While we're not sure what "normal" is these days, we know we're getting closer to "normalcy" at the Arc of Abilities! Our "new normal" may be a work in progress, but it felt good this week to get back to seeing our friend Christina at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. That was just one highlight of our second week of July, another scorcher, of course! Keep reading to see what else we enjoyed this week...
Tuesday
The early birds got put to work today! We had to get our lunch prepped before leaving for the museums, so we didn't even give Nancy a chance to settle in and remove her mask (from riding WATA) before we sent her to find the big box of beans we needed! NOTE: Neither the box of beans, nor Nancy's hand, are as big as they appear in this picture! 😲 😄
Alexis and Liz were getting ready to prep cornbread mix, while Abraham sauteed the "franks" so we could celebrate National Beans and Franks Day for lunch! We would be at the museums until almost 12, so we needed to have lunch ready early. Thanks to the help from the early birds, we were out the door by 9:15 for our trip to see Christina!
The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg are amazing! It's really two museums, under one roof! As Christina was reminding us, in one direction is the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, housing the "finer" pieces from the 17th-early 19th centuries. In the other direction is the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, filled with one of the largest collections of American folk art. All the items in the museums tell the most interesting stories, and we highly recommend a visit!
This is a new exhibit that just opened last week. There are a number of gorgeous quilts in this exhibit, and talk about fascinating stories! (Our photos do NOT do these quilts justice.)
Christina pointed out that in the corners of this red and grey quilt, heart outlines have been sewn in by hand. They are slightly raised up and very beautiful, but not something that pops out to the casual onlooker! The details in this, and all of the quilts, are stunning!
This is called the "Redwork Quilt," and it consists of rectangular squares that the quiltmaker, Clara Jane Ulmer, made around 1900. The fad at the time was to collect autographs, and Clara Jane did just that, getting friends, family, and even a couple of "famous" people to write their names on a quilt rectangle. She then embroidered over the autographs (and other designs on other rectangles, 450 in all) with red thread and sewed them all together to made a large quilt. The outside edges look like maple leaves, but we don't have a picture. This quilt is amazing!
An exhibit in the making will be called "Restoring Williamsburg" and will detail the work commissioned by John D. Rockefeller in the 1920s and 30s. Click the photo below to read a fascinating piece on the restoration of Williamsburg that features a lot of interesting pictures!
Something that can be seen in this exhibit now is a video depicting the way Williamsburg looked before and after restoration. It shows side by side images of the "before" and "after" streets. Here's a short snippet...very cool!
After our walkabout in the museums, we worked on a project in the Education Studio that involved making Famous Artist Trading Cards. Patrick is looking at a sample of a trading card and wondering how we will get to that point by coloring a blank picture of "Peaceable Kingdom" by the artist Malcah Zeldis.
This is the actual painting by Zeldis, which we have studied before!
First, we colored a picture of "Peaceable Kingdom." It was a lot of coloring, but we didn't have to finish it all in order to make our trading cards.
Still, our guys focused and really put some thought into making their pictures colorful! Here, Drew concentrates on staying within the lines on part of his picture that Lisa outlined for him to color in.
After coloring, we cut sections of the larger picture out, and glued them onto trading cards which we had decorated with colorful backgrounds. Christina had us spread all the cards out along the counter, and then we followed her as we each chose 3 new ones that weren't our own!
It was fun to end up with cards our friends had made, and to see how their "eyes" created the colorful creations. Michelle, Kate, Nancy, and Christina showed each other whose cards they ended up with!
After our engaging morning with Christina, we were hungry for lunch that was waiting for us in the slow cooker. It was National Beans and Franks Day (with cornbread) at the AoA, and it hit the spot! We also added fresh, sweet watermelon for a perfect lunch.
Before our day ended, we got birthday cards made for Moose Patti! Her special day is on Monday, the 19th. Alexis and Patrick shared what they wrote to her while Drew and Devin smiled in the background. We know Patti will love getting these birthday wishes from us!
Wednesday
We decided to take our artist trading cards that we made with Christina yesterday and make a display to decorate one of our walls. This was a fun and unique way to explore an artist, and we want to enjoy it for a while. We have ideas to try this activity with other topics in the future! Thanks again, Christina!
