BIG Week Coming Up!

Sometimes we feel like every week is a big week because we have so much fun and are so busy.  But next week is a truly BIG week...well at least Tuesday is a BIG day!  More on that later.  Here's a ton of pictures to highlight our past week.

We started the week on a dreary Tuesday morning so it was a perfect day for a Summer Express $1 Movie at New Town.  The film was Happy Feet Two, which made sense for us to see because we are just a bunch of happy feet every time we dance.  Delighted to report that only a couple of our friends took brief naps during the movie!  😉  If it seems like a smaller than usual group, it's because once again, we had a number of associates out this week.  Lots of family trips and associates going to camps this summer!

After the movie we went to lunch at Sal's by Victor...but none of our "eating" pictures were flattering enough to be published here!  Suffice to say, our friends enjoyed pizza, subs, salad, and pasta...along with excellent service, and not one order messed up!  The staff at Sal's by Victor are friends of The Arc, and they definitely made sure our experience was a good one.  We enthusiastically recommend Sal's by Victor for your dining pleasure!  Tell them you're a friend of The Arc's!

Back at AFCC, we had some down time before dismissal.  We were happy that most of the gang chose to move.  Here are some of our Happy Feet...Sam and Xavier and the girls!

This is what happens when the DJ (aka Lisa) steps away from the computer and doesn't return when the current song ends...Josie and Kacie take over!

Meanwhile, in the gym, Devin got off a few good shots!

And Chris worked tirelessly to help Drew practice throwing a little higher.  

We had a rejuvenating session of Tai Chi with Michael on Wednesday morning.  Can you tell we are getting a little better at moving in sync?!

Almost everyone in step!

We are also improving in our ability to move our heads/arms in one direction and lean our bodies in the other!!!  

We celebrated Rice Pudding Day on Wednesday.  Did your associates say they liked it?!  Most tasted.

Here, Kate adds sugar just like the pros from Food Network!

Sam adds the milk while Laura stirs "constantly" (or until she tells Carol to take over)!

Why yes, we do like rice pudding!

We also celebrated Book Lovers Day on Wednesday, so everyone who wanted to share got their pictures taken!

Josie enjoys chapter books and her current favorite is from a recent Disney Channel movie, The Descendants.

Kate shared several books from her elementary school days...her classes wrote stories and her teachers published them!  Special memories for Kate!

Drew enjoys visiting the library to find books...but they have to be funny!

Kacie recently visited Chincoteague and then her grandmother sent her the book, Misty of Chincoteague, which Kacie plans to read soon!

Kevin enjoyed telling of seeing his favorite group, The Wiggles, live on stage and getting a souvenir program.  You can tell by how dog-eared it is that Kevin loves reading it over and over!

Sam is our action-loving guy so what better book for him to share than the story of Bond...James Bond!

Patrick lives for baseball season, and his favorite team is the Atlanta Braves.  So he was proud to share his biography of one of his all time favorite sluggers, Chipper Jones!

Another huge fan of sports, Chris brought in a book full of stats and stories and made sure to point out pages about his favorite football team, the Buffalo Bills!

Laura loves family and is quite sentimental.  She shared several books her family created about Laura's life and also that of her sweet baby niece, Olivia!

We waited several weeks for the gym to be available, so we spent a lot of time in there this week.  It had been a while since we played one of our favorite (and most active) games, hockey!

We love Dev's hand on Drew's back as he helps Drew with stick position.  💙

On Thursday we worked on a craft that involved sticky pieces of foam that needed to be put on the parrot picture.  This gave our friends a chance to help each other and it took quite a while.  Their perseverance was impressive!

A few of our friends also assembled The Arc's September mailing!  Check the calendar and sign up for events before the deadline.  Lots of fun on tap for September!

Our friend from JRES PTA, Julie, stopped by on Thursday and brought us some work to do that will help the school when students return in a few weeks.  We are happy to serve the school community!  On Friday morning, we sorted donated school uniform clothes by gender and size so the clothes closet will be well-organized by September.

We also spent time on Friday finishing our associate-created coloring books they began last week with Pam W.  This week, color was added to the drawings that were made last week.  Our guys really enjoyed this activity and again, persevered with the task!

This one's for you, Pam W. - the finished products!

Our educational focus this week was an author study and we explored stories and poems by Shel Silverstein.  This led to one of the coolest things we've ever done, putting on a play!  We worked all week at bringing to life the poem "Eight Balloons."  It tells the story of balloons who float off one day and end up trying new experiences...which lead to them being popped.  Many of our friends us do not relish the sound of popping balloons, but we took this opportunity to face a fear...as eight balloons get popped during the performance.  In the end, it was a combination of fear and fun, as there were genuine looks of surprise (relief?) when they popped the balloons, but also raucous laughter at what had happened to each balloon!

We captured our performance on video, but alas, YouTube no longer seems interested in processing our video clips.  We'll keep working on making the video clips accessible.  But take our word for it.  The play was a great experience even if our final performance is authentic, not polished.

It was back to the gym at the end of the day on Friday for a couple of old-fashioned games, or as Sam characterized them, "From the 60s, right?"  Parents, did we play Red Light, Green Light and Four Corners ALL the way back in the 60s?!  

Well, at least our guys were moving...which is definitely something we did in the 60s!

So, here's what's up for our BIG week, next week!

Tuesday:  We will have a site visit from the folks involved with the IMPACT 100 grant.  This is BIG because this grant would help us expand our day support program!

We talked about this all last week and everyone helped with the plans for the site visit.  The theme of the day will be "Lemons" as it is Lemon Meringue Pie Day.  While the grant visitors are here, we will have stations in place that show a representation of a typical day:  cooking/life skills, vocational work, educational work, community service, and recreation/fitness.

We will prepare a lunch of lemon chicken and garden salad to go along with our Lemon Meringue Pie.  

Please wear Arc shirts even though we are not going on an outing!

Wednesday:  We will a have BIG time when we travel to Sam's neighborhood pool for fun in the (hopefully) sun!  Sam's mom, Teri, is treating us to a lunch of pulled pork and fixins! Yum!  Thanks to the Collins family for this great experience!  Bring a towel and sunscreen, and wear your swimsuit.

Thursday:  We will see how much fun we can have celebrating National I LOVE My Feet Day!  We had BIG fun with this last year...wonder if we can top it this year?  It's also National Nonprofit Day, so we will celebrate....what else, The Arc of Greater Williamsburg!  This would be a great day to sign up for (or sponsor) the 5K, if you haven't already!   Lunch on your own!

Friday: It's National Fajita Day and we just have to celebrate this one because we are becoming very adept (BIG yay!) at chopping up veggies and sauteing them with chicken!  So, we'll add Mexican seasonings and tortillas...and voila...lunch! 

Upcoming:

Friday and Saturday evenings:  THANKS to those of you who are able to lend your associates to help us support the Williamsburg Moose Lodge!  They have donated over $2,000 dollars to our day support program in the past year, and they have another check ready for us.  (Proceeds from the July 4th Picnic!)  If your associate isn't on the sign up sheet but would like to join, please let Lisa know.

Friday, Sept. 1: Jamestown Jams concert with 90s music from  "Party of Four" at Jamestown Beach Park.  See the flyer in your associate's Arc mailing that came home this week.  The Arc earns proceeds from the beer sales and last month's concert earned us a lot!  Admission is free!

Saturday, October 7:  Eighth annual 5K at The Landing!  This is our main fundraiser of the year; hope to see you there!

Send us your good juju for Tuesday's site visit!  Until then, have a great weekend!

Lisa, Carol, and Nan