March is Gone!

Somehow the month of March has just about come to a close and the good news is, it's Spring!  There isn't really any bad news, but something to think about is that Christmas is now less than 9 months away. 🎄 Time to start planning! 😮  Even our guys ask, "Where do the days go?!"

Here's where they went last week.  We had four great, and busy days!

This is what we found outside the window when we arrived Tuesday morning!  The hyacinths and daffodils are so pretty, and when the birds are at the feeders (we scare them when we go out to take pictures), we could stare at this all day!

On Tuesday, Abraham returned for his second trial visit.  We took him bowling and he loved it!  What we noticed when he bowled, is that he reminded us of both Chris and Devin!  In this video (which is worth rotating your screen for since Lisa hasn't mastered rotating videos before uploading yet), you can see him approach the lane with the same hop in his step that Devin had, and then release the ball with a double hand throw, just like Chris did!  We think it's a sign that Abraham is meant to take over the spots left empty by our friends Devin and Chris, so he will officially be joining the Arc of Abilities next week!  Welcome, Abraham!

We didn't get any great action shots at bowling, but we got some great friend shots.  Annmarie, Liz, Cameron, and Sam were smiling because lunch was on the way!

We caught up with Kevin, Laura, Xavier, and Patrick as they all finished a turn.  

Kate, Dev, Drew, Abraham, and Alexis were happy hanging out and cheering for their friends.

We always enjoy sliced apples with our pizza.  Today, we had Gala apples and they were particularly crisp and juicy!

Here's lunch!  We still say AMF Lanes Williamsburg has some of the best pizza we've ever tasted!  Ms. Tracy says she bakes it for us with a little extra love!  Many thanks this week to Lisa and Lexi's neighbor and friend, Teddy, who sponsored our lunch.  We appreciate her generosity!

Shout out to Kacie this week!!  She was the high scorer with a 131!  We're happy for you, Kacie!

 We stopped by Freedom Park after bowling to walk a bit and harvest spinach and mustard greens from the garden.  We're going to have a fresh spinach salad with our corn dogs on Thursday and we're going to cook the mustard greens so we can sample them in a different way.  Yum!  We are grateful to our master gardener friends for helping us plant these beautiful greens back in September, and encouraging us to enjoy the harvest!  We start our Spring sessions with the MGs on April 9th, and we can't wait!

One of the prettiest displays at the Botanical Garden is this raised bed.  Patrick and Drew walked over with Abraham to check it out.

Here we are!  A group picture on a chilly, but sunny, Spring afternoon!

We promised to make up "Goof Off Day," which we didn't get around to during our farewell to Devin last Friday.  On Wednesday we played Bingo, which can get very goofy when our guys are playing!  Just look at the Bingo prize table...thanks for all the recent donations!  Our guys think this is simply fabulous!

Chloe was so happy to win this Scooby Doo stuffed animal.  She carried it around the rest of the day.  😍  Drew was equally happy to pick a book from a favorite movie, Frozen, which he could take that night to read with his W&M Buddy at the Arc's Literacy Program. 😎

Next up on Goof Off Day was the 2019 Edition of Pie Face Showdown!  This is the game where you try to splat your opponent with whipped cream by tapping your button fast enough to move the hand in his or her direction.  We set up a March Madness-type Bracket and eight of our guys entered the tournament. Up first were Dev and Liz.  Dev won this round!

Isn't this the cutest picture of the next two contestants, Alexis and Sam?  Sam prevailed in this round!

Kevin and Annmarie were the next pairing.  Annmarie won the round, and Kevin barely got "creamed" because the cream slid off the game hand!

Our final two players in the quarter-final round were Kacie and Cameron, with Kacie advancing.  Gotta love Cameron's game face, though!

We went through the semi-finals, and Annmarie and Sam made it to the finals!  Here's the exciting finish to Pie Face Showdown 2019!  (Notice that Annmarie enjoys "losing" as much as Sam enjoys winning!)

For the second year in a row, Sam is our Pie Face Showdown champion!  We hope he loved his prize...a pot of gold!  Congrats, Sam!  You're pretty quick on the game trigger!

After all that goofiness with the Pie Face game, we got serious with some group work.  Liz and Bo were in deep concentration as they worked a cryptogram puzzle that was tough.

Cameron finished it fairly quickly.  He has a knack for this kind of puzzle.  

This group worked on word puzzles and incorporated movement into a game they made up. Kevin and Annmarie are looking for an owl.  Can you spot it?

Drew and Laura were searching for a clock.  Turn around and look up, Drew...above the owl!

It was another week that Patti wasn't able to be with us, so we practiced yoga poses with our online teacher, Jaime.  This is house pose.

Look at Laura balancing in what Jaime (who is from England) calls "aeroplane" pose.  You make it look so easy, Laura!

We're proud of this final poster we made for Coach Teri's neighborhood party.  It outlines rules to be observed at a petting zoo.  Thanks, Coach Teri, for the assist with the idea to use the thought bubbles!  This is one of our favorites! 