These are "thinking of you" cards we made for Eric, a friend of ours from Moose Patti's golf tournament. Eric plays every year and says he does it "for the kids." This year he has to travel for his work, and is unable to be in the tourney, but he still gave Patti a donation for us! Well, Patti shared the sad news that his father passed away unexpectedly a few days ago. Eric is a dedicated supporter of ours, so we hope these cards will bring him comfort. We're thinking about him, and will miss seeing him at the tourney on August 1.
Our National Day Calendar told us that National Gummy Worm Day was this week, so that's how we ended up making Germany our country of the week. Gummy candies originated in Germany, so it seemed like a great reason to us! Just as we were about to find Germany on the map and begin our lesson, Heike popped in to say "hi," and we asked her to tell us, in German, what she had been doing so far today! (Forgive the sideways video...) Thanks, Heike! We enjoyed hearing you speak in German!
We send a big "thank you" to Patrick's mom, Sue, for sharing books about Germany with us today! Patrick said his family lived in Germany when he was young, and his father was in the military. One of the books was written entirely in German, and it took us a while to get through it! 😂😂😂 Seriously, though, the pictures in the books were beautiful (lots of castles) and we enjoyed looking at them. We also learned that "Deutschland" is what the Germans call their country! Devin assisted Patrick in holding the books for the photo, as a couple of them were heavy!
Michelle and Abraham were happy to show our gummy worm treat for the camera, but it surprised us to learn that not all of our friends like sour gummy worms!
After lunch we were reading our latest book, The Chance to Fly. The main character, Nat, is paralyzed from the shoulders down and uses a wheelchair for mobility. She dreams of someday being in a Broadway musical, and learns that a local children's theater company is holding auditions for Wicked, her "second favorite musical after Hamilton." Nat knows that one of the characters in Wicked, Nessarose, is in a wheelchair. Will Nat audition?! Next, we searched for a clip of the song "Defying Gravity" and listened to Idina Menzel belt it out!
We'll be at Eaton tomorrow for National I Love Horses Day, so we "celebrated" it today. Most of us like horses, but Alexis loves them, so she was prepared for this day! She brought her collection of Wells Fargo Bank horse mascots (one given to her each year by a family friend), a few of her horse books, and a special music box decorated with horse pictures. Cute shirt, too!
We watched a video about horses and learned interesting facts such as there are about 60 million horses in the world, and they are herbivores. Besides Alexis, several of our friends also brought items related to horses that they shared with us. Kate has a miniature horse with a book that goes along with it. She said her dad got it for her!
Devin had a picture of himself on a horse, and it was mounted behind a horseshoe. He said he rode the horse at a camp he attended!
Thursday
What we thought was going to be another engaging and productive Eaton work day became just that, but with a couple of surprises!
Upon arrival, Carol and Nan's crew of Alexis, Kate, Michelle, Devin, and Nancy got right to work gasketing parts and unpacking light bulbs. Smiles all around! It's great to go to work!
Lisa's crew was in the other room. Patrick and Xavier counted lids as we finished taking inventory on a few remaining tubs of parts.
Drew and Abraham were clearly focused on unpacking electrical plugs. We mentioned last week that the production workers at Eaton really appreciate that we do this for them!
Annmarie and Laura were also unpacking plugs. We aren't sure how many we unpacked, but there are 10 in each box and there was a pallet full of boxes. Here, Annmarie and Laura had gone out to the other room to get themselves another box to unpack. Laura was telling Carol that it's "teamwork." 😍👋😍👋
As we were relishing our Rita's ice, SURPRISE #2 moseyed in...it was JORIE, and boy were we thrilled to see her! She's been on bed rest and working from home for her knee, which had gotten very swollen due to her rheumatoid arthritis. She looked so much better, and wasn't hobbling as much. We were happy to see that! It will be a couple more weeks before she returns to working onsite, and our advice is, "Don't rush it, Jorie!" (And secretly, when you do return...don't take Kesha back! We love working with her, too!) 💛💚💜
We could actually say we had 3 surprises, as our friend Adair popped in to say "hi," too! We've worked with him in the past, and he always makes us smile. Here's our gang with Shaunta (behind Alexis), Kesha (behind Drew), Jorie, and Adair (behind Laura) celebrating each other and our beautiful and amazing partnership with Eaton. (But we missed James, who was on a well-deserved vacation this week. We also missed our guys Sam, Kevin, and Liz, who were spending time with their families.) Thanks, Eaton! We love you guys! 💙💚💛
Back at the center, we had just enough time to finish our horse craft that we started yesterday. We added manes and tails, and "built" a fence...then left it all to dry. Check Friday's section to see how they turned out! Hint: they are cute!
