We were both silly and serious this week! We went from clowning around for Annmarie's birthday on Tuesday to working seriously at Eaton on Wednesday and Pet Supplies Plus on Friday. On Thursday, we were both serious and silly with Mike at the Watermen's Museum, and by Friday afternoon, we balanced it all out with a new yoga adventure with Jaime! It was a busy, busy week, and we have plenty of pictures to share! Enjoy!
Tuesday
It was quite a day as we came in excited to celebrate Annmarie's 26th birthday. We knew her parents were treating us to lunch from KFC and after lunch we were going to have an "experience" that we've never had before at the Arc of Abilities. It was kind of weird not traveling on a Tuesday, like we usually do, but we spent the morning dancing, reviewing last week's blog, and making these awesome cards for Annmarie.
We also spent time getting fresh air and movement outside, learning a little bit about climate change to prepare for our visit to the Watermen's Museum on Thursday, and listening to part of our read-aloud, Saving Winslow.
It was so breezy today that we were surprised these guys didn't get lifted off the ground by the parachute!
Laura wore her birthday cake shirt in honor of her buddy, Birthday Girl Annmarie! How sweet of Laura! 🎂
The highlight of the day was definitely Annmarie's birthday celebration! We love celebrating our birthdays and for hers, we had lunch from KFC delivered by her parents. It hit the spot!
Thank you, Andy and Teresa, for a wonderful lunch and the experience that was to come! We are so glad you got to spend the afternoon with us and see what a delightful time everyone had celebrating Annmarie's special day! We really appreciate what you did for us!
Wow! We were caught by surprise when, after lunch, Bubbles the Clown walked in and began telling us funny jokes! We have never had a visit by a clown before. So cool!
Once we got over our surprise, we were a captive audience!
Bubbles engaged us with a lot of audience participation. Here, Birthday Girl Annmarie was supposed to be pulling worms out of the hat, but she kept getting frogs instead...until Bubbles did a little magic to help Annmarie!
When Kate volunteered to help Bubbles, the magic wands kept multiplying and so did our laughter, head-shaking (Laura!), and applause!
Silly Bubbles had a wallet that kept igniting into flames, but she couldn't see them! We're not sure she ever believed us!
We all know Annmarie is persistent, so she tried again, and check this out! (Check out the astonishment on Annmarie's face, too! 💜)
After the magic show, the party wasn't over! Bubbles made balloon animals and did face-painting for us! The birthday girl went all butterfly on us!
Of course we had to sing and enjoy chocolate cake for Annmarie! Thanks, Liz, for baking the cake this morning and holding it so Annmarie could make a wish and blow out the candle! We hope all her wishes come true!
Bubbles paused from turning Devin into Captain America so we could get the group birthday picture! Everyone was here today! Yay!
Not everyone chose to have their faces painted, and that was ok. These guys thought it would be fun, so we present Black Panther, Pat the Pirate, Jeff from the Wiggles, and Captain America!
Here we have Wonder Woman, Unicorn 1, Butterfly Birthday Girl, Unicorn 2, and a lovely Elsa wand made of balloons. And the talented, creative, and very funny Bubbles the Clown, too!
Thanks again to Annmarie's parents, Andy and Teresa, for this spectacular celebration. We are so fortunate at the AoA to have amazing opportunities that allow us to stretch our minds, imaginations, and funny bones! Bubbles the Clown brought a lot of joy to us all today, and we enjoyed it very much! Happy Birthday, Girly!
Wednesday
Today was an Eaton work day, and the first in about 3 weeks. We were excited to go, and were able to channel our work ethic even though we were still talking about the fun, fun, fun we had yesterday!
We worked on a variety of tasks today. Here, Laura, Patrick, Michelle, and Kate were filling bags with 10 screws and 5 "white sticks" in each. They enjoyed conversation as they worked, and never missed a beat!
Sam, Devin, Xavier, and Kevin tackled this large tub of parts that needed to be sorted. It only took an hour or so!
