We had a great week to wrap up February, 2022, including noting that Tuesday was actually, TWOSday: 2-22-22! Our trip to The Mariners' Museum was two times the fun as we got to do two amazing and different activities, we cooked two tasty and healthy lunch meals, and continued our work at Pet Supplies Plus by adding two new helpers! We also had a dance party at 2:22 on 2-22-22! Check out our farewell to February!
Tuesday
Our first visit of 2022 with Wisteria at The Mariners' Museum was jam-packed with adventure! First, we introduced her to Erik, and told her that his great-great grandfather had served on the USS Lancaster which is the ship this eagle figurehead adorned in the 1880s! Wisteria was excited to hear this, and she said one day we would have a whole lesson on figureheads, as some of the largest and finest ever made now call The Mariners' Museum their home. Sounds like a fun and interesting lesson in our future!
We were a captive audience as Wisteria explained that hundreds of years ago, people traveled near and far to trade spices. She showed us maps as they were drawn back then, when the "spice roads" were in Europe, Asia, and Africa. This was before North and South America, Antarctica, and Australia were known to exist. Spices were popular and explorers and other travelers went to great lengths to acquire them.
The Spice Islands in Indonesia were known as the heart of the spice trade. They were known for being the largest producers of cloves, pepper, and nutmeg.
As Wisteria taught us about the origins of the many different spices, she gave us samples of most of them. We had a small "spice pouch" that we put them in, creating a wonderfully scented, all-natural, air freshener to take home!
When she told us cocoa and chocolate are made from the beans of the cacao tree, she let us try a cacao bean. A few of us were brave enough (she had warned us that the beans had no sugar!), and found them to be strong-flavored, and definitely not sweet like the Hershey Kisses we're used to!
After our lesson on spices, Wisteria had a big surprise for us. We got a "behind the scenes" tour of the objects in the museum's collections that are not currently on display. Here, we are heading through the doors to a "staff only" area!
Our guide for this portion of the lesson was Liz, who can be spotted on the left in this picture. She was loading us onto the freight elevator to take us to the top floor of the museum's storage area. We're pretty sure it was the first time most, if not all of us, ever rode in a huge freight elevator!
Liz told us that only about 2% of the museums vast collection of objects is on display in the museum at any one time. In this picture, we are standing in front of a huge picture painted on canvas of men working at the Newport News Shipyard. In this room alone, there are over 1,200 pictures in storage. We got to see another one up close. It was a portrait of the explorer Magellan, and is 400 years old! (We didn't get a picture.)
We thought the 400 year old portrait of Magellan was old, but this "boat guy" from ancient Egypt, carved from wood, is over 4,000 years old! Liz explained to us how things like this are stored using special wrappings and boxes (which the museum makes onsite) that are acid-free. She said these objects can't be exposed to much light, or be handled very much, either. This "boat guy" is the oldest object at The Mariners' Museum!
Liz overheard some of us saying that we are interested in the Titanic. She told us to hold on a moment while she opened a sealed box. Inside was a wooden box, kind of like a small drawer, that had been part of a dresser on the Titanic. It was found floating in the ocean and recovered by a search crew looking for victims a few days after the boat sank. Very cool! (Wisteria told us she would make our April lesson all about the Titanic!)
We thanked Wisteria and Liz for our TWO interesting lessons and then enjoyed lunch in the museum's cafe. This is always a highlight of our visits! As always, the cafe crew had our lunches ready and waiting for us, and they prepared our order exactly as requested! (We turn it in when we arrive.)
It wasn't as warm as we thought it would be, but it was still a mild day so we took advantage of being at the Noland Trail to walk off our meal! Annmarie, Drew, Laura, and Michelle posed for this picture in front of the museum before the start of our walk.
Lexi, Patrick, Kate, and Liz posed by this interesting tree trunk. We walked a portion of the trail we had never been on before, and looked for sights we had never seen!
