This week we wrapped up a super fun spring season of birthdays as we celebrated Devin T.'s 30th and Tracy's 40th! It will be near the end of July before we get to "birthday" party again, but that doesn't mean we won't find other ways to party. We don't want to lose our edge! This week's birthdays were the highlights of another wonderful week, in which we're also including highlights from the Community Pickleball Challenge, which benefited The Arc of Greater Williamsburg. Check out all of our adventures!
Sunday
The inaugural Community Pickleball Challenge was a smashing success, and we want to remember it! A few of our AoA friends were on hand to help, and we're so proud of them! The Arc of Greater Williamsburg appreciates our generous sponsors and all of the amazing players who braved two days of extremely warm and humid conditions to support us. Here is a snippet of the action from Sunday's final round.
We had a great turnout for the first-time event, and we're already looking forward to next year's challenge. On Sunday, there were over 20 teams in the finals!
Pickleball looks like a lot of fun! It's a game that sort of combines tennis and ping-pong, and it's becoming more and more popular all the time!
We also appreciate the staff, board members, and AoA friends who were on hand to keep things moving along. Our Executive Director, Pam (blue apron), board member Greg, and AoA member Liz chatted with spectators and thanked them for coming.
AoA members Alexis and Liz worked the crowd by passing out cooling towel packets and thanking them for their support of The Arc of GW!
AoA member Drew, one of The Arc's best good-will ambassadors, was on hand to spread smiles and appreciation to the crowd, too! Isn't he handsome in the official Pickleball Challenge t-shirt?! (And thank you to Arc board member Diane, over Drew's shoulder!)
Anna, the Arc's Communications and Development Coordinator, played a HUGE role in putting this event together. She is a logistical wizard, with the patience of a saint, and we appreciate her hard work and dedication to making this challenge a rousing success!
Bette Faye was all smiles because she was selling a lot of raffle tickets! (We had AmAzInG prizes!) Over her shoulder Tracy and her mini-me, Heidi, chatted with Alexis as they cooled off in the shade!
Alexis and Liz were happy to award medals to winners of the various rounds. Pickleball players are a competitive, but very friendly, group, and we could tell they enjoyed the chance to play in a challenge!
Liz and Alexis awarded this team with jars of pickles for being runners-up in their division. Why pickles? Because, this challenge was a big "dill!" 🥒🥒🥒
Thanks Liz, Alexis, and Drew for representing the Arc of Greater Williamsburg AND the Arc of Abilities with your bubbly personalities and excellent social skills! We're so proud of you!
Tuesday
☔☔☔ Today may have been chilly and rainy, but it did not dampen the joy and happiness we found in celebrating Devin T.'s 30th birthday! Right from the start, he brought the 🌞🌞🌞 to this day, seemingly unfazed by the icky weather!
Before we officially celebrated Devin's big day, we got a "dose of sunshine" as well from our visit with the master gardeners. Fortunately, Krafty Karen was able to book the classoom at the Interpretive Center, so we met and had an informative lesson on pollinators. Here, Karen was checking in to see what we had done with all the goodies we harvested from the garden last week!
Karen introduced Pat, who was traveling during our first few spring sessions. We were happy to see her again today. She briefed us on the very busy hummingbird. She told us that mother hummingbirds always lay two eggs, and she showed us a small canister, about 1 inch by 2 inches, that represented the size of a hummingbird's nest. She also had two little navy beans, which represented how small hummingbird eggs are. Did you know when hummingbird babies hatch they only weigh as much as a penny?! Wow!
Next, Angela told us about butterflies. She raises about 100 butterflies each year, which she releases in late summer. She used the beautiful display she created to teach us about the butterfly life cycle. One thing she told us that we didn't know is that butterflies taste with their feet!
Jay told us about a very important pollinator, bees! Here, he was showing us a picture of a mason bee, which many of us had not heard of before. Mason bees are very effective pollinators who are responsible for pollinating most fruit trees, and we love our fruits! Jay also told us that honeybees were not native to North America, and the Jamestown settlers first brought them here over 400 years ago!
After learning all those cool facts about pollinators, Krafty Karen told us we would be decorating framed photos of pollinators with a variety of stick on decorations. Barbara assisted Patrick and Devin in creating decorative frames.
