This was one of those weeks where we had a little something for everyone! With awesome visitors, crafts, games, dancing, vocational work (twice!), cooking (including "fun" food), football, party time, and love, how could we go wrong?! Check out how we spent a "love"ly week leading up to Valentine's Day AND Super Bowl Sunday!
Tuesday
Karen, Barb, and Carolyn, three of our dear master gardener friends, came today and not only brought us friendship and a fun card craft to make, but also a new cookbook that is filled with recipes we WILL be trying, along with a plate of Krafty Karen's homemade shortbread cookies! We were ready for them with some goodies of our own, though! In the white bags were freshly baked cream cheese brownies, to thank them and also to celebrate National Cream Cheese Brownie Day which is on Thursday! What a great way to begin our "love"ly week!
Karen told us that Linda, the MG who moved to Massachusetts last year, had given her a few boxes of goodies to sort through, and that is where she found the book. Thank you, Linda, for leaving Karen some wonderful supplies to use when the MGs work with us, and for this treasure of a cookbook that also teaches us about growing and using fresh foods. In case you're wondering which recipes we would like to try, here is a video clip of Lisa running a few of them by us after Karen, Barb, and Carolyn left:
This is Krafty Karen, who loves to create homemade cards and had the idea to bring us supplies so we could make a few of our own. Here, she's helping Laura and Patrick with stickers.
Barb showed us a couple of card examples Karen had made, and then we got to work. Our individual supply kits were filled with stickers and other decorative touches. As we'd expect, our guys got creative and spent a lot of time making their special, one-of-a-kind cards.
Carolyn took a moment to catch up with Kate. Carolyn had met Kate's parents at a neighborhood event in Kingsmill over the holidays, and as they were chatting, Carolyn realized she knew their daughter!
Drew and Kevin weren't sure what to do with all the beautiful supplies, but it didn't take long before our MGs and Nan were helping them make "love"ly cards for their moms!
Devin and Xavier used nearly all of the stickers in their supply kits to make extra "love"ly cards for some special ladies in their lives!
Michelle and Erik worked quietly, but when they were done, they had created two very special cards. We loved the attention to detail that went into their work.
Even with masks on, it's clear from the smiling eyes that Liz and Alexis were happy with their finished products. So many pretty hearts, and hearts turned into balloons, too!
Sam didn't use as many stickers as Annmarie, but both of them made heartfelt cards for loved ones. Our uniqueness makes us special!
Many thanks Karen, Barb, and Carolyn for spending the morning with us and assisting us with the making of special Valentine cards. We enjoyed catching up with you! As you saw, working with the stickers and other supplies kept us engaged and got our creativity going! What a wonderful time together!! We can't wait to begin our spring sessions with you and our other MG friends in April!
The MGs weren't our only visitor today. Look who joined us on Zoom - it's Lexi, one of our friends from Parks & Rec, and her very adorable newborn son, Logan! We were excited when we found out Lexi would be a mom, and meeting Logan put big smiles on our faces. Isn't he just the cutest?! We miss you, Lexi, and can't wait for you to be back at Parks & Rec, but we know you are loving your time with your precious Logan!! Thanks for Zooming with us! p.s. We loved meeting your dog, Dopey, too! He's a good big brother!
We ended the day by writing thank-you letters to the team at Mystery Science, the online science program that gave us a scholarhip to access all of their excellent content through June, 2023. We are thankful for this gift and look forward to using lots of the Mystery Science lessons, and learning from the host, Mystery Doug. He's one of our favorites!
These are on their way to the Mystery Science team in California! We're sure they will love them!
Wednesday
As usual, it was a productive and busy day at Eaton! So busy in fact, that it's a "few" photos day. 😜
Patrick, Kate, and Drew worked for a while emptying the file drawers, a job we began last time we were here. Jorie says all the contents must go to the recycle bin!
Can you see the screws neatly set, pointy side up, on the counting sheets of Annmarie, Xavier, and Laura? Between the three of them, 50 screws were counted out to be placed in small plastic bags. Later, Patrick, Drew, and Kate helped them, and they ended up filling 100 bags today! That means they counted 5,000 screws!
Before going to the label table, each door gets an amber lens popped into the slot by Michelle. She also has to work quickly to keep the flow going!
Erik took a turn using the electric screwdriver and handled it like a pro! 👏👏
We joked that they look like a police lineup, but there's nothing criminal going on here! It was just a few friends introducing Erik to Jorie when Lisa said, "Quick...we need a picture!" 😲
Fun times at Eaton!!
