While Lisa, Nan, and Alexis were traveling for the past couple of weeks, life went on at the awesome Arc of Abilities! Everyone chipped in to make sure things ran smoothly, and they did. No surprise there, as we have a wonderful team! Many thanks to our associates for all their help and to Becky and Tracy for filling in for Lisa and Nan! They had a great trip out to California and Orgeon and are grateful for the support of everyone while they were gone!
The camera was used, though not as much, while Lisa was gone, and it's obvious that our gang was busy and having fun. We decided to post some of the pictures from the past two weeks, and let our guys help write the captions. Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 14
At our session with the master gardeners, Karen welcomed us and said we would be learning about basil and tomatoes. You may recognize a familiar face: Chris was in town and came to hang out with us for the day!
Chris was happy to see his old friends and we were happy to see him, too! Here, he and Kevin harvested some fresh lettuce.
Rick, Liz, and Patrick picked radishes. Others picked onions. We also planted peppers, basil, and tomatoes.
Pat, Joanne, Abraham, Laura, and Kacie picked ripe strawberries. We were excited that the birds had not gotten them because the MGs had put a protective net over them.
Of course, we had to take a group picture with Chris! It was fun to see him again. He told us he loves living in Florida and swimming in his pool.
After having lunch at the garden, we headed to Studio South for a relaxing yoga session with Kiley! What a great ending to a great day!
Wednesday, May 15
Patti came for yoga. In this picture, we are warming up with our "cats and cows," which is a nice stretch.
We were going into child's pose so Patti told Bo to lean back, like Kacie is doing.
After yoga, we assembled a craft project of butterflies, bees, and snails. We would them save for tomorrow's art activity.
Earlier in the day we had assembled the June Arc newsletter. It was ready for the post office! By now, we hope you completed your sign up sheet and returned it to Bette Faye on time (May 27th)!!! You're late now, if you haven't! 😜
Thursday, May 16
Patrick and Devin looked on as Drew hit the basket! We enjoyed being outside on a pretty day.
Kevin makes a shot! Yay!
Lefty Laura shows off her disk throwing ability with a great toss to Becky!
On National Fruit Cocktail Day we made a DELISH bowl of Fruit Cocktail Delight! 🍇🍍🍐🍒🍊
Kacie and Liz cut cucumbers, tomatoes, and radishes (from the garden at Freedom Park) to put into a Chicken Caesar Salad.
Ta-da! Our very delicious and healthy lunch!
Becky explained that we were going to use sidewalk chalk to cover a whole piece of cardboard with pictures of flowers.
We worked in four groups to make backgrounds that we would add our butterflies, bees, and snails to for a pretty Spring decoration.
Annmarie and Laura were all smiles while working on this one!
Our beautiful masterpieces really add color and a Springtime feeling to the room!
Friday, May 17
Today was Xavier's birthday, and his friend, "Chef" Steve and his mom, Leah, made us a pancake breakfast with all the fixings!
We couldn't wait to dig in, but first, we took a picture with the Birthday Boy!🎈🎈🎈
It was all business as we chowed down...and it was so good! Thanks to Xavier's mom and Chef Steve for this birthday breakfast. We enjoyed it very much and hope Xavier had a good time!
The rule is, if you eat, you dance! We had to burn off some calories to make room for the cupcakes that were coming later. 💃🕺
These cupcakes were worth dancing for! Happy Birthday, Xavier! We loved celebrating with you! 🎂
After eating cupcakes, we took a walk out to the Grove Community Garden behind AFCC. Some volunteers were working and they let us pick some things. Kacie got this huge garlic!
We also got to pick some fresh sugar snap peas and taste them! They were yummy!
Tuesday, May 21
The Head Start class stopped by while we were dancing and we invited them to join us. At first they were shy.
Sam encouraged them and showed them some of his moves.
They requested "Baby Shark" and came to life! What great dancers they are!
Tracy, from Parks & Rec, filled in for Lisa and Nan. She drove one of our vans and also bowled with us! She's pretty good!
Ellie, also from Parks & Rec, was on hand to help, too. Our pizza was hot, fresh, and delicious and we want to thank Meemaw for treating us to lunch!
After bowling, we stopped by Freedom Park to check the garden. We picked radishes, but the lettuce wasn't quite ready to be harvested again.
From the garden, we headed to Studio South where we had a relaxing yoga session with Kiley!
Wednesday, May 22
Becky taught us about the Statue of Liberty and we did some educational work to keep our minds sharp!
Laura was happy to be working with her group!
Patti came for yoga and showed how to do a bridge pose. It was challenging but we stuck with it.
We pointed and flexed our feet to get the blood flowing!
Thursday, May 23
It was birthday time for Tracy, so we made cards. She was going to come later for Strawberry Short Cake!
It was another beautiful day and we thought we should get outside before the weather turns too hot! Sam, Abraham, Drew, and Devin played with the disk out in the big field.
We played in the field because JRES was taking SOL tests and we didn't want to be too noisy near the building.
We fed our worms again. What a nice salad they are having!
When Tracy came for her birthday, WE got the surprise because she brought Ziggy, her new pup!
Ziggy is already learning some tricks, but he was a little too shy to do any of them, so we just loved on him!
We finally got around to singing to Tracy and enjoying fresh Strawberry Short Cake! Happy Birthday, Tracy, and thanks again for helping out while Lisa and Nan were gone.
We played our favorite game, Bingo, with Tracy and Ellie. This version was Endangered Species Bingo, because we had learned about them earlier in the week.
Friday, May 24
When we went to Eaton for a work day, Xavier tried a new task. He did very well pulling a little piece off of the big ones.
Abraham packed these parts that Chloe and Sam prepared by breaking off a piece.
The "Pink Ladies" enjoyed removing the pink film from the aluminum plates.
Drew's friend, Melinda, met us at Eaton so she could volunteer to help us. She worked with these friends to unpack light bulbs and was also blown away by all the different jobs we do! Thanks for helping us today, Melinda! We appreciate your support and enjoyed chatting with you, too!
Cameron and Devin unpacked lots of breakers and Drew helped empty their trash. Later, Cameron and Devin also took several loads of empty boxes to the recycling bin.
We tried Drew on this task with Xavier, and he passed with flying colors! Xavier was happy to have some help with all of these parts!
Chloe, Sam, and Abraham were happy to have Becky's help organizing hundreds of plastic plates and packing them neatly in the tubs.
This video is proof of our hard work and how much we accomplish on an Eaton work day!
It's always fun to celebrate hard work with a stop by Wendy's for Frosties! Thanks to Sam's grandmother, Nina, for this tasty treat on a super hot day! We are still enjoying the gift cards she gave us for Christmas last year! 🎄
Before going home for the weekend, Alexis watered the basil, tomatoes, and our other plants. They need a lot of water during this warm weather.
Even though some of us were missing, the rest kept the ship afloat, and the AoA never missed a beat! We were glad to have Lisa, Nan, and Alexis back on Friday! 😊 And THEY are very PROUD of us for helping each other while they were gone! 👏👏