Joanne and Angela gave Sam some tips to make sure his decorations would stick.
It was fun deciding which colorful flowers, butterflies, and ladybugs to use for decorating our frames. Thanks, Karen, and all of our MG friends, for helping us with these pretty frames to take home, and for all of the interesting information you shared with us about pollinators today. We know they are important to our food supply and we love that you grow many plants and flowers here at the garden and in your own yards that attract them! Even though we ran short of time, we are taking the cut flowers you brought from your yards back with us, and tomorrow we will take a closer look at them!
We ate lunch at the Interpretive Center and hoped the rain would taper off, but by the time we loaded the vans, it was raining pretty hard. We wanted to begin Part 1 of Devin's 30th Birthday Party with a stop for Frosties at our favorite Wendy's in the Kingsmill area. We all knew it would be a hassle to go in the rain, so instead we went to the drive-thru and brought the Frosties back to the center. Here's Devin's official "Happy 30th Birthday" picture with his friends!
Yes, that's a candle glowing out of Devin's Frosty! He made a wish and blew it out like he's been doing it for 30 years! Haha...he has! Devin, we hope all of your wishes come true!
Devin's 30th Birthday Party, Part 2, was Birthday Bingo. His mom, Nancy, put together Bingo Prize Treat Bags for all of our winners today! Aren't they spectacular?! She filled them with a variety of items she knew our guys would love, and they were a big hit! Thank you, Nancy, and Devin's dad, Todd, for the thoughtful goodie bags and for treating us to Frosties today. We love having Frosties with friends, and we love that it makes Devin happy! His 30th Birthday Bash was so much fun!
We're not kidding when we say Devin, who called himself "Birthday Boy" all day, was the first Bingo winner!
He made a beeline for the prize table and selected a bag that was loaded with one of his favorite treats, pudding packs! You can tell by his big smile that he was a happy Bingo winner!
Erik and Devin B. ended up at the prize table at the same time, and they carefully looked over the many selections before making a decision. Devin B. selected a bag with Goldfish crackers and a package of cookie mix, which he said he would save until his grandma came from New Jersey because she likes to bake with him and his little sister. Erik chose a hummingbird feeder and all-natural hummingbird nectar mix, because he thought it would look nice outside at his home. 💚
Abraham could hardly contain his excitement at winning a cake mix and a package of frosting that includes a kit so he can decorate the cake himself! And of course dino-gal Michelle was delighted to win the dinosaur magnets and a Frisbee!
30th Birthday Party Part 3 was a game of Disney Movie Trivia. Devin is one of our "in-house experts" when it comes to identifying Disney movies from a short clip or song snippet. Our teams could not be stumped in today's edition of the game! It was a lot of fun. We had a great time celebrating your milestone 30th birthday, Devin. Thanks for loving Bingo and Disney trivia, because we do, too! It was a great party!
Wednesday
We brought clippings from the master gardeners back with us after yesterday's lesson, and today we observed more closely some of the plants and flowers that grow in their yards and attract pollinators, such as marigolds, salvia, spider wort, and clover. We stepped outside to see the clover that grows near our door, and got caught in a quick downpour! We'll see bees in this clover on a sunny day!
We want to give our MG friend, Carolyn, a shout out for the journal pages she creates to document our visits. Using beautiful photos taken by MG Rich, she summarizes each of our wonderful lessons and creates a magnificent page, which is sent by email to all the MGs and us! Below is yesterday's journal page. Carolyn has done this for years, but we never thought to brag on her (and Rich) until now. Isn't it fabulous?! Thank you, Carolyn and Rich, for giving us another way to save our memories!
May 25 is National Tap Dance Day so this year, we found an online "Happy Tapper Workout" and used it for our morning movement activity. Abraham, Michelle, and Alexis said it was quite a workout!
Devin B. and Sam did part of the workout using a table for support. They got their heart rates pumping!
The gang really enjoyed watching a "Top 10 Dance Scenes in Movies" countdown that included a scene from Happy Feet. Some of the other scenes were from very old films that featured famous dancers/tappers like Fred Astaire, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Ann Miller, and The Nicholas Brothers, who were amazing and whom we had never heard of. We think our guys would enjoy watching some of the old classic movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s!
Laura and Sam were in awe of these 10 feet long pieces of yarn that Carol put together by tying three separate and different colors together. We were going to wrap them around a star frame made of craft sticks (that Carol also prepared) and add them to our patriotic wall.
The process of wrapping the yarn in a random fashion around the stick frame proved difficult for some of our friends. Laura needed help changing up the direction in which she wrapped, and Abraham needed help holding his yarn taut so it wouldn't just hang on the frame. They didn't give up, though!
Devin also persevered, despite getting his yarn tangled a bit. We got him untangled and he finished this star, but didn't want to do another one!
The stars give the patriotic wall a bit of texture and pop! We're happy with how it looks for Memorial Day. We will add more to it as Flag Day and July 4th get closer.
Thursday
It's party time again!! We celebrated Tracy today, and it needed to be grand enough to last for a while...our next birthday party won't be until July! We forgot to write her name on the board, but we began decorating for the party first thing this morning!
After our dance warm up, we put the crew to work with cooking and more decorating. Michelle, Alexis, Drew, and Xavier prepared festive napkin rings and colored additional decorations for our tables.
Sam and Erik had Nan's assistance with shredding cooken chicken so we could make chicken salad for our luncheon croissants!
Kevin, Devin T., and Abraham were "berry" proud of the spinach and strawberry salads they assembled!
May 26 is National Blueberry Cheesecake Day, so that's what Tracy was getting instead of cake! Laura and Devin put together our simple "no bake" recipe.
While our lunch chilled, we had morning movement. In this picture, one of our go-to online coaches, Donovan, leads us through a chair workout. He can be seen on the computer screen sitting in a chair by his swimming pool! We enjoy working with him, as he's very motivating and helps us get our hearts pumping and muscles moving, even from a chair.
We set up a colorful room for Tracy's 40th birthday party!! We don't always go all out with table coverings, but, then again, Tracy doesn't turn 40 every year! We wanted her to feel our appreciation for all she does for us, especially with making sure we have transportation for our field trips!
Our menu today was chicken salad on croissants, spinach and strawberry salad, and chips. We joked with Tracy that we had it catered from Food for Thought restaurant! She said it tasted good enough to be! Thanks, Tracy. We're glad you liked it!!
It's hard to tell in the photo, but that's a blueberry cheesecake Tracy is holding, and the candles are a 4 and 0! Tracy, we wish you a joyful 40th year and hope all your wishes come true!! (The cheesecake was delicious, by the way!)
Something else we appreciate Tracy for is arranging for us to take a fun outing with Jamestown Discovery Tours and Captain Corey! This is a ride out to the James River on a pontoon boat, and we hope to see wildlife and learn interesting things about the river from Captain Corey. We're going on Tuesday, so today we took a look at the website to see what we can expect. Thank you for setting this up for us, Tracy! We cannot wait to experience a "cruise" together!
Knowing we are going on a "cruise" made Lisa recall a television show she watched as a kid, Gilligan's Island! As some of you may recall, it was about a group of tourists who go out on a "three hour cruise" and end up stranded on a deserted island!
We watched the first episode of Gilligan's Island, from 1964, and even though it was in black and white, and didn't feature any fancy special effects, we laughed so hard! We have the first season on DVD, so we'll be watching more funny episodes over the summer. We just hope our "one hour tour" with Captain Corey doesn't leave us stranded on a deserted island! 🏝🏝🏝
After watching Gilligan's Island, we combined Bingo with movement to play a game called Shipwrecked Bingo. Teams had to lock arms out in the ocean (hallway) and work as a team to stay afloat (together) while maneuvering in different ways, like taking baby steps, walking backward, and walking sideways. When Lisa called "Shipwreck" we went back to our islands (tables) and solved a math problem. Our Bingo cards had answers and the first team to get a Bingo was declared rescued from the deserted island! It was wacky, active, and fun!
In this video clip, the directions were to take baby steps. It took a while to catch on to the idea of staying connected with your shipmates, but we got better with practice!
Friday
Things were noticeably quieter today as 5 of our friends were absent and Michelle was picked up early. Most of them were traveling, but our sweet "Shortcake," aka Annmarie, was hospitalized with complications from surgery to remove her tonsils. We continue to keep her in our prayers, and cannot wait until she is well enough to rejoin her friends.