Thursday
Happy Chinese New Year! The Lunar New Year began on February 1st, but as we know, it lasts for 15 days, so we're good to celebrate today. We were also thrilled to welcome Carrie from The Arc to hang out with us today and "learn the ropes." That way, she can be a backup for Lisa and Carol if needed! She was great and jumped right in as if she's been with us forever.
We learned the Chinese Zodiac, and the characteristics that go along with being born in the "year of" a certain animal. Carrie chatted with Erik, who was born in the Year of the Dog. She learned that some of the characteristics he might have, include being loyal, brave, smart, and warm-hearted. We've only known Erik a couple of weeks, but we think he's got these covered!
Patrick and Laura show the Chinese Zodiac wheels we made. Laura is an "ox" who is honest, hard-working, and family-oriented! Patrick is a "sheep," and he's gentle, calm, and polite! 👍 and 👍
Born in 1990 makes Michelle a "horse." Her characteristics included being energetic, intelligent, and talkative! She's all of those, especially that last one! 😘
The weather gave us a taste of spring today, so we took Carrie on a walk around the back part of the school. We noticed that the fenced in tennis court is not only gone, but the area where it was is all cleaned up now. Our large area for walking is now even more spacious.
We had some indoor movement, too. We had fun pretending to be snowboarders, ski jumpers, and bobsledders!
Erik, Michelle, and Devin were on Team Salad today. They made these pretty green salads garnished with thinly sliced carrots! Michelle is holding Yum-Yum sauce, which was tasty on our salads, but is actually a Japanese condiment! 😕
Our room smelled so good when Xavier, Patrick, Kevin, and Drew, also known as Team Fried Rice, cooked our lunch! It tasted even better than it smelled. 😋
We had several friends on Team Decorations. Kate, Annmarie, and Liz posed in front of the portable white board that they helped adorn with a lot of RED, which is the color that Nian, the evil-dragon, is afraid of in Chinese folklore. We certainly don't want Nian coming to the AoA to get us!
Here's Nian, a decorative dragon we've had for about 5 years! In Chinese mythology, Nian would come to the village at the end of the year to destroy the crops and attack the people. Another thing that scared him away was noise, which we had in abundance today...in a good way, with our excitement! Alexis, Laura, and Sam aren't afraid of Nian!
Afternoon work had us showing Carrie how we assemble The Arc's monthly mailing. She was proud of us, but we were equally proud of her for hanging with us for a whole day! We hope you had fun, Carrie. We really enjoyed your time with us!
We also whipped up some brownies which we will cut into the shapes of footballs tomorrow for our party. Sam handled the mixing job for us.
Before heading home, everyone made a prediction about which team will win the Super Bowl. Earlier, we had watched video clips about the Rams and Bengals, and discussed why we thought each team might or might not win. Drew predicted a win for the Bengals, and here, he is coloring their football helmet, which will be part of our prediction graph that will go on the wall tomorrow.
Ever the stats guy, Patrick pulled up a matchup app on his phone that currently shows the Rams with the advantage, 67% to 33%. Neither team has ever won the Super Bowl, so it will be great for either one! (The Rams won when they played in St. Louis, but haven't won since moving to LA.)
Friday
We came in excited for today's double Super Bowl / Valentine's Party! But first, we had to report to work at PSP, and work at AFCC on party preps!
We sent Xavier, Sam, Annmarie, Alexis, and Drew to work at Pet Supplies Plus this morning, where they met DiDi! She got them started on unloading a pallet of supplies, and stocking some of them on the shelves, too. Carol reported that they were very productive during their 90 minute stint, and this is the only picture she got! Great work, team!!! We're excited to report that we are almost at a point in our vocational opportunity at PSP where we will be taking more, and possibly ALL, of our team members at the same time!! Scott worked with us today, too, and he, Carol, and Lisa are brainstorming future ideas. 👏👏
Speaking of busy, those of us who remained at AFCC had plenty to do to prepare for our party! We had not gotten around to decorating bags to put our Valentines in, so that had to be done. Everyone who stayed made a bag for themselves, and then extras for our friends who went to PSP. Liz made a bag for Annmarie!
Next, we had party food to prepare. Nan, Kevin, and Kate turned sugar wafers into festive Valentine treats with a swipe of frosting and a conversation heart!