Sam, Devin, Erik, Xavier, and Kevin spotted this marker identifying our path as The Noland Trail. It also had an interesting quote on it from Karle Wilson Baker, a 20th century American poet, which read, "Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees." That inspired us to walk tall and take deep breaths of the fresh air!
Back at AFCC, we took a look at last week's blog, but promptly at 2:22 we jumped up for a quick dance party to celebrate the many 2's of the day! It was a fun ending to a fun Tuesday!
Wednesday
We met a new friend today. This is Rachel and she's a new Operations Manager for Parks & Rec. Tracy brought her to AFCC to meet us. We learned that she's from Lynchburg, went to Liberty University, is married and has a couple of fur babies, and is also a Virginia Tech Hokies fan! Welcome to the team, Rachel!
Our National Day Calendar pointed us in the direction of 3 "holidays" this week, and they worked well for lessons AND cooking. First, yesterday was National Cook a Sweet Potato Day, and most of us happen to love sweet potatoes, so celebrating this one is a given each year! Drew, Kevin, and Alexis were all on board for a baked sweet potato topped with a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon! Liz took a pass...what?!?!
We reviewed, as we do each year, that sweet potatoes are nutritious. This year, we also talked about George Washington Carver, who was known as The Plant Doctor, The Peanut Man, and The Farmers' Friend. He made many contributions that improved agricultural practices, including the value of crop rotation. Thanks to him, we enjoy sweet potatoes (and many other crops) to this day!
Nan recalled a time when Grandad's hometown of Snow Hill, NC used to have a Sweet Potato Festival and pulled it up on her iPad to show us. The sweet potato is North Carolina's state vegetable!
Monday was National Grain Free Day, and that's a "holiday" established to bring awareness to those who live with dietary restrictions, such as our Xavier, who eats a gluten-free diet. He eats other grains, like rice and corn, but wheat is off limits. We are here for you, Xavier, and that's why we're having quinoa today! It's technically a seed, even though it's classified as a whole grain, but it's gluten-free and tastes great, too!
The fact that today was National Banana Bread Day made things just about perfect for our lunch! Carol is known for her Hawaiian Banana Bread, and she made a big ole batch at home last night so we could enjoy it today. Thank you, Carol! It is soooo moist and tasty!
When it was time to serve, we had this beautiful plate here...spinach, quinoa, and chicken salad, baked sweet potatoes, and Carol's banana bread. Nutritious, and delicious! 😋
We have sad news/good news to report about our beloved volunteer, Becky. The sad news is that she took a fall down the stairs in her home and broke a couple of ribs and her leg. The good news is she's going to be ok, but it was a serious fall and she has quite a recovery ahead of her. We pulled up pictures of her to show Erik and Michelle, who haven't met her since she hasn't been able to volunteer since Covid (and also, her husband has had health challenges and she's been caring for him). This was on Valentine's Day in 2020, when she danced with Sam. 💕 We made sweet cards for her, and we're sending lots of positive vibes her way! Hang in there, Becky. We know your can-do attitude will serve you well and you'll be back on both legs very soon! We love and miss you!
There was another national day today, and we had time, so why not celebrate National Tile Day?! Sure, it's in reference to a "timeless element of architecture and design," but we decided to go the way of playing with Scrabble tiles! Patrick, Michelle, Alexis, and Devin formed a team and put their heads together to look for words with big points.
Nearby, Liz, Kate, and Erik also formed a team and began coming up with words like "eyes" and "rice" which led to good points for them, too!
Nan worked with Kevin and Laura who took turns reading words Nan spelled, and then spelling words Nan gave them. Nan was excited when they used beginning, middle, and ending sounds to "stretch" out the words and spell them correctly!
Carol's group of Drew, Sam, Annmarie, and Xavier played with our Scrabble, Jr. game and made lots of great words. We think our take on National Tile Day was fun and educational!
We had a little time left at the end of the day to get creative with paper "tiles." We looked at pictures of mosaic art, and then gave it a try. Xavier went kind of abstract, and Devin decided to make a pattern in the colors of the Clemson Tigers. We loved it!
Thursday
Happy Birthday to the Arc's fabulous Executive Director, Pam, today! We hope she is enjoying time with family and celebrating her special day!
In case you don't know, Pam is a HUGE fan of Gonzaga Mens' Basketball...and they are a really good team! March Madness is almost upon us, and Pam will be cheering her team on with a hearty, "Go, Zags!" every chance she gets. With that in mind, we made this birthday video for her! 🎂 🏀 🎂🏀 🎂🏀
Things got serious when we talked about the meaning behind today's National Skip the Straw Day. It's meant to bring awareness to the fact that plastic trash is filling our landfills and finding its way to our oceans, ending up in these huge trash whirlpools called gyres. According to the National Park Service, Americans alone use about 500 million plastic straws PER DAY. Wow... Here, Devin was telling us that he believes reusable bags are good for the environment. They do help us cut down on our carbon footprint, so that's one way we can help...along with saying "Skip the straw" the next time we hit a drive-thru!
Our activity focused on how long it takes a variety of items to "disappear completely" from the earth...or decompose so as not to be polluting the earth. We had items that ranged from banana peels and t-shirts to leaves and soup cans. We tried to guess which amount of time matched with each item to indicate its time to decompose.
Here are the answers from our activity. We were very suprised to learn banana peels could take up to two years to decompose in a landfill (at home composting should be much faster), while a cotton t-shirt would do so in about 6 months! We also learned that it takes a soda can longer to decompose than a heavier soup can...and it takes all those plastic garbage bags we use 500-1,000 years to disappear completely. All of this kind of boggles the mind...so we ended this lesson and had lunch!
During Choice Time, Kate shared yearbooks she brought from when she was a student at York High School about 7 or 8 years ago. She was showing Sam a picture of our friend, Cameron (who's coming tomorrow!), and Sam said, "Look how young he was!" Then, Alexis saw the picture and said, "Look how handsome he was!" It was fun looking at your yearbooks, Kate!
The gang enjoyed computer puzzle, word, and logic games this afternoon. While Devin and Patrick try to figure out a memory game, Laura and Xavier took turns connecting dots to complete animal puzzles.
Erik and Liz partnered up to work on a coloring picture that involved understanding grids. It was a challenge to finish the leprechaun, but they stuck with it!
Sam, Alexis, and Drew were playing a memory game, too. Sam used clues revealed in earlier turns to make the first match. Beside them, Nan, Annmarie, and Kevin played a missing letters game and tic-tac-toe!
Michelle and Kate were able to have computers to themselves, but they played side by side and helped one another on their games.
Before ending the day with our read-aloud, we jumped up and had a 10 minute workout session. We watched side-by-side video clips of animals doing funny things, and after a few seconds, had to perform an exercise associated with the clip we liked best.
Here we are supposedly doing one of the two choices of exercises! So what if we aren't "in sync," as long as we're moving!
Friday
Friday arrived quickly this week and it was time to send a group to Pet Supplies Plus! Cameron was here today so he joined Devin, Liz, Laura, and Erik...and they were all joined by Tracy's interns, Madison (kneeling) and Karryna (beside Liz), who came to provide additional job coaching for our guys. In this photo, our amazing crew had just moved these bags of dog food from another part of the store...with the help of a cart!
Speaking of carts, Cameron, Erik, Liz, and Devin worked with guidance from owner Scott to load a U-cart so they could move cat supplies to a shelf.
Erik was doing a great job sweeping this aisle, so Karryna took a moment to check out the product. She ended up buying some supplies for her own dog! Karryna, thanks for supporting our vocational partner, Pet Supplies Plus!
With Cameron sweeping in the background, Madison gave Laura encouragement as she dusted a shelf.
With dad Scott's support, Devin did a bit of heavy lifting. We were very proud of our PSP team today! Their strong work ethic was on display! 👏👏
Meanwhile, back at the center, our other hard-working team members made sure lunch would be hot and ready when the PSP crew returned. We were celebrating National Chili Day, one day late! Sam and Patrick browned ground turkey with onions and green peppers before adding beans, tomatoes, and spices. It sure smelled good!
Nan had worked with Kevin and Drew to mix and bake this scrumptious corn bread! It should have won an award, it was so tasty!
Xavier gathered paper products and also our "fancy" silverware because we don't like to eat chili with plastic spoons!
Of course, we needed a decorating crew. Michelle, Annmarie, Alexis, and Kate handled coloring a few pictures and wrapping the fancy spoons in napkins, which they sealed with our homemade napkin rings! We were also very proud of our crew back at the center, and their strong work ethic! Thanks for getting lunch ready for everyone! 👏👏
We miss our friend Nancy, who moved to Kentucky last summer. One thing we enjoyed before she left was a delicious lunch of turkey chili prepared by her sister-in-law Sally, her brother Randy's wife. Sally gave us the recipe, which she said was given to her many years ago by Randy's mother. We were thinking about Nancy, Randy, and Sally today as we celebrated National Chili Day with the delicious recipe. Thanks for sharing, Sally! 😋😋
We caught up on our lessons about Presidents' Day that we hadn't gotten around to earlier this week. In this activity, Kevin and Liz were sorting nouns based on whether they were persons, places, or things. It was a little tricky so they had to revise their first attempt at sorting. "Liberty Bell" needed to be moved to "Things" instead of "Places," for example.
In this fun video about presidents' pets, we learned that 1) this man was Warren G. Harding and he was a president 😜, and 2) his dog Laddie Boy was the first presidential pet to become popular in the media. Laddie Boy had newspaper stories written about him, appeared in magazines, and even had special photo shoots at the White House. He was loved by the people!
To end our day, we set up for yoga with Jaime. We had seen in a memory lane blog post that we set our mats up in a sort of circular fashion when we had a live instructor a few years ago. We tried it again today, and seemed to have a little more space.
So, we ended our week with a relaxing yoga session, and by the time we headed home, the sun was shining and it was 62 degrees outside. What a great way to end our week! We're looking forward to nice weather next week, too. Here's what we'll be doing:
Tuesday: We're celebrating Drew!! His birthday is tomorrow, but we'll have a bowling party in his honor today with pizza and cupcakes for lunch! Thanks in advance to his mom and dad who are treating us to lunch, and joining us for the fun! It looks like the weather will be good for a walk at Freedom Park after bowling, and we can check on the garden, too! Bring your bowling balls and wear Arc shirts (the new ones are in production).
Wednesday: Bring your favorite books or magazines to share today! Not only is it Drew's official birthday, it's also Dr. Seuss's and that means it's Read Across America Day! We'll share our favorite books/magazines, and listen to portions of them. Yesterday was National Pig Day, so we'll have fun with a lesson on pigs, too! (Lisa is bringing books about pigs!) Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available, but the menu isn't posted yet. 😕
Thursday: Today is National Soup It Forward Day, which is meant to encourage us to "deliver love and kindness by the bowlful." So we are going to make homemade chicken noodle soup for lunch and make extra for Nan and Alexis to deliver to Becky's husband. 💙 We'll also include a banana cream pie, since Wednesday is National Banana Cream Pie Day. (We'll make one for us, too!) In other activities, we'll have a lesson to mark National Anthem Day and spend time outside in the predicted nice weather!
Friday: The weather is supposed remain nice today , so we will introduce Erik to Newport News Park where we will take a walk and play a round of corn hole. We'll plan to eat at one of the shelters, too, so bring a bagged lunch. We will return to the center for Choice Time and then end the day with yoga, so dress to stretch!
New t-shirt update:
The new vendor has received the t-shirt orders and they are in production. Lisa will email everyone their amounts due early next week. Please pay by cash or check made payable to The Arc of Greater Williamsburg. We got a great bulk discount, AND the orders are tax-exempt, too!
Enjoy the last weekend of February, 2022!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
