Shout Out to Heike and Team!

As October rolled around, we were excited to return to bowling and to celebrate Heike and the other two custodians who take care of our rooms (and us, too)!   It was also fun to celebrate Lisa's birthday!  We had a great week.  Here's the rundown!

We were busy over the past few weeks with opportunities for final pool parties, visiting the Watermen's Museum, and resuming our therapeutic gardening sessions with the master gardeners.  We miss and need our biweekly bowling sessions...at least that's what a couple of our guys said this week when we bowled but our scores weren't too high!

In our quest to capture bowling pictures that we haven't put in the blog before (😉), we thought a few "from behind" action shots would work!  Abraham and Alexis got low before releasing their balls.

Sam lined up for his shot!

Patrick and Drew watched Devin on his last roll and wondered if he would get a strike and beat their scores.  Luckily for them, Devin came up a little short.  He was a good sport about it though, saying, "I'll do better next time!" 💛

Laura gave us a happy dance when she got a spare!

There was a new cook working at the Williamsburg AMF Lanes today, but her pizzas were quite tasty!  We enjoyed them and want to thank Cameron's family for their donation to our pizza fund!  We appreciate it very much!

After bowling we stopped by Freedom Park for a short walk.  This group checked out the fairy garden we helped create last week.

Liz clipped a few zinnias so we could make flower arrangements for tomorrow's custodian appreciation luncheon.

On Wednesday we began our work in the JRES library for this year.  Bo, Kacie, and Liz checked in with Mr. Nonnemacher to see if there were books to shelve.

Liz and Kacie concentrated on getting the books in the right places, and if you look closely, you can also see Bo working hard in the background.  Good job, guys!

Fall brings the return of our Rotary volunteers.  They donated the computer lab to us back in 2017 and have been volunteering in it ever since.  Dave came today and worked with our guys on their word processing skills, which he noted have improved a lot since two years ago!  Yes, Dave, they have!

In other computer lab news on Wednesday, we also worked on our October calendar.  

Patrick is focused on finding pictures to illustrate Japan, since we have a lesson on it coming up.  There were so many pictures to choose from, he said!

We have almost five full weeks (Tuesday-Friday) in this month, and a lot to do!

Drew worked independently to use Fall and Halloween colors for our big letters that spell out OCTOBER.  

Cameron also added his artistic touch to making the OCTOBER letters, and then he cut them all out for us! ✂✂✂

Meanwhile, Xavier, Kevin, and Devin worked in the kitchen to bake cookies for our custodian luncheon.  The Arc donated baked ziti and bread that was left over from a recent event, so we didn't have to cook for the luncheon.  We made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for dessert!

Our custodians felt the love when we set up a pretty table for them and left them to eat in peace and quiet!  They couldn't get away from their chores on the school side (cafeteria duty 😱) until 1:00, so we had already eaten.

Thank you, Heike, Marvella, and Severina!  You work hard to keep our side of the building spic and span, you make sure we have everything we need (and then some), and you are friends to us all!  We love you!  Happy Custodial Workers Recognition Day! 💙💚💜

After our pasta lunch, it felt good to stretch with Patti.  Our "intention" in today's practice was to push the sun further away from the earth so it wouldn't be so hot outside!  (The high for today, October 2, was in the mid 90s....)

This is what we do when we have a lot of thank you notes to sign!  During computer time, we had created notes for several people who have supported us recently. This is the most efficient way to get everyone's signatures!

Even though Halloween is 4 weeks away, our guys are already feeling excited about our annual party.  So we (staff) gave in and let the decorating begin!  On Thursday, we made spiders.  First, we had to paint paper plates for the background.  We are making good progress on our goal of using a thin coat of paint!

Step two was to color a spider...but give it a little personality!

The final step was to glue the spider onto the background and then "weave" a web across the front.  This part was challenging but we helped one another.

Our finished webs are adorable!  Keep an eye on this section of the wall, as we have plans to add to it!  These spiders are kind of lonely!

Someone suggested we play "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."  Not surprisingly, it brought out the "inner child" in several of our guys!  Why not?!

We detoured from learning about a state to learning about a country on Thursday.  We mentioned last week that our friend, Melinda B., had visited Japan and brought us some candy treats!  Before diving into the candy, we learned interesting things about the culture of Japan and made a small booklet, too.

Everyone got to choose a couple of pieces.  They were all chocolate with different add-ins, and it was a unanimous decision that they were all delicious!  We wrote a thank you letter to Melinda detailing our thoughts about this tasty treat!

Kate was best dressed for Japan Day!  Check out this cool shirt her dad picked up for her from a restaurant in Wilmington, NC!  We learned that a bento is a take out or home-packed meal, placed in a box, in Japan.  A traditional bento includes rice or noodles, fish or meat, and vegetables.  It's kind of like a lunch box to us...but really healthy! 😋

We even found a KidzBop dance video that had Mt. Fuji for a backdrop!  Thanks, Melinda, for the candy AND for inspiring a fun lesson for us!

