This week's highlight was celebrating Laura's birthday on Tuesday. She's the only August birthday we have, so we definitely look forward to partying with her! We operated at a lower key than last week, and besides Laura's birthday, "all" we did were things like Eaton work, making waffle sandwiches and mini-banana splits, more Eaton work, and Dog Bingo! We aren't complaining, though. We had a great time! Here are a few of our memories...
Tuesday
Laura's birthday got off to an energetic start with our dance warm up this morning! DJ Liz played a lot of her favorite tunes, including "Kokomo" by the Beach Boys, "Baby" by Justin Bieber, and a very upbeat "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars (but our version today was from KidzBop)!
Next, we made pretty and thoughtful cards for Laura. We bundled them up to take with us to the Art Museums. Kate is holding them, along with some decorative butterflies her grandmother donated to our arts and crafts supply box. A pretty pink butterfly adorns Laura's card bundle. Thanks, Grandma Thompson!
Laura's birthday coincided with our visit to Christina and The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, so Laura's parents offered to treat us to lunch at the Museum Cafe! What a special treat it was, too. We had been wanting to have lunch here, but were waiting for the summer crowds to ease up, so today's timing was perfect!
All of us were here today, except for Abraham, and we took up a few tables in the cafe! At the front table in the picture is the Birthday Girl, seated beside her buddy Annmarie. In the background on the left is Tracy, who met us here, and on the right, Christina, who helped coordinate this fabulous lunchtime celebration!
After lunch, we explored the museums with Christina who showed us several pieces that can represent celebrations, since we were celebrating Laura! In the painting here, we see a bridge with a train crossing it, that spans the Genesee River at Letchworth State Park in western New York. On the banks of the river are people enjoying nature and likely, at times, celebrating things like birthdays!
Christina knows that Laura loves to color, so today's project was one that involved coloring several elements from a beautiful village. The village is based on the paintings of Karol Kozlowski, whose work we have looked at many times before. This is Christina's lovely village, and we hope to finish ours in the days ahead. We only made a dent in this project today!
Tracy is always a big help when she hangs with us. We hadn't see her in over a month, and it was nice to catch up with her today! Thanks for your help with lunch and the art project, Tracy!!
We were joined for Laura's artsy birthday party by her dad, Tom, niece, Olivia, and mom, Lisa. There was plenty of coloring to go around!
We can't thank Laura's parents enough for treating us to such a nice party. Lunch was a big hit, and after working on our villages, we enjoyed cupcakes! They weren't just any ordinary cupcakes, though. Lisa P. made them from scratch and they were gluten free! Yay! Xavier, and ALL of us, loved them! 🧁🧁🧁
We have a big shoutout to Christina for welcoming us to enjoy the cupcakes in her room! AND, for all of her help in getting the lunch coordinated with the amazing crew at the cafe! 👏👏
Happy Birthday, Laura! We had a blast celebrating with you!!
Wednesday
Today found us getting right to Eaton work after our dance warm up! For the first time in a while, we had parts to sort, and Xavier, Devin T., Kevin, and Drew were on it!
It seems like the more screws we count, the more there are! LOL! Nan's group of Abraham, Laura, and Annmarie filled bags with 30 each of the longer screws.
Kate and Devin, along with Michelle, Sam, and Patrick filled bags with 50 each of the shorter screws. Between these guys and Nan's group, about 80 bags were filled today!
James finally got some gaskets in, and we had plenty of plastic parts that needed one. Liz and Erik handled the "sticky situation" with ease!
Adia and Alexis applied gaskets, too. You can see the concentration on their faces! We are grateful to have work to do at AFCC while the air-conditioning at Eaton continues to need repair. Supply chain issues... Hopefully, the weather will cool off in a few weeks and we can get back to work onsite!
After sitting for Eaton, we got movement in the gym with a rowdy kickball game! The ball was a blur after Erik's kick! He took off to run the bases and scored a run for the boys' team!
