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