We couldn't have started a great week any better than by celebrating our friend Drew's 30th birthday! We also honored our Eaton workers during Employee Appreciation Day, got great news about our intern, Lilly, and learned all about Australia from our "guest lecturer," Liz! Read on to find out more about these fun times, and the rest of our week, as we welcomed the month of March!
Tuesday
We surprised Drew on Zoom, since he is still staying safer at home. Everyone hid off-camera when we let him into the session, and at first, he thought no one was coming to his party!
But he was quickly surprised when we all jumped out and shouted, "Happy Birthday!"
What would a birthday party for Drew be without us dancing to Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk?" You and your friends are getting it done, Drew! We can't wait for the day when you are back here with us dancing to your favorite song! And a big thank you to your sister, Alex, for sharing this great video with us!
After dancing, we played a silly version of Joke Jeopardy, since Drew loves a good joke! We also squeezed in a video clip of a contestant on "The Price is Right" playing Drew's favorite game, Plinko! She got very excited when she won $20,000! We hope you enjoyed your birthday party, Drew! We had lots of fun celebrating with you!
Later, we got word that Drew continued his birthday celebration with lunch at one of his favorite places, Five Guys! We hear he likes the hot dogs there, and we KNOW he loves the fries! Happy Birthday, Drew!! 🥳🌭🍟🧁 Big 3-0!
In other big news this week: Congratulations to our intern, Lilly!!! She was selected
from a large pool of candidates to become a University Fellow in CNU's Office
of Admissions beginning in June, after she graduates! 👏👏 She will spend a year working to help CNU admit the
best and brightest from all along the east coast. She'll review
applications, interview prospective students, and travel to recruit
others! We are SUPER PROUD of you Lilly, and know you will be an asset to
Christopher Newport's admissions office! 👏👏 Plus, we are very excited that you will still be around the area...we hope you'll stay in touch after your internship with us ends!!
Whether we believe it or not, MARCH is upon us! That means we had to remove our winter and snow-themed decorations to make room for the colors of spring! Sam did a nice job clearning off the wall and windows on this side of the room.
We also used the computer lab to work on the March calendar. We have a lot of fun days to celebrate this month...including the AoA's 5th Anniversary on March 16th! 😍
Nancy and Nan made sure our letters that spell MARCH were colorful. They are going to look great on the wall.
The morning had been busy and our tummies were growling, so we needed to get lunch prepared. We were having peanut butter sandwiches, but we needed some fresh veggies to go along with them. Kevin pitched in to create a fabulous veggie tray!
We surrounded our lunch trays with the decorative snowmen we made in January...and then we told them goodbye, as we are no longer wishing for snow!
Later, we made our first of many decorations that will brighten up our room for spring. Here, Lilly is helping Kevin use paint and a pressing technique to make a fork tulip!
Patrick also used the fork to put tulips on his page. It was a simple technique, but placement of the fork was key, so we had to focus!
We think our tulip gardens turned out very nicely!
Wednesday
We learned about the continent of Australia today, and our guest lecturer was Liz! She has visited her Uncle Bruce, who lives in Australia, so she offered to put together our lesson. Yay, Liz!! She did a great job presenting a slide show and several short videos. We learned a lot!
Canberra is the capital, the emu is the national bird, and the golden wattle is the national flower. An interesting fact Liz taught us is that alligators are not native to Australia, but crocodiles are!
Liz shared a fun story about her uncle, mom, and grandmother going for a climb on the Sydney Harbor Bridge, but Liz, her brother, and her father did not because they have a fear of heights! She showed us a video clip of people climbing the bridge, and we noticed they were tethered to the rails! Yikes!!
Liz thought of everything. We learned about the Australian flag, their animals, and how their seasons are opposite from ours. She also showed pictures of how the Aussies drive on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel being on the right side of the car. But one of our favorite things we learned is that Aussies love a "biscuit" (cookie) called TimTam. She brought us samples!!! So yummy! Thank you Liz, for the presentation and the cookies. We really appreciate all the time you spent planning today's fun lesson for us! And thanks for including the Thursday/Friday group, too. Lisa will share your slide presentation and videos, and of course, the TimTams, with them!