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We made her some very thoughtful cards today. We love and miss you, Annmarie. 💗💗💗
Jorie came around 8:45 to pick up the work we completed last week, and she brought Adair to see our center for the first time! We had a few earlybirds here who helped load 10 big boxes into Jorie's Explorer.
Drew's dad, Andy, had just arrived with Drew and Devin T., and he jumped out of his car to help us, too! We just love all of our family and friends!
Thanks Adair, Drew, Jorie, Alexis, Andy, Devin T., and Erik! What great smiles so early in the morning!
The Pet Supplies Plus crew headed out a little after 9, and that left Lisa and Nan with FIVE to get lunch prepared! We were making a simple breakfast casserole today that didn't require a lot of preparation, so we actually put Kate on a counting job for Eaton. She worked steadily to fill bags with 50 screws in each.
Abraham, Alexis, Drew, and Devin T. worked together to toss the breakfast casserole ingredients together and get them in the oven. We used 18 eggs today!
Our team of Erik, Kevin, Devin B., Michelle, and Xavier were super busy helping Scott unload 5 pallets of product at PSP today! As usual, they did a great job. And...as usual...they returned to the center "starving" and ready to eat the breakfast casserole!
What breakfast casserole? Apparently, we were all so ready to eat that we forgot to take a picture. (That happens sometimes when it smells really good in our room! 😄) It resembled this, and was served with fresh cantaloupe and pineapple! 😋
We spent time reviewing the meaning of Memorial Day. We learned that it's okay to enjoy time with family and friends at a cookout, the beach, or another outing, and to even "celebrate" the unofficial start of summer, as long as we take time to remember and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service for our country.
With only 9 for yoga today, everyone was able to spread out nicely. Sam joined us on Zoom from the OBX, but we weren't able to see or hear him...we think he could see and hear us, though!
Jaime has a yoga session based on the movie Moana, so we chose it today since we're going on a cruise Tuesday! We don't expect to see palm trees along the James River, but there will be water!
We have a lot to look forward to next week, and it includes welcoming a new member to our group. Adia will join us on Thursday! Welcome, Adia and family!!
Here's our agenda for next week:
Monday: Happy Memorial Day! If your schedule permits, stop by Ironbound Gym for their annual Zumbathon which benefits The Arc of GW! It begins at 9:30 and you can stay and dance for as long (or little) as you'd like. It's high energy and lots of fun!
Tuesday: We'll take one of this week's two water-related excursions as we board the Jamestown Discovery for a tour of the sights and sounds of the James River. This special adventure was arranged for us by Tracy and Parks & Rec, and we can't wait to meet Captain Corey and set sail! The weather forecast calls for sunny and hot, but the pontoon is covered and we will use our sunscreen. If it's not unbearable, we'll have lunch at Jamestown Beach. Please wear Arc shirts and bring a bagged lunch.
Wednesday: It's June 1st so we will update our activities calendar and change out a few room decorations as we gear up for summertime! We'll celebrate Reef Awareness Day with a lesson from Mystery Doug. It's also Say Something Nice Day so we'll do one of our favorite activities: pick a friend's name and say/write/draw something nice about them! Lunch on your own. The JRES Cafeteria is available and is offering Sandwich of the Day or Corn Dog Nuggets.
Thursday: Today we welcome our newest AoA member, Adia! She's coming on National Rotisserie Chicken Day, and while we can't cook chicken rotisserie style, we'll still celebrate by having grilled chicken, green beans, and basil pesto pasta salad for lunch. We're making homemade basil pesto with the basil plants the MGs gave us, and using MG Angela's recipe! In other activities, Black Bear Day is coming up, so we'll include a lesson about them and also catch another episode of Gilligan's Island as an inspiration for writing thank-you notes to Captain Corey.
Friday: Today we will have another water-related excursion as we celebrate Free Fishing Days in Virginia with a visit to The Watermen's Museum where Mike is going to teach us to fish! Sounds like fun! Bring a bagged lunch and we'll eat by the river and snag a short walk before returning to the center for yoga to end the week. Wear your Arc shirt and comfy shorts/pants for yoga, too!
Wishing everyone a thoughtful, safe, and enjoyable Memorial Day Weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