Friday was National Body Language Day but we turned it into a lesson to include Autism Awareness.  We watched a video clip and discussed how it makes us think about some of our AoA friends.  We also talked about positive and negative body language signals and how important nonverbal communication is to our ability to understand others.

Later in the day, we watched a BrainPOP segment on Autism Spectrum Disorders that really helped us understand why some of our friends seem "quieter" or "less involved."  We broke into small groups and had discussions about ASD characteristics, which we recognized as actually being in all of us to some degree.

Our friend Moose Patti volunteered today!  She led the discussion with Sam, Dev, and Xavier.  It was a great lesson for us...and a little bit serious, as we are striving to really understand all of our differences.  

The day wasn't all serious, though.  We celebrated North Carolina as the 12th state to enter the Union by inviting Lexi's Grandad to give us a demonstration on how to chop North Carolina style barbecue.  He was happy to oblige, and even provided the barbecue for us, in honor of his daughter Lisa's birthday!  Here, he shows us his cleavers...wow, they are really big!

He had cooked the meat at home, and kept them wrapped in foil and towels to stay warm for the trip to AFCC.  He said they were known as "Boston Butts...not that kind of butt...meat from the shoulder area."  We got a chuckle out of that! 🤣

Our room smelled so good as he chopped and we couldn't wait to dig in at lunch time.  Luckily...it was lunch time!

Even though Lisa has been eating this her whole (long) life, she still enjoys a good barbecue sandwich with a side of baked beans and chips.  We also had coleslaw for those who preferred.  It was a delicious birthday lunch!  Thank you, Grandad, for providing it for us and for taking the time to give us the chopping demonstration.  It was very interesting!  As Sam said, "We should do it again sometime!"

It wouldn't be a birthday without cake, or in this case, cupcakes!  Lisa would like to thank Liz for baking them for us.  She would also like to thank everyone for the sweet cards and everything they did to make it a great day!

After lunch, we finished our lesson on North Carolina.  We learned that before the Jamestown colonists arrived in Virginia in 1607, there was a colony in North Carolina in 1587.  We were fascinated to learn that within 3 years they had vanished without a trace...and are now known as The Lost Colony.

Alexis was our best dressed for NC Day in her t-shirt from the fire station in Corolla!

We got a surprise gift after learning about North Carolina!!  Laura's family brought us frisbees when they visited the Outer Banks this summer!  Since it was an early dismissal day for JRES, we were able to go in the gym and toss them around at the end of the day.  Thank you, Laura and family!  It was very thoughtful of you to get these for us!  Happy North Carolina Day!

Here are a couple of posters we made that will be on display at the 5K on Saturday.  Look for them, and also these AoA participants!  We hear it's a record turnout coming for this year's event, and we're excited to see everyone!

Yes, it was one of our typically busy, but fun, weeks!  We enjoy our time together, and can't wait to get together again next week.  Here's our plan for the second week of October:

Saturday:  It's finally here!  The Williamsburg Landing 5K for The Arc is tomorrow!  It's our 10th anniversary run and we are grateful to Williamsburg Landing for their support of this event.  We have many other sponsors, too; check them out on this graphic:

We also have a lot of participants this year!  THANK YOU to our Arc of Abilities families for YOUR amazing support.  We'll see a lot of you there!

Tuesday:  We're working with our MG friends today to make birdhouses out of dried gourds (we've waited a whole year for them to dry!).  There will also be a guest speaker who will tell us what kinds of birds we might expect to visit the gourd houses.  Weather permitting, we'll eat lunch at Freedom Park and then try the playground at Warhill.  The equipment may have cooled down by now!  Wear Arc shirts and bring a bag lunch!

Wednesday:  Today is Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work Day, so feel free to bring Teddy Bears or items related!  It's also Stop Bullying Day, which seems appropriate for Teddy Bear Day!  Lunch on your own.

Thursday:  Today is Abraham's birthday!!  But he can't be with us so we will celebrate him tomorrow.  Instead, we have an Eaton Work Day today.  Inventory is finished, so we will find out what we're doing when we get there!  Please wear Arc shirts and bring a bag lunch.  We should have time for a Frosty stop, too!  THANKS, NINA!  🍦

Friday:  Time to celebrate Abraham's special day!  To honor him, his mom is treating us to pizza for lunch!  We will also learn about the 13th state to enter the Union, Rhode Island!  Since we're having pizza for lunch, we won't cook any specific food from Rhode Island, but we will enjoy the Rhode Island state beverage. You'll have to be here to find out what it is!

Have a great weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang