Birthdays for Two!

 

Sometimes birthdays come in clusters with our guys, and this week it was Kevin and Alexis in the spotlight!  With back-to-back birthdays on Tuesday and Wednesday, they gave us a lot to celebrate this week.  But that wasn't all we celebrated!  Check out our busy week!

Tuesday

Tuesday was Kevin's actual birthday, and he was turning 28!  Doesn't he look great?!   We hope it's the first and last birthday he ever has to spend part of in a mask!

We were having fruit salad with our lunch, so he requested the song "Fruit Salad" by The Wiggles during our dance warm-up.  We love to hear him sing!

During Zoom, we celebrated both Kevin's and Alexis's birthdays.  They got to see their friends Becky, Laura, Abraham, Devin, Drew, Teresa, and Kate!  We love having a full house!  This picture was taken after we all sang "Happy Birthday" to them.  What good friends!!

During our morning fitness time, Sam suggested a "birthday walk" and he and Cameron went about 20 laps around the garden with the birthday boy!  Liz and Alexis were walking elsewhere and Patrick was shooting hoops, but we didn't get pics of them today.

Kevin requested chocolate cake with white frosting, and we were happy to oblige!  We also had chicken tenders and fries (and the "Fruit salad, yummy, yummy!") for lunch, so he was a happy guy!

Afternoon called for more exercise, so we did a fun dance workout with the KidzBop kids!  They've got some moves that we would love to learn, so we will try this one again!

Nan put together the "party kits" for our Halloween Zoom Party coming up on Thursday.  We delivered to our at home friends, Laura, Annmarie, and Drew on Tuesday afternoon.  Everyone is included in our first ever virtual Halloween Party!  We just also hope it's our last one!  We miss being together with ALL of our friends.

Wednesday

It was time to celebrate Birthday #2 today, and that was for Alexis!  She was reaching a "milestone" and turning 30!  Looking fabulous, Alexis!!

We were also celebrating Halloween with this group, since we won't see them on Friday.  It's one of our favorite days every year, but it definitely wasn't the same without ALL of our AoA gang.  Still, these guys were ready to celebrate!

Before we could get too excited about "fun," Carol informed us we needed to sort a few crates of Eaton parts.  We were good with that, as we think Eaton work is FUN!  Kevin and Cameron zipped through this crate of work.

Don't even think about any funny business when it comes to Eaton work.  We had a couple of sheriffs in the house on Wednesday who made us all toe the line!

We planned a movie day as part of our Halloween festivities, and this group voted to watch Monsters, Inc.  Unfortunately, not long after it began, there was a problem with the DVD.  As usual, no one complained when we had to come up with a Plan B.  These guys roll with the punches!

Plan B was to watch Zombies, which is what the Thursday/Friday group had voted to watch.  Thank goodness Kate, to whom this DVD belongs, had left it with us over the weekend.  The Tuesday/Wednesday group liked it!!

Our lunch was a tasty salad topped with chicken and featuring Fuji apple slices!  It's one of the birthday girl's favorites, and was fitting for this week since Washington state produces over 60% of America's freshly consumed apples!  We also learned they lead in the production of lentils, pears, raspberries, and cherries, too!

Other interesting facts we learned about Washington include that they are the only state with the picture of a president on their flag (guess who?!).  They are also the only state whose flag features a field of green, as a nod to them being the Evergreen State.  They get a lot of rain, and the forests there are gorgeous and green!

We were surprised when Becky stopped by to say "hello" after lunch!  She misses us so much.  We told her it would be ok to have a short visit outside, with masks on, and she glady abided by our rules.  She's been vigilant about staying home, and is really missing her interactions with us, and others.  It was so uplifting to see her again in person!  She's seen here checking out a photo of Carol's adorable grandson, Dylan.

Did we say Carol's grandson Dylan is adorable?!?!  Those blue eyes are just stunning!! ANY grandmother would show off this cute fella! He's almost 10 months old now, and still living in Mobile, Alabama, where his dad (her son Adam) is stationed for the Coast Guard.  Carol really misses him!  Thank goodness for FaceTime!

As usual on Wednesday, we ended the day (and week for this group) with Yoga w/ Jaime.  Today it was a Halloween edition.  Instead of our guys posing, here's Jaime posing with dancing skeletons!  It was a lot of fun!

Thursday

We had a Halloween Party on Zoom and it was the highlight of our week!  Some of our friends even showed up in costumes and it rocked!  Can you spot Sheriff Sam and Annmarie in Dia de Muertos makeup?!  How about Laura's twin, Olivia, who partied with us, too?!

How about this tasty costume?!  It's Hot Dog Drew!

Of course, we had to dance to one of our favorite songs for this time of year!  Who you gonna call?! 👻👻👻

Thanks to a meeting link from Coach Teri, we had extra time on Zoom for our party.  That means we had time to work on a project together.  At AFCC, Alexis was coloring a large pumpkin picture.

After coloring the pumpkin, we put stickers on it to make a funny Jack o'lantern.  Abraham was getting the eyes just so on his!

This was the first time we worked on a hands-on activity while Zooming, and it was great to see our guys tuning in from home hard at work!  Becky was keeping her eye on them! 

Here are the finished projects from the home gang.  Aren't they cute?  They did a great job!

We took this picture later of the Jack o'lanterns made by the gang at AFCC.  They are cute, too!

We even had time for a Halloween version of our favorite group game, Bingo.   This year's party wasn't the same as our Halloween parties usually are, but for a virtual event, we were happy with it!  The most important thing was being together, and thanks to Zoom, we were! 👻🎃🍬

We were a little surprised to see so many birds at the feeders today.  It was warm and rainy outside, and we thought they would be able to find their own food in the soft ground.   They opted for convenience instead!

We finished James' birthday card and baked him a batch of cookies.  His big day is on Halloween!  Carol ran the card over to him at Eaton, right before lunch.

James was surprised, and touched by our thoughtfulness!!  And he loved our corny card!!  He said he was going to show it to everyone at work, but he couldn't wait to go home and show his family! 💛  We hope his birthday is as awesome as he is!

This was our gang taking a walk around the gym before lunch.  Lisa joked that if they had held their arms outstretched, they would have looked like Zombies.  (They were hungry and ready for lunch, too.)  This turned out to be our last picture of the day.  We spent the afternoon learning about black cats and the legend of the Jack o' lantern, and also kicking our big balls around the gym for an extra fitness session.  It was a good day!

Friday

Happy Halloween from the AoA, and this guy, who's been hanging around all week!

 We kicked off our day with a Halloween music dance warm-up.  It never gets old!

After dancing, we worked on our Washington State lesson.  We learned about it being the Evergreen State and having a mostly green flag.  We also learned that Seattle is the largest city in Washington, but the most caffeinated in the whole country!  Spokane, Washington is also known for being the hometown of our executive director, Pam!  Everyone thought that was pretty cool!

On our walk around the JRES grounds we stopped for a photo op at the front of the building.  It's very nicely decorated!

We couldn't help but notice while walking that the sky across the street from the school looked like this...

But the sky over the school looked like this!  Luckily, we were walking under the blue sky!

We also noticed that these blue dolphins (the school's mascot) have been painted several feet apart on the sidewalk at the bus loading area.  After thinking about it, we realized it's to help the students with social distancing!  

After our Fuji apple salads for lunch, we enjoyed the rest of the Zombies movie we had started earlier.  It had great music in it, and wasn't nearly as scary as these Zombies look! 😀

During Spooktacular Yoga with Jaime, we had to get into "lamp pose" and Alexis and Abraham nailed it!

Can you guess what pose Devin is acing?  It's "flying pose" and he's ready for take off!

We had time to do an extra session with Jaime called "Peace Out."  She led us through a very relaxing session which was the perfect way to end our week.  Namaste, Everyone!

And just like that, we tell October goodbye!  We'll welcome November next week, and here is what we have planned:

Tuesday / Thursday:   We will Zoom with our at home friends with Tuesday's topic being The White House and Voting  and Thursday's topic being Who Invented Candy?  Bring a bagged lunch because after Zoom we will take a drive along the Colonial Parkway to peek at fall colors, enjoy a picnic at the Yorktown Battlefield, and take a nice walk, too.  The weather looks sunny, but possibly cool (esp. Tuesday), so bring a jacket!

Wednesday / Friday:  We are down to the last few states now, and this week we'll study number 43, Idaho.  So of course, we will have baked potatoes for lunch!  We will also work on our November calendar and learn about World Jellyfish Day!  Don't forget to dress to stretch for yoga, too!

Have a safe and Happy Halloween Weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang

October Rolls Along

 

We can't get over how quickly the month of October is passing us by!  The calendar this week ended for us on the 23rd, which means there is only about 1 week left!  We took advantage of nice, October weather and had a great week.  Enjoy our story!

Tuesday

We knew it was going to be a great week when we logged into our Zoom meeting and saw these smiling faces staring back at us!  It made our day to learn that Drew, and sister Alex, were tuning in from the Outer Banks, and Abraham was coming to us from somewhere on the road in his mom's car!  We also welcomed Laura, 

Devin, and Kate from their homes.  What a fun group!

