Rainy Relocation

What a difference in the weather between last week and this week!  From warm and sunny to very, very rainy...we hope the ducks loved it because we got tired of it very quickly!  Despite the downpours, we relocated to Freedom Park and had a successful week.  It was frustrating to be at the park and not be able to get outside very much, but we kept our spirits up and made good memories with each other, and some very special friends and helpers!  With Carol still being away, Nan and Lisa send tremendous thanks this week to:  Tracy and her "moving" van; Pat's mom, Sue; Liz's Dad and Arc Board Member Greg Kline; Therapy Dog Friend Caroline and her daughter Lynne; Arc Board President Sue Hassan; and Laura's parents, Lisa P and Tom, all for braving the elements and supporting us this week.  We're also very grateful to James City Parks and Recreation for finding space at Freedom Park for us to meet while AFCC is undergoing maintenance work!  

Tuesday

It actually only sprinkled off and on for most of the day, and we dodged the rain drops to get a bit of outside time, and to take our only outing of the week.  As usual, we began the morning with music and dancing.  Thanks to Tracy, Patrick, and Patrick's mom, Sue, who were the first to arrive and who schleped all of our stuff inside AND set up the computer "system" by the time Lisa arrived!  We were able to hit the ground dancing! 👏👏

During our check of last week's blog, we were looking at the part where we visited the garden and worked with our master gardener friends.  This prompted Michelle to tell us about her weekend.  She brought several family members to visit the garden, and showed them the beans, squash, watermelon, and potatoes we are growing!  She said they loved visiting the garden!! 💖

Speaking of the garden, we dashed over before the raindrops came to check the progress of things we have planted recently with the master gardeners.  We ran into MG Elizabeth who was working in another area of the garden this morning.  Great to see you, Elizabeth!  She told us we just missed Karen and her husband, Steve, who had come over to water!

At the trellis bed, Drew pointed out that the beans are beginning to grow up the trellis, and beside the beans, the tomato plant is thriving.  It has a lot of small tomatoes already growing on it!  You can also see lush carrot tops just below Drew!

We checked the potato bed, and noticed a couple of small potatoes poking through the soil.  We also noticed a couple of stalks of corn growing in the strawberry bed, and the squash in the trellis bed was growing nicely!

After an early lunch, and with just a light mist outside, we loaded the vans and made our way to The Art Museums of CW for a lesson on American Eagle Day with Christina.  This day commemorates the day the bald eagle was selected as our national symbol on the Great Seal in 1782.  We found a lot of examples of eagle art today!  This is an eagle carved from wood by an artist named Wilhelm Schimmel.  He was a German immigrant in Pennsylvania during the 1870s who was what we would today consider homeless.  In exchange for his carved figures, people would offer him a place to stay or something to eat.

This quilt is an interesting piece, with 4 eagles appliqued in a pattern that was common during the late 19th century.  These whimsical eagles appear to have rooster combs on their heads and tails that fan out like those of peacocks!

We liked this painting of an eagle flying over Wallowa Lake, which is in Oregon.  The reflection of the eagle in the lake's water is pretty!

We also saw other eagle carvings, and eagles on ceramics, too.  We talked about how it became the national bird, and what we think about when we see a bald eagle.  Then, in the ed studio, Christina taught us how to draw an eagle in flight!

We were thankful for the assistance of Greg Kline this afternoon, even though Liz was absent to spend time with visiting family members!  Thank you, Greg, for being one of our van drivers and coming to the Art Museums with us.  Thanks also for helping some of our friends with their eagle drawings.  We appreciate you!

After drawing the eagles, we added watercolors to make them "pop" off the page.  AS ALWAYS, we ended up with a lot of beautiful, individual masterpieces.  Our guys are so talented!

Thanks, Christina, for this patriotic lesson about one of our country's most recognizable symbols!   We enjoyed finding art objects in the galleries, and then learning to draw eagles with your step-by-step directions.  What a fun afternoon!

Wednesday

By this morning, it was raining buckets, and the wind was blowing as well.  Amazingly, all of our expected friends made it for what would be a long day stuck inside!  Here, Laura's dad escorted her up the sidewalk, while Xavier made his way behind her, having just gotten off the WATA bus.

We had to cancel our therapy dog visit scheduled for today, since we wouldn't be able to be outside for more space.  They will visit us at the Longhill Rec Center next Wednesday.  👏🐕  However, Pip and Indy's mom, Caroline, brightened our morning when she and her human daughter Lynne came to hang out and lend a hand!  Caroline helped Drew and Kevin on some coloring pictures we would use on a big thank you banner later this week!

