It was exciting to see everyone again this week after Summer Break. We hope everyone enjoyed their time off and got to spend it doing something they like!
From the buzz that our guys brought in with them on Tuesday, we could tell they liked being back! Here's what went down at the AoA this hot, sunny, and wet week of July 6th...
Tuesday
Yes, everyone was stoked to be returning to bowling after almost 16 months, but before we could hit the lanes, we stopped by the Williamsburg Botanical Garden where our MG friend Karen (and her hubby, Steve) met us to harvest potatoes! First, Karen showed us all the things the MGs planted a couple of weeks ago when we last visited with them, but couldn't work in the garden due to rain.
We saw tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, sunflowers, marigolds, and more. Here's Laura sitting beside what will be "trombone squash" in a few weeks. We can't wait to harvest that!
But it was the potato bed we were curious to find. Karen, Kate, and Liz began to rumble around in the soil.
They didn't have to dig too far before these started to appear! Big, beautiful, potatoes!
Michelle did some digging on the other side, and at first, only found a couple of small potatoes. She dug a little deeper, and soon found much larger ones!
Devin found several nice ones, too! Most of our guys didn't realize so many potatoes would grow from one or two plants!
Kate found one that kind of looked like it had Mickey Mouse ears!
All in all, we think we harvested about 10 pounds of fresh potatoes! WOW! We're so excited to cook with them, and had a lively discussion about what to make. We decided to make Carol's (soon to be) famous home fries on Thursday, along with some good old-fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! 😋 (Note: We'll have an update tomorrow on the status of the potatoes we tried growing in a bag at the center!)
Before making our way to bowling, we met an elderly couple who were enjoying their walk around the beautiful garden. The woman was using a walker, and had set her phone on the shelf of it, when she soon realized her phone was lost! AoA to the rescue!!! We split up and began listening for the ring (Nan was calling it over and over from her phone). After just a few minutes, Alexis spotted it on the ground near the entrance! The woman was so happy to have her phone back, and she blew us lots of kisses! 💙💚💛💜
What a great way to begin our week! Spending time with Karen, harvesting fresh potatoes, and doing a good deed! Thanks, Karen, for meeting us and helping us gather the potatoes. It is always informative and fun when we spend time with a master gardener!
Our next stop was AMF Williamsburg Lanes, and our guys settled in as if they had not been away for all these months! Everyone remembered the routine, and it didn't take long before the first balls were rolling!
Annmarie is great at lining up the rack; she had several spares and a strike today! Abraham is a blur, because he darts up to the line and lets his ball rip. It works, too! He came in second place today with a high score of 110, which included a few strikes!
Laura, Drew, and Xavier all bowled well, as did everyone. We were so proud of them! Drew was the big scorer today, boasting a 120 in his first game and a 121 in his second!
There were a lot of high fives given for strikes and spares. Nancy had just made her second strike of the day when Abraham ran up to cheer for her!
Here's Patrick getting some high-five praise from Devin and Sam when he made a strike!
This was Michelle's first time bowling with us. She said she was surprised that she remembered how, but she did very well!
Sam congratulated Drew with a pat on the back, and then Patrick followed up with a fist bump! Our guys are each other's biggest fans!
Even though our lunch was delicious, for once, it wasn't the pizza that revved everyone up today. It was the sheer joy in returning to bowling! We can't wait to return again soon!
We're cruising this summer in these beautiful Arc buses! We love our Parks & Rec vans, but we plan to enjoy a few outings this summer in these wonderful vans that Carol maneuvers like a pro (hey, she owns a big 'ole RV) and Lisa is learning to maneuver like a pro! 😂
Thank you, Arc of Greater Williamsburg, for supporting our summer of fun in so many ways! We appreciate you very much!
Wednesday
WOW! What a fun and surprising day today became!
First, we opened an email message from MG Karen, and found she had taken photos from our visit with her yesterday and put them into this lovely layout! It really captures our potato harvesting adventure! Thanks, Karen!
Next, we went out to dig for the potatoes in our potato bag that MG Linda helped us plant back in March. We were disappointed at first, as we didn't find potatoes near the top, like we had at the garden yesterday. So, Carol emptied the soil from the bag onto the ground, and several good-sized potatoes appeared!
Ta-da! We were so excited to find a few each of the Yukon Gold and Adirondack Purple potatoes we had planted with Linda! We had hoped for more, but these are enough for us to add them to our home fries recipe on Thursday. We decided they probably prefer to grow in the ground, but if you don't have a lot of space, a bag will do. What a fun experience to grow potatoes!
Later today, Carol baked all of our potatoes so tomorrow it will be easier to cut them up and make the home fries! Yum...we're getting there! 👌🥔
There was movement today, too. During a video workout that gives options for which exercise to perform, Kate, Sam, Devin, and Patrick got into a segment on karate moves! 🥋
Our educational lesson today was centered around the country of Austria. We learned the usual facts about geography (ask your associate what "landlocked" means), population, language, culture, and history. We also learned some fun facts like snowglobes and Red Bull were invented in Austria, and some beautiful scenes from a favorite movie (see below) were filmed in and around Salzburg...while others were recreated on a Hollywood set!
Almost all of our guys were very familiar with the movie The Sound of Music. We looked at famous landmarks around Salzburg where it was filmed in 1964. We saw the fountain where the von Trapp children danced around while singing "Do Re Mi," and the abbey where Maria served before becoming a governess. We learned that many of the landmarks were only used for external film shots, and the "inside" scenes were filmed in Hollywood at a studio. We watched a video countdown of the Top 10 Best Songs from the movie, and loved hearing our guys sing along!
Of course, lunch was a hit on Austria Day! Since it was also National Macaroni Day, we swapped flat noodles for elbows and made an Austrian ham and noodle casserole called Schinkenfleckerln, which was very simple and very tasty. We added green peas and Nan's marinated cucumbers as sides. 😋 Click on the picture for a link to the casserole recipe!
It was during Choice Time that our so far fun day became a surprising one as well. Unbeknownst to us, there was a Williamsburg Regional Library Bookmobile event taking place at AFCC, and it included a magic show. Kelley, Tracy's coworker and another friend of ours from Parks & Rec, told Nick, from the library, about the AoA being at the AFCC, so Nick found us and invited us to the show! It was warm outside, but under the trees there was an occasional breeze, so we got settled in our chairs. 👀
The magician's name is Jonathan Austin, and our guys LOVED his show! It was filled with corny jokes (they laughed so hard) and some pretty cool tricks! The other part of the audience consisted of young kids (we're not sure if they were from a camp, or what, but they were 3-7 years old), and Jonathan called on some of them, and some of us, to be his assistants. Annmarie was selected, and she hammed it up for the adoring crowd!
Another young lady from the audience joined Annmarie for this trick, where Annmarie's magic wands kept multiplying, and the younger assistant kept breaking them...even though when Jonathan held them they were fixed! It was so funny to watch them interact with Jonathan, and we were proud of Annmarie for representing the AoA with such flair!
When Michelle was chosen to be an assistant, we grabbed a couple of videos. She was befuddled as she kept cutting pieces of ropes, and Jonathan kept magically restoring them to their original lengths!
Jonathan couldn't believe Michelle is 31 years old. He said she doesn't look a day over 21 and we agree! We were also proud of Michelle for representing us with humor and professionalism!
We were amazed by Jonathan's ability to juggle while riding a unicycle!
You can tell by our cheerful clapping and smiling that we didn't mind the heat at all and thoroughly enjoyed the magic show! Nick and Eletha, from the library, even provided ice pops for everyone. What a cool surprise on this hot day!
The grand finale trick by Jonathan was changing a pan of fire into a rabbit by covering and uncovering it with a lid. 🐇 It happened so fast, but the rabbit was real! Jonathan let us pet it after the show ended.
