This week we bid a permanent farewell to the month of March and a temporary one to Carol! She was with us on Tuesday but left on Wednesday for a family adventure in Mexico to visit with one of her brothers, who lives there seasonally. We actually told Carol, "Adios, Amiga!" and wished her safe travels. She will be back with us on April 12. In her absence we had some assistance from a couple of special helpers, and things continued as smoothly as ever. Here's a look at our last week of March.
Tuesday
Today was March 29th and we learned from the National Day Calendar website that it's National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day! We have a couple of "mom and pop" businesses in our AoA family, so last week we wrote letters of congratulations to them and made these cool posters. Kate's dad owns a pipe organ repair/restoration business, and Devin's parents own Pet Supplies Plus. We're happy to wish them a happy Mom and Pop Business Owners Day! 👏👏
On Friday we are going to visit the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown. That meant we had to start brushing up on our history from that time period. We reviewed the situation of the 13 colonies by the 1770s, and briefly discussed how they had grown to a population of 2.7 million, and were doing very well "taking care" of themselves. We learned that King George III was taxing them without representation and trying to gain more control over them, and the colonists were not happy.
At this point, we took a movement break because we like our history in small chunks! It was very chilly outside, so we walked a few hallway laps, and then did a 10 minute cardio chair workout with an online coach we like, named Donovan. We always "feel the burn" with his workouts, even though we are seated!
Next, it was back to our Revolutionary War lesson. We talked about the British Redcoats and American Minutemen, Boston Tea Party, Lafayette and the French, and lots of patriots like Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. We knew that the colonists won the war, and we even remembered that the British surrendered at Yorktown. We're looking forward to picking up a few more details when we visit the museum on Friday!
Continuing with our American history theme, we began a new read-aloud book today. Liz highly recommended Escape from Monticello, which is a modern-day mystery that finds three savvy kids on the trail for a treasue that may have belonged to Thomas Jefferson! Will they find it before the revenge-seeking Jerry Millburn (about to be released from prison) catches up with them to "settle a score?" We'll find out over the next few weeks! Thanks for sharing the book with us, Liz!
After lunch we worked on our April calendar. We're going to be busy the next three days, so we got it set up today. We were hoping the visitors from Isle of Wight would get here in time to see our amazing teamwork, but they were late (coming via the Jamestown Ferry), and we were almost finished when they arrived. 😦
Here, Sam glued the event labels to the calendar squares, and Kate and Devin selected which ones they wanted to find online pictures for.
Devin and Patrick searched online to select pictures to match our upcoming events, while Xavier and Laura colored letters for the wall that spelled APRIL.
There was a lot going on here: Drew was helping Alexis clean off their work area by taking trash to the can, Nan was helping Kevin reset the calendar so the numbers would be in the correct spots for April, Kate and Erik were gluing pictures to calendar squares while Liz complimented their work, and in the background Sam was removing March decorations from the door!
And here are the results of our teamwork! We're a good team!
We just can't believe it's April already!
Since we were finished with our calendar, we all got to socialize with our visitors. They were from a nonprofit called Smithfield Hands and Hearts, along with a couple of folks from the Isle of Wight Parks and Recreation Department, and they wanted to see how our Arc of Abilities progam worked! They would like to possibly collaborate like The Arc of Greater Williamsburg does with James City Parks and Recreation, to offer more services to adults with developmental disabilities. Currently, Smithfield Hands and Hearts offers a once per week session, but they have aspirations to grow! We were happy to fill them in our how we operate, and everyone enjoyed their visit!
We had just enough time at the end of the day for a game of Spring Bingo! Kevin wasn't the first winner, but he played patiently until he got 5 in a row. Our prizes today? The yummy and healthy snack bars Devin's family sent us last week! 😋
Wednesday
What an adventure we had today! It began with our "surprise" trip to the stables and livestock area at Colonial Williamsburg. Christina set this up for us, and it didn't disappoint! We found the location, tucked away near Franklin Street, and waited for our guide, Coach and Livestock Director, Undra.
Our tour began in the farrier area, where Undra taught us about horseshoes. We learned that a farrier is a person trained to take care of a horse's hooves, trimming them and fitting them for shoes. We learned horseshoes have to be fitted to each horse, because their hooves can be different sizes, just like our feet!
In the carriage room, Undra told us that usually carriages with tops were used for traveling in the 18th century, while open top ones were for shorter trips around town. He also told us that many famous people have visited Colonial Williamsburg over the years, and gotten to ride in the carriages such as Betty White, President Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth, and even Lassie, the collie "actor" (known by many of our guys)!
We couldn't believe the amount of gear that was stored in the tack room. It was warm in here, and the smell of leather filled the air.
We were allowed to touch things, like these well-worn saddles!
Undra introduced us to Joshua, and Kevin enjoyed petting him.
Before heading outside of the stables, we also got to meet a few of CW's sheep, and some lambs that had been born as recently as last night! (These were a little older.)
This is Sally, whose mother rejected her, so she is bottle-fed. She was a feisty and noisy little thing!
We got our exercise with Undra when he led us to the top of a hill, and we saw more horses grazing. Most of the horses we saw are part of the Rare Breeds program at CW, which is successfully breeding Cleveland Bays, a breed that was valued for its good working ability in the 18th century, but over time, and without the need for work horses as in the past, has diminished in numbers.
Undra invited us to drive over to the additional stables off of Bypass Road, where most of the female Cleveland Bays are kept. What an extra treat! We could have roamed around this beautiful area for the rest of the day. By now, it was warming up a bit, and we were enjoying our time with Undra very much.
In this area, we met seven or eight almost 1 year old females, and were impressed that Undra could tell them apart and knew all of their names!
Unfortunately, we got so caught up in the excitement of seeing all the horses that we failed to get a nice group picture with Christina, who made this trip happen for us! She can be seen in this picture, beaming with joy at seeing how much we loved the experience, and we can't thank her enough for setting it up. Christina, your friendship means so much to us! Thank you for realizing that we would be enthralled by this experience, and taking us outside the museums to enjoy nature's "art!" We had THE best time!
After our stable visit came to an end, Tracy, who was filling in for Carol today, suggested we visit Jamestown Beach Event Park for our picnic. (That's Tracy seated beside Nan, who has on the red coat.) We had never been to that location, so we eagerly agreed! Thanks for your help today, Tracy. We always enjoy hanging with you, and hope you had a fun time, too!
We were celebrating National Walk in the Park Day! We were lucky to be able to walk a lot today, both at Colonial Williamsburg, here at Jamestown Beach, and later at Freedom Park, too!
There was time for relaxing, too!
In what seemed like a very long (in a good way) day, we realized after lunch and walking at Jamestown that we had time to stop by Freedom Park for a garden check. Liz picked some fresh parsley for us to use in our cooking tomorrow!
The garden is coming to life with beautiful springtime blooms appearing, lots of birds flying about, and plenty of fresh air. We enjoyed one last walk for the day before heading back to the center. We had a fabulous day all around!
Thursday
The drizzly weather forced us to remain indoors today, but it was still a fun day...and very busy!
First of all, an update on Carol's travel situation. Between weather and mechanical issues, the entire family was put on standby in Dallas. Eventually, her husband got a flight out but Carol and the boys had to spend the night in Dallas! This morning, Carol texted us their flight number and Liz pulled it up on her flight tracker app.
We're happy to report Carol, Matt, and David made it to Cabo, where they joined Gene and Carol's brother's family so the vacation could begin. Here is their current view, and no, we are not the least bit jealous! 😜 We hope they have a great time!
We accepted a side job this week! Coach Teri's neighborhood is planning a big Easter egg hunt and we accepted the task of filling the eggs with goodies! We had jobs for everyone and in a couple of hours (divided into morning and afternoon sessions), we had filled around 300 eggs. We "cracked ourselves up" with this fun task!
Laura, Patrick, and Kevin went through this huge tub of plastic eggs, and made sure the others had a steady flow of empty ones to fill. We had only filled about 1/3 of them when we ran out of goodies! (More goodies will arrive next week, and we will finish the job.)
Annmarie was one of our runners, making sure our fillers had eggs. Kate and Erik were fillers, who stuffed a piece of candy and a small toy prize into each egg.
Alexis and Liz were up for the challenge of fitting rather large candy necklaces into the rather small eggs! It just took a bit of squeezing!
Sam worked steadily as he stuffed a small rubber stamp pad along with a piece of candy into several of the eggs. He was all smiles to know his friends were helping with this project that would bring joy to the little kids in his neighborhood!
After stuffing the eggs, we celebrated National Tater Day, and Erik and Lexi had their hands full removing the skins from baked potatoes so we could make a twice-baked potato casserole for lunch!
Is that bacon Liz is cooking?! Why yes, because what would a twice-baked potato casserole be without it?!
