This was us this week as we relied on fans to keep our cool for a couple of days. The air conditioning, which was just "upgraded" while we were on Summer Break, decided to malfunction in yet a different way this week! However, our AC Hero came to the rescue, and got it up and running...just as Mother Nature gave us a break, too! All's well that ends well! Here's how our week played out:
Tuesday
When we arrived on Tuesday morning we noticed a greasy stain on the pool table that wasn't there when we left on Friday. Long story short, something in the part of the HVAC system that runs above our ceiling was leaking! Jerry, the HVAC guy (and our friend, as we've gotten to know him well over the years), got to work on it right away...and we couldn't resist this picture! Thanks, Jerry! You work hard and are super-friendly, too! We appreciate you!
While Jerry was assessing the AC situation, we met a new friend named Todd, who came to tune-up our computers. He worked on them ALL day and got them updated and running more efficiently. It had been about 2 years since they were checked. We enjoyed getting to know Todd, and even treated him to lunch! He was happy to sample our Chinese cooking today. Thank you, Todd! It was a long day watching the little things flash and spin around on the computers. We really appreciate what you did to improve them for our benefit!
In the midst of the hectic morning, Kevin arrived and right away Abraham noticed he had on a shirt like Lisa's!! He was in Maryland last week and while in Annapolis, visited Bitty & Beau's, a coffee shop that employs adults with disabilities. Lisa had visited their original location in Wilmington, NC a few years ago, and wears her shirt often. Kevin and his family visited the Annapolis location and now Kevin has a shirt and he and Lisa can be twins!! How cool! (Kevin's mom asked Lisa ahead of time if she was familiar with Bitty & Beau's, and that's how Lisa came to wear her shirt on the same day as Kevin! 😉)
Tuesday was National Fortune Cookie Day, so we learned about the country of China this week. Here, Patrick is coloring in the flag of China on his facts sheet. Some of the interesting things we learned were: 1) China has more people than any other country at over 1.2 billion; 2) China is the third largest country by area in the world, after Russia and Canada (the United States is the 4th largest!); and 3) The Great Wall of China is the largest man-made structure in the world, and was built over 2,000 years ago to keep invaders out!
Michelle shared with Nan that she had a bit of trouble on her crossword puzzle about China, but after thinking about it, she figured out the mixed up answers and was able to correct them! Great job, Michelle! And very good problem solving, too!
Our lunch today was sesame chicken over rice with a side of fresh sauteed veggies! Carol and Nan did most of the cooking because Jerry was working in the vicinity of our cooking table (and Todd was in the kitchen with computers all over the place). We have to say, Nan and Carol did a great job as this was a tasty dish!
Did we mention National Fortune Cookie Day is today and that's how we decided to make China and Chinese food our focus? Well, before we enjoyed our fortune cookies, we learned that they aren't even Chinese! They were first made in San Francisco, but sort of originated in Japan. They are considered a foreign concept in China and it's rare to find them there! Devin and Sam don't mind that they aren't really Chinese...they just like eating them and reading the fun fortunes!
Today is also National Lollipop Day which we celebrated at the end of the day with Tootsie Pops. We asked our guys if they knew of any pop culture references to lollipops and they came up with several. Devin mentioned the Munchkins who welcome Dorothy by presenting her with a lollipop in The Wizard of Oz. We watched the clip and everyone sang along!
Alexis mentioned Shirley Temple, and her song "Good Ship Lollipop." Everyone sang along to this one, too! to
When we first mentioned lollipops, everyone started singing the iconic song, "Lollipop, Lollipop." We didn't really know who sang it so we Googled it and learned that a well-known version of it was released in 1958 by a group of girl singers called the Chordettes, who were calling their guy crush a "lollipop!"
We had fun with our lesson on lollipops in pop culture! Here's our guys singing along to what they called "The Lollipop Song."
Wednesday
Graham, Dave, and Josh had a lot of cool nature objects on the table! We were so attentive as we learned about hives, nests, trees, deer, turtles, rabbits, skunks, and more from these enthusiastic and fun guys!
Josh showed us a hummingbird nest that was found at the park. He pointed out the spider silk that the hummingbird used to "glue" the nest together.
This is Graham teaching us about paper wasps! They are not aggressive unless provoked, and they build huge nests by chewing up wood and mixing it with saliva...making a nest out of what looks like paper, and is surprisingly strong.
Graham got a kick out of Abraham's enthusiasm for checking out the paper wasps' nest! Many of us had never heard of paper wasps, but we now know they assist with pollination, and that's a good thing!
Here, Dave is explaining that some animals like to live in trees, and if a bird such as a woodpecker bores a large enough hole, other animals may move in like squirrels, mice, or owls.
We learned that Josh, Dave, and Graham are responsible for making sure the Noland Trail is maintained and safe for us to us. Josh explained to us that it's about 5 miles long, and they are constantly checking to make sure the layers of rock, sandy soil, gravel, and natural materials that compose it are safely compacted and free of hazards.
Graham is studying to become an arborist, so he was particularly excited to explain how we can count rings to determine a tree's age. He said there are dark rings and light rings, and each pair of rings counts as one year of the tree's life.
After our fun and engaging lesson with the park guys, we grabbed our group photo in front of the eagle, and then headed outside to the trail with Wisteria. We were going to feed turtles!
We took a short hike on the Noland Trail to the bridge over the lake. Wisteria told us turtles shouldn't be fed bread, which can cause them to choke and isn't healthy, either. Instead, dark, leafy greens like spinach and kale are good for them. She said the museum staff likes to use specially prepared turtle food pellets, so that's what we fed them.
The turtles started gathering as soon as they detected our footsteps on the bridge!
Once the pellets started hitting the water, the turtles really showed up! They were pretty polite though. They seemed to understand there was plenty of food for everyone!
Josh, Dave, and Graham had given each of us a pair of disposable binoculars, which Nancy used for an up close view of the turtles.
Yum! Nancy, Michelle, and Sam agree that lunch at The Mariners' Cafe never disappoints! Some of us had bbq sandwiches, chicken wraps, or veggie burgers. Others chose hot dogs, because it was National Hot Dog Day!
We enjoy spreading out at a few of the cafe tables, and we always clean up after ourselves. There are also friendly conversations taking place, such as this one between Kate, Alexis, Liz, Drew, and Devin.
After lunch, we wandered through a couple of museum exhibits. The ship modelmaker was working today, so we chatted with him about the model he's making. He said it's of the Cutty Sark, which was one of the fastest tea clippers ever built. It brought tea from China to England back in the day!
In the Ahoy Toy exhibit, the guys checked out works of literature related to the sea, such as Robinson Crusoe and Peter Pan.
We ended our visit at the International Small Craft exhibit, where we posed by this boat on the outside of the building. We read that the family who owned it it used to cruise the Chesapeake Bay in the 1930s. That reminded us of Kevin's trip last week! His family spent the week cruising the Chesapeake Bay in their boat! (That's Kevin with his hands up showing us a boat like his!)
Thursday
We had to begin today with a huge cheer for Jerry, our HVAC guy! He got the AC up and running (after what he called a "major situation" that would impact us by "making it very warm in here") in two days and 1 hour - by our estimation. It was cool and very comfy in here by 10 this morning! Way to go, Jerry! We appreciate you for sticking with this and getting it done! 👏👏
Since we had recently attended a magic show, we decided to check out a Mystery Doug episode on how magicians trick people. He explained it pretty clearly - they use distraction! However, while a magician distracts the audience, he or she has to be extremely focused. It's hard to distract others, yet remain focused at the same time! There were several great examples shown of magicians using their hands, other objects, or talking to us as means of distractions that allow them to perform the magic! It was a very interesting episode!
At the end of the Mystery Doug episode, we did a hands-on activity where we tried to master a trick called "The Gold Finder." It involved flipping this card with arrows on each side, making it seem as if you're taking steps forward to find gold as you follow the arrows. As you distract the audience with a story, you change the orientation of the arrows, which then sends you (or your unsuspecting audience) in a forward/backward/forward/backward direction, so that the gold will never be found! We had fun with it, but it requires a lot of distraction and focus at the same time! We need more practice!
The weather "magically" improved for today and it was less humid outside! We went for a walk and to see where JRES will be installing a "learning cottage," also known as a trailer! It will be just behind the school, off the blacktop area where we shoot hoops. Heike said the trailer is coming tomorrow, and we noticed that the basketball hoops had been taken down so that trucks can get through for the delivery. We'll be on the lookout for the trailer arrival tomorrow!
Two of our sunniest friends, Liz and Nancy, spotted a couple of sunflowers peeking over the garden fence! It was very nice outside today!
Tuesday, July 20th was Moon Day, also known as the date in 1969 when Apollo 11 landed the first humans on the moon. Part of our lesson included discussing the fact that in the past few weeks, a couple of quite wealthy private citizens have ventured to the edge of space, and that one day, they hope to take "regular" folks like us on space rides. We watched a video clip of Amazon founder (and the richest man in the world!) Jeff Bezos' trip that was taken on Tuesday, and learned that he took the oldest and youngest people ever to go in space!
We also watched segments about Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong. Everyone was told to pay attention, because later we would take turns sharing facts we learned. Here, Laura is telling us that astronauts are people who can go to the moon, and that the moon is kind of far away! Yay, Laura! In the background is Tracy, who stopped by say "hi" and make sure our AC was working well! Thanks for always looking out for us, Tracy!
Patrick shared that one of the astronauts who walked on the moon in 1969 was Buzz Aldrin, and he is the only surviving member of that 3-man crew! Good job, Patrick!
Here are some happy faces as we played Bingo at the end of the day!
Xavier got a Bingo before Sam did, but not long after this play, Sam had also gotten a Bingo! We always play until everyone wins!!
Friday
It was still cool from the repaired AC when we arrived this morning! Good thing, because we had a lot to get done and it started with getting our groove on during the dance warm up! We were using National Day of the Cowboy (July 24) as our main theme today, and our guys brought it!
Our DJ today was Liz, and she and her friends thought of a lot of songs they thought would be good for Cowboy Day. They all loved it when Nancy asked for a George Strait song, and then took herself to the "front row" to enjoy it! 💙
Near the end of our dance warm up, we noticed the "learning cottage" being delivered to JRES!
It came in two sections, and they were huge! We went outside to see if the trucks could make the turn to get them onto the blacktop. They did!
We chatted with a couple of the guys involved with the transport and learned that the learning cottage made the trip here from Georgia, and it took all day yesterday and part of today! (They stayed overnight in Emporia.) It will be next week before the two halves are placed in their final spots and put together to make what will be two classrooms. We wonder if we'll get to see that step?
While we waited for the truck to make the turn onto the blacktop, we snapped some pics of our cowboys and cowgirl! Drew, Devin, Kate, and Sam brought us lots of smiles as they dressed for Cowboy Day! Aren't they awesome?! (We only had 10 in attendance today, so we missed a few others who may have dressed as well.)
Devin decided Drew might look good in his cowboy hat. Drew took wearing it very seriously!
We also took advantage of Words with Friends Day happening this week by enjoying the camaraderie (word of the day) of friends while we played some word games. Nan ran a lively session of Hangman which Liz, Nancy, and Kevin thoroughly enjoyed!
We made words and played our own version of Scrabble with Carol. It was challenging at times to make up words with the letters we chose!
During Lisa's group, we had to match words to a series of pattern boxes that matched the shape of the letters. This one was tough for most of our guys, but they helped each other!
After lunch, we did a bit of cleaning in the storage closet that's outside of our room! Yes...it was overdue for a purge!
We listened to the next chapter in our read aloud, learning that our main character, Nat, snuck away from wheelchair racing practice to try out for the Wicked show. What will happen when her parents find out...and what if she gets a part?! Tune in next week!
We ended our week with a magic-themed yoga session with Jaime. There was plenty of room to spread out this week, and all of our participants were as relaxed as wet noodles after the session!
We're already looking forward to next week! Here's what we'll be doing for the last week of July:
Tuesday: It's going to be a day of delight as we go bowling and get treated to a special lunch of chicken tenders and fries! We'd like to thank Kate's family for sponsoring lunch for us today. We appreciate their generosity and look forward to this awesome treat! Wear your Arc shirt and bring your bowling ball!
Wednesday: We're trying something new today! In observance of National Bagelfest Day (which was July 26), we're going to learn how to make bagels! Side note: July 26 is also All or Nothing Day, so why not?! We'll have bagels, eggs, and fruit for lunch. We'll also learn about Amelia Earhart (a favorite lesson of ours) since we ran short of time on Amelia Earhart Day (24th). We'll play a game to test our knowledge of what we learn!
Thursday: We heard James is back from vacation and has our room loaded up with work to get done, so we'll be at Eaton today! Please wear your Eaton shirt and bring a bag lunch.
Friday: It's birthday time! It's been a while but it's Nan's day today! It's also National Avocado Day and she (and we) loves guacamole, so she's going to teach us how to make it! We're going to learn about the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico and prepare arroz con gandules (rice/peas) for lunch along with a small taco salad and chips/guac on the side. It's Friday, so dress to stretch for yoga, too! ***We'll also welcome Cameron back for a visit with us today!***
ONE WEEK AWAY! 🏌🏌🏌
Here's the info for the Women of the Moose's Charity Golf Tournament for The Arc and The Arc of Abilities! Call Lisa or Patti with any questions or if you want to join us. We still need associates to volunteer. 😎 Thanks for your support!
REGISTRATION is open for the 5k on Saturday, October 2nd! Arc clients can participate at the reduced rate of $20 and info was included in the August calendar that should have been received in the mail! Registration is also live from our website; click here to sign up: Arc 5k Registration
We look forward to seeing you in 2021!
Enjoy the weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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