Short week! Everyone was so excited on Tuesday but they got right to work. We were up to our elbows creating treats for our party and a holiday gift for our families, and working on finishing up last week's big Eaton order.
We hope you enjoy the hot cocoa mix we made for our family gift this year. Most of our associates were not familiar with powdered milk, and did not realize that cocoa powder doesn't taste like chocolate...but they had fun mixing it all together and said they looked forward to enjoying a warm cup of cocoa with their loved ones!
Here, Chris and Laura take turns pulsing the chopper to break up the "secret ingredient."
Alexis measures sugar as Kate and Bo make sure she's accurate and Liz "gently" stirs all the dry ingredients. Something else they didn't realize is how dry ingredients fly everywhere if you stir them like you would a bowl of pudding! 😋
Pretzels needed to be crushed so Drew and Kate gave it their all!
Kate is wondering where Drew was when it was time to crush Oreos? Liz and Alexis get the cream cheese ready.
Chris and Sam made the Rice Krispie treats using a holiday edition of the cereal. Very colorful!
Chloe and Bo sorted mini m&ms so we could use certain colors for one of our recipes!
Everything came together and on Wednesday we celebrated the end of 2017. Thank you to our families for the delicious contributions to our potluck luncheon and for sending a gift card for our exchange game. Carol, Nan, and Lisa would also like to thank our families for the thoughtful gifts they received. It was a fun day!
We didn't finish all of our baking on Tuesday so Xavier had to help make some gluten-free cookies first thing!
We had an abundance of goodies so we set out sausage balls, fruit, and Snowman cheese sticks for a morning snack. It was party day...so we could start early, right?!
Of course there was a lot of dancing today!
Singing, too!
We joined the JRES first graders in the gym to watch a video of their performance in the Holiday Concert from the night before. The first graders loved having their "fans" in the audience!
A lively game of Jingle Bell Toss brought out some friendly competition.
Men's Bocce Ball champ Sam also emerged as the Jingle Bell Toss Champ!
Chloe is curious as to the scent of the candle Liz gave Becky.
Patrick and Sam help Lisa show off this special throw that Sam gave her while Devin jumps up to point out pictures of his friends! 💖
Principal Mr. Stutt and Assistant Principal Ms. Vallone stopped by and we gave them one of our recently made lantern jars that we had filled with candy. We appreciate their support and friendship!
The last group picture of the year! We were about to begin our gift card exchange game.
Devin made a selection...and then found out he had to trade it!
We played a game that involved lots of swapping. Here, Chris finds Laura for one of his swaps.
In the end, Alexis and Bo were excited to find they had the same gifts!
Laura and Drew show off the puzzles Becky gave everyone.
We ended our party with a game of Christmas Bingo. Left over nuggets from Chick fil-A made for the tastiest "prizes" ever!
Merry Christmas!
Looking ahead to the first week of 2018, we will be back in session on Tuesday, January 2nd. Here's what's up for the week:
Tuesday: We kick off the new year with bowling and pizza for lunch! Wear your Arc shirts!
Wednesday: Dress for movement as we welcome our yoga/fitness instructor Patti back to work with us! Lunch on your own.
Thursday: We will celebrate TWO of our favorite things as it's National Trivia Day AND National Spaghetti Day! There will be trivia games galore and for lunch, spaghetti with traditional and pesto sauces to try! We also travel to the CW Art Museums after lunch to visit with Christina, so please wear Arc shirts!
Friday: It's National Bird Day so we will try bird watching (with the help of a resource we picked up at the VLM) and other bird-related activities. Lunch on your own. Wishing everyone a peaceful, safe, and fun Winter Break! Lisa, Carol, and Nan
Our excitement builds as the holiday break nears! Here we pose by our lovely paper chain tree on Tuesday morning. We had just finished the visit with Shannon and Kelly from the RE/MAX Coastal Virginia Real Estate Team who came to film us in action for their "30 Nonprofits in 30 Days" feature. We felt like movie stars as they set up cameras all around! We are very proud of our associates who were welcoming and professional during the visit, and we think Shannon and Kelly enjoyed learning about the AoA and The Arc of Greater Williamsburg. The feature has been published on their Facebook page and this link should take you there:
Here, a group worked on gingerbread assignments during the filming visit to highlight how we keep up with our literacy skills at the AoA!
On the other side of the room, we had small groups making gingerbread dough from scratch, to show our focus on life skills, teamwork, and problem solving! Here, Chris helps Kevin mix up the lumpy dough.
Cameron adds a little more water as Kate works on getting the dough to the right consistency.
Liz, Laura, and Alexis rolled out the dough and cut gingerbread boys! It looks like they wore as much as they rolled! 😀
Laura also helped Devin and Drew put faces and buttons on the gingerbread boys.
Yum! This group couldn't wait for the taste test!
These gingerbread boys didn't get a chance to run away!
On Tuesday afternoon we were joined by Lisa's former colleague, and a friend of the AoA, Missy, who used to be a teacher and always enjoyed creating gingerbread houses with her students during the holiday season. Missy helped us with lots of great tips and creative ideas...she's a true Gingerbread Queen, right down to her lovely red apron! Thanks, Missy!
Kate puts frosting (glue) on the sides of her milk carton (frame) as she gets started on her house. We aren't sure if Chloe is thinking about what to do next or licking the "glue" off of her finger! Both girls worked intently on their creations.
Liz, Patrick, and Kevin worked with Nan on their houses.
Here, Cameron and Devin smile and show off their sweet creations!
