Saturday, August 25, 2018

Wonderful Waffles!

It was a fun week at the AoA!  We went on two outings this week, enjoyed some lovely weather, celebrated a friend's birthday, and made some wonderful waffles!  Check out our good times!

Tuesday was bowling and our guys had a great morning.  We had to rush out after lunch in order to get to the Art Museums, so we forgot to get the scores off the printer, but there were strikes and spares to, well...spare!  

Bo followed through on a smooth roll. 


Sam was all smiles after he rolled a strike!  His hug must have been a good luck charm for Drew, who also rolled a strike on his next turn!


Drew's friends were very happy for him today.  He had his best game ever, scoring a 121!


Patience is a virtue, as Laura demonstrates while waiting for her ball to return.


Here's Devin celebrating....a strike!!


We also enjoyed our favorite lunch, pizza!  It was hot and tasty, and we added apples, as we always do.  Many thanks to Laura's family for sponsoring it today!!

We went to the Art Museums of CW after bowling.  Christina was on vacation during the first week of the month when we usually visit, but she did NOT want to miss a visit with us, so we rescheduled, even though it meant dashing off after bowling. 😊

Our adventure was to find art which depicted dogs in some way.  In this display, there is a ceramic piece of a man playing a fiddle while his dog nuzzles up close beside him.


Our guys looked closely at this painting, trying to find a dog who was supposed to be protecting the family.  It looked like the dog was singing instead!


We found these bricks from the 1700's and they had puppy footprints in them!  Dogs have been a part of our lives for a long time.


Christina told us a great story about the porcelain dog Chris is pointing out in the case.  He belonged to a painter in London in the 1700s, but the dog became more popular than the painter!  Everyone wanted "souvenir" statues of the dog to put on their mantles.  The one at the museum is one of only three known to remain!  


Christina also told us about the popular sport of fox hunting, and we found a handkerchief that depicted about 20 dogs searching out a fox.  Here, she was reading the names of the dogs to the girls.


In the Education Room, we colored pictures of a dog playing a fiddle, which we then double matted on colorful paper.


Christina didn't know that Sunday is National Dog Day!  (We are celebrating it on Friday.)  This is not the first time one of her lessons has tied in with something we were doing in the AoA!  It's fun when it happens!


Christina laminated the pictures for us, and attached a ring so we could use them as backpack accessories!  Cute!


Before leaving, we met Rick, who is the director of the museums.  We didn't get a picture with him, but he allowed us to take a peek (through the big window) at the construction site where the expansion to the museum is well underway.  We last checked a few months ago, and saw a huge hole outside.  Now, there is a two story building taking shape!  We can't wait for the museum to grow!


Wednesday was a day of ice cream preparation.  Since we were making it from scratch for Laura's birthday on Thursday, we had to prepare the base a day ahead so it could chill.  Drew, Laura, and Devin mixed all the ingredients together while their friends worked on Eaton tasks.


In the big room, most of the guys were busy assembling Power Slide doors for Eaton.  James had brought us six boxes, which is 72 doors, last week.  Our guys are so efficient, it only took them about 45 minutes to get them done!


We love how each one of them eases into their position so seamlessly!


Hi, from a group of computer geeks! During Choice Time the computers are a popular activity.


We made up for missing Black Cat Appreciation Day last week by learning about them on Wednesday.  We talked about the superstitions associated with black cats, and learned that in many shelters they are less likely to be adopted than other cats.  Despite that news, we enjoyed making a black cat using a tracing of our hands.


It was brought up that we could save these for Halloween, which seems like a better time to think about black cats...


We stuck ours on the wall so we could take a picture, and then put them away to save for October!  Getting a jump on fall decorating!


With Patti being on vacation this week, we watched an episode of Cosmic Kids Yoga with Jaime.  Today's story was "The Wizard of Oz."  Here, the guys are in Rainbow Pose after the tornado swept through Kansas!


Everyone loves Toto, which means in Wizard of Oz yoga, there are lots of opportunities to get into Dog Pose.  Up, down, up down we went!


Flying monkeys???


The Wicked Witch melted, and this delighted Bo and Chloe!


Trying to get back to Kansas...aka, slowing things down a little with a good shoulder stretch.


Finally, we had to get a shot of Devin's shirt!  What a great thought for the day!!


Thursday was a gorgeous weather day and we spent half of it at New Quarter Park.  The other half was celebrating Laura's birthday, so enjoy our joy!

We spent part of our park time in game stations.  We enjoyed a chance to practice shooting and dribbling the basketballs outside for a change.



We continued working on turn-taking in Corn Hole.  We're trying to get the swing of playing the game sort of like it's supposed to be played!  



We also played our old favorite, Bocce!  Birthday girl Laura loves to show her skill!  She showed our friend Emmy, visiting with Becky, how to roll the ball close to the target "jack," which Laura does well!


We also had time for a walk.


When we reached the area close to the marsh, we tried to see hawks flying overhead using the binoculars our friend (and former associate) Meghan gave us recently.  We also looked for birds.  We didn't spot any, but we'll keep trying!


Kacie was a little startled when she thought she saw a "giant something," but it was only Sam playing a trick on her.  Haha!


Back at the center we enjoyed a fabulous lunch of "Slim Subs" from Jimmy Johns, which are just meat and bread.  They were the perfect size, and they weren't slathered with mayo calories!  We added our own "light" condiments, and lettuce, tomato, and pickles...and had a healthier sandwich!  Which was a good choice, because here you see us posing with Laura, who is also holding a tray of homemade chocolate ice cream.  It was scrumptious, and it's her favorite treat!  We are grateful to her family for treating us to the subs, chips, and some refreshing flavored water!  It was a wonderful party!


We carried the ice cream theme into our afternoon group rotations.  Here, Chloe, Sam, Kate, and Bo used the internet to research who invented the first ice cream maker.  

  

They found out it was a woman, named Nancy Johnson, who invented it in 1841!


In this group, Nan and friends read books about ice cream.  In one of their books, they also found out that Nancy Johnson invented the first ice cream machine!


Becky worked with this group to graph data they collected about everyone's favorite ice cream flavor.  Chocolate was most popular with our gang!


These happy fellas did some word study in their group!


Next, we hit the gym!  A favorite game of ours is called 4 Corners, and it involves a lot of running.  Which is a good thing after ice cream, of course!


Sam was "it" and if he rolled the dice and called your corner number, you were out, only today, you got to keep playing even if your corner number was called.


That was because we were trying to get sweaty!  Yes, you read that correctly.  We wanted to get sweaty because our last activity of the day was watching a Mystery Doug episode called, "Why Do We Sweat When We Play Sports?"  We found out that sweating is important in helping to regulate our body temperature, and we also learned that there are some people who can't sweat.  They have to find other ways to cool off or serious things could happen, including feeling sick, getting cramps, or passing out.  It was an interesting episode, and we were all glad that our bodies work correctly, and we sweat.  Even if it is yucky and sometimes smelly!

Go, Chloe! 


Friday rolled around and we were geared up for Waffle Day (today) and Dog Day, which is Sunday.  But first, we welcomed Annmarie, a potential new associate who was spending today (and next Friday) as her "trial days."  She recently completed her high school years at Jamestown and is interested in the AoA.  Annmarie is very involved in Arc activities, and many of our guys already know her!

We found out right away that Annmarie loves to dance!!  Here she is, pretty in pink, with Lisa and Laura!


When our bird feeders were empty recently, and we spotted some cardinals, we were excited!  Then we noticed the feeders were emptying pretty quickly, so we got suspicious.  Today we caught the culprit!  This squirrel came back over and over again all day, even though we would run outside and shoo him (her?) away! 


After the squirrel ran off, we noticed one of the cardinals came back.  He didn't have to perch on the feeder, he just ate what the squirrel dropped!


Later, after we had run the squirrel off again, we were thrilled to finally see some yellow finches!  We had been looking for them all summer!


Before making our wonderful waffles, we had to get some exercise, so we got balls and headed to the gym.  Annmarie chose a football, and Kate tossed it with her.


Still #1 with our guys:  basketball!  By the way, photo credit here goes to Kate, who tried her hand with the camera today.


Kate also snapped this shot of our waffle team.  They mixed together rolled oats, almond milk, eggs, cinnamon, and a couple of teaspoons of sugar with several mashed bananas to make our batter.  We were all wondering how this would turn out, even though the website/blog where we found the recipe said it would be great!


Well, this is what our lunch plate looked like!  Everyone loved the banana oat waffles, which are gluten free and loaded with fiber!  Nan was our scrambled egg chef, and those got rave reviews, too!  It was requested that we post the waffle recipe, so here's the link.
  


We made a substitution of sugar for stevia, and we put a little extra cinnamon, but otherwise, we followed the recipe.  Many thanks to Laura's mom for letting us borrow her brand new waffle iron, and to Carol for bring hers in, too!  If we make these again, we will make pancakes, which would be easier than using a couple of waffle irons with our large group.  ðŸ˜‰  But when it's Waffle Day...you make the extra effort!  Thanks, Carol, for clean up!


During Choice Time, Sam helped Annmarie use the pool stick.  She thanked him for the mini-lesson, and then moved along!  Music was more her thing!



During our Friday afternoon lesson about habitats, we found out that whales once lived in deserts, sort of.  What we learned is that millions of years ago, the Sahara Desert area in Africa was covered by an ocean.  When scientists dug deep under the desert, they found whale fossils, so in that way, whales once lived...in the desert!  We also learned that shark fossils were found in the rock beneath the cornfields in Illinois...so it too was once an ocean!  And in Germany, which is mostly grassland now, monkey fossils were found, so it was once a jungle!  (We told Heike about that one and she was surprised!)  Science rocks...and so did our week!

Next week Lisa is taking a couple of days off, but our schedule is still full!  Thanks to Sue G. for stepping in to help on Tuesday! The gang is excited to see you!  Here's what's up:

Tuesday:  Today's outing is to the U.S. Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis.  Please wear Arc shirts and bring a bag lunch.  You also need to bring ID with you.  The weather forecast calls for it to be quite warm again by Tuesday, so we will likely return to AFCC for lunch and afternoon activities.  If it's not too hot, we may picnic at the park!

Wednesday:  It's Bow Tie Day!  We will have fun trying to tie bow ties and play bow tie tic-tac-toe...and then we'll make a lunch of bow tie pasta and meat sauce w/ side salad!  It's also Cherry Turnover Day...so a tiny dessert will be included.  😋  We'll work it off with an active session of yoga with video Jaime since Patti is still on vacation.  This week's story is "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone!"

Thursday:  We're off to Eaton for a work day!  It's been a few weeks since we have worked onsite, so we're looking forward to this.  Wear your Arc shirts AND bring a bag lunch!

Friday:  It's the last day of August, and the last day we will have the gym to ourselves, so we will spend extra time playing some of our favorite games.  We're also going to create an art project centered around our favorite college colors and mascots!  After lunch, we're taking a Mystery Trip!  Lunch on your own.

Great News!  Next week is the beginning of the school year, so the cafeteria will be open for lunch!  (However, FRIDAY is the only day we will be taking orders for the cafeteria.)  
Lunch costs $2.70 .  Milk only is 60 cents.


Everyone have a great weekend!

Lisa, Carol, and Nan