.Our current read aloud is A Chance to Fly by Ali Stroker and Stacy Davidowitz. Loosely based on Ali Stroker's real life, it's about Natalie, a teenager who is confined to a wheelchair due to being paralyzed from the neck down in a car accident when she was a toddler. Natalie aspires to perform in musicals on stage, and gets a chance to in this story, which we are enjoying very much! (Ali Stroker was the first performer who uses a wheelchair to win a Tony award!)
During one of the conversations in the book, Natalie is outside chatting with Malik about how hot it is during August in New Jersey. Malik says it's not just summer, but it's "summer" summer. We agree, and believe we are in Virginia's "summer" summer! It was hot and muggy this week, but we persevered, and even managed an outdoor adventure! Here's a look at our week:
Tuesday
Our plan today was to go on a scavenger hunt for some "things of interest" on the campus of William and Mary. Despite the warm and humid weather, we stuck to our plan, and got an early start to try and beat the heat of the day. Our first stop was the Christopher Wren building, which we learned is the oldest college building still standing in the United States! It was constructed between 1695 and 1700, before Williamsburg was even founded! It's been gutted with fire three times over the years, but each time the interior was rebuilt, and it's still standing there today. We weren't able to go in, but we'll be back (after Covid) for a walk through one day. The chapel inside is beautiful!
From the Wren Building, we needed to find the Sunken Garden, which extends west from Wren. After a quick review of cardinal directions, we headed around to the other side of Wren and saw the relaxation and recreation area at the college known as the Sunken Garden. Many of our guys recognized it as the location for The Arc's Spring Carnival (last held in 2019) which takes place here and is sponsored by W&M Greek Life. We hope to have a Spring Carnival here again in 2022!
Our next hunt was for the Tyler Family Garden, where we wanted to experience what some call the "Echo Wall." While there, we ran into Jason Simms, who is W&M's Associate Athletics Director for Student Engagement, Alumni Relations, & Recruitment. Wow! That is a big title for a very nice, friendly guy who knows who we are because W&M Athletics is one of The Arc's greatest partners! It was great to chat with Jason and catch up on goings-on in the W&M Athletics Department. Thanks for hanging out with us, Jason! We can't wait to attend The Arc's baseball clinic in September with the W&M team! And we hope to see you at some games in the upcoming seasons!
But back to the "Echo Wall." Located directly west of James Blair Hall are 3 busts of Tylers, one being John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States, and the other two being his father (a governor of Virginia) and his son (a president of W&M).
If you stand on the spot in front of President Tyler's bust, and face Blair Hall, when you speak out loud you will experience an echo that only you can hear! We don't know why it happens, but it's fun to do! Watch as Kate checks it out!
We continued on our scavenger hunt, feeling grateful that it was a mostly shaded journey with lots of opportunities to sit and enjoy each other's company along the way. Beyond the Tyler Family Garden is Crim Dell Meadow where we found two coastal redwood trees that were shipped here from California and planted as cuttings in 1953! They are gorgeous.
We also spotted a sculpture called "Spring" which depicts two young people relaxing in the meadow and reading. The young lady is reading a love letter from "Johnny" and our guys got a kick out of reading it, too!
At this point in our hunt, a few of our friends decided to relax in the meadow with Nan while the rest of us looked for Crim Dell Bridge and the heron statue. After crossing the bridge, we wound our way around a path and spotted the heron. What an idyllic spot this is! Check out the reflection of the bridge in the water!
Now, we were ready to rejoin our friends and head back to AFCC for lunch. It was very warm, and we didn't want to over do it. There are a few spots left on our scavenger hunt, so we'll return to campus again, when the weather is cooler!
Back in the meadow, we relaxed for a bit before heading out. W&M has swings and chairs scattered throughout spots on campus, and they were inviting. Nan made the comment, "Don't mind me...I'm working!" 😎 What a job, Nan!
Over in this side of the meadow, friends were relaxing and chatting. It was a nice morning for us!
Alexis, Kate, Nan, and Patrick said be sure to sign up for some of the fun activities being held in September. They are particularly excited for the baseball clinic with W&M to be held on September 14th!
Wednesday
We learned about the country of Japan today, which recently wrapped up hosting the Summer Olympics. A cool thing we learned is that the Japanese do not call their country "Japan." They call it "Nippon" or "Nihon." Japan is another island nation, consisting of 4 main islands and over 6,000 other, smaller ones!
Perhaps the most fun we had today was converting our English names to Japanese. It was fun to see how our names looked when written in Japanese, and it was really fun to try and pronounce them the way they would be pronounced in Japanese! We made everyone a name tag for their new names!
Misheru enjoyed a challenging word search on Tokyo!
It took many hands to skewer the chicken for our "yakitori" (grilled bird!) lunch!
We wanted to make what we call "teriyaki" chicken, but Lexi's cousin, John, whose hobby is Japanese cooking, told us we should call it "yakitori" AND we should make a homemade sauce. So, when he saw Lexi over last weekend, he gave us two of the main ingredients, soy sauce and mirin. Thanks for being our Japanese cooking consultant, John, and for the donations of special ingredients!
Our homemade yakitori sauce consisted of 1 cup each of soy sauce, mirin, and water, and 1/2 cup of sugar. We heated it to a simmer and let it bubble for about 15 minutes. It was very, very good!
One of our side dishes was cucumber sunomono, which basically means cucumbers marinated in rice vinegar, sugar, and minced fresh garlic. We put a bit of salt on thinly sliced cucumbers before adding the marinade, and after a few minutes, squeezed excess water out of them, as Roora demonstrates here. (Aka, Laura.) We then tossed the cucumbers in the marinade and refrigerated them for an hour.
Sam and Patrick took in the fragrance of what was left of the garlic root after we minced enough for our recipe. They said it smelled "good" and Lisa suggested it was "aromatic." 😃👃
It was so hot and muggy outside that we stayed indoors for movement. They gym was closed this week for maintenance, but we had our You Tube videos!! We even found a few in Japanese that were easy to follow (the movements), and fun to listen to (the language)!
How do you say "tasty" in Japanese? Our yakitori, cucumber sunomono, and ramen noodles really hit the spot today!
Laura also brought a blast from her past. It was a book about Paddington Bear that was published in the 1980s, just before she was born. Inside the front cover, we saw that it had been autographed by the author! We read this sweet story all the way through!
Kevin was very eager to share a favorite book of his, the one that chronicles his family's Christmas time visit to New York City in 2011! As Lisa read parts of the book, Kevin finished the sentences for her. It was clear that this book holds a lot of fond memories for Kevin!
We didn't get the cover of Michelle's book in the photo, but it was a book based on the movie Pirates of the Carribean. We read a suspenseful excerpt from this one; you'll have to borrow it from Michelle to find out what happens next!
Annmarie brought a book called Fortnite Outfits. We aren't clear on whether or not Annmarie actually plays the online video game, but we are clear that she enjoys looking at all the characters and the costumes they wear. This book was full of vivid color!
One of the books Kate shared was called Binky Brothers Detectives. It was an older book, and we could tell it had been well-read and loved!
Finally, Abraham came up to share...not a published book, but one he is "working on" at the center! He recently discovered a stack of stapled together (in booklike fashion) sheets of paper in our storage area, and decided to help himself to one of them so he could work on a book! Make it a best-seller, Abraham! 😍 What another fun activity at the AoA!
Thursday
Friday is International Left-Handers Day, but we will be at Eaton so we had to celebrate today! Only about 10-13% of people in the world are lefties, but we have 3 lefties at the AoA (out of 16 of us, counting staff), which is closer to 19%...so we feel pretty special! Shout out to Laura, Lisa, and Patrick today! 👏👏
We enjoyed finding out that a lot of famous people were/are also left-handed, including Babe Ruth, DaVinci, Michaelangelo, EIGHT presidents, Oprah, Prince William, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney...for starters!
We learned that a few years ago, Oreo made a special package of cookies for lefties, but apparently they didn't make them in 2021. However, we celebrated with Oreos anyway, because in 2021 they introduced a gluten-free version! Yay for Oreo and lucky for Xavier! (We were told to twist them off using our left hands, but most of us just gobbled them up!)
Many hands make light work during lunch prep! Patrick and Kevin were on it for the baked beans!
Xavier, Alexis, and Drew handled the marshmallow fluff salad! Yum!
It took this foursome, Kate, Michelle, Sam, and Abraham to grill hot dogs and then wrap them for the transformation to "pigs in a blanket." (We find that grilling them first makes them taste better inside the dough!)
Lefty Laura wrapped our silverware!
This is a lunch prep we love! Simple, quick, and one of our gang's favorites!
We're keeping our eyes on the progress outside where workers are filling in the ravine with dirt, rocks, and boulders. This was a dirt dump, but earlier, we were startled to hear big rocks tumbling out!
They have brought several loads of these, along with a lot of smaller ones!
If you're looking for thrills, National Roller Coaster Day is Monday, August 16th! Kevin was ready to celebrate with us today in his roller coaster shirt! If you'd like to visit the "Roller Coaster Capital of the World," we learned you'll need to go to Ohio. What?! We all think Busch Gardens Williamsburg is a great roller coaster park, too!
We wrapped up our day with Jaime and Yoga Club. We'll be at Eaton tomorrow, and we didn't want to miss a week of yoga. Here, we were working on what Jaime called "Whale Pose." We'll let you decide! 😜🐋
Friday
It was off to Eaton for a Friday work day! Thank you, Laura, for setting up our good 'ole boom box so we could work to music! (We're missing Liz and her AoA playlist on Spotify this week!)
We had a few basic tasks to attend to today. Like assembling 120 PowerSlide Doors!
We have this down to a science!
We have it down to an art, too! (Even with 3 friends out for travel this week!)
Nothing can slow down our sorters!
Meanwhile, in our other room, unpacking was taking place. And in Laura's case, a lot of singing! 🎜🎝
Tracy caught up with us at Eaton. She was very complimentary or our work today! Thanks, Tracy!
Last thing of the day...moving these parts to the outer room. Abraham has strong muscles, but even he had to push these small, but heavy, parts!
Back at AFCC, we hung a thank you card for our HVAC friend, Jerry, near the thermostat so he'll be sure to find it. He's been working on our AC all week, and it's limping along. Jerry said he's stumped as to why it's working like a charm on the other side of the Rec Center, but not in our room. (Doesn't help that we're in a heat wave!) He's off on Friday, but will be back on Monday with another colleague to get a second opinion. We really appreciate his perseverance in making sure we are comfortable. (It got a little warm in here on Wednesday...but yesterday and today were better!)
We ended the week with a lesson on Friday, the 13th! It doesn't really bother us, as we are usually at the AoA on Fridays (13th and otherwise) and feel very lucky to be here! Still, we enjoyed watching a video about how it came to be superstitious, and then completing a tricky puzzle with the message, "Friday the 13th is better than Monday the whatever." Haha! We tend to agree with that! So, we'll call it a week and see everyone next Tuesday! 👋
We'll have a change in our routine next week, as the power will be out in the building on Wednesday. We will not be here and instead plan to Zoom with everyone at 10 a.m. and again at 2 p.m. We hope everyone can make it! Here's how next week looks:
Tuesday: The forecast is calling for lower temperatures and rain/scattered storms/partial sun every day next week, but we are hoping to pull off a visit to the Williamsburg Botanical Garden at Freedom Park today. Our friend and Master Gardener Extraordinaire, Linda, is meeting us so we can bid her farewell and best wishes as she and her husband relocate to Massachusetts. Weather permitting, we'll walk and have lunch at the park, too. Back at AFCC, we will celebrate that it is National Nonprofit Day...YAY, for the Arc of GW! Please bring a bagged lunch and wear your Arc shirts!
Wednesday: We will NOT be at AFCC today due to the building being without power for scheduled construction work. Instead, we will have two Zoom sessions during the day. Please join us at 10:00 for a Mystery Doug lesson that explores if it's possible to become invisible. Then, login at 2:00 for a fun and informative lesson on birds and a game of Bird Bingo!
Thursday: Today is National Potato Day! We're going to study the South American country of Peru, which is where potatoes originated, and also learn more than we've already learned about potatoes! It's also Aviation Day, and even though we recently studied Amelia Earhart on her day, there is more to learn about aviation, too! For lunch, we'll prepare a simple baked potato bar with a side of green beans, and we'll make potato cookies for dessert!
Friday: Our main focus today will be on celebrating Laura's birthday with fun activities and games. Her family is treating us to sandwiches from Jimmy John's, along with fruit and dessert. Thanks, Palmers! This will be a lot of fun! We'll also have Yoga Club, so dress to stretch!
Have a great weekend!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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