Abraham and Drew took the plates Liz and Erik prepped and added a couple of U-brackets to each, which they then packed into crates. Each crate was going to be packed and sent to a different Eaton customer, so there were different amounts needed for each crate. The guys listened closely to Lisa, and all amounts were correctly counted!
Carol explained to Karryna and Madison what this group was working on, and then the girls chipped in to help! 👏👏
Rachel is no slacker! She helped Kevin and Sam pull out parts as they were getting down to the bottom of the big tub. We appreciated her assistance very much!
After lunch, we added a few more friends to the counting/bagging group. Between all of them, 200 bags of screws and "white sticks" got packed. Wow!
Erik and Liz continued with their clipping after lunch, while Alexis, Michelle, and Nan unpacked a few boxes of light bulbs. Many of our guys noted how quickly our productive day passed! It's a great work environment with our music playing in the background and all the lively conversations taking place. Thanks, Liz, for bringing the music! Your playlist is so perfect for us! 🎶🎤
Thursday
We found ourselves traveling again today. We had a great visit with Mike at the Watermen's Museum in Yorktown.
When we first entered the museum, Mike pointed out the design elements that make the museum look like it could have been built in Colonial times, but he told us it was built in the 1950s! He also told us it was originally located in Gloucester, but in 1985 it was moved by barge across the York River to its present location, where it opened as the Watermen's Museum in 1987 - the same year in which Sam was born! 😃
We went down the hall to the "changing exhibits" area and Mike explained that he had created this new exhibit on global climate change. It was very well-organized, colorful, and filled with easy to follow information so that visitors will gain a better understanding of the climate change issues facing the global population.
Speaking of reusing, Mike had a silly, but "cool," project for us. First, he gave us each a popsicle treat! Then, he had us use the wrapper and the stick to create a pop art masterpiece. He referenced the artist Andy Warhol, whom we will learn more about next week, and next thing we knew, we had created our own pop art by reusing our trash!
We each decorated paper "popsicles" in colors/designs that suited us, and then attached them to their wrappers so it looked like they were "popping" out. Mike told us we would use an old pizza box as our canvas. He covered it with the flattened popsicle boxes and then we put our individual designs on it.
Abraham carefully selected a spot on our collage to place his colorful piece.
Our pop art is awesome! We love projects where we have no idea where it's going, but once everyone makes their individual contributions, it becomes something spectacular! Thanks for a really fun AND educational time, Mike! We loved the treats, too. We will keep you posted on how we make changes to help reduce our carbon footprints!
When we got back to the center for lunch, Devin excitedly pointed out that his pineapple was in a reusable container! Yay, Devin!!
Big smiles when it's Choice Time during March Madness and Lexi's favorite team is playing. She appreciated her friends' support and was very relieved when they won in a close game! 🏀
We made thank you cards for Annmarie's parents today. We are still talking about the fun party we had on Tuesday with lunch from KFC and a very entertaining show from Bubbles the Clown!
Can you believe it is time for The Arc's April mailing to go out again? Kevin, Erik, Kate, and Michelle were part of the crew that assembled them so we could get them in the mail!
Our gang is lucky because they get to bring their sign-up sheets home today! Kate passed them out and Patrick said he's excited to sign up for the W&M Basketball Clinic which is back in April! Also making a return are Field Day and Tracy's Tea Party. We're thrilled with the return of these wonderful events after a 2 year Covid hiatus. The usual fitness nights are scheduled, too! Don't forget to complete and return your sign-up sheet to the Arc office by MARCH 25!! Fun times ahead!
Friday
Happy Friday, everyone! It was a Pet Supplies Plus Friday, so we sent one crew to work at the store, while the others stayed "home" to prepare lunch!
Before getting down to lunch business, we danced and took a look at a "memory lane" blog post. We also went outside for a walk, and ended up on the big multiplication chart outside, where Lisa made up a game that had us running around and changing places.
Most of us walked back toward the building, but some decided to jump!
Lunch prep involved a few teams working together. Devin and Erik made sure our chicken got cooked so we could add some protein to our salads.