It was a very nice day for a walk around the JRES campus!
We ended up at the world map that is painted on the back blacktop. Here we are, in Australia! 😜
Back inside, we got busy working as a team to make our lunch of shepherd's pie. Liz suggested it and we used her mom's very simple recipe. Even though shepherd's pie originated in England, it is a beloved meal in Australia, as well. We made ours with ground beef, which Liz and Sam cooked after browning these onions a bit.
Alexis, Patrick, and Carol were in charge of making the mashed potatoes, which would go on top of our dish. Even though we used instant potatoes, they added sour cream, cream, milk, and butter to make rich, creamy potatoes. (That is a lot of "cream" in one sentence!)
Kevin helped make gravy and made sure the peas and carrots got in the mixture! Nancy was working on prepping a fruit tray of kiwi and grapes, but we forgot to take her picture. We're sorry, Nancy. 😞
Before we popped it into the oven it looked like this. After it came out of the oven, we gobbled it up...with no additional pictures! This one was a big hit with our guys!
We added a new member to our team today. This is Lexi, who is Tracy's new coworker at Parks & Rec. Things are a little slow at P&R until Covid restrictions let up a bit, so we are benefiting from her assistance for a few hours on Wednesdays and Fridays. Kevin was happy to have her help as we worked on St. Patrick's Day cards for the Arc's Board of Directors.
Here's proof that we worked on Eaton tasks today! No one had time to "pose" as we were busy as bees!
After getting a good amount of work out of them (which they LOVED doing!), we celebrated our hard-working "employees." Friday is National Employee Appreciation Day, and we were more than happy, and proud, to recognize our guys who work diligently on Eaton work, AND many, many other forms of work we get done. They all help us keep the AoA running smoothly!
Phew! After such a busy day, a bit of yoga with Jaime helps us settle our minds and bodies.
Thursday
We usually begin our Thursday update with a picture of our Zoom group, but we forgot to get one today! So, here's Miss Piggy and Elton John instead. Click on their pic if you'd like to hear our dance warm up song for today!! It's a throwback, for sure!
We celebrated the fact that Monday was National Pig Day with an informative lesson in which we learned that pigs are really very intelligent. They can even be trained to learn tricks! We also talked about Tuesday having been Read Across America Day, and Lisa read us a fun book called Happy Pig Day.
After Zoom we had to finish our March calendar upadate. Kate, Nan, and Xavier were very focused on their work!
Devin and Abraham were also focused, and Lilly assisted Michelle with picture inserting skills on the word processor.
After lunch, we learned about Australia. We're studying the continents now, and this week, our friend Liz (from the Tu/Wed group), prepared a slide show full of Australia facts for us! She presented it to her group yesterday, and told Lisa to pay attention so she could present it to our group today! 🙋
Lisa did almost as good a job as Liz! We learned some cool facts today and enjoyed watching the videos Liz had bookmarked for us. In this one, we learned that Australia is called the "Land Down Under." That's because it's in the southern hemisphere. We also learned that Australians will greet you by saying, "G'day, mate!" We liked that!
While we were watching a video about walking over the Sydney Harbor Bridge, Devin pointed out that the view from wayyyy up there was pretty cool!
Here's a link to a video about climbing the bridge. It looks like a scary, but fun (?) experience! Click on the picture and check it out! We couldn't believe Liz's mom and grandmother did it when their family visited Australia in 2006!
Liz also picked a video about why some people drive on the right, while others drive on the left, side of the road. In Australia, they drive on the left, while in America, we drive on the right. Turns out, back in the days when people (men) rode horses, they rode on the left side so their weapons, which were more likely to be in their right hands since most people are right-handed, would be closer to their enemies when passing them from opposite directions. It's kind of complicated to explain here, but the picture will link you to Liz's very interesting video about this topic!
Truth be told, our favorite part of Liz's awesome lesson was finding out that Australians love a "biscuit" (cookie) called TimTam, and that Liz and her family had provided samples for us. What a fun and surprising treat! And we agree with Australians, TimTams are very tasty! Devin and Abraham rubbed their tummies in anticipation of tasting! This group would like to thank Liz for her hard work in creating this presentation for us. We learned some very cool things! Thanks for the TimTams, too. They were the best!!
One more thing we got done today, was these festive cards which will be sent to our Arc Board of Directors as a St. Patrick's Day greeting! We enjoy making cards and spreading good cheer to the many friends of the Arc and the AoA!
Friday
Today was "more cards" day! First, we made birthday cards for our friend Annmarie, who is staying safer at home, but will celebrate her birthday on Monday. We're going to party with her during Zoom on Tuesday, so we wanted to get cards ready to deliver to her before then. We're looking forward to celebrating her 25th! 🎉
Next, we created a card for Jesse and Lorie Wijntjes, who recently donated a parcel of land to The Arc of Greater Williamsburg. Pam asked us to design a thank you card for them.
On the inside, we had each of our associates in today's group write a sentence expressing our gratitude for the Wijntjes family. We know that this donation will enable The Arc of Greater Williamsburg to continue providing meaningful programs and activities for us for a long time!
Basketball was the name of the game in the gym today! Xavier hit a bucket as Alexis waited to get the rebound.
Kate had her eye on Michelle's shot, hoping to snatch a rebound, too!
Abraham took his eye off of Devin and the ball to look at the camera! We told him to get back to defense!
We were looking forward to working together to make shepherd's pie today. Devin carefully measured water so he could make some gravy. He also heated the frozen peas and carrots in the microwave.
Kate wasn't planning to eat the shepherd's pie, but she wanted to try the mashed potatoes, so we gave her the job of making them!
Team Alexis and Michelle cooked onions and ground beef, under the watchful eye of Lexi.
Look at the beautiful fruit and veggie tray Abraham helped assemble! The veggies were leftovers from yesterday, so not too many.
Xavier was helpful in getting our large toaster oven off the shelf in the storage closet, loading it onto this rolling thingy, and getting it to our room.
Teamwork makes the dream work! And we were dreaming of lunch time!
Shepherd's pie was a smashing success! (And Kate also enjoyed the plain potatoes!)
After Choice Time we had Eaton work to complete. Just like with Wednesday's group, everyone was too busy to pose for the camera!
Speaking of Eaton, Jorie sent us this picture of their pet turtle, Rascal! Rascal was rescued about 2 years ago from a pond near the plant, and boy has he grown! We look forward to the day we will be back at Eaton working onsite, and can check Rascal out in person!
Hard to believe it was Friday afternoon and yoga time again! This group put away 9 tables and all the chairs before chilling with Jaime. Another great week!
We are looking forward to beautiful weather next week. Spring is so close! We're planning to take "fresh air" outings again, and enjoy the sunshine and warmer temperatures. Here is our agenda for the week of March 9-12:
Tuesday / Thursday: We will Zoom with our friends at home. On Tuesday, we celebrate the 25th birthday of our friend, Annmarie! We'll dance to her favorite tunes, play a Disney game, and color together...all things Annmarie loves to do! On Thursday, we'll check in with Mystery Doug to learn which animals have the biggest hearts, and play a fun scavenger hunt game. We'll also talk about Spring, which is almost here! At the center, we will take a "fresh air" outing after Zoom. The Tuesday group will visit Colonial Williamsburg, and the Thursday group will visit Freedom Park. That's opposite of what each group did a couple of weeks ago. We'll also celebrate Plant a Flower Day by creating some pretty pots! Please bring a bag lunch to eat outside!
Wednesday / Friday: Our continent study will have us learning about South America today. We'll celebrate National Meatball Day (9th) and Frozen Food Day (6th) by preparing Swedish meatballs with frozen veggies for lunch. We'll also make birthday cards for a special volunteer and plan for our upcoming 5th year anniversary celebrations! Dress to stretch, because we'll fit yoga in, too!
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the sunshine! 🌞
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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