All Together Again!

TUESDAY  

It was great to begin the week with everyone in attendance!  All of the associates and all of the staff were together bright and early on Tuesday morning and it felt good.  We began the week with our morning dance and then we warmed up for bowling.  Things only improved once we arrived at the lanes:  our friend Dallas is back at AMF Williamsburg after a stint at the Yorktown lanes!  We were thrilled to see him!  Like everyone at AMF Williamsburg, he takes such good care of us, and our guys really enjoy talking with him.  Welcome back, Dallas!

Thanks, Dallas, for putting us on "our" lanes, 1-4.  😀🎳  There are a number of leagues that play on Tuesday morning and we all have our favorite spots.  Sometimes when a new staff person is on duty, we get placed in other lanes.  It works, but we prefer 1-4 if we can get them!

Here, Kacie makes her approach as Devin picks up his ball, and everyone else keeps an eye on the scores.  As usual, we had plenty to cheer about!

Xavier is a fun one to watch.  He very casually makes his approach and just as casually releases his ball.  We tell him to watch, and most of the time he knocks down lots of pins without even seeming to try!  He kind of has a gift for bowling well!

Presenting:  Pizza!  Doesn't it look good?!  See Drew's very happy face?  That's because our friend, and his sweet Meemaw, treated us to pizza today.  Thank you, Meemaw, for your support of Drew's favorite lunch experience!  (All of us love it!)

With Kate's permission, we present this "backside" shot of her cute technique as she releases her ball.  That right leg comes up just so!  She has good balance!

We are proud of Drew as he continues to work on closing his bag using the zipper pull Coach Teri provided for him.  Getting around the corners is hard, but he doesn't give up!

We heard snow may be coming by Friday?!  But on Tuesday it was 60 mostly sunny degrees after bowling so we went for a walk at the Rec Center.  

It was perfect walking weather!

WEDNESDAY  

We were excited to celebrate Heike's birthday on Wednesday!  We decided to work in the computer lab to write birthday letters to her.

We mounted the letters on pretty paper and decorated the white board in the lunchroom with them.  They looked great, but their messages were the best!  (Try to zoom in and read them!)

Heike provided a German noodle salad for lunch, and we made a broccoli salad and cupcakes to go with it.  The noodle salad had boiled eggs, veggies, and sausage in it and is one of Heike's specialities.  The broccoli salad is one of Carol's specialities and it included bacon bits, golden raisins, and sunflower seeds.  It was a terrific lunch!  Thank you, Heike, for treating us to your delicious noodle salad!  We appreciate that you cooked for us on your birthday!

Heike LOVED our birthday letters.  All of them were warm and personal.  We've got pictures of all of them being shared.  Devin and Sam read first.  

Next up, Liz and Kate.  We're very proud of how well our guys express themselves, both in the writing and the reading!

Patrick, Laura, and Annmarie wrote a sincere message to Heike, which Carol helped Laura read aloud.  

Alexis, Abraham, and Drew shared the letter they wrote.  We're also proud of how adept our guys are at using the word processing program on the computers.  Way to go, AoA!

We sang the birthday song to Heike while she held onto her letters!  She also said she has noticed over the years how much our guys have improved in all kinds of areas.  She's one of our biggest cheerleaders!

We talked about Presidents Day and learned that George Washington didn't wear a wig!  Then we used the calculators to help with some fancy multiplication problems on our worksheet.

Once we got the math answers, we had puzzle pieces to match with them that would make a Presidents Day picture.

Everyone was adept at using the calculators, except Cameron.  He very quickly solved every multiplication problem (2 digits times 1 digit) in his head!!  Wow, Cameron!

The last step was to glue the puzzle pieces in place.  Annmarie was searching for the spot where she and Alexis would glue a piece.

Here are the final answers.  Shout out to Washington and Lincoln!  Our groups did a great job!

THURSDAY

Wow, it was a busy Thursday for us, and such a fun day!  

We love animals of all kinds, but our pets are extra special, so we look forward to Love Your Pet Day each year on February 20th.  Our guys loved sharing stories and photos of their beloved pets.  We began the lesson with a couple of BrainPOP episodes, and the follow-up quizzes about cats and dogs.  We love to test ourselves!

Most of our guys shared stories about their pets.  Kate's Lucy is a Havenese and she brought a stuffed version, which she used to show us how she cuddles Lucy.

Laura brought several pictures of her with the dogs and cats she has had over the years.  We loved seeing them, and her as a young child. 

Alexis doesn't currently have a pet, but she fondly remembers her childhood years spent with Nan's Cocker Spaniel, KC.  We couldn't include pictures of everyone, but we really enjoyed hearing all their pet stories!