This is Caroline's daughter, Lynne, who worked with Xavier and Sweet T today.  Lynne was visiting from the DC area.  We enjoyed getting to know her!  Thanks so much for "swimming over" to help us today, Caroline and Lynne!  Your visit was a ray of sunshine on a dreary day! 🌞🌞

Caroline helped us play a game called the MAGIC NUMBER.  Lisa left the room and Patrick picked a number on the chart, which everyone was told to keep secret.  When Lisa came back, she asked a few questions about which columns the secret number was in, and voila, she was able to tell us what the secret number was! 

A few of us took turns picking secret numbers, including Abraham.  Lisa was able to figure them out every time!  How did she do that?!?!  Maybe she'll tell us one day!

Our room at the Interpretive Center at Freedom Park is smaller than what we are used to, but we fit comfortably at the tables, and we're secretly enjoying a week of not having to set up and take down tables!  Yay for silver linings!!

It really seemed like a long day, though.  In addition to our time with Caroline and Lynne, we danced twice and had another movement break with a GoNoodle activity.  We also learned about skateboarding and surfing, since both sports had national days in their honor this week.  Sam, Erik, Dev B, and Adia amused us with their "Hang Ten" skills!

We ate lunch, had Choice Time, and got our banner put together.  We almost finished our read-aloud, Harriet the Spy (movie version tomorrow).  Finally, it was time to call it a day!  We hope we'll be able to get outside for a little while tomorrow!

Thursday

We had a different experience for our dance warm up today.  Patrick brought his Disney's Beach Party cd, and we danced to fun beach music instead of our usual videos!  It was so good, we played it again at the end of the day.  Thanks for sharing, Pat!

Happy Chocolate Eclair Day!  Adia make our "one pan wonder" dessert for today's special luncheon!  So good!  (She hadn't put the chocolate layer on yet, but it was coming!)

Lisa finally finished reading Harriet The Spy, our read-aloud for the month of April that took a little longer than expected.  What can we say?  We are busy!  And it's a long book!  Anyway, we then watched the first half of the movie version, which came out in 1996.  The book was set in the 1960s.  We really liked the book, and also how the movie version was done.  We like to learn about "the old days."  😁

Today's weather was very cloudy, but it didn't pour all day, so we took a movie intermission and walked over to the garden.

We were thrilled to run into Krafty Karen who was working in the garden with her husband, Steve.  They were putting stakes around the sunflowers, and a type of fencing around the carrots, beans, and squash because a critter has been nibbling them!  Since we checked on Tuesday, the leaves are gone from the carrots, and the beans that were climbing the trellis are gone, too!  Thank you, Karen and Steve, for trying to save the veggies!  (p.s. Note Michelle is turned around to show off her sunflower shirt!)

When we got back from the garden, our friend Sue had arrived with lunch for us.  Sue is the president of the Arc's Board of Directors, and she offered to bring us lunch during the relocation since we wouldn't be able to cook!  Her special delivery of grilled chicken (thanks to Amir, her husband, who grilled it), garden salad, pasta salad, and watermelon was DELICIOUS!  It was all home-made (except the watermelon, haha) and it really hit the spot during this rainy week!

Sue!  We can't thank you enough for your kind and tasty gesture of lunch for us today.  You and your husband Amir are excellent cooks!  We loved everything you made and really appreciate you for taking the time to bring it to us.  As always, we enjoyed visiting with you, too.  💖😊💖

Look who Annmarie ran into during our walk to the garden.  This is LaWanda, who works with Parks & Rec and used to have Annmarie in her programs, when Annmarie was younger!  Annmarie was thrilled to see her, as were Drew and Xavier, who also spent time in LaWanda's programs.  Thanks for stopping by LaWanda, and for helping for a while, too!  We all enjoyed seeing you!

After Choice Time, we finished the movie.  We discussed the similarities and differences between the book and the film, and also several of the good lessons in them.  A main one is that good friends are worth keeping, so treat them with kindness and respect.  We were very happy Harriet finally learned that lesson!

We'll end today's blog segment with our joy of dancing.  The end of the movie featured a song by James Brown called "Get Up Offa That Thing."  The line that was sung over and over was "Get up offa that thing, and dance til you feel better!"  So that's what we did!

Friday

Happy National Pink Day!  We have fun celebrating this day each year, and always look forward to seeing how pink we can get.  We did pretty well this year.  Many thanks to Erik, who took the camera for the first time today and snapped this shot for us!

The highlight of our last day at Freedom Park was welcoming Laura's parents, Lisa P and Tom, for a "camping" theme that included grilled hot dogs for lunch!  We were so happy that the rain held off long enough for Tom to be able to light up the grills and do the cooking.  Thank you, Tom, for the tastiest hot dogs we've had in a while, AND for enduring the extremely warm and muggy conditions while cooking over the hot coals.  We really appreciate it!

