Saturday, September 29, 2018

Goodbye September


Our week began on a bright, sunny Tuesday morning with a visit to the Botanical Garden at Freedom Park.  Our Master Gardener friends had a delightful session planned for us!  After reviewing succulent plants, which we had learned about last spring, they set each of us up to create a succulent dish garden.


The MGs generously supplied all of the needed materials, which included drainage rocks we placed in the bottom of our clear bowls.


The MGs sprinkled charcoal bits over the rocks before we added soil.  They explained that the charcoal would help prevent root rot.  We have to be very careful not to over-water the garden.  Succulents store a lot of moisture, and don't get very thirsty!


Working with the MGs is a wonderful experience.  We are grateful for the many MGs who are able to join us for each session.  They give us a lot of attention and help!


The MGs couldn't stress to us enough the importance of not putting too much water in our gardens.  Linda explained that we even used a potting soil designed for succulents that has sand in it to also help with drainage.


Here is a shot of our pretty succulent gardens!  The decorative items were a great touch.  "Krafty Karen" made the birdhouses and gazing balls.  So much fun!


We welcomed Laura back on Tuesday.  She had spent last week on a beach vacation with her family.  She brought us some pretty new pencils, and a taste of salt water taffy!  Thanks, Laura!!


It was too muggy to take a walk at the park after our MG session, so we went back to the center and enjoyed some fun in the AC, including a lively game of Bingo before dismissal.


Wednesday was another warm and sticky day, so we pulled out the pool noodles and balloons and got a good cardio workout.  By the time we were done, we were trying to keep three balloons in the air, and that takes a lot of swatting!


Oh, no!  The rules state you must stay seated.  We'll give Dev a pass since it was his first time playing with us.  We're glad he really got into the game!


Kacie, Alexis, and Liz were our sandwich team!  It was Johnny Appleseed Day so these girls took orders for peanut butter and apple butter, or apple jelly, sandwiches.  They prepared 20 sandwiches and every order was perfect!  (By the way, we are encouraging our associates to help with taking pictures and training them to use the camera.  This great shot was taken by Dev! 📷)


We cooked the potatoes we harvested from the garden at Freedom Park to go along with our sandwiches.  Chris and Kate helped Nan and Carol with peeling and cutting them up, and then we made hash browns. (Photo taken by Sam!)


Sam, Dev, and Cameron were in charge of preparing our apple chips.  Carol used our mandoline slicer to make the chips as thin as possible.  The guys dipped them in lemon juice to prevent browning, lined them on pans, sprinkled them with cinnamon, and popped them into the Nina (convection oven) and our traditional toaster oven.  We had a lot!


We didn't have enough hours to bake the apples at low temps in order to completely dehydrate them, so they weren't very crispy.  But they made for a healthy and tasty side dish nonetheless!


Our hash browns were delicious, and it was probably a good thing that we only had enough for everyone to get a small "taste" of this goodness...😋


During computer lab time, Annmarie and Laura worked on a vocabulary building activity.  It also involves listening and following directions!


Alexis used her lab time to do more research on one of our topics from the day, Johnny Appleseed!🍎🍎🍎


During Choice Time, Dev and Chris enjoyed a game of Uno.


Patti taught us some yoga poses that would help "adjust" our bodies so that we would be better able to handle things that might cause us to feel stressed.


She explained a little about Chinese medicine, and helped us get our "chi" in order!  It was a bit tricky to understand, but we felt good when it was done!


After yoga, we read The Giving Tree, a story about an apple tree that gives and gives to a boy throughout his life (shade, a place to swing, apples to eat, wood to build with, etc.).  The perception is that the capacity to give is unlimited.  Thanks, Kate, for bringing in a story that fit in with our apple theme!


Our yoga work on Wednesday must have really helped us feel focused and relaxed.  When we worked at Eaton on Thursday, it was smooth sailing!  We counted thousands of items to help with Eaton's huge inventory of parts.


Our guys use mats to place 5-10 objects, after which they then add up the total to mark on an inventory sheet.  


This group was placing 5 items on each sheet, for a total of 20 per "round" of counting.


Jorie popped in to thank us for helping.  Laura and Annmarie were all smiles to pose with her!


Over in the warehouse, Cameron, Sam, and Kacie counted many, many parts.


After lots of counting, Jorie had one more job for us before we left.  James brought over a huge box of parts that needed to be separated.  Many of our team members got right on it, including Meemaw and Becky who help us so much!


As we got near the end, Sam and Dev climbed in to scrape the "bottom of the barrel."  The box was over 3 feet deep!


Coach Teri treated us to Frosties from Wendy's after our hard day's work at Eaton!  We had all 17 members in attendance, so we had to take a couple of photos to get them all, and we still had trouble fitting them in.


Thanks, Teri!  We love Frosties!   


Friday was a day of map skills and education.  We finished our Virginia salt-dough maps by first studying paper maps and trying to locate bodies of water and cities.  Alexis pointed out Williamsburg to Devin and Liz.


Carol helped Chris and Dev locate four of Virginia's rivers.


It took us a long time to paint in the rivers and cities we have studied.  Everyone wanted their maps to be accurate.  We displayed lots of patience, and we were helpful with each other!  


One of our goals with Kevin has been coloring within boundaries. Today we drew an area representing the Atlantic Ocean and told him to paint within the blue lines.  Look at his work!  Yay, Kevin!!


We post a lot of pictures showcasing the concentration our guys demonstrate...here's a great example with Kacie and Dev.


Chris went a step further and added the names of the states that border Virginia.  He was so proud of his map.  Great job, Chris!  What a fun project our Virginia maps were!


It was getting close to lunch time when we finished our maps (we had to postpone rock painting...again!).  We had barely cleaned our paintbrushes when Tracy and Ellie (from Parks & Rec) came for a visit and to join us for lunch!  They, and we, really enjoyed the casseroles the United Way made for us as part of their "Stone Soup" service project last week.  It was veggie noodle casserole and lasagna, plus garlic bread that we added.  Lunch was a hit!  (No pics...😔 We get forgetful sometimes when lunch is served!)  We are thankful the United Way thought of us, and we are also thankful for support and friendship from Tracy and Ellie!  


We worked in groups after lunch and extended our map skills a bit more.  Then we had time to create the apple mosaics you can see in our windows below.  Come visit us - they are much prettier in person!


Well, September is almost gone, and it was busy and fun.  We hope October will be as well.  It's off to a great start next week!  Here's what you need to know:

Tuesday:  Bring your balls!  Bring your towels! Wear your Arc shirts!  The AoA bowling league will hit the lanes for a couple of games, and also enjoy pizza and apples for lunch!  The weather forecast looks promising, so hopefully we will be able to take a walk after bowling and also stop by the James River on the parkway to pick up a few more rocks for painting later in the week. 

Wednesday:  We will celebrate Mr. Howard and Heike today with a surprise for National Custodial Worker Day!  Hopefully, we will get to finally begin our flower arranging class, and then give Mr. Howard and Heike lovely bouquets!  We'll also prepare a baked goodie for them!  (It seems our flower arranging class hit a snafu when first we had an inclement weather day, then Trader Joe's didn't have enough flowers to donate, and after that, our guest instructor, Pam McGregor had an unexpected event to attend.  Maybe 4th time will be a charm?!)   It's also Yoga with Patti day, so dress to stretch!  Lunch on your own!

Thursday:  We will devote our morning to rock painting!  Our theme will be Fall/Halloween.  We'll have an early lunch on your own, and then head to the Art Museums of CW for our October visit with Christina.  Wear your Arc shirts!

Friday:  We'll celebrate Lisa's birthday today AND National Taco Day (yesterday) with a fun taco party for lunch!  We had to postpone our ghost activities last week, so we will also have them today.  For fun, we're trying a game played with rutabagas, that one of the master gardeners told us about!

