It was another week of celebrations and much for us to be thankful for, too! Moose Patti joined us for Zoom, and on Thursday we celebrated Drew's return AND Kate's Birthday! We had nice trips to enjoy beautiful weather, and just enjoyed being together, though still in our split groups. Read on to hear more about each joyful day!
Tuesday
Tuesday was an awesome day, it's just that our camera lens had a big smudge on it that we didn't notice until Lisa was working on the blog at the end of the day! So, we're just going to use 4 of today's photos so we can document some of the joy from the day!
During Zoom, we were surprised to see Moose Patti join us all the way from Luray, Virginia, where she is enjoying a vacation! So excited to hear from her that the Women of the Moose golf tournament, an important fundraiser for The Arc of GW, will be on Saturday, August 7th this year. Save the date! More details coming soon! 🏌🏌🏌
We spent time outside after Zoom. Everyone loves walking and talking with Lilly, who will end her time with us next week and then graduate from CNU!
Kevin was missing from our group picture because he was around the corner with a basketball. So, he gets his own video! He likes to practice dribbling. Good job, Kevin!
Even though Kate isn't with us on Tuesday/Wednesday, we celebrated her birthday with her favorite lunch, pasta, and cupcakes! (Thanks Patrick and Alexis for baking them and Liz for frosting them!) These good friends also made nice cards for Kate, which she will get on Thursday.
We assembled 132 PowerSlide doors for Eaton after Choice Time! We are so efficient, which is a good thing. Carol is going on vacation Thursday so she wanted us to "crank 'em out" so we can drop them off at Eaton tomorrow when we travel to New Quarter Park! This picture was taken near the end of the assembly time. Kevin and Cameron had been working at this table all along, putting the screws and bolts in the doors, while everyone else did other steps. As they finished the other steps, the doors piled up at this station, so most of the gang chipped in to finish the task!
Wednesday
Get ready for more pictures today! We cleaned the smudge off the camera lens. 👍📷
First up, here's Patrick with cards for his mom. She had surgery this week to be a kidney donor. We think she is very brave, and also kind to do this. 💜 We're happy to report she's doing very well. We wish her a speedy recovery! 😍
There was a threat of stormy weather for around lunch time, but we took a chance and made our way to New Quarter Park at midmorning. The sun was blazing just as pretty as it pleased, and the temperature was just right. 🌞 We set up a few games to play and had the park to ourselves. Sam, Liz, and Nancy played ring toss, and turns out, Nancy is really good at it!
To the basketball court was where Cameron, Patrick, and Alexis headed. Between the three of them, they hit quite a few shots!
Kevin and Laura tossed the large disk. They were glad it wasn't too windy.
After playing our games, we spent some time on the playground equipment, as there were still no other visitors (little kids) at the park! This is a large equipment with several features we can enjoy. Here, Kevin is crossing bars, much to the delight of his friends (cheering off camera). We had to encourage him to go "slow and steady" since he tends to be a speedy guy! 👏👏
No explanation needed for this picture of Alexis, Laura, and Cameron. The sign says it all!
It may only be about 8 feet high, but this is a pretty realistic rock climbing wall Sam is scaling! 👀
We asked Nancy if she had an "inner 6 year old" who would like to slide and she said, "Oh, yes." We love, love, love this! (She said "Weeeeee" as she descended!)
We ate lunch after all of that playing around, and then posed for this group picture before squeezing in a 20 minute walk along the asphalt path. We made it back to the vans just as the first raindrops were starting. When we got back to AFCC, we hurried inside before the winds howled and the skies fell open! It only lasted about 10 minutes though, and then the sun was back out.
At 2:00 we joined Bette Faye's Arc Zoom session to catch up with the W&M Baseball Team! Our guys asked lots of good questions and really enjoyed hearing about what the team players have been up to during Covid. The players were adamant in stating that they cannot wait for The Arc to be able to have another game night with them! (We can't either!) ⚾⚾⚾
We are all about choice at the AoA, and Sam decided he would rather practice yoga with Jaime (online) as he usually does on Wednesday afternoons, rather than join the Zoom. He was happy to be set up just outside of the room, and enjoyed his private yoga session very much! We're happy that he made the right choice for himself!
Thursday
We had two big highlights today...we'll get to Kate's birthday later. First up, Kate was DJ and when she played "Uptown Funk" the place went nuts. Dancin'Drew came back today, and it's plain to see that he hasn't lost any of his moves during the pandemic! Welcome back, Drew!
Besides being Drew's return and Kate's birthday, it was also Earth Day! That and Kate's birthday were our Zoom themes today. Check out our Zoomies...including Moose Patti who joined us again from her vacay in the mountains! We were so happy she chose to join us instead of all the things she could have been doing...taking a hike, listening to the birds, drinking another cup of coffee while staring at the view, sleeping in........😄!!
Happy Earth Day!
We played Earth Day Bingo during Zoom. Look at the birthday girl in her special crown! We also danced to her favorite songs and sang to her before signing off. It was a fun Zoom today!
Lunch today was pasta with meat sauce, at Kate's request. We celebrated Garlic Day (April 19) with garlic toast, and we added a fresh spinach and veggie salad. The cupcakes her parents dropped off were so tasty! We sang again, too!
At the end of the day, we watched a couple of episodes of shows from waaaay back on the Disney Channel. Kate, and most of our guys, grew up with these shows, and they LOVED watching them today! We never heard so much laughing and reminiscing!
There was one surprise left for the birthday girl. Kate's friend, Sandra, arrived to pick her up at dismissal and surprised her with flowers and a balloon! We hope you enjoyed your birthday with us today, Kate! It was a lot of fun!
Friday
We were busy in our "card factory" on Friday morning. Devin's mom had shoulder surgery last week, so we wanted to send her some cheery get well greetings. Hope she likes pink!
Next, this group made their contributions to our cards for Kiley, who Zoomed in from Minnesota to practice yoga with us last week. This gorgeous set of "magical words" cards was started by the Wednesday group. We finished and got them in the mail today. Kiley is going to love them! 💛
FINALLY! It was a gorgeous day for this group's travel. (They always seem to get the cloudy/rainy days for outings...and never complain!) We were noting how quiet the school seemed today with the students being at home, and it made us realize that New Quarter Park, with its amazing playground, might be busy today. So, we came up with another plan, and ended up at Freedom Park and the Williamsburg Botanical Garden. We harvested radishes and spinach!
The garden is absolutely beautiful this spring, and if you haven't checked it out in a while, you should!
The "Plants with A Purpose" Honor Box Sale begins April 24th and runs through May 31. This is a great chance to pick up some new plants! Many of them are divisions made from the WBG's gardens, and many are native to the Virginia Coastal Plain area, so they should thrive in your garden!
For more infomation about the "Plants with a Purpose" Honor Box Plant Sale, click here. 🌸🌿🌱
After enjoying our lunch in the warm sunshine at Freedom Park, we drove over to the Colonial Parkway where a portion of it is closed to vehicular traffic today through Sunday so folks can walk and bike on it!
We parked at Jamestown Settlement and took a nice stroll on the parkway as far as the first bridge. We spotted tadpoles in the muddy water, and saw a couple of blue herons fly by.
On our way back to the vans, we spotted a bluebird of happiness on the stop sign. A reminder to us all to stop and enjoy our beautiful outdoors on days like today!
As we posed for a picture by the fountain at the Settlement, the gang said they hope we can come back to visit the museum once indoor field trips are allowed. We always enjoy a visit to Jamestown!
Back at our AFCC garden, Michelle and Drew took care of adding more soil and watering our thriving potato plants! Master Gardener Linda helped us plant them about 5 weeks ago, in a "grow bag" that a friend of hers was about to toss! We also planted sugar snap peas, but they aren't doing as well. We're going to try planting more pea seeds and keeping them inside next week...
We also filled the bird feeders with the last of the birdseed Devin's family donated to us in March. So, imagine our surprise when we found 2 more forty-pound bags of birdseed at our back door when we got back from our travels. Thank you, Bobowicz family! Our birds do love to eat at our feeders! And check out Devin's muscles after he loaded the two bags onto a scooter so we could move them to the storage closet!
So blessed are we to have such active and fun weeks at the Arc of Abilities.
Thank you to The Arc of Greater Williamsburg's Board of Directors, and Executive Director, Pam, for making this experience possible for us! Thanks also to JCC Parks & Recreation for partnering with us and providing the AFCC space, and to Tracy for being our liaison with Parks & Rec. And, thank you to our very supportive families and friends for all you do for us.
Tuesday / Thursday: We'll finish our April birthday celebrations with a Burger Bash for lunch for Devin and Lilly! Thank you to Devin's family for providing burgers and buns for us!! We'll also say good-bye to Lilly as she gets ready to graduate in a couple of weeks. We hope she won't be a stranger... In other activities, we'll complete a bit of work for Eaton, and ZOOM with our at home friends! Tuesday's topic will be Babe Ruth Day/Baseball and Thursday's will be Happy Birthday, Devin and Lilly!
Wednesday / Friday: We finished learning about the continents a couple of weeks ago, and today we will study the oceans. We'll also have another lesson on dolphins (some work we didn't finish on Dolphin Day). The weather forecast predicts more beautiful days, so we'll take a trip to nearby Colonial Williamsburg, by request of the gang, to "look for animals." Bring a bag lunch and don't forget to dress to stretch for yoga, too! We'll also welcome Tracy to help out as Carol is on vacation this week! Thanks, Tracy!
Enjoy the weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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