We also appreciate Lisa P for her idea to make today a camping theme...and deciding to bring all the yummy ingredients for a "create your own" trail mix bar!  Lisa P, you picked the perfect ingredients for the trail mix, with a great combo of salty and sweet!  This was a lot of fun and something we haven't done before!  Thank you!

So many ingredients for trail mix on Camping Day!  Our Lisa pointed each one out to Kevin and Dev B, who each decided they wanted a little of each in their mixtures!  😋

Abraham, Erik, and Michelle enjoyed using the scoops to measure the ingredients for their trail mixes.  Our choices were pretzels, Rice Chex cereal, golden raisins, peanuts, mini-marshmallows, and m&m's.  Soooo good!

After our delicious hot dog and trail mix luncheon, it was time for Corn Hole Challenge with the Palmers!  Unfortunately, it started to rain buckets again, so we had to play indoors, but that did not discourage anyone from making the most of it.  Round One was "regular" corn hole...except by our modified rules!  😉

Tom kept score and Lisa P cheered us on...just as we did for each other!  This wonderful room, which we are very grateful to have been able to use, is a bit cavernous...meaning noises are amplified in there.  Our corn hole game was loud with all that cheering!

Soooo, Round Two was "silent" corn hole!  Instead of regular cheering, we had to keep our voices silent and wave our hands to show applause, ASL style.  It was really fun to watch us adapt to this version of play.  We did very well!  After silent corn hole, we played a round of "use your non-dominant hand" corn hole.  Everyone was surprised at how different that felt!  Thanks, Lisa P and Tom, for bringing the corn hole boards (so we wouldn't have to pack ours) and running the Corn Hole Challenge today.  It was fun, and got us moving around a little.  We're glad the rain stopped long enough for Tom to load the corn hole boards back into the car!

We played Camping Bingo to end the week.  A handsome in pink Dev B loved our new Bingo chips, which he sorted so that he only used the colors of his favorite college football team, the Clemson Tigers!  💜🐯

We're very thankful for Tracy's help this week with our moves!  She arrived this afternoon during a break in rain showers so we could load our supplies on a Parks & Rec van.  Tracy then transported our stuff to the Rec Center on Longhill Road, which is where we will be relocated for next week!  Thank you, thank you, thank you, Tracy!!  We couldn't have managed without you!

It was quite a week with all the rain and the limited space, but we pulled together and made it a successful time!  Again, we appreciate James City County Parks & Recreation for finding room for us while AFCC is undergoing maintenance work.  Also, a huge thank you to our families for adapting to the changes!  We're looking forward to the fun we'll have next week at the Rec Center on Longhill Road.  Here are our plans:

Tuesday:  As we begin our second relocation week at the JCC Rec Center, we will start the day with a visit back to Freedom Park for our last session (until Fall) with the master gardeners!  If the weather is cooperating, we'll eat outside and take a nice hike on the paved path, since we didn't get to last week.  It's National Sunglasses Day, so we're optimistic!  Otherwise, we'll return to the Rec Center for indoor activities.  Bring a bag lunch.  Arc shirts optional.

Wednesday:  Today we'll enjoy a rescheduled visit with our therapy dogs and handler friends!  We're thankful that some of them are able to come today, since we had to cancel last week due to rain!  We'll also have a lesson on July 4th today and create some colorful crafts.  It's Paul Bunyan Day, so we'll watch the classic Disney film, too.  That's always fun!  Bring a bag lunch.

Thursday:  We're heading over to APEX PT and Movement Center for a workout in the Rock Steady Boxing gym with Kelly and Scott!  Dress to stretch and wear your Arc shirts!  Back at the Rec Center we will try to be successful with a few science experiments, and make another special thank you banner.  Bring a bag lunch.

Friday:  We're going bowling this morning!  When we return to the Rec Center, we'll have pizza for lunch, courtesy of our friend Nancy's brother Randy, and sister-in-law, Sally.  Nancy lives in Kentucky now, but we stay in touch.  The pizza treat is to celebrate Randy's birthday!  How thoughtful is that?  We wrote letters to Nancy last week to let her know how special her family is, and how much we miss her, too. 💜💛💚  We'll end the week with games and then pack up everything for our return to AFCC on July 11th.  Arc shirts optional.

                 

The Women of the Moose's 8th Annual Golf Tournament is fast approaching!  Moose Patti and all of our WOTM friends are working hard to make this a very successful FUNdraiser, as it always is!  Contact Lisa for more info on supporting this wonderful event.  Thank you! 

We hope you have the date on your calendar:  Saturday, August 5th!  We need Arc Ambassadors to ride around on golf carts spreading good cheer and appreciation!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the Gang