Our gingerbread house village!
There were a lot of smiles and happy tummies on Wednesday when Christina and Jan from the CW Art Museums brought us pizza for lunch! We celebrated our collaboration with them and made plans to continue our monthly visits in 2018. When we told Christina how much we enjoy our visits, she said, "You know, it works both ways!" 💗💖💓
After pizza we met our new fitness instructor, Patti! Her expertise is in yoga, which she explained can be a vehicle for working on all the things we hope to work on: balance, range of motion, focus, and strength.
Patti spent some time helping us understand the importance of breathing and suggested that we practice inhaling to a count of 1-2-3 through our nose and exhaling to a count of 1-2-3-4, also through our nose.
In fact, she included breathing in our homework! We won't see Patti again until January 3, so she wants us to practice our breathing while on break. She also wants each of us to figure our favorite way to balance, which could be using a chair or corner of a table, a wall, or on our own.
We got another big order from Eaton this week, and began working on it Thursday morning after a quick lesson about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
Our lunch of potato latkes, jerk chicken, and left over pizza from Wednesday, filled us up and gave us energy for our Bocce Ball Tournament! Coach Teri planned a single elimination tournament with separate brackets for women and men. Here are lots of photos of the gang in action!
In the end, Kacie reigned supreme as the 2017 Fall Bocce Ball League Women's Champion!
Sam won the Men's Championship!
Thank you, Coach Teri, for these super cool trophies!
Our champs show off their trophies while their proud coach looks on!
It was just chilly enough during the tournament to make celebrating Hot Cocoa Day a good thing to do once we came inside. Here, Cameron and Kate toast the warm, chocolatey cocoa.
Ever the fun coach, Teri also brought this game and we ended the day showing her just how much Christmas trivia we have in our brains! What a fun afternoon!
Friday was a special day for us as we headed to the Virginia Living Museum for our 2nd Annual Holiday Outing. This is a place we have hoped to visit for a long time, but kept putting off due to the expense. Finding out we could apply for, and then receiving a scholarship from the museum, made this day a reality and we made the most of it! One of the best parts? We were the ONLY group there! That's right...no school kids running around...just a few moms with toddlers and US! It was wonderful!
It was chilly on the outside trails but not too cold to enjoy seeing red and grey foxes, coyotes, beavers, otters, bobcats, bald eagles, birds, and many other animals, both outside and indoors. Our guys read facts about the animals, asked questions, and shared personal stories they had about their experiences with wild animals. It was fun to hear them chat among themselves.
Kevin, the bald eagle is towards your left!
These ducks looked as if they had been freshly painted, their colors were so vivid.
Kacie and Chris look for the playful otters. Turns out they were on the bank...cuddled up to keep each other warm, perhaps?
Watching brook trout (the state fish of Virginia!) being fed. Carol was particularly amused!
Everyone was very cooperative as the photographer asked them to pose at seemingly every step of the way!
There is a Lego Exhibit at the VLM for a few more days. Sculptures made of regular Lego bricks are scattered throughout the trail. Some of them were made using up to almost 88,000 Legos! We came across these giant-sized blocks and spent a few minutes getting creative.
We also saw a butterfly pollinating a flower.
We thought for sure we would see Santa, but only found a couple of his reindeer instead.
The Dinosaur Discovery Trail was just fun to meander through!
Kacie and Xavier had to point way up to find the head of this brachiosaurus!
We got kind of close to those small, bluish velociraptors before finding out they had retractable claws used for slashing into prey. So we moved on...
Chloe got up close to some bones in the paleo dig area!
Lunch was enjoyed in the Wild Side Cafe...it was just us! Here, we wait patiently for the friendly fellas who were preparing our made to order lunch. Thanks again to Drew's family for sponsoring our meals!
After lunch we headed to the planetarium to see the Holiday Magic show. No one really photographs well in those reclining seats...
Holiday Magic is a laser light show set to favorite Christmas carols. The audience is encouraged to sing along and our boy Kevin did just that when Jingle Bell Rock came on! Listen and love!
One of our favorite numbers was Up On The Housetop. The light show is well done and we thoroughly enjoyed it!
Doesn't this aquarium make a nice backdrop for another group shot?!
The touch tank was popular with some of our friends! Kacie, Alexis, Josie, Chloe, and Kevin were fascinated by a spider crab that was missing one of its eight legs.
Sam got to tickle a horseshoe crab!
Turns out group shots are easy to set up when you have stair rails to lean against. We were on a mission to get just the right group shot as one of the requirements of receiving the scholarship is that we send the museum a thank you note and group photo!
We took this one on the way out. We can say with certainty that the VLM is going to get more than one thank you note and more than one group photo!
It's hard to comprehend that it's been a whole year since our first annual holiday outing when we saw The Polar Express at the Kimball Theater. It probably won't be long before we begin to wonder what we will do in 2018. But first (as Laura would say)...next week! Here's what you need to know:
Tuesday: It's the day before our office party so we will spend it preparing goodies, games, and activities. We will also create a surprise for our families and finish up some end of year thank you notes. We have so much to be thankful for! Lunch on your own.
Wednesday: PARTY TIME! Feel free to dress in your most festive holiday outfit and bring your dish for the potluck luncheon (no sweets, please...we made our own this year)! Also, please be sure to bring a $10 gift card from one of your favorite places (wrapped, please!) for our gift-exchange game.
Remember, the AoA will be closed for the holidays from December 21-January 1. We will see everyone back at the center on Tuesday, January 2nd!