We got busy on Thursday morning with several projects.  Our room needs more springtime decorations, so we began a project that may or may not end up looking like chicks (of the animal variety)!  Kevin, Drew, and Devin worked on Step 1, which was painting paper plates.  Later, we ran out of time, so we won't get to finish these until next week!

Kate, Liz, Alexis, Patrick, and Kacie drafted thank you letters for the Virginia Air and Space Center.  We needed to let them know how much we appreciated the scholarship they gave us so we could visit last week!

Laura, Chloe Sam, Bo, and Cameron made sure we had some colorful artwork to add to our thank you letters.  We appreciate their attention to detail! 

At lunch time, we celebrated Something on a Stick Day with corn dogs, but the real highlight was our fresh spinach salad...shown on the right!  Our guys gobbled it up!  On the left is a sample of cooked mustard greens, which we are proud to say several of our friends tried.  Both of these came from the Botanical Garden and were picked fresh by us on Tuesday.  We had planted them back in September with the master gardeners, and we've enjoyed the harvest a few times now!  Yummo!

Devin, Bo, and Liz were game for tasting the mustard greens, which we compared to cooked spinach.  Nan had seasoned them with a couple of chicken bouillon cubes and they were good...and very good for us!

  

Sunday is Take a Walk in the Park Day, and we try to celebrate that each year!  So we went to Newport News Park after lunch and enjoyed beautiful Spring weather and a trail that wasn't too muddy.  We stopped for Chloe to tell us a ghost story, too!  Fun!

A few of us came upon this guy on the way back to the vans.  He's just a baby, but we didn't stick around long to see if Momma was nearby!  We also saw lots of turtles and spotted an otter when we were on the bridge.

Becky snapped a group shot for us!  We were missing Annmarie today.  😒

We had a busy work day at Eaton on Friday.  Check it out!  These guys didn't even notice a picture was being taken!

Carol was showing Bo and Laura a new task that involved measuring.  They didn't notice the photographer either!

Hello?!  Anyone want to smile for the camera?  Not on Meemaw's watch!  Her crew is focused!

It kind of looks like Liz saw the photographer, or maybe she just randomly looked up!  This group was busy, too!

Becky was on task today as well!

We were short-handed with 3 of our friends being absent today.  Devin had to pick up some slack and work by himself for a while on a big box of pieces that needed to be separated.  He didn't mind!

Alexis and Liz did double-duty.  First they worked on assembling doors and then they applied gaskets.  We're proud that our guys are capable of many different tasks.

Here, Kate, Annmarie, and Drew were also doing a different task from earlier, as was Sam who's in the box in the background getting to the "bottom of the barrel" as he often does.  (He's very good at that!)  Kate was training Drew by starting the process of removing the pink film from the part.  Great job, everyone!

After lunch we sent Meemaw and Nan with this group to help James in the warehouse with unpacking.  To quote Meemaw, "It was work!"  That's what we're here for!  😎

After our busy work day, we went back to AFCC and enjoyed free time in the gym (JRES students had a half-day) or on computers.  We were all happy for the end of another fun week, and looking forward to the weekend!  

The schools are on Spring Break (so no cafeteria), but we'll be back next week, and here's what we'll be doing:

Tuesday:  It's a day we have been looking forward to for a while...our friends Patti and the Women of the Moose (WOTM) are taking us to the Alpaca Farm in Toano!  Don't forget to wear your Arc shirts. We first went there in September 2017, so we're excited to see what may be different or new this time.  The WOTM are providing subs and chips for lunch!  Thank you, WOTM...this is going to be a real treat!

Wednesday:  We'll work in the computer lab today with our Rotary volunteer, and prepare our April calendar.   It's another day for "celebrating" walking, something we all can do and is very good for us.  This time it's just National Walking Day.  Since the school is closed, we will enjoy a walk all around the campus.   It's Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, sooooo, PB&J sandwiches for lunch. We also expect to have yoga with Patti, so dress comfortably. For fun, since yesterday was April Fool's Day, we'll also learn about the history behind it, and have some fun with it, too!

Thursday:  First thing today we will welcome Sam's dad, Tim, who has arranged for us to see a demonstration of Army Divers next week at Yorktown.  He's going to give us the lowdown on what they do and what we can expect when we see them in action!  Thanks, Tim!  This will be an experience like we've not had before and it sounds exciting!  Wednesday was Find a Rainbow Day so we will cover it today with a fun science experiment and a Mystery Doug episode about rainbows.  We also have Spring cleaning to do!   Lunch on your own today, and please BRING IT FROM HOME!  The JRES cafeteria is closed for Spring Break!

Friday:  Today is National Flash Drive Day, and we will use our computer lab to have a lesson on saving and backing up our work.  It's also Deep Dish Pizza Day, so we will talk about deep dish, but have regular pizza for lunch that we will bake in The Nina.  Other than that, we will spend lots of time in the gym today playing old-fashioned games.

📅 Here's an important "save the date" we'd like to toss out this week! 📅

The Women of the Moose will present their 2nd annual golf tournament to benefit The Arc of Greater Williamsburg, The Arc of Abilities, and their organizational charities, MooseHeart and MooseHaven.  It will be at Kingsmill on Saturday, August 3rd! 

Have a great weekend,

Lisa, Carol, and Nan