We also needed some grilled chicken to accompany our lunch, so Abraham and Devin were on it!
We gave Kevin, Kate, and Sam a step by step list of instructions for getting the green beans from frozen to hot as a side dish!
While we waited for our casserole to finish warming up, we played a fun game of Hot Potato! We've had this game for years. It's a stuffed potato that plays music as it's passed around before making a buzzing sound to signal that someone is out. We played a few rounds and then the battery died! We'll have to get it replaced before next year's Tater Day!
Yum! Here's how our National Tater Day lunch looked before someone devoured it! 😋🥔🐔🟢 Isn't the fresh parsley from the garden a nice touch?!
Our Thursday ended with yoga since we hope to spend most of the day tomorrow at Yorktown. We were doing "pony pose" here!
This is us in "flying pose" but it's really just a great shoulder stretch. Yoga brought a relaxing end to our productive day!
Friday
We spent the better part of a windy day at Yorktown, where we visited the American Revolution Museum. It had been about 3 years since we last stopped by, but George Washington was still sitting on the bench outside to welcome everyone!
We watched the introductory movie and learned that many people had stories to tell of helping in the war. Next we looked around to see what we could learn. Abraham and Sam were interested in the muskets and rifles, and learned that a "powder horn" (behind the guys in the display case) was a container for gunpowder.
Devin, Michelle, Alexis, and Xavier recognized the man who was the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence, became our 3rd president, and founded the University of Virginia!
After exploring a few of the exhibits, we watched the "Siege of Yorktown" movie, and tried to imagine what it was like for the Patriots to defeat the Redcoats right here in Yorktown! Everyone got a kick out of how our seats vibrated everytime a shot was fired during the film!
Since it was such a windy day, we decided to eat lunch at the picnic area by the battlefields instead of the river. It seemed a little more protected and less breezy here. It was sunny and nice outside!
We couldn't visit Yorktown without a ride on the trolley! Today was the first day it was in operation for the 2022 season. Also, we apologize to Michelle, who was seated beside Kate, and is cut off from our photo. Today was her first day back after not feeling well this week, and we were happy she was with us!
Back at the center we kicked off our Spring Corn Hole Challenge. The girls had a "secret weapon" in Patrick's mom, Sue, who joined us today in Carol's absence. What a nice toss, Sue! Thank you for joining us today. We hope you had fun! We appreciate your help very much!!
The boys didn't seem phased by the addition of Sue to the girl's team, as they got out to an early 10-0 lead! Here, Sam was earning a point for them.
The girls were able to get some points as the game went on, but in the end, the boys needed 1 more point to win, and it was Xavier's turn. Check the board to see where his second toss landed! Yay, Xavier!! Spring Corn Hole Challenge Standings (after one game): Boys 1, Girls 0. 👏👏
What a fun way to end the week! On the way out the door at dismissal time, we could hear a couple of friends talking about how much they are looking forward to bowling on Tuesday. Let's enjoy the weekend first, guys! 😎 Here is our schedule for next week:
Tuesday: We're going bowling today, with pizza and fruit for lunch. Bring your bowling balls (if you have your own) and wear your Arc shirts. We will take a walk before returning to AFCC, too! We will welcome Tracy to assist us in Carol's absence today! Thank you, Tracy!
Wednesday: It's Eaton Day so wear your Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch. It's also National Caramel Popcorn Day, so we will celebrate at lunch with a tasty treat! We will welcome Liz's dad, and Arc board member, Greg to work with us today in Carol's absence. Thanks so much, Greg!!
Thursday: Today we will celebrate Sam's birthday! Coach Teri is providing us a yummy lunch of bbq and "fixins" along with Sam's favorite, chocolate pie! At Sam's request, we'll play the Pie in the Face game and also have other pie-themed activities. Plus, it's National Walking Day! Since the school is closed for Spring Break, we will take our annual walk around campus and look for many signs of spring.
Friday: We'll wind down the week with a "Catch Up" day as we complete room decorations for April and make up a couple of missed lessons. We'll also have yoga, so dress to stretch. Lunch on your own, but microwave is available. (No JRES Cafeteria due to it being Spring Break and they are closed.)
Don't forget about these upcoming events that benefit The Arc of Greater Williamsburg:
Saturday, April 23 - British Car Show at High Street
April 29-May 1 - 3 Day Bike About
May 14-12 and May 22 - Community Pickleball Challenge
More info on all of these can be found at The Arc's website:
https://www.thearcgw.org/activities-events
Have a wonderful weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.