We gave Jonathan's show our stamp of approval! If you're looking for a comedy and magic show in one, he's your guy. Check him out at https://jonathanaustin.com/!
Thursday
Jorie needed us to switch our Eaton day to Friday, so we were at AFCC today, which turned out to be a silver lining because we weren't on the road: Tropical Storm Elsa couldn't "let it go" and we got some rain in the afternoon! ☔☔☔
We had a productive day at the center. Even though it's July 8th, we still needed to update our calendar. Sam, Xavier, Laura, Patrick, Abraham, Nancy, and Annmarie were busy doing their parts!
Alexis and Drew got calendar squares and wall pictures ready, and Devin was using the printer. It was all about to come together!
Kate, Liz, and Kevin proudly showed off our July events calendar!! As usual, we will be busy!
Here's a shot of most of the gang enjoying movement time in the gym. It hadn't started raining yet, but it was way too warm and muggy to go outside. We're thankful for the cool gym in the summer!
This is our master gardener friend, Rick, teaching us about kohlrabi at the last regular session we had with the MGs back in September of 2019. We learned from Karen on Tuesday that he was involved in a biking accident and fractured his shoulder. We made cheer cards for him and sent lots of wishes for a speedy recovery, with hopes that he'll be back with us when our sessions with the master gardeners resume in September. 🙏💚🌻
We learned that a Clerihew is a type of poem that was named after a dude who created the style at the age of 16 back in the 1890s. Now, he has a National Day dedicated to it on July 10th! The rules for a Clerihew are simple: It must be about a person, be funny, and rhyme in lines 1/2 and 3/4. Here's one about Moose Patti!
We wrote a few more together, about Carol and Nan, and then some of the guys wanted to try one on their own. Here, they are laughing at their silly Clerihew about The Arc's Executive Director, Pam. In their Clerihew, Pam makes ham for a lamb...and her trick makes the lamb sick! We got some good laughs out of this lesson today!
While we were writing silly Clerihew poems about them, Carol and Nan were very kindly preparing our lunch down in the kitchen. The aroma of Carol's home fries floated down the hall to our room while we worked, and when we tried them, we were not disappointed!
Sweet Nancy volunteered to model her plate today! Can you spot our Adirondack Purple potatoes? We couldn't tell a difference in their taste, but they added pretty color to the dish! Nan cranked out our pb&j sandwiches, and we also had fresh strawberries. Everyone loved our freshly harvested potato home fries! We can't thank our master gardeners enough for giving us the opportunity to learn about growing potatoes, and then getting to devour them a couple of days after harvest! And a big thanks to Carol for devoting two days to cooking them to perfection! 👏😋
Here's the new read aloud we started today. It's about a girl named Nat who became paralyzed in a car accident when she was two. She hasn't let her paralysis limit her dreams, and she plans to sing on Broadway some day! However, her parents are (understandably!) a bit overprotective. We can't wait to find out what her "chance to fly" might be. It was co-written by Ali Stroker, a paralyzed actress who was the first wheelchair user to win a Tony award for her performance in Oklahoma!
Yoga was fun today! We went to Jaime's app and chose a new Yoga Club she posted for Independence Day! Remember, she's British. It was fun to hear her give her friends in America a shout out for being independent! Then, she tied the yoga lesson into ways to develop personal independence.
We always enjoy stretching with Jaime, and listening to her wise advice!
Friday
It was a beautiful and sunny morning as we headed to Eaton. The temperature was forecast to be in the 90s today, and muggy (of course), and we were worried it would be a hot work day. So we were thrilled when Kesha told us the air conditioning system in our building had been upgraded yesterday! We had a comfortable experience, and got a lot done!
Sam and Kate were at the start of the PowerSlide Door assembly line, with Sam unpacking and Kate inserting the amber colored lens in each door.
Liz, Alexis, and Nan applied four labels to the inside of each door. Sometimes we wonder if Eaton's customers actually read all the fine print on those labels! Kevin, Xavier, and Nancy put the nuts and bolts around the amber lens on each door.