Friday
NOTE: We didn't take any pictures of yoga today! (Gasp!) Instead, here come a bunch of pictures from all the other fun we had today!
We had early bird helpers again! Nancy and Alexis set up the computers and gently wiped them down so they will be spic and span for their check up on Tuesday. We have a computer "dude" stopping by for routine maintenance on our well-used computers!
Xavier removed the smiling faces from this wall spot so we could replace them with our horse projects!
Ta-da! Aren't our horses adorable?! We traced and cut our handprints out and turned them upside down to make a couple of horses having a friendly visit. Today, we imagined what they could be talking about! Devin said his horses were girls, and they were talking about how handsome he is! Well, they have good taste, don't they?! 😎😜
Saturday is National Tattoo Day, so we discussed this art form that goes back at least as far as ancient Egyptians! While none of our guys said they would like a real tattoo, they were fascinated nonetheless by this video on celebrity tattoos. Yes, this is Justin Bieber, of "Baby" and "One Time" fame...two of our favorite dance tunes. He just grew up on us now, didn't he?!
We have celebrated Tattoo Day before, and always have fun with our tattoo station. We had cute temporary ones with a summer theme this year. Xavier said he wanted one, but when it was his turn, we're not sure he realized what exactly was happening! He seemed to like it after the fact, and didn't try to get it off!
Today is National Personal Chef Day, so we put the gang to work making lunch. Michelle, Alexis, and Kate were the salad chefs. They took orders from each one of us so they could make customized salads! Of course, most of us want "everything" on our salads, so their job wasn't too hard...but they still had to organize their orders!
Our other two pizza chefs, Patrick and Devin, enjoyed adding cheese to our pizzas!
Xavier, Drew, Laura, and Abraham made sure we all had plates, silverware, and napkins. They also made sure we got a little package of Goldfish crackers, which was a gift from the JRES office staff.
Personal Chef Day turned out very well! 😋
Even though we have an ice cream machine, we decided to celebrate Sunday being National Ice Cream Day by making it in a bag. It required putting half and half and a bit of sugar and vanilla into a small plastic bag, which then was put into a larger plastic bag containing ice cubes and salt. Next, the shaking began, and went on for 5-6 minutes! Laura and Devin shook, and shook, and shook!
All the shaking worked! Our half and half mixture turned into vanilla ice cream, as Alexis shows here!
We had exercised before lunch, and we got a good workout with Jaime during yoga, so we had a good balance between treats and fitness in our day. Just like that, another week at the Arc of Abilities has come to an end! Let's see what's going on next week:
Tuesday: We will stay at AFCC today and welcome a computer specialist to tune up our laptops. We'll also study the country of China, by making sesame chicken with grilled veggies for lunch, and celebrating National Fortune Cookie Day. (Even though we will learn that fortune cookies did not orignate in China!) For fun, we'll learn how lollipops are made for National Lollipop Day!
Wednesday: We'll travel to The Mariners' Museum today for an in-person lesson with our friend Wisteria! Wear your Arc shirt! The lesson will include a short walk on the Noland Trail, so don't forget to bring your water bottle. We're going to enjoy lunch at The Mariners' Cafe, so please bring $10 for your meal.
Thursday: We're taking this week off from working at Eaton, so we'll stay at the center and observe National Moon Day, which was Tuesday. We'll tune in to an episode of Mystery Doug that explores how magicians trick people, and we'll also play Bingo today! Lunch on your own.
Friday: Today we will have fun with activities related to using words, as Words with Friends Day is Saturday. We'll also talk about the American West in recognition of the Day of the Cowboy, which is also on Saturday. And, since it's Friday, we'll have yoga, so dress to stretch AND feel free to sport your favorite western wear, too (that sounds like a challenge)! Also, lunch on your own!
Enjoy the weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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