Drew stepped up to pitch today, and did a great job once we convinced him to put the ball on the floor and roll it to the kickers, instead of throwing it at them! We played boys vs. girls again, and the score ended in a 4-4 tie. But for some reason, we didn't get ONE picture of the girls today?! ❓❓❓
Back in our room, we worked on thank you notes for Laura's family. We enjoyed yesterday's lunch at The Art Museums Cafe very much! Here, Kevin and Erik had partnered to create a thoughtful card, and it was Kevin's turn to sign it.
August 24 is National Waffle Day in the US, and it recognizes the date in 1869 that the first waffle iron was patented. We learned during our "Waffle Trivia" lesson that waffles existed long before the patented iron, but that invention made it much easier to cook them. Another fun fact we learned was that the Eggo company was known for mayonnaise before they started making frozen waffles in 1953, which they called froffles! (Adia likes mayo but Devin finds it...umm...not too tasty!)
Something that was tasty today was our lunch! We had a few raised eyebrows at the thought of waffle PB&J sandwiches, but they were good! Some of the guys added banana slices and really raved about that! We also had chips and fresh fruit, and the little dessert things that (hopefully) look like acorns are mini-waffles that we decorated ourselves! 😋
We had an extended Choice Time while several of our guys worked on the coloring project we got from Christina yesterday. We ended the day by making birthday cards for our favorite Best Buddy president, and former Arc intern, Ashlynn, and then caught an episode of Mystery Doug in which we explored why scientists know so much. (They are curious and attentive, ask questions, and observe!)
Thursday
We got a call from James yesterday saying Eaton needed some assembled PowerSlide Doors...ASAP! He delivered the parts early this morning. Earlybirds Dev, Erik, and Sam helped unload, and after a quick dance warm up, we got to work!
Don't tell Heike the photographer climbed on a chair to get this aerial shot of the door assembly team! They had our playlist on, and were seriously cranking out the doors...they did 108 this morning!
The sorting and counting team set up in the kitchen today, and must have sorted and counted thousands of parts and screws. All while singing and dancing, too, at least for the camera! Don't worry...they were committed to being accurate in their work!
After a short gym break after Eaton work, we welcomed Moose Patti for a surprise visit! It was perfect timing, too. We were just starting our lesson on Pennsylvania, her home state, and she was a great resource. She answered questions and gave us extra details about things, and even helped us with map skills! Devin T. was thrilled to work with Patti!
Today was National Banana Split Day, and guess where banana splits were "invented?" That's right, in Pennsylvania...Latrobe, to be exact! In fact, just last weekend there was a Banana Split Festival held in Latrobe, PA!
Enjoying banana splits with Patti, and winning "best dressed" today, were Laura in her shirt from Hershey's Chocolate World, Devin, who is also from PA and was sporting both Eagles and Phillies gear, and Alexis, who is a Penn State football fan! Looking great, all of you!!
When Patti heard that we have been playing kickball, she called a game! We played boys vs. girls again and this time, we got girl pics! Here's Adia on her lead up to a big kick!
On Patti's turn, she had a big kick, too. Here, she's running toward second base while Abraham contemplates throwing the ball to Erik who is at second. The girls won today! It was another great game, and we will miss having the gym for fun times like this.
Today was also National Park Service Founders Day, so we ended our day with a look at this beautiful video that shows all 63 National Parks in America and its territories. If you click on the picture, you can watch it too, and enjoy the beautiful musical score that accompanies it. This is a screen shot from the video. We imagined the night sky in Joshua Tree National Park must be stunning after seeing it in the video!
Friday
We did a lot today, even though we kept it laid back! First, we had our dance warm up, and then we traveled to the garden at Freedom Park to harvest tomatoes and basil. Alexis asked Devin B. to reach the tomatoes that were too high for her!
When Devin T. heard us say, "Look at the zinnias," he thought his dog, Zinnia, was here! Not today, Devin. It's just these pretty, colorful zinnia flowers!
There was a lot of color in the garden today and lots of butterflies, too! It was gorgeous!
We trekked through the garden, listening, smelling, and looking. At times, even Annmarie had to duck because of the lush and colorful growth!
