One of this week's highlights, besides meeting both a real-life Super Bowl security dude on FaceTime (Sam's brother), and Punxsutawney Phil via Zoom...was celebrating National Inspire Your Heart with Art Day on Tuesday with Christina. We spent a delightful morning painting with her. This week we also worked at Pet Supplies Plus, always a great experience, and we welcomed the month of February, even as we couldn't believe January is gone! Check out our wonderful week...
Tuesday
The last day of January is National Inspire Your Heart with Art Day, and it just so happened that Christina had to reschedule a paint day with us to today! It was a perfect opportunity to spend time with her doing something she loves to inspire us to do: create! She brought all the supplies needed for us to use watercolors to paint very pretty snowflake pictures. We were all ears as she explained the process.
She told us we needed to use the white crayons to draw snowflakes on our paper. She also drew several examples of snowflakes on the board so we would have an idea of how to draw ours. Since no two snowflakes are alike, there was no way we could go wrong!
It was a bit challenging to draw white snowflakes on white paper, but Christina, Lisa, Carol, and Nan helped us. We wondered where Christina was going with this...white snowflakes on white paper???
But then, the big reveal! When Christina used wintry colors - blue, teal, and purple- to paint over the snowflakes, we suddenly saw the white snowflakes appear! It was like magic as the crayon resisted the paint. Since the paint wouldn't "stick" to the waxy crayon, our snowflakes stood out, and they were beautiful!
We heard a lot of "oohs" and "ahhs" as the snowflakes appeared! There were also comments that the creations reminded us of the colors in the movie Frozen.
Everyone got to make two or three masterpieces, and Christina even gave us salt to sprinkle over them while the watercolors were still wet. When they dried, the salt would give them an extra sparkle, like ice!
Xavier and Nan really liked the shades of blue!
We told Christina about our watercolor fun with Jeff from last week! We explained how we experimented with letting colors "puddle" together, and she said that was perfect preparation for today, because our wintry colors needed to blend! We're so lucky to have amazing friends like Jeff and Christina to work with us, and isn't it cool how their work complements each other, to the benefit of us?! Without them even trying?! It's awesome!
Some of us used plastic wrap to help blend the colors. Alexis made a few puddles, then "squished" the clear wrap on top of them, and when she lifted the wrap, the colors had blended beautifully and left a textured look, too. Plus, her snowflakes were popping through! Drew did his next, and it was so pretty!
After we had finished our snowflake paintings and cleaned up, Christina joined us in a round of our Guess in 10, Disney Edition game. She's as much of a Disney expert as we are! Lisa, Carol, and Nan were setting lunch up...check it out!
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Christina brought us her "famous" cheeseburger pies!!! We added chips, apple slices, and cookie bars, and lunch was very tasty! We loved Christina's cheeseburger pies. She said it's the #1 request from her kids! Add a little mustard and ketchup, and it really tastes like a cheeseburger. We're surprised the AoA has never made these, but we will now! Thank you for this delicious lunch, Christina. What a treat to have you visit with us, paint with us, AND bring us some comfort food, too! We really appreciate it, and tell your kids we can see why they LOVE and REQUEST cheeseburger pies all the time! (We hope Zack enjoyed the leftovers!!!)
Thanks again, Christina! We had a great time visiting with you this morning, and our snowflake sensations will look great on our walls as we continue to decorate for winter and wish for just one snow day! ❄❅❆❄❅❆
Christina hung around a while and socialized with us, which we enjoyed immensely. After she left, we listened to a couple of chapters in our book, and then had a dance session before heading home. Kate grabbed the Island of the Blue Dolphins book, and Devin B wondered if we were going to finish it in January??? Well, since today is the last day of the month, we won't finish it...but first thing tomorrow we will hear the ending because we're also going to watch the movie version in the morning!
Wednesday
We began our day by sending a crew to the JRES library while the rest of us danced. Erik, Alexis, and Laura handled the shelving task today!
Next, Lisa read the last chapter of Island of the Blue Dolphins. We were only 1 day late in finishing the book! (We set a goal of hearing one read-aloud a month.) Then, as promised, we watched the movie version, from 1964!
It is a suspenseful story of how Karana survived alone on an island, and it captured everyone's attention. Very little dialogue, and no high-tech special effects needed! Many of our guys said the movie was better, but a few of us agreed that there were sooo many more great details in the book! 😉
Speaking of books, the library crew brought a cart filled with books that the JRES library is discarding back to our room. We will have another crew stamp them as discards, as another task we can do to help Mr. Nonnemacher and Ms Ortega. Mr. Nonnemacher also said our guys could have any books they wanted, and Laura, Michelle, Annmarie, Liz, and Alexis were happy to select a few!
After lunch Sam's brother, Scott, FaceTimed with us from Phoenix, Arizona! Scott is a member of the police department there, as well as the SWAT unit, and is working security for the Super Bowl!
Scott gave us all kinds of scoop on how security works, and we thanked him for his service to his community! Check out this special badge he gets, and it's not his first one. Ever since the Super Bowl has been coming to Glendale, AZ, Scott has been working security for it. He has a collection of badges. We hear they are kind of like law enforcement's version of a Super Bowl ring! WOW! Thanks, Scott. We loved chatting with you and hearing about how you'll be one of the uniformed SWAT members protecting those at the Super Bowl next weekend! Oh, and by the way, your brother is so proud of you!! 💙
Technology was our friend today, as after our FaceTime with Scott, we turned to Zoom for a live visit with the one and only Punxsutawney Phil! Members of The Inner Circle, a group which takes care of Phil and oversees the annual Groundhog Day celebration at Gobblers Knob in Pennsylvania, gave us the scoop on why Phil is the official groundhog for America, as well as many interesting facts about groundhogs in general. They said Phil had to have his Zoom session on the day before Groundhog Day because he's very busy on the day of!
In this shot, we were trying to get a close up look at Phil's 4 teeth, two on top and two on the bottom. We couldn't see them very well, but we learned that groundhogs' teeth grow continually, and they keep them ground to the right size by eating lots of grasses and other plants, and raiding farmers' gardens when they can, beause they are herbivores. We also learned that groundhogs are indigenous to North America, but the Germans who settled in Pennsylvania brought a tradition of using a hedgehog to predict the chance of an early spring. Once here, they realized groundhogs were more plentiful than hedgehogs (none!), and that's how our Groundhog Day came to be.
We enjoyed the Zoom with Phil and his handlers. At one point, they gave a shoutout to all the folks tuning in from around the country, and when they said "hello" to Williamsburg, Virginia, we cheered proudly! That was fun, and we'll tune in again tomorrow to see what Phil's official prediction is. We'll also check out local favorite, Chesapeake Chuck, for his prediction. He's at the Virginia Living Museum, and he will also predict who will win the Super Bowl!
Today was busy, but fun! Another Pet Supplies Plus work day had rolled around, so Carol and crew headed to the store while the rest of us warmed up with some dancing and then ran outside to catch a few snowflakes since it may be all we get this year...
When we came inside, we got lunch going. Today we were celebrating Tater Tot Day and Heavenly Hash Day (a new one for us). We were quite busy with lunch preparations, so we only got a picture after the fact. Here is part of our Cooking Crew proudly showing our Tater Tot Casserole, Green Beans, and Heavenly Hash...plus the cup of freshly made whipped cream (so smooth) which we saved from the Heavenly Hash recipe so Sweet T could enjoy a treat with us today. We added a drop of cherry juice to make it pink! He loved it! 💗
Over at Pet Supplies Plus, our Work Crew was busy stocking products and they didn't get a lot of pictures either! We'd like to thank Karryna for stopping by for an assist today. Alexis, Adia, Erik, and Liz were thrilled to see her!
Here's the whole crew, which also included Kevin and Devin B, showcasing the adorable Valentine toys that your pets would love to receive in a couple of weeks! We also see Scott popping up in this photo, and new manager Molly, on the bottom right, too!
In other Thursday fun, we celebrated Groundhog Day! We checked Punxsutawney Phil's official prediction, and found he saw his shadow, and thus says we are in for 6 more weeks of winter!
Not being overjoyed with Phil's prediction, we next checked out Hampton Roads' own Chesapeake Chuck, live from the Virginia Living Museum.
Chuck didn't hesitate to tell everyone that he did NOT see his shadow, so we should expect an early spring! Hey, we hear it's going to be in the 60's by the end of next week...
Chuck takes predictions one step further as he also predicts which team will win the Super Bowl. The picture is a little grainy as we took it of the television screen, but Chuck made a beeline for the Philadelphia Eagles!
That prediction got a hearty "YES" from Devin B! We all know how much he loves the Eagles! Now, he loves Chesapeake Chuck, too! 🦅🦅🦅
Today was also National Optimist Day. We had a lesson on the value of cultivating optimism as part of our "growth mindset." Most of our guys are pretty optimistic by nature, but everyone can use a little help sometimes. We listened to a great story called A Little Spot of Optimism, and got some good reminders on how to flip some of our negative thoughts to positive ones. Michelle, Chloe, Drew, and Kate agreed to aim for that!
For our follow up activity, we rated ourselves on an optimism scale. Adia did a nice job helping Annmarie interpret the questions, and was proud that Annmarie was aware of her many strengths, as well as an area or two on which she wanted to work! Yay, to both of you!
Friday
Today we got our February calendar done, a task we meant to do on Wednesday but we ran out of time. Luckily, we're only 3 days late! Michelle, Drew, and Devin T teamed up to make colorful letters that spell FEBRUARY. These will look great on our wall!
Devin B searched for pictures to go with the calendar squares Sam was labeling. We're looking forward to some special events in February, including a celebration of Heike's birthday, and a luncheon we are hosting for our master gardener friends!
Liz and Alexis also worked on adding pictures to the calendar squares, while Kevin reset the calendar for the dates in February. As usual, we got the calendar updated very efficiently, and with a lighter crew than usual, too! We were missing 5 of our AoA members today, and not everyone was available for calendar duty.
Carol needed Laura, Erik, and Adia to work on preparing the discarded books for the library. They had to stamp "discard" on several pages, and use a Sharpie to black out the barcodes and spine numbers, too!
Later Laura took the books to the library, and let Mr. Nonnemacher and Ms. Ortega know that we're ready for another job whenever they are!
For morning movement, we played a game Lisa made up called "Random Recess Roam." She put up signs for 9 exercise stations throughout the room and the hallways. We had to spin the spinner to see which station to report to, and once we were all there, we completed the exercise together. Then, we gathered back at the base station (in front of the tv), to spin the spinner for the next assignment.
At this station, we had to do toe-touches. Remember to bend your knees slightly!
This was the wall push-up station, but Sam decided to do floor push-ups! "Random Recess Roam" got us moving for over 30 minutes, and it was fun making sure everyone was tagging along and doing the exercises together!
We got silly when we celebrated National Bubble Gum Day. We tried to blow bubbles, and that's really hard for most of us, but it was fun to try.
Alexis and Lisa were successful! 👏👏
We began our February read-aloud today! It takes place in Key West in 1934, during the Great Depression. It's about a boy named Beans, who tries to help his family earn money by finding odd jobs around town. He doesn't always trust adults, as he feels they "lie to children," but he ultimately ends up helping turn Key West into a tourist town as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program. This book will lead us to some great history lessons, too.
We revisited one of our favorite yoga episodes with Jaime today - Frozen. As we listened to her tell the story of Anna and Elsa, we reached and stretched, got up and down, and took deep breaths, too.
By the time we were finished, everyone was relaxed and ready to begin their weekends!
We'll be back on Tuesday! Here are our plans for the first full week of February.
Tuesday: Even though it's already February 7, it's the first Tuesday of the month so we are going bowling today! Our friend Nina, Sam's grandmother, is sponsoring pizza for lunch, and we thank her for that! On the way to bowling we will swing by Freedom Park to check on the garden. Krafty Karen recently sent pics that showed a couple of daffodils in bloom! Wear your Arc shirt.
Wednesday: We're gearing up for Super Bowl weekend! Today, we are going to do brain work and our lesson will be on facts vs. opinions, and includes a football-themed assignment. We're going to make decorations for our party, too. We'll also take a look at the 9th state to enter the union, New Hampshire. Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available and the choices are Chicken Sandwich or Hot Dog.
Thursday: We get to hang out with Mike at the Watermen's Museum today, and then we'll come back to the center to squeeze in a Super Bowl Party! We'll have fun and games, and meatball subs for lunch. Arc shirts are optional today; you may wear your favorite football/sports attire if you'd like!
Friday: We have a work day at Eaton planned for today. We also hope to return to AFCC by 1:45 so we can have a yoga session with Jaime. Dress to stretch, but wear your Eaton shirts, and bring a bagged lunch!
Happy February, and enjoy your weekend!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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