Our lesson today was about the sounds owls make, and it was brought to us by Mystery Doug.  We thought it would be fun to follow up on Christina's owl lesson from last week!  After learning that most owls don't even make the familiar, "Hoo-Hoo" sound we associate with them, we participated in an extension activity that had us listening to sound clues and guessing where we were.  It was fun, and our "sound detectives" were not stumped by any of the clues!

After Zoom, we were planning to have lunch at Newport News Park and then take a walking tour of CNU's campus with Lilly.  Unfortunately, Lilly wasn't feeling well and we had to postpone our CNU visit.  She had hoped to be able to be with us, and she held out until the last minute, but in the end, needed to take care of herself!  We understood, and sent happy thoughts to Lilly to feel better.  No one complained, and we quickly came up with Plan B, which was to just enjoy time at the park.  It turns out that Newport News has not reopened picnic areas at their parks, so we ended up at New Quarter Park (upper York County), a favorite spot of ours.  Tracy, from Parks & Rec was able to join us, too!  (On the right in this picture!)

After enjoying a peaceful picnic lunch, and some pleasant conversation, we walked over toward the creek.  Tracy took this group shot for us.  (Nan was at the restroom. 😮)

After putting our things back in the vans, we headed off to the paved trail at New Quarter Park and walked a 3k!!!  Yep, that's about 1.8 miles and we went at least that far as we walked to the park entrance and back!  Yay, us! 

Fall is coming!  We spotted some pretty colors!

Back at AFCC, we ended the day with Choice Time.  Cameron worked on puzzles while Sam relaxed with a good book!

Kevin (and Alexis, off screen) also worked puzzles.  Liz showed Carol pictures from her weekend celebrating her cousin's 40th birthday!

Wednesday

We loved the above average temperatures this week, and the chance to be outside.  We've mentioned before, our guys really enjoy walking, and we remind them all the time of how good walking is for them!  Here, Liz and Cameron pass each other as they walk in opposite directions.

Then, along comes Sam, who was zig-zagging all around the blacktop area at AFCC!

Nan and Kevin stopped to look at all the figs growing on this tree in the garden.  Nan told Kevin that she remembered going with her grandma to local markets as a child and getting figs, which she loved!

Lexi and Pat worked on their shots, something they love to do!

We ran into Karen, who works in the JRES cafeteria.  She told us that once the students begin coming back to the building next week, we would be able to resume ordering lunches from the cafeteria!

We studied the 41st state, Montana, also known as Big Sky Country and The Treasure State.  Did you know that millions of years ago it was dinosaur country?!  Some of the largest dinosaur fossils found in America have been found in Montana!  You could check out this big guy at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.

It was kind of a stretch, but we ordered Chinese takeout for our Montana-themed lunch.  We learned that Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong came to Montana in the 1800s to work in the mines.  Of course, they brought their favorite recipes with them, and Chinese food is relatively popular in Montana, along with bison burgers and huckleberry pie!

In fact, the oldest continually run Chinese restaurant in America is the Pekin Noodle Parlor located in Butte, Montana, and has been since 1911!

Cameron chose to bring his lunch from home, because the only Chinese food he cares for is fortune cookies!  We made sure to get him a couple of samples, which he was happy to receive!

To celebrate National Color Day, we made these pretty fall symbols using a technique called color resist, using crayons and watercolors.  We're going to use them in making a birthday card for our Eaton friend, James!

During yoga, we worked on several moves to improve balance.  Here, Alexis stayed on her tip-toes for several seconds, without teetering!  Wow!

Sam and Cameron felt the stretch as they warmed up with windmill pose.

Also warming up, Liz and Patrick stretched their arms high.

Kevin sighed with contentment as he reached around his shoulders for a self-hug.  It felt good to end the day this way!

Thursday

We'd like to send a big thank you to Devin and his family for sending us a beautiful pumpkin!  They recently visited the pumpkin patch in Surry.  This was just what we needed to complete the look of our Fall Fun wall!

This is the AFCC group dancing to "Dorothy the Dinosaur" by the Wiggles, because we needed a song about reptiles since our Zoom lesson was National Reptile Awareness Day!  We have fun with this song during our dance warm up sometimes, and everyone knows all the moves!

We hope our friends tuning in from home enjoyed our reptile lesson.  There are some very cool facts and videos about all kinds of animals on the National Geographic Kids page.  Check it out by clicking on this lizard:  🦎

  Lilly was still not feeling well, and we will make plans to reschedule our CNU visit.  So, like on Tuesday, we went to New Quarter Park for a refreshing afternoon.  Look at this beautiful day we had for our picnic!

