We enjoyed a sunny week but wow, was it warm and muggy! We love sunshine, and we're grateful for it because most of our outings these days need to be outside in it. But we sure wouldn't mind sunshine with less humidity. Someone mentioned that Pumpkin Spice is available at Starbucks and Dunkin' now. LOL! Maybe they know something about cooler temps coming that we don't? Meanwhile, here's how we spent the warm and sticky week:
Tuesday
We kicked the week off in a fabulous way with a visit to the The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg! Christina was ready for us with a Pet Scavenger Hunt! We love a good scavenger hunt and this one didn't disappoint!
First, Christina gave everyone a guide booklet. The object was to go through the galleries and search for objects that looked like pets: dogs, cats, fish, rabbits, horses, etc.
After everyone got their guides, we were off. We don't really "own the place." It just looks that way!
All of the pieces we were searching for would be in the Folk Art Museum today. First up, a pair of birds, carved from wood. We learned that birds are America's 4th most popular pet (by volume), but in the 18th century, they were number 1!
Another pet we found was a dog, which was in the German toy gallery. It's actually a squeak toy, and it's made from papier-mâché! By volume, dogs are America's number 3 most popular pet.
Christina also pointed out a lot of weather vanes to us while we were looking for pets, because animals were commonly placed at the tops of them. When we were looking for America's most popular pet, which turns out to be fish, (again, by volume), Abraham spotted the double fish weather vane on this tall wall!
Our fun project with Christina today was learning to draw America's number 2 most popular pet, cats! She showed us the easiest way to do it, step by step, and our drawings were awesome!
Nan and Kevin worked together!
Kate and Alexis showed their masterpieces to Christina, who loved them...of course! (She is a devoted cat mama! 🐈🐈🐈)
Back in the foyer, we collected our prizes for a successful scavenger hunt. Doesn't Patrick make a handsome model wearing his new art museums button?! Thanks, Christina, for another fun and educational adventure!! You combine the two so well!
We returned to the center for lunch and Choice Time, then we continued with our read-aloud. In the story, Nat, who is excited to have a part in a community theater musical, is learning to translate the dance moves to accommodate her use of the wheelchair. We learned, for example, that if she starts turning on count 2 instead of count 3, she can keep up with the others!
Next, we divided into Cleaning Crews and got busy. Patrick, Xavier, Nan, and Kevin cleaned our computers. They were still wearing their buttons from the art museums! Cool!
Xavier was tickled to use a mini-air blower connected by USB cable to remove dust from Lisa's computer. Laura's grandparents sent us this little gadget when they cleaned out their desk recently, and it's quite handy!
In the kitchen, Carol's group of Annmarie, Kate, Abraham, and Michelle wiped down the Nina and cleaned the refrigerator!
Alexis, Liz, Devin, and Sam went outside with Lisa to clean our bird feeders. It was a messy task, but they wore gloves and stuck with it!
Finally, we were excited that our new hot plate (stove!) and DVD player have arrived, along with some new craft supplies. Thanks again to Michelle and her family for supporting us with a donation for these purchases. We'll be using both of them this week!
Wednesday
The first thing we did after dancing this morning was share a very special moment in Drew's life. He was in Florida last week for the graduation of his sister, Alex, from the doctoral program in occupational therapy at the University of St. Augustine. Alex chose Drew to place her doctoral hood over her head, signifying her successful completion of the doctoral program. Yes, our friend Alex is now Dr. Dayton! Check out this moving video, and count the goosebumps as Drew participates in this exceptionally special moment.
Congratulations, Alex! Way to go, Drew! We're very proud of both of you!
We started lunch prep early today so our quinoa, spinach, tomato, and chicken salad would have time to chill. Here, Laura is washing the lemons we will squeeze for juice to use in our homemade vinaigrette.
Drew and Liz worked on mixing the vinaigrette. They used fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and lemon zest!
We baked chicken in the newly cleaned Nina, and then Kevin, Devin, and Sam shredded it for the salad.
While all the food prep was taking place, Annmarie, Xavier, and Alexis were getting our place settings ready. It makes serving our crowd so much easier when this is done ahead of time!
Oops. 😲 Three of our excellent chefs are missing from these pictures. Michelle and Kate worked diligently to slice and dice about 6 tomatoes for our salad, and Patrick tore spinach leaves, but they were overlooked when pictures were being taken. We're really sorry about that. As you can see from the looks of this yummy salad, they did a WONDERFUL job with the veggies. Thank you Michelle, Kate, and Patrick. 🥗🥗🥗
Liz cranked up our AoA playlist from Spotify, and we had singers, too! It was a pleasant way to spend part of the afternoon...and led up to our celebration of...
Happy National Dog Day! Our guys brought lots of fun things to share, including their favorite stuffed dogs and photos on their phones and tablets of their pet dogs! We loved hearing their stories about the dogs and dog "stuff" in their lives! Michelle even brought a wolf, which works for Dog Day because dogs are direct descendants of wolves!
We played dog songs during our dance warm up and watched a few movie clips featuring dogs, including one from Toy Story 3 that featured Slinky Dog. We then made our own versions of Slinky Dog by starting with a paper chain and adding facial and tail features.
We enjoyed hearing about Laura's visit to the Everett Railroad in Pennsylvania, which is owned by her dad's cousin. She took a ride on the "The Ice Cream Special." (We want to go there to ride "The Santa Express!") She told us she had chocolate ice cream at the depot stop midway through the tour! Her next stop was at Niagra Falls. Laura's mom reported that the roaring of the falls was a little scary to Laura, so her parents took turns riding the "Maid of the Mist" tour, on an electric boat no less, while Laura waited on the deck. Laura brought everyone a souvenir postcard! Thanks, Laura! How thoughtful of you! And now everyone wants to visit Niagra Falls and the Everett Railroad!
With hot dogs on the lunch menu, we figured we'd better burn a few extra calories today, so we pulled up one of our favorite You Tube fitness guys, Paul Eugene. It wasn't long before he had our hearts pumping and sweat dripping!
This was supposedly a move called butt squats...Laura is down but Lexi and Michelle have a ways to go!
Devin showed Sam and Xavier how to do it! We don't mind if our guys don't copy the moves exactly. Our motto is "just keep moving." 😅
After lunch, it was Dog Day Part 2 when Devin's mom and sister arrived to let the family's pets, Harry and Skye, visit with us. That was a nice surprise! The pup in this picture is Harry!
Can you believe we got Harry and Skye to pose for a picture with the group? We had a good time petting them and asking Dev's mom, Roxanne, all kinds of questions about them.
Here's Harry showing how he sits nicely in his car seat! Roxanne says Skye is a calmer passenger, so she can ride on the seat beside Dev's sister, Hailey. Thanks for dropping by, Roxanne and Hailey. It was fun to visit with you and the pups, and it made our Dog Day extra exciting!
Back inside, we made cheer cards for The Arc's Bette Faye. She is a very special friend of the entire Arc family, and we wanted her to know we are thinking about her. We got late word that her back surgery went well! We hope she will be up and on her feet in no time as she will be very missed until then! Bette Faye, if you are reading, we 💓💓💓💓 you! Take care and follow doctor's orders. You are so special to ALL of us!
Our last activity of the day was playing Beach Bingo! We're celebrating National Beach Day tomorrow (it's actually on August 30th) with a trip to the Yorktown Riverfront. So, we psyched ourselves up today with this fun game. Devin and Drew both selected the orange peanut butter crackers as a prize. We told Devin they are Clemson Crackers! 🏈🏈🏈
Friday
Today, we had a fun time celebrating National Beach Day, which falls on Monday, August 30. Of course, we celebrated a modified version, which means we didn't actually go to the beach decked out in our suits and with towels and sand buckets in hand! But we did walk in the sand!
We got an early start for a pleasant drive down the Colonial Parkway to Yorktown, where we walked on the beach, played bocce in the shade with a nice breeze coming off the York River, and ate lunch at the picnic tables.
A few of the guys stuck their hands in the water and reported it was quite warm. It also smelled "beachy," which various friends described as "sandy," "seaweed," "sunscreen," and "smelly water." 🌞 ⛱ 🏊
We stopped by the cave where Cornwallis tried to hide his headquarters before finally having to surrender to Washington to end the Revolutionary War and win America's freedom!
We set up our bocce games under the shade trees at the picnic area. Liz, Annmarie, and Sam were focusing on their game and didn't notice the sailboat passing by on the river!
Michelle, Abraham, and Kate were a well matched team! They had quite a competitve game.
This is how close their balls always came to the jack!
With Patrick and Drew looking on, Alexis got low and took aim. Wonder if she won this point?!
This was another well-matched team. Xavier, Laura, and Devin each scored several points during their game!
This was our setting for a little over an hour today. It was quite warm, despite the shade and the breeze, so we didn't overdo it. It was just long enough for a fun game, lunch, and fresh air!
After finishing lunch, Devin and Sam wanted to play each other in bocce while we stuck around to see why the Coleman Bridge was swinging open.
Drew spotted a ship that we guessed was coming from the Naval Weapons Station.
It was moving at a good speed, and only took about 3 minutes to pass by us on its way to the bay.
Before leaving, Michelle spotted another big bird feather stuck in this tree! Remember last week, when she spotted a feather in the Fairy Garden at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden?! Wow...what does it mean if someone keeps finding large bird feathers?! Well, in Michelle's case, Lisa said she's reminded of an old saying, "Feathers appear when angels are near." 💗
Back at the center we checked out a very cool experience Drew and his family had recently (in addition to Alex's graduation)! Pictured below is Drew with Chris, a fella almost as cool as Drew, who produces interviews with people living with disabilities. He then posts the very uplifting interviews on his You Tube channel (and website https://sbsk.org/) with the goal of "normalizing the diversity of the human condition." We have watched his videos at the AoA before, and love the positivity of his work. Now, we are thrilled to have our friend Drew as one of Chris's new friends! Click on the picture for a link to the You Tube clip...to call it inspiring is an understatement. 💕
We still had time for one more fun activity, so we wrapped up Beach Day by watching Disney's Teen Beach Movie. That was fun! It is a musical, and we love the songs. We play them all the time during our dance warm up. We'd like to thank Kate for sharing her copy of the movie with us, and Michelle and her family for the recent gift of the DVD player!
What another fun way to end a busy (but hot) week!
Next week will be busy, too. Here are our plans:
Tuesday: We're hoping for nice weather as we've planned another outdoor adventure. Bring a bagged lunch and wear your Arc shirt. We are going to Colonial Williamsburg where we will once again look for animals, maybe even finding the Cleveland Bay horses Christina told us about. We'll alternate between walking and riding the complimentary shuttle! For lunch, we'll picnic at our "hidden gem" spot at the Visitor Center. We'll also make up Friday's missed yoga session, so dress to stretch (in your Arc shirt)!
Wednesday: Believe it or not, today is the 1st day of September! That means we will work on our calendar, and begin switching our room over to updated decorations. Our country of the week is Canada! Did you know it was a Canadian who invented and patented peanut butter...almost a full decade before George Washington Carver did work with peanuts? Therefore, we shall celebrate Canada at lunch with peanut butter (jelly optional) sandwiches with chips and fruit, and Canadian Prairie Pie for dessert.
Thursday: September is National Square Dancing Month and that is one thing we have never tried at the AoA! We'll learn about this folk dance and give it our best do-si-do today. Feel free to wear western outfits or cowboy hats! We'll also have a lesson with Mystery Doug that explores the challenges of dealing with wildfires. Lunch on your own. Good news! School is open and the JRES cafeteria is back in business, so you can order from there. Lunch is $2.75 and here's a link to the menu: https://wjccschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/August-September-Elementarypdf.pdf
Friday: Today is our first "official" 5k/Fun Mile Practice Walk! We hope everyone has signed up to be on the "AoA for the 5k" Team at this link: Arc 5k Registration. All of our friends and family members are invited to meet us at Newport News Park at 11 a.m. Our friend from Staunton, Cameron, and his parents, will be there!! Can't wait to see them! We'll also have lunch at the park so bring a bagged lunch. Back at the center we will have our regular yoga session, too, so dress to stretch! It's going to be an active day!
Have a great weekend!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
