, so we will enjoy showing them all the interesting things there! We'll return to the center for lunch and a lesson to commemorate Moon Day (July 20). Lunch on your own; microwave available. Arc shirts optional (plan to wear tomorrow).
Wednesday: Today we will volunteer at Grove Christian Outreach Center so please wear Arc shirts. We'll have lessons to mark both Amelia Earhart Day and Rat Catchers Day (Pied Piper)! There will be brain work, a new group game, and a craft. We will also make some decorative signs to use at the upcoming golf tournament. Lunch on your own; microwave available.
Thursday: Today is National Intern Day and Arc intern Michelle will be with us, so we will celebrate her with a mini hot fudge sundae treat since it's also Hot Fudge Sundae Day! We'll also have a Movie Morning with a feature that will tie in with our recent and upcoming museum visits (hint, hint). Lunch on your own (mini hot fudge sundae for dessert); microwave available.
Friday: This morning we will send a crew to work at Pet Supplies Plus, so please wear PSP shirts. The crew that stays back will prepare chicken Caesar salad and homemade bagels (It's Bagelfest Day!) for lunch. We'll end the week with a new yoga episode from Jaime, so dress to stretch, too!
Don't forget about our two incredible upcoming FUNdraising events! Sponsorships and registrations are available for both! We thank you for your enduring support of The Arc of Greater Williamsburg!
Have a great weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
