Leap Year!

Happy Leap Day, 2020!  We learned about this extra calendar day on Friday.  You can read about it below!

With the end of February, we begin to think about Spring being just around the corner.  We had a wet and chilly week, but as always, we made it great!

Tuesday

We were all set to travel to Eaton this morning to receive the grant check, but Jorie and her family had strep throat! 😷 We hoped they felt better soon.  We made plans to see her on Thursday when we go for our work day. 🤞  She's excited to present the check to us!  

Since we weren't dashing off to Eaton, and it was a dark, rainy morning, we lit up the disco ball and had an energetic dance warm up!  We enjoy this morning routine, playing everyone's favorites that never get old!

After an early lunch, we were happy that the rain had eased up a bit so we could travel to the Virginia Musical Museum.  It's located at the Parker Piano Outlet on Richmond Road, and it's a hidden gem!  We really enjoyed our visit.

 We didn't get a picture outside of the museum, but we noticed a huge guitar beside this sign on the inside!

This is the owner of the museum, Mr. Buddy Parker.  He gave us a fantastic tour.  We began in the music box and nickelodeon room.  Here, Mr. Parker told us about this piece, which was once part of a carousel.  He played it for us, and it was loud!

Then, he took the back off to reveal a keyboard.  He invited Kevin to play it when he found out that Kevin takes piano lessons!

Even though it wasn't musical, Annmarie was fascinated by this amusement park mirror!

This was a cool piece.  It's a violin that plays itself!

 In the phonograph room, we learned about the history of recorded music.  We recently learned about Thomas Edison on Inventors Day, and here, we saw some phonographs, cylindrical shaped "records," and even a talking doll that he developed.

Our guys enjoyed browsing in the Virginian Room.  Many Virginia natives played a part in the developement of music.  Patrick and Kacie recognized a current and popular Virginian in this display:  Pharrell Williams.

Devin and Sam looked at the Missy Elliot display, enjoying photos of her with other famous performers they recognized like Justin Timberlake.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Virginia music museum if it didn't include Bruce Hornsby!

In the piano gallery, Mr. Parker showed us how the piano developed over time.  There are keyboards in here that date back to the 1760s!

We learned that Parker Piano provided pianos for two movies:  Hannibal and Gods and Generals.

We learned that this car originally belonged to Marvin Gaye, and that after he died, Wayne Newton, who is from Virginia, bought it.  Now, it resides at the Virginia Musical Museum.

Also joining us on our tour was Doug, who is the father of one of our friends from Arc, Jason.  Doug works at the piano store and museum and is also full of interesting information.  At the end of the tour, he showed us this player piano.  It streams music from the internet!

What better way to end our tour than listening to some cool jazz.  

Thank you, Mr. Parker and Doug, for giving us an educational, interesting, and fun tour!  

Wednesday

Even though it was a drizzly day again, we found this bright spot outside in one of the bulb pots we planted with the master gardeners last fall.  Looks like it will have company soon!



We had a few associates absent today, and Kacie and Liz were needed to cover tasks in our room, so Alexis covered the library work by herself.  While shelving books, she came across this one about Texas, which is our state of the week!

We were celebrating Cook a Sweet Potato Day (Feb. 22) because Heike included sweet potatoes in a box of donated food she recently gave us.  Thanks, Heike!  Your donations have provided us food for yummy lunches, and it's helped save some money in our grocery budget!  These friends are rubbing their tummies because they just know we're going to cook something delicious!  We also watched a short video which taught us that sweet potatoes are high in fiber and Vitamin A, and low in fat and calories.  Yes, a carb that's good for us!

First, we had to peel and cut the sweet potatoes into small chunks.  We sprinkled them with a little sea salt and popped them into the oven to roast.  Later, we made a citrus dressing from scratch, to toss the roasted potatoes in...keep reading to see how it turned out!

We were also celebrating Yoga Patti's birthday, so of course we had to make a sweet treat.  Kacie handled that for us.  She made cookie/brownies!

Meanwhile, Rotary Chuck was here to work with us in the computer lab.  He helped some of our friends navigate an online puzzle page and then worked with Devin to research answers for an online scavenger hunt about Texas.

Chuck also helped some of the guys "prove" their answers to the scavenger hunt by copying and pasting a link to the site where they found the information into the answer sheet on their desktop!  Lots of skills being honed today!