Nancy was obscured in the picture above, so here she is in ultra-focus mode, applying four sets of nuts and bolts to the lens on each door! Behind her, Carol uses the electric screwdriver to tighten them.
Abraham and Drew have become a very efficient sorting duo, and they have a great time doing it together!
Patrick, Annmarie, and Laura had the task of unpacking electrical plugs. According to Jorie, the workers on the production floor LOVE that we take these out of the boxes for them! Wow...who knew?! Note: Laura was not sad...she was actually singing along to "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast.
Another task we worked on today was inventory. At one point, everyone was counting stuff!
Liz has been putting together an AoA playlist on Spotify. She brought her blue tooth speaker today and played fabulous music for us as we worked, and occasionally broke into dance moves! From Disney tunes and classic rock to Backstreet AND Beach Boys to The Wiggles and Zac Brown Band, she had tunes for EVERYONE! Thank you, Liz! Your AoA playlist is perfect and it really made our work day brighter! We appreciate the time you took to put it together! 🎶🎤😮💃
Here's a short video of us working with Liz's playlist going in the background...until the end of the clip when a floor fan overtakes the music. 😕 We had a great day!
Now, we enjoy the weekend and do it all over again next week! Here's a snippet of what we'll be doing:
Tuesday: We're finally heading back to visit with Christina in person at The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg! She's as excited as we are! Wear your Arc shirt! It's National Beans and Franks Day, so we'll get some going in the slow cooker before leaving so we can have beans, franks, and cornbread for lunch when we return from the museums. We'll also work in our Card Factory today, as someone special has a birthday soon! (Hint: We hope she's not so busy getting ready for the golf tournament on August 1 that she won't have time to celebrate!)
Wednesday: We'll study Austria's neighbor, Germany, today and with that, also celebrate National Gummy Worm Day (15th)...since gummy candies originated in Germany. I Love Horses Day is this week, so we'll have a lesson on all things equestrian, too! Lunch on your own, but gummy worms for a treat!
Thursday: We're headed to Eaton today, so bring a bag lunch and wear your Eaton shirt!
Friday: It's Personal Chef Day, so the associates will be doing the cooking today: pizza and salad for lunch! Sunday is National Ice Cream Day and we're going to try something we've never done before: making ice cream in a bag! We'll end the week with yoga, so dress to stretch!
Please consider supporting The Arc of Greater Williamsburg at these upcoming fundraising events. We'd love to see you in person!
Jamestown Jams – These outdoor concerts, held at Jamestown Beach Park, 2205 Jamestown Road, are wonderful, family-friendly, community events. You can bring your own food, or there are food trucks available, and you can purchase beer (tickets sold by The Arc with all proceeds back to The Arc) or wine (Williamsburg Winery) at the event. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Mark your calendar for the following dates:
o Friday, July 30 – “Good Shot Judy”
o Friday, August 27 – “The DeLoreans”
o Friday, September 24 – “J Baxter & The Sauce”
· The 6th annual Women of The Moose Charity Golf Tournament
Sunday, August 1 – Williamsburg National Golf Club
o Proceeds benefit The Arc & Arc of Abilities Day Program
Let Lisa or Patti know if you'd like to register a team, join a team, or sponsor a hole! We need AoA associates to volunteer at the tournament, too! THANK YOU!
· The 12th annual Williamsburg Landing 5k for The Arc Saturday, October 2 – Williamsburg Landing Campus
o Registration goes live on our website on July 15th for a Virtual or In-Person option.
o Sponsorships for the 5k are still available! Please contact pam.mcgregor@thearcgw.org for more information.
Family sponsorships and forming a Team are great ways to support The Arc and have fun together! Team Ouellette (Cameron's family, now residents of Staunton) just signed up as a Gold Sponsor, and APEX PT and Movement Center (Lexi's cousins) signed on as a Platinum Sponsor! 👏👏👏 Thank you, AoA families, for sponsorships!
Thanks for your support!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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