AND IN OTHER NEWS AND UPDATES:

We hear that our neighbors at the Grove Christian Outreach Center are in need of men's clothing donations.  Items needed are pants (casual and jeans), Fall/Winter shirts, and shoes.  New or gently used are acceptable.  If anyone would like to contribute, we will be happy to collect and take them to the Grove center in a couple of weeks.  Time to clean out closets?!👕👚👞


🏌 🏌🏌Wednesday, October 3:  We hope as many of you as possible can join us at the Williamsburg Moose Lodge at 5:45 for the presentation of the proceeds from the golf tournament!    We're so excited to receive this generous gift!🏌🏌🏌


Saturday, October 6:  We are THRILLED that many of our AoA families have signed up to participate in the 5K at Williamsburg Landing!  This is The Arc's biggest FUNdraiser of the year, and your support is INVALUABLE to us!  🏃🏃🏃

New this year, we will be raffling off four amazing prizes. Tickets are $5 each or 5 for $20! Tickets can be purchased in advance or day of the 5k. You do not need to be present to win – so spread the word to family and friends who are unable to attend the 5k but would like to support The Arc and possibly win an amazing prize! Go to our website at thearcgw.org, click on the “Donate” button, donate equal to the number of tickets you wish to purchase, i.e. 3 tickets @ $5 = $15 donation! In the “Special Instructions” box, write Raffle and include your phone number. Good luck!
R A F F L E   P R I Z E S
1.   Kingsmill Resort – One (1) night stay in Resort Condo, breakfast for two (2) at Elements 1010, a round of golf for two (2) on the Plantation Course or River Course (includes golf fees).  Value: $760.00
2.   AMF Williamsburg Lanes – 2 hours of unlimited bowling and shoe rental for up to 20 people.  Value: $400.00
3.   AMF York Lanes – 2 hours of unlimited bowling and shoe rental for up to 6 people.  Value: $150.00
4.   Earth Fare Gift Bag – Value: $50.00
Thank you for your support! For more information call 757-229-3535.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20 - Oktoberfest at Anheuser-Busch...WOW, what a good time this is going to be!  It's a new FUNdraiser for us this year.  Thanks to Drew's dad and our Arc Board President, Andy Dayton, for getting it off the ground!



And last, but certainly not least...

👪👪👪👪👪

Thursday, November 1 - We are planning an evening meeting for the families of the AoA.  More details in next week's blog, but please save the date!  


WOW!  This was a lot of information for one week.  Exciting things are happening at The Arc of Greater Williamsburg, and The Arc of Abilities day support program!

Have a great weekend,

Lisa, Carol, and Nan


Saturday, September 22, 2018

Welcome New Friends!

It was great to get back to "normal" with a regular, four day week.  We were excited this week because we welcomed two new members to the AoA gang!

Dev just moved to Williamsburg from Pennsylvania on Monday, and didn't get into town until the wee hours of Tuesday morning, so he decided not to join us until Wednesday.  But Annmarie began on Tuesday and got to spend her first official day with us at bowling!  We will work with her on throwing her ball with more strength, but for now, she did very well using the rack!


Chris, Patrick, and Alexis wasted no time shining their balls with the "magic" towels Nina gave them last week.  We could probably call them "lucky" towels, too.  All three of these amigos made strikes and spares, and Alexis had her highest game ever:  130!  We think our friends who forgot their towels may want to bring them next time! 😉


Xavier had his highest game ever today, too!  He rolled multiple strikes and scored a 133.  He got lots of cheers from his friends, including Chris!


The strikes continued with Drew!  Here, he gets a handshake from Liz and a big congratulations from our volunteer, Pam!  


Back at AFCC, Drew helped Liz cut apart the sheet with everyone's bowling scores.  The scores were great today!


We enjoyed a tasty lunch of pizza at bowling, which was sponsored for us by Meemaw.  We made her a thank you note that had the sentences written on pepperonis, which we mixed up on the rough draft.  This group of editors arranged them so they would make sense!