After lunch, we walked to see the creek.  We spotted a large web in the shape of a wheel, with a very big orange/yellowish spider working in it.  A search later led us to think it may have been a marbled orb weaver, which is also known as a pumpkin spider because of its color! 🎃  That seems fitting!  It's actually a fairly common garden spider.  It's hard to spot in this photo, but it was scurrying up the web and into the safety of the leaf above, where it stayed as long as we were there, hoping it would come back out!

There were no spiders (or small children) on the playground so we climbed a bit and took this group picture.  It was such a pretty fall day, if a bit warm...

Next, we headed for our 3k walk!  Alexis spotted this sign warning us to be aware of our surroundings and on the lookout for snakes!  Well, it was Reptile Awareness Day!  Fortunately, we didn't see any today.  NOTE:  We were only on a wooded path for a short bit of our walk.  This section leads to the asphalt path, where we figured there would be less of a chance of coming across any snakes.

While we didn't spot any snakes, we did spot pineapple sage growing in the wildflower garden along the asphalt path!  HEY, Master Gardeners!!  Check this out!

Even though we were on a "walk," we had a couple of sprinters in our group!  Devin and Abraham did a walk/run today!  (Please excuse the shaky start to the video!)

Friday

Just a typical Friday at the AoA when we went out for fresh air!  Devin caught up with Kate and Alexis for some rabbit ears fun!  Did they even know?!

Abraham and Xavier keep the basketball hoops busy!  Xavier prefers to take his shots from close to the basket, while Abraham prefers a layup.

Carol decided to drop some completed work off at Eaton on her run to pick up our takeout order.  Kate and Devin helped to load up her van. 

This group was surprised to learn that the longest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in America is the Pekin Noodle Parlor in Butte, Montana!  When Carol returned with our lunch orders, we pretended we were eating there!

Abraham was proud of his mapskills work this week!  We learned that Montana has a lot of beautiful rivers, and one of its nicknames is Big Sky Country because, well, there aren't any skyscrapers blocking the view out there!

Montana claims to have the shortest river in the world!  The Roe River is about 200 feet long and flows into the longest river in America, the Missouri River.  The Guiness World Record people agreed it was the shortest river at one time, but the designation came into dispute when challenged by a river in Oregon, so Guiness eliminated the category.  Still, the Roe River is pretty short!

This group marked National Color Day with our color resist painting activity.  Xavier was applying water colors after outlining his pictures with crayon.  The results were so pretty!

We are using the color resist art to make a birthday card for James, at Eaton, whose special day is on Halloween.  We aren't finished with the card, but here's a sneak peak at the inside!

We couldn't believe it was already Friday afternoon, the end of the week, and time for yoga!  We asked the guys what would be a good photo op for yoga this week, and they said downward dog pose!  (Actually, they said "butt" shots...😳😳😳 😂😂😂)

In Other AoA News!

Back in the summer, a few AoA friends got together and painted rocks for Coach Teri, who planned to use them for a fun neighborhood activity.  Sam recently had fun hiding all of them!

They were having the grand opening of a little library in their community, and incorporated a rock hunt into the event.  Sounds like a lot of fun!

Kate enjoys spending time with her Best Buddies during her time off from AoA.  She recently took a walk in CW with Ella.

          

Drew's family was in the Outer Banks this week and they spotted our Eaton work on one of the docks in Manteo!  The pedestal with (maybe???) one of our gasketed outlet covers on it looks awesome!

 

We had a wonderful week!  Next week is going to be B-U-S-Y!  Check out our plans:

Tuesday / Thursday:  This week on Tuesday's Zoom we will celebrate birthdays for Kevin (27th) and Alexis (28th)!  For our friends who are remaining safer at home, feel free to make cards that you can share for your friends, Kevin and Alexis!  On Thursday's Zoom, we're going to have a Halloween Party!  It won't be as awesome as our previous ones, but for a Zoom party, we think it will rock!  Everyone will need the "party kit" that will be given out or delivered to you on Tuesday, along with crayons and/or markers. (The Thursday/Friday group will get their party kit at AFCC on Thursday.)  In other Tuesday / Thursday activities, we will learn about black cats and play Halloween Bingo.  Chicken tenders and fries for lunch, with a side of fruit!

Wednesday / Friday:  We'll learn about Washington State (#42), and have Fuji Apple/Chicken Salads for lunch.  We'll continue Halloween fun with movie day and costume wearing (OPTIONAL, but some of the guys really wanted to do it this year.)  There will also be Halloween Yoga - so dress to stretch (bring clothes to change into if you wear a costume).

Wishing everyone a stellar weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang