Well, our week began with a near "misadventure" but ended with a delightful birthday celebration for Nan! On Tuesday, we had van trouble which would have stranded us in Yorktown were it not for our wonderful friends at JCC Parks and Rec. Read all about that, plus our creative time with Artist Jeff and our fulfilling time volunteering at GCOC and working at PSP in this week's edition of our blog!
Tuesday
We got an early start so we could visit the American Revolution Museum's outside area before it got too warm. Haha! It was warm, to put it mildly, from the get-go, but we persevered for about an hour outside, and had a very interesting and educational visit!
We posed for this picture at the encampment where we thought 3 or 4 of us in a tent would be crowded. Then, we learned that 6 soldiers would have shared a tent!
Alicia was an interpreter who gave us a lot of interesting information about the medical situation during the 1700s. First of all, folks back then didn't have the knowledge about bacteria that we have, and they didn't realize that fresh water could be contaminated. There were more casualties due to diseases caused by dirty water or infections following wound care, than due to the actual fighting of the war! We saw some pretty scary medical tools, too. Between that, and the fact that we have air conditioning now, we gained a greater appreciation for living in the 21st century this morning!
We met Jamie over at the encampment "kitchen." He explained that cooking was done outside and that the trench dug around the fire was to help prevent the fire from spreading. Our group is usually excited to hear about cooking and food, but not so much today. We learned that soldiers were basically fed the same thing at every meal: beans, sometimes rice, and "hard bread," which had to be soaked for a while to soften up enough to bite! We perked up a little when Jamie added that sometimes at Yorktown fresh fish or crabs may have been caught and served, or the soldiers may have had time to set a few traps to snare rabbit or squirrel. However, he added they didn't really have much free time for hunting!
In addition to the recreated encampment, there is also a recreated farm site. We toured the entire two rooms of a house that would have belonged to a middle-class farmer, and then we went into the kitchen, which is a separate building. There we met Carrie, and young Ben, who were cooking beans and bacon. Yum! It smelled delicious in there, but it was about "a thousand" degrees, too. Ben explained that the cooking would be done over an open fire (or hot coals) in either pots or skillets. Carrie added that it's also hot in the kitchen during cold weather!
Outside at the farm we met Marshall. There was also a hen running around, but we couldn't get a good picture of her. Marshall said she was looking for a place to lay an egg. We learned that hens lay one egg a day, but only on about five days a week! He was showing us eggs he had gathered this morning from various places, including in the bottom of a bucket where one hen likes to lay her egg! A couple of them were still warm. Marshall had a few of us take them over to Carrie and Ben in the kitchen.
Marshall was also planning to build a new split-rail fence. The farm is adding sheep next year! Marshall explained that he's using these model-sized sticks to make a plan, and also to practice the pattern that needs to be followed when building a split-rail fence. He let us try building several layers of a practice fence. It takes a lot of concentration! We told Marshall we couldn't wait to meet his sheep next year and see his new fence.
Marshall appreciated our enthusiasm for his work, so he also showed us this type of fence. It's called a waddle fence and is good for keeping bunnies out of the garden. He also explained that a huge net is cast over this garden at night, to keep deer from getting the goodies!
The waddle fence and net must work, because Marshall let us pull up carrots, and they were huge! Again, Marshall asked a few of us to deliver them to Carrie and Ben in the kitchen. Other crops growing on this farm included squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, and tobacco. We enjoyed Marshall's time spent chatting with us!
Look who we ran into on the way back to the indoor galleries: Liz and her cousins, "the twins," Elena and Sophia! They live in Richmond but are spending time with Liz for a couple of days, so Liz won't be with us again until Thursday. We have enjoyed Liz's stories of the fun times she has with the twins, and we have watched them grow up over the past 7 years through pictures on Liz's iPad. It was great to meet them in person!
Next, we went back inside and checked out a few of the galleries. We watched the excellent film about The Siege of Yorktown, in which General Washington's troops defeated General Cornwallis and the British Army. We had some help from the French, too! It's a great film, but we were ready for lunch when it ended. To our surprise, when we got to the small van, the battery was dead! We all got on the ADA van while Lisa called Rachel at Parks & Rec (Tracy is out of town on vacation). Lisa had to call Rachel because the security team at the museum told us they aren't allowed to "work" on personal vehicles! At this point, we went back inside the museum where it was nice and cool. Rachel arrived very quickly with another van and we were soon on our way. We left the broken down van for the Parks & Rec maintenance crew to deal with!
Did we mention there was a snafu with ordering box lunches from Subway, so we ended up at Wendy's? We didn't realize box lunches had to be ordered 24 hours in advance, but we agree that's a good policy and we'll remember for next time. Everyone was happy with our backup plan, and even though lunch was an hour late, we were grateful since it was the first time in 7 years that we had vehicle troubles! 🙏 This is Rachel, who drove Lisa and her crew to Wendy's to pick up our lunch. By the way, the Wendy's folks at Kingsmill are fantastic people. They gave us service with a smile, even though the restaurant was busy and our order was big! They have been great with us before when we've stopped in for Frosties. We highly recommend them!
We are so thankful for "Rachel to the Rescue" today! Speaking of service with a smile, she made us feel like we were the most important thing on her agenda today...even though rescuing us wasn't on her agenda. We just adore her, and if our bestie Tracy isn't available, we know Rachel has our backs. Thank you, Rachel, for everything you did to make our day turn out swell! You are awesome! 👏💞👏💞👏💞
Wednesday
Our friends at Grove Christian Outreach were happy to see us today! We didn't get many pics, but that only means we were busy at work!
THANK YOU, AoA families, for the "Sleigh Hunger/Christmas in July" food drive donations! We didn't get a weight, but we donated a nice amount of nonperishable food, which we delivered today.
We also sorted two huge bins of donations so other volunteers could put them in the pantry. There were items ranging from soups and tuna to dried pasta and granola bars, and plenty more in between! Sweet T, Annmarie, and Drew packed soup into boxes as quickly as the others sorted it for them!
This group worked with Peggy to bag the usual Wednesday delivery of food from the Peninsula Food Bank. Peggy is always happy to see us!
In activities at the center today, we finally had time to create colorful pictures on cardboard using sidewalk chalk that was donated by Dev B's family! We also had some leftover peel and stick butterfly, bee, and snail craft kits that were donated years ago by Annmarie's family. We incorporated them into our artwork, too!
Some of our friends worked with buddies, like Sam/Michelle and Alexis/Drew/Patrick/Sweet T (who was AWOL at the restroom when we took this picture). Kate worked solo. Aren't their drawings lovely?
Dev B, Laura, Adia, Tessa, and Annmarie also worked on solo pictures, and like the ones above, theirs are very pretty, too! It was a fun and relaxing project!
Laura was back with us this week after spending time with her family at the beach. She was excited to show us this postcard of a seahorse that she saw at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. Her mom, Lisa, is going to send us a photo album that will have pages big enough to hold postcards. She suggested that when we all travel, we can bring back a postcard or two to put in the album so we can keep track of all the fun places we go! This can take the place of families fretting over trying to find "just right" souvenirs to bring everyone. We think that's a great idea!
Since Artist Jeff is coming to make magnificent mer-people with us tomorrow, we brushed up on mermaid and merman lore today! There are plenty of legends and myths related to both, and it's really fascinating. Drew, Sam, and Devin gathered from our video that mermen are often known for their strength! If you'd like to watch the video, click on the picture of our guys. It's pretty interesting!
We like to make lunch for Jeff on the days he comes to create art with us, but we usually have to make something ahead of time since we're always so busy working with him. Today, Erik and Adia whipped up a couple of chicken casseroles that we'll pop in the Nina tomorrow, and serve alongside some mixed veggies and apple slices. Thanks, Erik and Adia. The casseroles look delicious and we can't wait to try them!
At the end of the day we watched a Mystery Science episode about composting, which we had learned about recently with our master gardener friends. We like to follow up on some of the lessons we have with others, just to make sure we grasp the concepts clearly. This Mystery Science video was an excellent review of what MG Rich had taught us! We also had a Composting Bingo game to play, but guess what...we ran out of time! We'll try to squeeze it in tomorrow!
Thursday
Our friend Artist Jeff is AmAzInG. He decided our next project should be "mer-people" sculptures, and we didn't know how intricate it would be, so of course, we happily said, "Yes!" Before coming today, he made 17 wire armatures and covered them with strips of magazine pages and masking tape so we would have a head start on this 3 part project. That took him a long time, we know! He's the best! Today, he explained to us that our first step would be to put crumpled pieces of magazine pages on them with tape, so they would be "bulked" up and have booties, muscles, and a "bosom" (mermaids)!!! Yes, he said "bosom!" 😂😂😂
Liz and Kevin got busy tearing magazine pages into small strips that would then be crumpled up and taped on the armatures with masking tape. This project takes a lot of paper and tape!
Here, Jeff helped Erik get the hang of covering his project with crumpled magazine strips and tape!
Once we got them bulked up, the next step was gluing strips of white paper all over them! When the glue dries, the mer-people will be nice and hard, and ready to be painted, which we will do next week when we visit Jeff's studio. Nan helped Kevin and Laura with this very sticky situation!
This is a before and after example of our armatures. We really can't believe how much dedication Jeff put into this "mer-mazing" project for us! We're excited to visit his studio in Lanexa next week for the painting step. After that, he will come back to us for visit #3, when we will add decorative features such as eyes, hair, jewels, and such. Stay tuned to see our progress!
When Jeff comes for art class, we insist that he joins us for lunch. It's the least we can do, especially when he puts so much heart into an amazing project like the one we started today. 💓 Besides, socializing with him is as much fun as the art! 🗣🗣🗣
Even though our chicken casserole with mixed veggies and sliced apples was very tasty, we told Jeff a project like the mer-people should merit something more fancy! He replied that he was very happy to be included and that our lunch was great! Told you, he's amazing! Thanks for everything today, Jeff. This project challenged some of our skills, but we all got better at them by the end of the session, so that's a WIN! We appreciate you and value your belief in us. Thanks for all of the positive reinforcement, too!
In other news today, we are training Laura to be our new attendance clerk! It's only her 3rd day on the job, but Carol said she has caught on very quickly. Laura is a stickler for details and takes her work very seriously. She will be great at this! 👏👏 (Also, we love Carol's pretty shirt she got in Alesund, Norway. Teal is a great color on her!)
We celebrated National Hot Fudge Sundae Day with small sundaes this afternoon. Kevin was coaxed into posing with his sundae for a quick picture!
Our latest read-aloud is Earthquake Terror by Peg Kehret. We found it on the JRES Library's discard cart! It's a heart-pounding adventure about a brother and sister who try to survive an earthquake when left on an isolated island after their father has to rush their mother to the hospital. It's suspenseful, but also has touches of humor, and keeps our attention. Sam highly recommends it!
Friday
Today we were looking forward to celebrating Nan's birthday, but before we could party, we had to take care of some responsibilities. First, we sent a hard-working crew to Pet Supplies Plus where they stocked and straightened products on the shelves so the store would be spiffy for the weekend! Alexis, Patrick and Devin "Sweet T" were busy on aisle 7 stocking dog food products.
Over on aisle 9, Xavier could be found happily arranging cat food.
Pet Supplies Plus carries a variety of first aid and medical products for your pets. Erik made sure this shelf was well-stocked today.
Store manager Molly posed with our crew when they decided to highlight pet outfits this week. The one Patrick is holding caught their eye, in light of the recent release of the Barbie movie! Thanks, PSP Crew, for your hard work today!
Kevin was happy with his browning chore, so he went to color decoration pictures while Laura added red sauce and encouraged Tessa to give it a gentle stir. Tessa did just that, and Laura complimented her saying, "That's a great job, Tessa."
We were shorthanded today because four of our friends were absent and 6 were at PSP. So we put Nan, the birthday girl, in charge of cutting veggies, which Liz and Drew included in colorful side salads to accompany our lasagna. Drew was concentrating on adding 3 cucumber slices to each salad, while Liz added 3 cherry tomatoes.
Liz was also in charge of frosting Nan's birthday cupcakes! They sure were bright pink! (Earlier, Liz and Adia had baked them.)
We couldn't have a party lunch without festive "Happy Birthday" napkin rings. Dev B and Kate introduced Tessa to this fun chore, and encouraged her to make the balloon pictures colorful. Thanks to everyone on the Cooking Crew! Lunch was fabulous!
After enjoying our lasagna lunch, we had Choice Time for a while and then it was time for this:
We joked that Nan asked for Barbie cupcakes because they were so pink! Nan was funny, too...she said, "Where's Ken?!" 😂
After cupcakes we played Nan's favorite game, Jeopardy. This version had more options than the one on television, so Nan asked Sweet T and Patrick to help her decide, but they said it was up to her!
When it was Sweet T's turn, he was stumped on a question about which character's nose grows when he tells lies. Laura called him over for an assist, and he got it right! Hey, our game...our rules!
Nan also loves Rod Stewart, and since it was her party, we played her favorite song. Happy Birthday, Nan! We hope you will always stay "Forever Young!"
💖 Nan loves us all, but these two might be her favorites! 💖
We had a couple of visitors this afternoon! Lexi's lifelong friend, Chelsea, and her 8 month old son, Oliver, dropped in to tell Nan "Happy Birthday" and to take Lexi to hang out for the afternoon. Chelsea used to be on the Arc staff, so lots of us know her. She told us she's going to start volunteering at Arc events soon. Yay! Welcome back, Chelsea!
After all of today's excitement, yoga was a great way to relax before starting our weekend! With Alexis cutting out early, and four others absent today, we were down to 12 by yoga time. That explains the blank spots on the floor!
Suddenly, another week was over. The month of July will be over by the time we return next week, too! Here's a look at some of our plans for the first week of August:
Tuesday: It's already the first Tuesday of a new month, so we will go bowling today! The current weather forecast calls for a high of only 84, so we will pick up pizza for lunch and aim for a picnic at Freedom Park if it feels comfortable. We will also be able to check the garden. Arc shirts optional.
Wednesday: We'll enjoy a slower pace today as we remain at AFCC to work on our August calendar and (once again) plan to finish our science experiments. We had to postpone them last week due to our broken down van adventure delaying our return to the building! We'll also celebrate Ice Cream Sandwich Day with a homemade mini treat. Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is still available for potluck! Microwave is available, too. 😋
Thursday: It's time for Part 2 of our mer-people project with Jeff! Today we will return to his art studio where we will paint our masterpieces in the making. Bring a bagged lunch. We'll keep our eye on the forecast and visit Little Creek Reservoir Park for a picnic if it's nice. Otherwise, we'll return to AFCC for lunch and afternoon activities to be determined!
Friday: We're headed to Eaton for a work day, so wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch. We'll return to AFCC to end the week with yoga, too.
Don't delay! Registration for the 5k is open and the rate is only $35 through August 20th. That includes this year's beautiful t-shirt! We hope to have a great showing from the AoA, so click the pic and you can sign up today!
Have a great weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