Liz and Sam prepped bread for grilled cheese sandwiches by spreading a thin layer of soft margarine on each side. They made 16 sets!
Laura and Abraham put the finishing touches on our beautiful garden salads by adding cucumbers and grape tomatoes. Annmarie can be spotted in the background waiting for them, as she had completed her part of the task!
We also had Jell-o with mandarin oranges added to it. Xavier's job was to set out 17 cups and put a spoon in each. Later, Nan would fill them with the Jell-o.
We didn't get any more lunch pictures because we were too busy trying to finish before the rest of our friends got back...and also because Lisa accidentally burned the first batch of grilled cheese sandwiches and they didn't look too good! She would like to thank those who volunteered to eat the very well-done sandwiches!
😱😱😱
Our PSP group today consisted of Kevin, Kate, Michelle, Drew, Alexis, and Patrick, who were joined by Karryna and Madison (interns to Tracy). We'd like to send a shout-out to Devin's dad, Scott, and thank him again for this great vocational opportunity!
Working in the stockroom, Michelle, Patrick, and Alexis unpacked a 6 ft. tall pallet, sorting items into shopping carts to be sent to the shelves for re-stocking.
On the dog supply aisle, Kate and Michelle found the spot for these packs of treats.
Madison helped Kevin make quick work of placing the things in the cart behind them on the shelves!
Karryna and Patrick made a great team on the cat aisle!
Scott helped Drew place product on the shelf. Speaking of these many pet products...did you know that Pet Supplies Plus will deliver locally for FREE?! Check them out on the web at petsuppliesplus.com and save yourself a trip (and a tank of gas)!
We are extremely proud of our PSP crew AND our lunch crew today! Thank you everyone for chipping in and doing your part. We're a great team! 👏👏
After lunch we made more decorations for our room. We're gearing up for our 6th anniversary party next week, and also St. Patrick's Day. Michelle and Kate made colorful rainbows bursting out of clouds!
Everyone worked on coloring these letters for our big wall. By Wednesday of next week, it will be even prettier than it is today! We're getting excited about our anniversary party!
We were scratching our heads during our educational lesson this afternoon as we wondered why we had to move our clocks ahead 1 hour this weekend. We turned to one of our favorite video series, "Homeschool POP" to get some answers! Abraham and all of us agree that it will be nice to have more daylight in the afternoon and evenings now! But about that lost hour of sleep...😴😴😴
As we ended our week with yoga, we found ourselves in a couple of great stretching poses. From this one, where we are seated on our mats, we were reaching our hands out between our legs and getting a good lower back stretch.
In this pose, we were on our feet and again, the stretch was great for our lower back, and also our hamstrings. It felt wonderful!
Yoga signaled the end of another great week! We're quite revved up about next week since we are celebrating the Arc of Abilities' 6th anniversary! It's heartwarming to think that we have been working together with this amazing group for 6 years. We have come so far, and we'll enjoy looking back to celebrate our accomplishments next week!
Wednesday: One of our favorite days is today: The Arc of Abilities is celebrating its 6th Anniversary! Cameron will join us and we'll spend the day looking at past blog posts and sharing favorite memories from our time together. We'll also have a lesson on pandas for National Panda Day. We're thankful to be treated to a pasta and salad lunch by Liz and Family! We also hear there may be a surprise visitor or two, folks we haven't seen in a while. It's going to be a special day!
Thursday: Happy St. Patrick's Day! Feel free to wear your green today! 🌈☘💚 We will learn about this interesting holiday and make Blarney Stoney cookies on our Pizzazz rotating pizza oven (see next week's blog post if you can't remember why we do this)! We will settle down after our celebration by moving yoga to today, so wear stretchy pants with your green. Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available and the menu calls for Domino's Pizza or Sub of the Day.
Friday: It's back to Eaton today, so wear your Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch! Wonder what kind of tasks we will help our Eaton friends with today?!
We hope everyone has a great weekend!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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