We ran out of time for yoga yesterday (Patti was sick again, so we ended up spending "extra" time with Heike for her birthday).  Today we enjoyed a session with our online teacher, Jaime.  Here, Drew and Liz are answering the phone in telephone pose!

Jaime's story today was about farm animals.  Since we learned what "domesticate" means during our BrainPOP videos on dogs and cats, we thought a yoga session with a story about farm animals would fit in nicely.  

Here, we were in horse pose.  That was a new one for our gang!

We heard about the possibility of SNOW so we decided to do a good deed for our squirrel and bird friends.  Devin, Abraham, and Sam spread some walnuts out along the tree line outside our room for the squirrels.

Everyone had made some peanut butter and birdseed feeders out of TP tubes, and we hung them in the trees near the community garden.

Later, we noticed a new visitor to our birdfeeder.  Look at this huge red-bellied woodpecker!  Welcome, Woody!  (The guys named it!)

After lunch, we headed over to the Art Museums of CW for our behind the scenes tour with Christina.  She took us through the employee entrance, and pointed out the security folks who were busy watching lots of cameras!

We all had to put on a hardhat and vest before we could continue the tour.  The renovations and expansion are coming along, but they aren't finished just yet.  Drew was ready to see something cool!

After walking through some back rooms and down a few flights of stairs, we found ourselves in the newly updated Hennage Auditorium.  Christina said we need to come for a performance one day, and we agreed.  Today, there was a scheduled visit from the Marquis de Lafayette...and we would have loved to chat with and thank him for helping George Washington win the Revolutionary War!

Our museum friend Jan, who works with Christina, was able to join us on the tour.  She took us into the brand new design studio, where all the signage for the objects in the museums is created.  It's a big, well-lit studio where the designers can come up with all kinds of informational displays.  

We spotted a very large laminating machine and this gigantic printer.  We'd love to have one of these at the AoA!  

Jan also showed us around the workshop.  We learned that most of the display stands and platforms on which artifacts are displayed are made here.  The expansion of the Art Museums is incredible and very interesting, particularly since we have been visiting since it all began.  There was a great feature about the process in this week's Virginia Gazette.  If you missed it, here's a link.  It's a great read!

Art Museums of CW Expansion

Before we ended our tour, Christina showed us a new gallery called "British Masterpieces."  This is a very large jewelry box that belonged to Queen Elizabeth II (aka, "Prince Harry's grandmother," according to Kacie!).  She gave it to Williamsburg on a visit in 1957.  It's grand!

We had one more errand to run before ending our fun and busy day:  we stopped by Eaton to drop off some lids that Meemaw had gasketed for us over the past couple of weeks.  James needed them, and we wanted to make sure he'd have them in case we had to postpone our Friday work day due to the snow...

FRIDAY  

❆⛄❆ As it turned out, we had a snow day on Friday!  It came as a surprise...but we don't know all the info that goes into the making of such decisions.  It was certainly a cold day, and the bit of snow we got was pretty!  Hope everyone enjoyed a warm and cozy day. ❆⛄❆

On to next week!  Here are our plans:

Tuesday:  We will travel to Eaton first thing in the morning to receive a check for $10,000!  It is the second year in a row The Arc of GW has been awarded a grant by Eaton Corporation.  We're honored, excited, and very grateful to Eaton, and to Jorie, who spearheaded the application process!  We'll also get to see our executive director, Pam, at Eaton...and wish her a Happy Birthday!  After an early lunch, we will head to the Virginia Music Museum (Parker Piano Outlet) for a tour and we hear, maybe a piano concert!  Thanks to Lisa and Lexi's Aunt Mary Ann (Nan's sister) for sponsoring this musical adventure for us!  Wear Arc shirts.  Lunch on your own!

Wednesday: Our Rotary friend Jeff will be here today, working with us in the computer lab.  We'll also celebrate Cook a Sweet Potato Day (it was the 22nd) with sweet potatoes and ham biscuits for lunch...Heike recently donated both to our pantry!  We're hoping Patti feels better, so dress to stretch for yoga.  (It's Patti's birthday, too...so we'll celebrate that as well!)  Fun day on tap!  

Thursday:  Hopefully it won't snow because we rescheduled our Eaton work day to today!  Wear Arc shirts and bring a bag lunch!

Friday:  The state of Texas is on our agenda today!  It was the 28th state to join the Union.  For lunch, we'll make a "Bowl of Red," which is also known as chili with no beans.  That's how they make it in Texas!  We'll also have a belated "celebration" of National Tortilla Chips Day, which was Feb. 24th, because that sounds like it would be good with chili. 😋  We'll also have fun learning about Leap Day, which is tomorrow!

Wishing everyone a happy weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang!