One of our favorite dance warm up bands is Journey, and some of their hits have been frequent flyers on the playlist of our past year. "Faithfully" and "Don't Stop Believin'," for example. (Click the pic above for a link to that classic!) The gang doesn't usually play "Separate Ways," but that would have fit the playlist too, and now we're thrilled to say our groups won't be going "Separate Ways" anymore! We will be back to our 4 day week with all 15 participants attending on the same days beginning next Tuesday! So, we spent this week being thankful for our small group sessions, and savoring our last few "quiet"days...but also gearing up for the big reunion!
Tuesday
Oh, no! Kevin, the photographer is so sorry your eyes are closed, but we were so excited to see you in your "Monsters, Inc" shirt for our Disney game on Zoom today! DJ Liz played "If I Didn't Have You," by Mike and Sully, and Kevin sang along during our dance warm up. It was a sweet moment!
Here are our smiling Zoomies after we successfully played the Disney game where we had to study a picture of a scene from a movie and then try to identify the missing thing or character when the picture changed. Our guys are pretty observant, and did very well with the game! Today was our last Tuesday Zoom, and while the AoA guys will return to us, we'll miss seeing Annmarie's mom, Teresa, and our sweet volunteer, Becky. We sure hope Becky will be able to return to volunteering soon. And Teresa, as soon as we can have visitors, you are more than welcome to pop in anytime!
The weather was perfect for outside movement today! Kevin and Laura began bouncing the ball, and kept it up the entire time we were outside! Way to go, you two!
The others chose walking and talking. Liz and Cameron did several laps around the garden.
Nan and Nancy stopped to check out the "fuzzy" fruit growing on this tree...it's peaches! There are a number of peach trees around the perimeter of the garden.
To prepare for our trip to the Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport tomorrow, we checked out the website. Liz also wore a t-shirt that says "Airplane Mode" and shared with us a miniature Delta jet she has. We discussed the types of aircraft we might see tomorrow, and noted that it wouldn't include any Delta jets! Thanks for sharing, and wearing such a neat shirt, Liz!
Ahhh, but the highlight of the day was when the Birthday Girl, Michelle, stopped by to deliver lunch from Chick-fil-A to her friends in the Tuesday/Wednesday group! 🥳 What a special treat of chicken nuggets, chips, and cupcakes! Michelle has the dubious honor of being the last one with a birthday we will celebrate "together, but apart." 💛 Thank you to her family for generously providing, and making arrangements to deliver, our lunch today. We appreciate you very much! Michelle's actual birthday is Wednesday, but we will celebrate it again on Thursday when she is here with her group! 🎈🧁🐔😋
Can you tell from the picture that our room looked like a mess this afternoon?! We had Eaton boxes of all sizes all over the place, but we loved it! We unpacked a lot of parts, and when we left to go home at the end of the day, the room was spic and span!
Here's the Recycle Brigade on one of FOUR trips they made to the recycle bin! 👏👏♼ We had a productive day!
Wednesday
We had time after our dance warm up for a mini-lesson about dinosaurs. Dinosaur Day is May 15th, plus it's Michelle's birthday this week and she LOVES dinosaurs! What good timing! We watched an informative video and also completed a worksheet. After that, it was time to head to the airport!
It was a cool and cloudy day for a trip to the Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport, but that didn't dampen our enthusiasm. Upon our arrival, our guide, airport manager Heron, greeted us and told us it was a busy day at the airport, which meant good for a visit!
Our tour began at the runway, where Heron told us a lot of students were there today taking lessons and practicing their take offs and landings.
It wasn't too long before we saw a take off! (Excuse the shaky video...we're not used to filming flying machines!)
We also got to visit the maintenance area, where we learned that it can take a couple of hours to take one of these planes apart, but weeks to put them back together after repairing, maintaining, and thoroughly inspecting them!
Here's an old firetruck the airport purchased from James City County...so they could use the ladder for reaching the tops of their hangar buildings! We were surprised to see that at the airport!
In this hangar, we saw a shiny red plane that Heron told us is a racing plane! Then she told us that the pilot is 80 years old! Turns out, in racing, planes compete to get the shortest times on courses. They don't actually "race" like cars on a racetrack. Whew!
This is the very small communications room, but we were able to fit in so we could learn more interesting information from Mr. Bill. He explained how pilots communicate with each other over a certain radio channel. One very interesting thing he told us is that the gasoline used for airplanes doesn't come through pipelines...so they shouldn't face a shortage like we who drive cars are dealing with!
After visiting with Mr. Bill, we enjoyed a very tasty lunch prepared by Dan and his crew at Charly's Airport Restaurant. We forgot to get lunch pictures...but we had a nice time and got to eat inside in a private room, since it was too chilly to be on the patio. We all agreed the trip to the airport was great fun and very interesting! ✈🌭🥪😋🛪
Back at the AFCC, we had Choice Time and then ended our day with yoga. This was the last day for this group to be together with just the 8 of them, so after yoga we took one final "small" group picture. We sent them on their way and said, "See you on Tuesday, with ALL your friends!"
Thursday
Happy Birthday to Michelle, today! We never get tired of celebrating our friends' special days! What a joy it was to tune into Zoom with our friend from The Mariners' Museum, Wisteria, and see this beautiful slide first thing!
Besides celebrating Michelle today, we were learning about Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, with Wisteria! She had so many things from the museum's collection to share with us that were created by Asians and Pacific Islanders.
This is called a turtle ship, and was built in Korea over 400 years ago. The top of it is made of iron covered with spikes! We have seen the Monitor, the Civil War ironclad that is being preserved at the Mariners' Museum. It's very unique. But Wisteria said this turtle ship many have been the first "ironclad" ever made!
The ironclad top part of the ship could be removed! Inside there was room for the sailors and lots of cannons!
This Chinese Sampan (left), kind of like a water taxi, is actually in one of the exhibits at the museum, and we have seen it! The picture on the left shows a carving of a sampan, made from a lychee nut!
Wisteria really got our attention when she pointed out how many Asian and Pacific Islander characters are represented in the movies, especially Disney movies. Abraham bolted to the screen when he recognized Lilo and Stitch!
And we were really wowed when she showed us this real-life hook that can be found at the museum, and which looks a lot like Maui's hook from the movie Moana!
Wisteria told us that her father was in the Air Force, and when she was in high school her family was stationed in Guam, which we learned is a United States territory. She told us that one of her favorite ways to "celebrate" Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is by cooking favorite recipes from those cultures.
One of the favorite dishes she recalled eating in Guam was called Chicken Kelaguen (on the far right in photo), and is a recipe from the indigenous people of Guam, the Chamorro. She shared the recipe with us, and we will plan to make it when we study Guam. We're about to begin our study of countries around the world, but we'll also include a lesson on U.S. territories, now! And very soon. This Chicken Kelaguen sounds very tasty!
Thank you, Wisteria, for another educational, interesting, and fun Zoom presentation! We learned a lot! 👏👏 You have piqued our interest about so many things with this lesson, and we cannot wait to get back to see you in person! We're going to take you up on that offer of a nature lesson involving the Noland Trail!
Wisteria had the honor of being the "star" of our LAST (we hope) Zoom session where some of our friends will have to join from home. We will still Zoom, if necessary, with friends like Wisteria and Christina, but hopefully even that will end soon. We really can't wait to get back to community outings like we used to take! Thank you, Zoom, for keeping us connected while apart. We really appreciate all you've done for us! 😜
Later, we worked on birthday cards for Michelle and also Bette Faye, whose big day is Monday. Look at Drew as he concentrates on staying within the lines on his "little" card for Bette Faye! She's gonna love it!
Here's Michelle's official birthday picture! Her mom, Susan, dropped off lunch for us from Chick-fil-A! (And those are cupcakes in the middle!) This put some big smiles behind the masks on her friends' faces, as chicken nuggets are a favorite! Thanks, Michelle and family, for treating this group today. Your kindness means a lot to us. We are so happy to have Michelle in the AoA, and we hope she enjoyed her first birthday with us as much as we did!
The last part of our day was spent on Eaton work! Counting/bagging screws and unpacking lightbulbs were today's tasks, and we got a lot done. It was a productive afternoon!
Friday
Here's an update on our garden projects we started with master gardener Linda back in March. We are finally having success with the sugar snap peas, growing them indoors in this sunny window spot. They are beginning to trail up the trellis! We're hopeful they will produce peas in a few weeks.
Isn't this potato plant beautiful? It's actually two different plants, as we have Yukon Gold and Adirondack Blue (which will look purple) potatoes growing in this bag! Linda said around mid-July is when they should be ready to harvest! So far the critters are leaving it alone!
Saturday is Dinosaur Day, so part of Michelle's birthday celebration included a quick lesson about dinos before we left for the airport. She brought an amazing book to share with us...so many dinosaurs we had never heard of and soooo many facts in this book! Wow! Thanks, Michelle!
Michelle also chipped in to help her friends on their dinosaur worksheet, since she knows all of their names! Drew and Alexis were stuck on pterodactyl until Michelle helped them!
After our dinosaur lesson, we made our way to the Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport, and met Charley, who was going to be our tour guide! He's been at the airport for 16 years and told us he does a little bit of just about everything!
In the communications area, we learned about how the pilots communicate with each other and the airport. Kate showed Charley the wings she earned on a flight she took to a camp in North Carolina one time.
We met a family from Pennsylvania who had landed at the airport for gas and a snack on their way to Georgia! They said it would have taken them 13 hours to drive, but only about 5 to fly!
A few minutes later, we waved to this family as they took off!
We got to look inside this plane, and right away we noticed there isn't a lot of leg room! There isn't a lot of room to bring "stuff," either...so pack lightly!
This is the oldest plane at the airport. It was built in 1938! Charley said it's in tip-top shape and the owner comes in a couple of times a week for a fun flight!
If you're wondering whether or not we would recommend Charly's Airport Restaurant, the answer is, "Yes, we would!" 😋 The sandwiches here are so tasty on their
homemade bread that we didn't mind that it was too crowded for us to find seating on the patio. This is a private room at the small restaurant, but Dan and Audra (not pictured) took care of all of our orders and made us feel very welcome! We enjoyed our airport visit very much!
We stopped by Eaton to drop off completed work after lunch, and then got back to AFCC in time to "celebrate" National Dance Like a Chicken Day! After this, we enjoyed our last yoga session with Jaime and our small group. Then, it was time to call it a week! We sent these guys home with a reminder, "Don't forget to come next TUESDAY!"
Next week will bring more participants on more days, but we expect it to be more fun! Here are our plans for our first week back together in over a year:
Tuesday: After we welcome everyone back, review our procedures, and dance, we will gear up to celebrate our first birthday in person and together in over a year - Xavier's! National Pizza Party Day is Friday, but we'll get a jump on our celebration today. We'll make homemade pizza and side salads for lunch, followed by celebratory gluten-free cupcakes provided by Xavier's family! We'll also review what we've learned about continents and oceans, and play a new game we got from Liz, Geography Bingo...and we have a supply of cool new prizes!
Wednesday: Today we will work on Eaton and have a lesson on Rescue Dog Day. We also plan to work on a fun sheep craft. No yoga today...it's being moved to Fridays. Instead, we will join Bette Faye for The Arc's Wednesday Zoom session for a lesson with our friend, Christina, from the Williamsburg Art Museums! Lunch on your own...and beginning today you can order from the JRES cafeteria. Just remember, we will check the menu each morning to confirm the selections, so you won't know for sure what is being offered. Here's a link to the menu...hopefully it will be accurate each day, but if you don't like surprises, better bring lunch from home. 😉
Thursday: Our plans today include lessons on Be A Millionaire Day (20th) and International Being You Day (22nd). In addition, we'll work on our service project, making cards, and join Mystery Doug to find out if people could ever walk on walls! Lunch on your own.
Friday: Today, we're celebrating Tracy's birthday with a trip to Freedom Park! She will meet us there and we'll check on the Botancial Garden, take a walk, and have a picnic lunch, which WE will prepare before leaving: turkey and cheese wraps, chips, fruit...and of course, birthday cookies! We will return in time for yoga, so dress to stretch. (Arc shirts optional for trip to park...although they are comfy!)
We can't wait to welcome everyone back! Have a great weekend!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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