Erik and Liz worked with Lisa to make about 100 little "pigs-in-a-blanket" for our lunch. We left several of them "unwrapped" for our gluten-free friend, Xavier.
We stopped Michelle long enough to snap a picture of her unique and cute "dinosaur heart" shirt. Her dad and stepmother made it for her, and it's so perfect since she loves dinosaurs!
After lunch preps were finished and the PSP group had returned, we had time to play Pool Noodle Balloon Volleyball - Super Bowl Edition. This is where we use two balloons, each representing one of the Super Bowl teams, and the first one to pop is predicted to lose the big game. The blue balloon represented the LA Rams and the orange one was for the Cinncinati Bengals. The orange one popped first, so based on this traditional game we play each year, the Rams are predicted to win Super Bowl LVI! Note: We forgot to take a picture of the Super Bowl team helmets we colored and graphed yesterday. Based on that traditional activity, the Bengals are predicted to win! We are pretty sure one of our predictions will be correct!
Not long after popping the Bengals' balloon, our Rams balloon popped, but we wanted to keep playing. Lisa tossed in a heart shaped balloon and told us not to "break anyone's heart" this time! It must have been a strong heart, because we played about 15 more minutes and it never popped!
We thought our party set up looked good! Tracy and her interns, Karryna and Madison, joined us for lunch, and we had a great time socializing with them.
It's always a fun time when we exchange Valentines!
Karryna helped Annmarie get her treats into the correct bags, and Sam caught up with Alexis to give her his special Valentine!
Xavier may have been wearing his mask, but you could see through his eyes that he had a big smile on his face! Thank you to our AoA families for their support of our Valentine celebration! Our guys love it so much, and we are grateful for the wonderful treats and surprises everyone brings to share. Thanks also, for keeping this guy in mind. A couple of families sent baked goods, but made sure there was something gluten-free included for Xavier. 💝 It's no wonder our AoA friends are so thoughtful, given that their families are as well. We appreciate you very much!! 💕💕💕
Aren't these two the cutest?! It's Tracy's interns (Go, ODU Monarchs! 🦁), Madison and Karryna, who got together and made matching Valentine outfits to wear to our party! We appreciate their help today, as well as Tracy's, and really enjoyed hanging out with them during our party!
Heike, Dianne, and Sevarina had to be reminded to come see us, and we were excited to give them some sweet treats! They "forgot" we would be celebrating Valentine's Day today, as they will be working on Monday, when the kids at JRES will be celebrating on actual Valentine's Day! We hope they survive all that excitement!
We love a fun party day, and ending a great week with one is even better! Next week will be a bit lower key...but we do have another celebration coming up! Check out our plans right here. 🠋
Tuesday: We're going to play board games, including Candy Land, as we celebrate, for the first time ever, National Gumdrop Day! We'll also have a yoga session to make up for the one we missed on Friday. After lunch we'll head to The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg for our first visit of 2022 with Christina! Lunch on your own, and wear your Arc shirts (and comfy pants for yoga)! JRES Cafeteria is available and is serving Burrito w/ Salsa or Pizza (school's version, not Domino's).
Wednesday: Tomorrow is Heike's birthday, but she will be off, so we will celebrate it today! 🥳 It's National Pancake Day and since we recently celebrated Blueberry Pancake Day with traditional pancakes, we'll try a new recipe for Pancake Breakfast Casserole for lunch. (We'll make an extra one for Heike to share with Sevarina and Dianne!) We'll also catch up on some brain work we didn't get to last week. 💡
Thursday: The Winter Olympics are coming to an end so we'll choose Olympics as a topic of study today with reading and math activities. We'll also have Karoke time with our fun machine, and maybe start a new read aloud, too! Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is serving Domino's Pizza or Sub of the Day.
Friday: Bring pictures and/or stories to share about your pets for a favorite day of ours, National Love Your Pet Day (Feb. 20th). We'll also study another favoritie day/topic, presidents, since Monday is Presidents' Day. Dress to stretch for yoga, too. If the weather cooperates, we'll head to the park after lunch for a walk and boys vs. girls game of Winter Challenge Corn Hole. For lunch, we'll prepare an easy taco casserole with a side of fresh fruit.
Families - Please remember to let Lisa know this week if you'd like to order new shirts. We're making a slight change to the shirts so that the front will now have The Arc logo with Arc of Abilities underneath. The back will continue to say "Achieve with us." They will still be navy with orange print. (The former Arc shirts remain "valid" and can be worn any time Arc shirts are called for in the schedule!)
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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