It was such a nice day, we took the Colonial Parkway back to the center and made a stop at one of the pull-outs. Some of us stayed up on the grass, enjoying the breeze off the river.
These four wanted to walk down for a closer look!
Back at the center, we turned the fresh basil we harvested at the garden into very tasty pesto! We had it with gluten-free rice crackers, which everyone agreed were tasty, too! Check out Michelle's Scooby shirt for National Dog Day and Laura's "Namaste Cats" shirt for yoga!
Lexi's shirt was a shout out for Dog Day, too. Here, she was sharing her "stash" which included photos of her late dog, KC, a painted bisque dog figurine she made, and a dog puppet that used to belong to Lisa back in her school counselor days!
Michelle shared pics of her pup, Max, but she and Sam also brought the wolf connection for Dog Day! Thousands of years ago, dogs evolved from gray wolves, but we didn't really get into that!
Devin B. was very excited to share pictures of his new dog, Bruno, with Drew and Patrick. But we don't talk about Bruno! LOL! Wait, what?! We can talk about this Bruno! Devin's dad said it was ok! Bruno is energetic and likes to jump, according to Devin!
Xavier, along with Kevin and Kate behind him, is ready to play our latest Bingo game, which is Dog Bingo! We enjoyed finding the dog breeds that Lisa showed on the tv screen, and even learned of a breed no one had ever heard of: Barbet!
Next thing we knew, it was time to put away tables and chairs so we could end the day with yoga. We didn't get any yoga pictures, but we did enjoy a workout with Jaime that featured dog pose!
This was a lower-key week than we've had recently, but it was still a great one! We're gearing up for another warm one next week, but we'll try to stay cool as we enjoy the following activities:
Tuesday: It's time for a visit with Wisteria at The Mariners' Museum! She's going to pick up where Mike at Watermen's left off in July, and give us another lesson on pirates. She has some far-out stories for us! We're going to have lunch at the Mariners' Cafe, so please bring $10. Wear Arc shirts, too. If the weather permits, we'll take a walk on the Noland Trail after lunch. We need to leave from AFCC at 9:20.
Wednesday: We're going to play card games today and talk about something on the National Day Calendar called According to Hoyle Day. It has to do with rules for card games! We will also study the 3rd state, New Jersey. It is the home to a couple of candies that we know and love, so we'll have a treat with our work! Lunch on your own, and the JRES cafeteria is back as an option with Chicken Sandwich or Hot Dog on Bun as today's offerings. The cost for lunch is $3.10 this year. To add funds to your account, make a check payable to JRES Cafeteria. To open an account, contact Carol.
Thursday: Today we will get ready for September by updating our calendar of events. We'll welcome Laura's parents, Lisa and Tom, to substitute part of the day for Lisa and Nan, who will be attending the funeral for Nan's sister. They will help us with Eaton work, and also a lesson with Mystery Doug on what scientists do. Thank you, Lisa and Tom, for your help today! Lunch on your own. JRES cafeteria is available with Domino's Pizza, Deli Sub, or Beef Taco Salad as options.
Friday: It's Pet Supplies Plus...PLUS lunch today! We'll send a work crew to the store, but later the rest of us will join them as we all meet up at Freedom Park for lunch subs from Jersey Mike's, courtesy of Scott and Roxanne (Dev B's folks) at Pet Supplies Plus! Thank you, Scott and Roxanne, for all you've done to help us improve our vocational skills, and of course, for this wonderful lunch treat! We love our work time at PSP with you and your amazing team! In other activities today, we will have a lesson on Labor Day and end the week with yoga. Wear your PSP shirts and comfy shorts/pants for yoga, too!
Don't forget to register for our 5k (the price increases September 1), which will be Bette Faye's last "official" event with The Arc of Greater Wiliamsburg! She's heading off on a well-deserved retirement, but not before we CELEBRATE her amazing contributions to The Arc! We hope for a big turnout, so please, click the link below and register to join us! Congratulations, Bette Faye!!! WE LOVE YOU!
Enjoy the weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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