Cameron glued the pepperoni sentences in place for us.  Thanks for lunch, Meemaw!  We enjoyed it very much!


On Wednesday morning, we had some vocational tasks to complete.  Annmarie, Drew, and Devin worked on sorting and assembly, while singing along to Disney tunes on the boombox!


Over in our big room, a crew worked on assembling Power Slide doors for Eaton.  Patrick and Dev unpacked new doors and Liz inserted a window piece on each one.


Nan, Kacie, Kate, and Alexis worked the label table and Chris transferred the doors that were ready for the finishing table.


The last step in Power Slide door assembly is inserting several screws and making sure they are tight.  Sam, Xavier, Cameron, and Kevin remained focused and finished the job quickly.


Our friends in the JRES library asked us to prepare some new books for checkout.  They needed to have slips inserted inside the back cover, and then several pages needed to be stamped.  We gave this job to our resident bookworms, Bo and Chloe, but they kept trying to read the books instead of stamp them!  😜


Later, we worked on our Virginia salt-dough maps.  We looked at Virginia maps online and discussed the geographical features of our state.  Using several different colors, we painted each region.




They look pretty good!  We hope our friends understand that our state is flat in the east and gradually becomes higher as you head west...except for the valley area between the mountain ranges!  Next week we will add more features to them.


Patti gave us a good workout in yoga!  Look at everyone participating.


We worked on strengthening our cores, and that challenged us.  Thanks for pushing us to do more, Patti!


Even though September 11 was last week, with our missed days due to the storm, we had not had a chance to discuss the events and review the history.  On Thursday morning, we took time to watch a somber video segment that explained the events of that day in terms that were easy for us to understand.


We followed up with group work and small, quiet discussions.  September 11 is now referred to as Patriot Day, with the motto "Never Forget."


Sam and Nan led a discussion with this group that highlighted symbols from our country.


Here, Kate and Cameron worked on alphabetizing words that related to the events of  9-11.


Thursday was also a good day to get outside, which we hadn't been able to do in quite a while.  These friends enjoyed walking around and chatting with each other.


Patrick and Dev tossed the football.


Xavier must have missed being outside.  He shot basket after basket!


Sam and Kacie looked around the community garden and found some pink zinnias still in bloom.


We had to prepare lunch so we could celebrate Fried Rice Day!  Alexis and Patrick sauteed onions and chicken and got the veggies ready.


Kacie and Chris scrambled up some eggs!


Chris also assisted Sam and Devin as they mixed up a sauce to add to the fried rice.


Meanwhile, in the other room, a crew was making egg-drop soup!  Bo snapped this picture of Liz and Kate pouring egg over the tines of a fork, so the egg would fall into the broth and form ribbon-like strands.


Everyone was pleased with how our lunch turned out!  Easy-peasy, and so tasty!


As this blog post is being written, it becomes evident that we were quite busy on Thursday.  After lunch and Choice Time, we had fun with a craft involving shaving cream and paint.  We needed to begin decorating for Fall, so we made some leaves.  Sam and Chris were amused that Carol would use her hand to smooth the shaving cream in the pan.


After adding paint in the colors of Fall, and swirling it around, Kacie demonstrated the next step, which was placing a leaf cut from card stock face down so it could absorb some of the shaving cream and paint mixture.


We then used a ruler to "squeegee" the excess paint and shaving cream off, and our leaves looked like this!  We're going to make a garland out of them.  What a fun, and simple, craft.  We might have to do this one again when the holidays begin to roll around! 


Friday was one crazy day.  It began with an accident on 64 eastbound that caused traffic to detour onto Rt. 60.  As we all know, Rt. 60 is the only way we have to get to AFCC.  The traffic jam was pretty intense, and most of us coming from Williamsburg did not arrive until 9:30 or later.  By the time we all settled in, it was going on 10.


So we felt like we were in a "spring ahead" time change all day.  We just rolled with it, and got as much done as we could.  We marked Talk Like a Pirate Day, which was Wednesday, by learning some very interesting facts about them.  These friends enjoyed coloring pirate pictures.


These guys kicked back and watched a clip from "Pirates of the Carribean."


But the highlight of our day was celebrating Kacie's birthday, so we made her some lovely cards!  When it was time to set up for lunch, there were lots of helpers.  


Speaking of lunch, it was fabulous!  Kacie's family treated us to sandwiches from Panera, along with chips and fruit.  Everyone enjoyed their choice of sandwich very much, but NO ONE grabbed the camera for a picture!  😮  That's not like us, as we usually take WAY more pictures than we should.  But it tells you how delicious our lunch was!  Thank you, Stacey and Frank.  Your generosity made our day!

Despite the shortened schedule, we managed to get pumpkin whoopie pies made, which Kacie chose for her birthday dessert.  They were pretty tasty, too.  But with it being Crazy Friday, no picture!  Instead, we got a picture of Kacie and her friends just before they sang "Happy Birthday to her!"


We ended the day trying to add to our pirate vocabulary, so we could "talk" like them using more words than "Shiver Me Timbers" and "Arghh!" 


When his team mates abandoned him, our new friend Dev persevered and completed the matching activity.  Now he knows that a "poop deck" has nothing to do with bodily functions... Yes, it was a crazy Friday! 


We made it to the end of our crazy day, but not before we snapped a shot of these friends posing under our leaf garland.  Happy Fall, Y'all!


We will officially welcome Fall next week.  Here's what's on our agenda for the last week of September:


Tuesday:  Today we will work with our Master Gardener friends at Freedom Park in the Botanical Garden.  Wear your Arc shirt AND bring a bag lunch.  If the weather is favorable, we will enjoy a picnic and walk after our session!

Wednesday:  Fall is officially here, and that brings Johnny Appleseed Day!  We will have activities centered around that today, including peanut butter/apple butter sandwiches for lunch (or jelly if you prefer).  For sides, we'll cook our potatoes from the garden and also prepare healthy apple-cinnamon chips.  It's also Yoga w/ Patti Day, so dress to stretch!  (We ran into a delay getting our flower-arranging project up and running...but that may happen today, too! 🎕)

Thursday:  Time to whistle while we work!  We're going to Eaton today so bring a bag lunch.  Also, wear your Arc shirt!!

Friday:  We're going to work on our Virginia salt-dough maps today, adding rivers and cities.  While we have the paints out, we will decorate some rocks with a Fall theme.  Since tomorrow is Ghost Hunting Day, we will explore the topic of ghosts, too!  Lunch will be casserole combo:  veggie/pasta and lasagna with a side of garlic bread.   The casseroles were given to us from the United Way of the Virginia Peninsula as part of a community service campaign they sponsored called "Stone Soup."  We appreciate their support of The Arc and our AoA!

Reminders:

CAREGIVER FOCUS GROUP MEETING - Monday, Sept. 24!!
Join Pam McGregor and a special panel for information on applying for the Virginia Individual Family Support Program's $1000 grant.  The meeting will take place at Williamsburg Presbyterian Church at 6:30.  More information can be found at this link:



SAVE THE DATE:  Remember when our friends, The Women of the Williamsburg Moose, sponsored a golf tournament for us in August?  It's time to join them as they present us with a check to benefit The Arc and our AoA!  Everyone is invited to meet at the Williamsburg Moose Lodge on Wednesday, October 3rd, at 5:45 p.m.  The tournament was a huge success, so let's join Patti and the others as they present this generous gift to us!


For all who ordered t-shirts, we should have them by the first week of October.  Remember, Lisa will pick them up and send home with the associates.  👕👕👕


IT'S ALMOST HERE...

Image may contain: 3 people, people smiling, text


We hope everyone has a great weekend,

Lisa, Carol, and Nan