After all that morning work, it was time for lunch.  Here's our roasted sweet potato salad, homemade biscuits, and the Canadian sweet maple ham Heike gave us.  Carol's citrus dressing included cilantro, chives, shallots, lemon juice and olive oil, and it really brought the sweet potatoes to life!  We'd like to send a big THANK YOU to Lexi's Gdad for using his "deli" machine to slice the ham into very thin slices for us!  They were perfect, Gdad!

As usual, our guys enjoy a variety of activities during Choice Time after lunch.  Laura was working on the same puzzle website she had practiced with Chuck, and Kevin was assembling a Toy Story puzzle.

Lately, Sam and Devin have enjoyed reading books during Choice Time instead of playing pool.  No complaints from the staff for them choosing this quiet activity.  😀  Way to go, boys!

Sometimes you just need to close your eyes for a few minutes, especially when your tummy is full of sweet potatoes!  Patrick had checked some scores on his phone, and then grabbed a few minutes of peace and quiet. 

We were expecting a fire drill at 1:15, before Patti arrived for yoga at 1:30.  Well, the fire drill was late!  Patti had a chance to give us suggestions for dealing with the loud noise the alarm makes.  She said she also likes to cover her ears at the sound!

Once the alarm finally sounded and we made our way outside, Patti pointed out a couple of large birds (possibly hawks) gliding over the trees across the street. She told us to turn our focus away from the still blaring alarm toward the birds, while continuing to breathe. She gives great tips to help us with self-care!

We had an abbreviated yoga session after the fire drill, and then we got to sing to Patti and celebrate her birthday with brownies!  She was touched by our thoughtfulness and said it made her day!

Thursday

Thank goodness for beautiful and sunny weather today!  We went to Eaton for a work day and to receive a grant check for $10,000! 

Our Executive Director, Pam, joined us as Jorie and James presented us with the Eaton Corporation's Community Engagement Grant.  This is the second year in a row the Arc of Abilities has been awarded this generous grant, and we thank Jorie, James, and everyone at Eaton Corporation for their continued support of The Arc of Greater Williamsburg and the Arc of Abilities!

We want to thank Meemaw who happily volunteered to take a group picture for us!  Don't we look great in our Arc shirts and big smiles?!

Before she headed back to the office, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Pam and gave her a goodie bag and some cards!  We hope she has an awesome year to come!

Next, it was time to get to work.  First, we set up our work stations.  Kacie and Devin placed risers under these tables so the guys who would work on the PowerSlide Doors would be more comfortable.

We set Laura and Annmarie up at this table with parts that needed to be sorted.  James upped our game and this time, there were 3 different parts in the bins that had to be separated!  The girls were a whiz at this, by the way!  (They had boxes on the floor in which  to place the different parts.)

Devin and Kate, and in the background, Drew and Patrick, also separated parts.  James had left us about a dozen bins and a large barrel full of mixed parts.  It took us a couple of hours, but we got them all separated and neatly packed by lunch time!

Out in the other room, we had a team working on the assembly of PowerSlide Doors, one of our specialities!  It begins with Sam, who steadily unpacks doors and keeps them flowing to other team members who have to add parts.  Later, Sam also works on repacking the doors that have had all parts added to them.

Carol made sure Kacie and Meemaw had the gaskets they needed to prepare the amber lenses which go onto the PowerSlide Doors.

Becky, Nan, and Alexis (sorry we only see your hair, Alexis) placed four labels on each of the doors.  Precision is key at this table!

At this point, Kevin, Xavier, and Devin were adding nuts and bolts to the doors, and Meemaw had moved on the using the electric screwdriver to tighten them into place!

Missing from our pictures today is Liz...who worked at the gasketing table.  We're sorry, Liz, that we didn't get a picture of you hard at work, but we know you put gaskets on hundreds of parts today.  👏👏

Yum, yum!  We got to stop at Wendy's for Frosties after our work day.  As always, we send a big shout out AND thank you to Sam's grandmother and our friend, Nina, for this treat!  We really look forward to it!  💛💜💚💙

Friday

We were busy today but took a few pictures.  Texas was our main lesson for the day so we were cooking no bean chili for lunch, because that's how they do it in Texas.  Chef Xavier sauteed onions to get us started.  

Chef Drew added ground beef and got to chopping.  He kept at it, and also nodded "yes" when asked if it smelled good!

For a side, Kacie helped prepare a mandarin orange Jello salad.  Tasty!

While the cooking was taking place, we were also working on the computers to write thank you notes to Doug and Mr. Parker at the Virginia Musical Museum.  We forgot to take pictures of us working, but here are the final letters!  Job well done, AoA Gang!

It was interesting to learn a few facts about tortilla chips.  National Tortilla Chip Day is actually on February 24, but we celebrated today since we were making Texas-style chili and tortilla chips go well with that.  One thing we learned is that Doritos is the #1 selling tortilla chip in the United States, and Tostitos are #2.  But when it comes to salty snacks, both crackers and potato chips outsell any kind of tortilla chip!

It was chilly outside, but chili inside!  To celebrate Texas, we made a hearty (but no beans) version of their state dish and topped it with cheese and sour cream.  We used a recipe that President Lyndon Johnson's wife used.  They were from Texas, of course! The tortilla chips and orange Jello salad were the perfect sides.  Yay for Texas! 

After lunch we had a short lesson on Leap Day and Leap Year.  We learned that it actually takes the Earth 365 days and 6 hours to make a complete "yearly" orbit around the sun, so after 4 years those extra hours add up to another day.  That's why we add a day to February every four years.  We watched a video that tried to explain it to us, but it was tricky to understand!  Still, we persevered on an assignment that required us to count by 4's, so we got something out of it...but no pictures!  We decided that tomorrow (Leap Day), would be a good day to do something fun and consider it "extra time" in our lives!  Happy Leap Day, everyone!

We do a lot of worksheets for each state that we study, and one of our favorites is the map skills sheet.  Here, Sam was looking for the southernmost city on this map, and he found it:  Brownsville!

Also during map skills, Xavier searched for the state that borders Texas to the north.  He needed to highlight it with his crayon.

Other things we learned about Texas included that it's the second largest state by area (after Alaska) and also the second most populated (after California).  The pretty bluebonnet is the state flower and the mockingbird is the state bird.  The capital is Austin, and it's also known as the "Live Music Capital of the World."  There are also a LOT of cattle in Texas!  We wrapped up our lessons by listening to music from famous Texans like ZZ Top, Selena Gomez, and Buddy Holly.  When we got to Willie Nelson, it was almost time to go home, so we ended the day with...what else but "On the Road Again!"

It seemed like our week went by very quickly. And with it, the month of February is almost gone, too!  We have a lot to do to bring in March next week.  Here's what we'll be up to: 

Tuesday:  It's birthday time again at the AoA!  Today we celebrate our friend Drew!  It's Bowling Day (Drew's favorite!) and his family is treating us to choice of chicken tenders or hot dog for lunch, fries included!  Thank you, Drew's family, for sponsoring a special lunch for us.  We love partying at the bowling lanes!  Wear Arc shirts!  Hoping for a post-bowling walk if the weather is nice, too! 🎈🌭🍟🎂🥳

Wednesday:  We will work in the computer lab today to create our March calendar.  It's also National Grammar Day and yesterday was National Anthem Day, so we will have a few educational activities related to those topics.  Plus, you need to dress to stretch for Yoga with Patti!  Lunch on your own.

Thursday: We're going to learn about debating today for Speech and Debate Education Day.  That should be interesting!  We'll also study the 29th state to enter the Union:  Iowa.  There is a chain of restaurants that were founded in Iowa known as Maid-Rite.  We're going to try and make a version of their "loose meat" (beef) sandwich for lunch.  (It's kind of like Sloppy Joes, but not as drippy.)  We'll also have corn for a side, since Iowa is also known for corn!

Friday:  It's been a couple of years since we celebrated Employee Appreciation Day, but we're back on it this year!  We'll have awards and treats for all of our amazing "employees."  We'll also take time to talk about dental health as it's National Dentist Day.  Lunch on your own.   🎂🎂🎂UPDATE:  We are celebrating Annmarie's birthday today, too!  For lunch, we will have fried chicken and salad!  Yay for Annmarie!  🎂🎂🎂

Happy Leap Day and Have a Great Weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang