We had no trouble figuring out which season we were in this week! It is definitely summer and we are so thankful for a great AC system at the center. We just saw Jerry, one of the school system's HVAC guys, and thanked him for doing a great job LAST summer on repairing the system. It is still working great this summer! (Hope we didn't just jinx our comfort!) We stayed at AFCC most of this week, except for a Tuesday afternoon visit with Christina and a Friday work session at Eaton. As we enjoyed our cool room, we did some cool things, too! Check out our week...
Tuesday
Several friends of the AoA had birthdays this week! The first one was Sandra, our friend who is originally from Colombia. We made a big poster and sent her a "Happy Birthday" video so she would know we were thinking of her. We love her visits because she is a lot of fun, and she brings us the tastiest Colombian food! Happy Birthday, Sandra! We hope your day was as special as you are!!
It was a quick morning that found us checking the blog, spending time in the gym, and playing Candy Bingo to celebrate Sour Candy Day. We even had sour candy for prizes!! We ate an early lunch and then headed to the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg for our July lesson with Christina. She had decided we would celebrate SNAKES, since National Snake Day was on Sunday! 🐍🐍🐍
We found so many interesting snake-related objects in the museums today! The first snake we found was made of iron and was created by a blacksmith in the 17th century. With Sweet T, Abraham, and Drew looking on, Christina explained that this snake sat atop a weather vane!
This piece of art is considered "new" as it was made in 1997. Most of us had been born by then! It's ceramic and is called a jardinere. It was a collaborative effort made by the Crocker family of Georgia. Michael threw the body of the plant stand, his brother Melvin sculpted the snake, and their mother Pauline created the flowers!
This rooster is another ceramic vessel that may have been used to hold punch, or alcohol. The snake wrapped around it served as a reminder for others (usually children) to leave it alone. That would work for us!
In the "Down on the Farm" gallery, Michelle was the first to spot a black snake that was carved from wood. Christina told us that farmers would have put such snakes in their gardens to scare away critters, like rabbits. (We need to tell Krafty Karen and the MGs to try one of these in our carrot and bean patch at the garden!)
This is a close up of the doors on an armoire that is decorated with wooden inlays. Can you spot the snakes?
Alexis helped Liz find the snake in this picture that is part of a map of North America. It's a rattlesnake, by the way!
We even found snake art by using technology, which we all could relate to! There are some large screen displays at the museums that are interactive. We scrolled through the pictures on this one to find a photo with a snake, and then used our fingers to expand the touch screen. Liz pointed out the snake that was wrapped around the woman's shoulder!
After our very successful snake scavenger hunt, we enjoyed a laid back time in the education room. Christina gave each of us a toy wooden snake, and we made it "fancy" using Sharpies.
We could have spent all afternoon making our snakes colorful. We chatted with Christina as we worked, and that was fun, too.
No two were alike, of course! Each was just as unique as its creator! Thank you, Christina, for an engaging celebration of Snake Day! We had fun finding the objects today, and hearing your stories about how they came to be. Thanks for the snakes, too! Some of us have plans for them......... 🐍🐍🐍
Wednesday
Wow...today flew by and we had a lot of fun! First, we sent this to Moose Patti, our second AoA friend with a birthday this week. We hope she was able to take some time off from working on the golf tournament to celebrate! We hope you had a fabulous birthday, Patti! Thanks for ALL you do for us. We'll see you soon!
Next, it was Therapy Dog Day!
It was also National Words with Friends Day. We celebrated during our reading group sessions by looking for "Wonder Words" as we read. One of the Wonder Words was "eat" and Dev B was reading a story about a wolf who was cooking pancakes. He, Liz, Adia, and Tessa were in Kent and Leo's group. All in all, they ended up spotting 4 of the 8 Wonder Words, including "eat!"
Carol and Casey enjoyed the Wonder Word hunt with Kevin, Kate, Patrick, and Michelle. They only found 2 of the words, but one of them, "dog," was found multiple times! How fitting!
Caroline and Pip read and hunted Wonder Words with Alexis, Abraham, Annmarie, and Sweet T. They were excited with the book about whales and dolphins that Annmarie chose, because it was where they spotted several of the words!
Due to various circumstances, we only had 3 handler friends who could visit this month. Caroline offered Indy to join our Carol with Xavier, Erik, Drew, and Sam, so our reading groups wouldn't be too large. Thanks for sharing, Caroline. Pip and Indy like to stick together, but they did really well being separated for a short time! We look forward to summer winding down and our other handler and pup friends to be able to join us again!
After reading, we continued our Words with Friends celebration with a Bingo game. Caroline joked that Pip and Indy weren't very good at spelling, but our game only involved reading whole words...and we had picture clues! Pip, Indy, Leo, and Casey all did really well! 😉🐕👀😊 Thanks for a fun and engaging morning, Caroline, Kent, and Carol S. We enjoy our visits with you and the therapy dogs very much!
Before lunch we had time for a couple of science experiments presented by the groups that didn't have a turn last week. First up, Xavier, Annmarie, Tessa, and Sweet T demonstrated that you could make drawings float in water!
You must use dry erase pens, but there is something about the chemistry of dry erase markers that makes the drawing lift off the dish and float on water!
We couldn't find all the materials we needed for Kevin, Liz, Drew, and Abraham to do one of their experiments, but they did get to use lemons, baking soda, and salt to make homemade dish detergent that we will use on our dishes the next time we cook! Later in the day, we found a bag of science materials that had gotten misplaced, so this group will be back! 🔍
Tomorrow we are going to cook our recently harvested potatoes, so today they needed to be washed. We set up two tubs of water and dumped the potatoes in with a few splashes. Dev B, Sam, Erik, and Kate did the "dirty" work, which was kind of fun! Since our potatoes were just dug up last week, the dirt came off pretty easily.
Michelle also helped wash, but missed the photo op, so here she is showing off our freshly washed potatoes, which are going to be turned into home fries tomorrow! We can't wait!
We have to give Carol a shoutout for finding a nifty gadget to attach to our hummingbird feeder so as to deter the ants. It looks like a small red cup, and we fill it with water. It goes on the pole first, and then the feeder is hung from it. The water keeps the ants from climbing up the pole and onto our "sweet" hummingbird feeder. It's genius, and Carol was so excited to discover it. Thanks, Carol! Those pesky ants will have to feast somewhere else now! By the way, it's hard to get a picture before they fly away, but we have at least 3 hummingbirds who eat here. We have seen up to 3 at one time, but we think there is a fourth one, too!
We heard from Laura today. She is spending the week at the OBX with her family, but she misses us. 💓 We got this adorable picture from her, so we sent her a video greeting in return, which she loved! We hope your family time at the beach was filled with wonderful memories, Laura! We'll see you on Tuesday!
With a few minutes left at the end of the day, we decided to play Disney Movie Song Trivia. We found out that Tessa knows her Disney movies. She aced both of her turns! 👏👏
Thursday
Today is our artist friend Jeff's birthday. He makes 3 friends with birthdays in one week! We sent him cards and today he FaceTimed with us. We sang to him and talked about the "mer-people" project we are starting with him next week! But we forgot to get a picture so Jeff, this one's for you:
We spent the morning on a variety of tasks. Erik was in charge of grilling the hot dogs so we could put them in the slow cooker to stay warm until time for lunch. Drew was assigned to be his "sous chef," and Erik happily helped him learn how to load up the grill! (Easy Drew...no need to throw the hot dogs in the pan! Just set them down gently and no one gets hurt... 🤣🌭)
There were several coloring tasks to be done, so everyone grabbed sheets when they could. Adia and Tessa worked on colorful mermaids to add to our wall (getting ready for Jeff's mer-people lesson). Xavier colored a delicious looking hot dog for today's lunch decorations. Kevin worked on bubble letters that we will use to decorate the golf carts we'll be riding around in at the WOTM Golf Tournament!
Thank goodness Michelle and Sam were available to prep our veggie tray! There was a lot of slicing that needed to be done. 🥕🥒🍅
Next up at the food prep table were Dev B and Kevin. They cut the watermelon into bite-sized chunks. Dev is an old pro at slicing, but for Kevin, it's still a work in progress. When reminded to keep his knife straight...and slow down a little...he did very well! 🍉
Not everyone helped with lunch. Liz and Alexis gave a last minute push to finish some Eaton work that we will take to Ethan tomorrow! They used the clippers to snip off a small piece from these plastic plates.
Abraham was happy to color letters for the golf cart decorations...when he wasn't on the floor dancing. We had music playing while we worked!
Annmarie and Devin T took a break from coloring and dancing to pick a few more tomatoes from our pizza pot plant. We added them to ones picked earlier this week and we had a nice batch to add to our veggie tray. Little pops of fresh goodness!
We were excited to see how our potatoes would turn out when we cooked them. Nan and Carol cut them up for us, and Adia and Patrick handled the cooking. They added salt, pepper, and garlic, and we also added onions, for seasoning. We had 3 pans going, and Adia and Patrick were on it!
By 11:15 we had completed our morning tasks, so we went to the gym for a game of kickball, AoA style! In this shot, Kate had thrown the ball to get Xavier out, but it missed him by a hair. Our regular kickball finally bit the dust, so we were using a beach ball and it's harder to control. Lisa will go shopping for a new ball this weekend!
Adia coached Tessa on pitching the ball. Drew's team was hopeful he would kick it far, but a beach ball only has so much gusto!
As usual, no complaints about our cooking! Our potatoes had only been out of the ground for 1 week, and we could taste the fresh goodness! Happy National Hot Dog Day!
July 20 is also National Moon Day, which marks the date in 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon. We used Oreos to learn about moon phases. Alexis scraped the cream off of a couple of her cookies and had her basic moon phases arranged. Drew was ready for her to help him do the same so they could finally eat their work!
Oh! Liz realized there would be cookie parts left over that she could also eat after getting her work checked!
Friday
We returned to one of our happy places today: Eaton! Check out all the cool work we did. We're proud of our skills!
When we first arrived, the group from Lisa's van waited patiently for Ethan to open the door for us, but first he was helping Carol's group (in the van in the background) unload the work we did at the center this week.
There were screws to be counted today, so we thought Tessa might enjoy working on that with Abraham and Annmarie. Since we needed to put 50 screws into each bag, they had two counting sheets to help them. 25 + 25 = 50 🤓
Patrick, Drew, and Sweet T started with a large blue tub full of these white handles. After a while, most of the handles had been transferred to smaller tubs and were stacked neatly for Ethan to pick up using the forklift!
Ethan needed us to work on PowerSlide Doors today, so, from end to beginning: Erik used the electric screwdriver to tighten nuts and bolts that were put in place by Kevin and Xavier. (Erik and Carol also packed the finished doors back into boxes.)
The Label Ladies, Adia, Liz, Nan, and Alexis always handle the "sticky situation" with good cheer! They carefully place 4 stickers on the inside of each door. In the background of this picture, the beginning of the door assembly finds Sam, Michelle, and Dev B unpacking the doors, inserting lenses, and keeping the pace going for the others.
DJ Liz informed us that the legendary singer Tony Bennett passed away at just two weeks shy of his 97th birthday. Lisa explained who he was and why he was very popular, including from a few years ago when he sang duets with Lady Gaga. Liz played one of their songs for us while we worked.
Just before we left this afternoon, we met Mark, the new Operations Manager for Eaton. He was super friendly and we can tell we will enjoy working with him! Welcome to the team, Mark!
Ahh...yoga! The room was cool and we were "good" tired (from a productive work day), so it felt great to stretch out on our mats this afternoon! This was Snake Pose.
This was Horse Pose. Jaime's story segment today was about a rabbit who was the sheriff of a small Texas town. We got a kick out of Jaime, who is British, speaking with a southern drawl!
Drew seemed a little off his game this afternoon, and we thought he may be coming down with a headache, which happens to him very infrequently. We recognized that he didn't seem himself starting around the end of our Eaton time. While waiting for Drew's dad to pick up the two carpooling buddies a little early, Devin comforted his longtime friend. 💙
We have a lot to look forward to next week. Here's a look at our schedule:
Tuesday: We're going to visit the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown for a couple of hours this morning. We'll stop at Subway to pick up box lunches on the way back, and eat at the park if the weather happens to be comfortable! 🤞🍃⛅ Otherwise, we'll eat at the center. In the afternoon, we'll enjoy Choice Time, listen to our read-aloud, and complete the last of our science experiments. Please bring $10 for lunch. Arc shirts optional. Note: We will be departing a little earlier than usual today at 9:00!
Wednesday: This morning we will volunteer at GCOC, so please wear Arc shirts. We're going to have a lesson about mermaids and mermen to prepare us for tomorrow's visit from Jeff. We'll also have time for a follow-up lesson on composting, that we haven't gotten to since learning about it from the MGs. Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available for potluck! (This will be the last day for cafeteria until regular school begins on August 28. Summer School ends tomorrow.)
Thursday: We're welcoming our artist friend Jeff today and we're starting a two-session project that will have us end up with mer-people made with wire armatures! We'll finish them at Jeff's studio next week. This is exciting! Later today we will work on preparations to celebrate Nan's birthday tomorrow. Chicken casserole and mixed veggies for lunch, with a celebration of National Hot Fudge Sundae Day for dessert!
Friday: Nan's birthday is Monday, so we will celebrate today with her favorites: Jeopardy and Rod Stewart music! First however, we'll send a crew to work at Pet Supplies Plus, so wear your PSP shirts! Tomorrow is National Lasagna Day, which is another one of Nan's favorites, so lasagna and side salads for lunch. After partying with Nan, we'll wind down the week with yoga, so dress to stretch!
🎅🎄 Reminder! It's Christmas in July! 🎅🎄
We are participating in a quick-turnaround food drive to benefit Grove Christian Outreach. We'll drive through in our van "sleighs" on Tuesday to drop off donations, so please send any additional contributions on Tuesday. Thank you for the donations we have already received!!
One more! Registration for the 5k is open! Click the pic for more info!
Have a great weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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