This busy week flew by! It began with warm weather and a double birthday celebration for Liz and Patrick, and included volunteer and vocational work. We also tried a new fruit, made a new friend, and added more decorations to the room. It got chilly at the end, but it was a great week!
Tuesday, November 7
Today we celebrated the birthdays of Liz and Pat, both of whom were born on Veterans Day, November 11th. We also welcome our friend Cameron for a visit. Our adventure happened in four parts. First, we got an early start and headed to Freedom Park to meet the master gardeners so we could harvest sweet potatoes. There were only 12 of us today, so we all rode in the ADA van with Carol as our driver. At the garden, we dug up sweet potatoes and picked some beautiful mustard greens and Swiss chard that we're going to incorporate into a fresh salad tomorrow. The sweet potatoes were pretty, and they will make a tasty side dish for next week's cooking. Thank you so much, Karen, Rick, Barb, Carolyn, and Joanne for meeting us this morning and helping us with the harvest. We're looking forward to eating our fresh bounty!
Carolyn's beautiful journal page about today's visit!
The next phase of our birthday adventure took place at the bowling center. While the main event was about Liz and Patrick, we welcomed some special guests, too! Tracy and her kids, Colby and Heidi, joined us, as did Devin's Dad Scott; his sister, Hailey; and her friend, Ema. The kids were out of school today and we enjoyed bowling with them!
The most exciting part of today's adventure was the Pizza Party at the Park for Liz and Patrick! We snagged tables under the shelter since our usual ones by the Interpretive Center were being power washed! We waited patiently while everything was set up, and then dug into hot, fresh pizza from Papa John's, fresh veggies and dip, and pink lemonade. We topped it off with delicious cupcakes, and of course, lots of good fellowship with our friends and guests, which by now included Liz's parents Greg and Lise, and Pat's mom, Sue.
Happy 29th Birthday, Liz! Thank you, Greg and Lise, for sponsoring this wonderful lunch for us.
Happy 32nd Birthday, Patrick! Thank you, Sue, for sponsoring this wonderful lunch for us, too!
Liz and Patrick, we hope all your wishes come true and the year ahead is your best yet!
In the final part of today's adventure, we met a new friend named Sierra. She is working on earning her doctorate in education from Liberty University, and we are going to work with her on a research project! More about that later... Welcome to the Arc of Abilities, Sierra. It was a pleasure to meet you and we can't wait to assist you in your research!
Wednesday, November 8
We had a wonderful Wednesday, even though we are still missing 4 of our friends due to illness! What a nasty bug that has hit so many of us. We sure hope it will find its way to extinction after this week! With our reduced "workforce," we still managed to shelve books in the library, and bring a cart full of books back that we will prepare for discard. We sent 9 of our 13 members to volunteer at Grove today because they, fortunately, had a lot of food donations to sort and pack. That left 4 of our guys to work on lunch preparations. We made chili with ground turkey, cornbread, and gooey apple bites, too. We also added a tasty green salad that consisted of the mustard greens and Swiss chard we picked at the garden yesterday, along with some lettuce and spinach to offset the tangy taste of the mustard. It was so good!
In addition to other spices, we added bay leaves that Krafty Karen gave us a few weeks ago! We had dried them and saved them for the right dish, and today's chili was it. We removed them later when we served our savory chili!
We finally got to celebrate custodian Sevarina's birthday, too! We had plenty of chili and the timing worked for Sevarina, Heike, and our newest custodian, Luis, to join us!
After lunch we celebrated S.T.E.M. Day with a video and activity from Mystery Science, where we tried to design a way for our paper houses not to blow away. We also had a cup tower challenge!
Thursday, November 9
We learned about pomegranates for the first time today! Our MG friend, Barb, recently showed us a pomegranate she grew in her yard, so our curiosity led us to a lesson that included learning that they are a nutritional "super-food" and are really fun to eat! The seeds popped in our mouths with a burst of sweet juice and we like them so much that we researched recipes and found one to try next week!
Carol added a postcard from her long weekend at Massanutten to our album! We also took a walk (it was 75 degrees outside!), added some Thanksgiving decorations to our walls (turkeys, wreaths, and pumpkin pie slices), and did some research for our visit to Jamestown Settlement next week. We're excited to be helping Sierra out with her doctoral research, and we're thankful for a great day at the AoA!
Friday, November 10
We only had 11 friends in attendance this morning, but we headed to Eaton and had a very productive work day! The ship carrying the PowerSlide Doors finally arrived (from China!!) and we were happy to work on assembling them, as well as unpacking hundreds of boxes of small parts! At the end of the day, we had assembled 228 doors and opened over 500 small boxes to remove the parts inside and pack them into tubs. Way to go, AoA!
Drew, Laura, and Patrick
Xavier and Tessa
Adia, Liz, Nan, and Alexis
Erik
Hey, Families and Friends! We're going to join our friends at Eaton for a Coats, Food, and Toy Drive! Please consider donating nonperishable food items, coats in clean and good condition, and new, unused toys between now and December 8. We will be working at Eaton on December 8, and will deliver our donations on that day. Thanks in advance for supporting our efforts!
We traveled in Arc vans today since our usual rides from Parks and Rec weren't available. Always fun to cruise around town in Arc vans!
Feeding the birds!
Plant care!
New yoga episode with Jaime: The Little Mermaid
Ahhh...mermaid (or merman) pose and relaxing at the end of an active day!
We are looking forward to some new experiences next week: working on a research project with a doctoral student, and cooking with pomegranates! Here's what you need to know:
Tuesday: We're visiting Jamestown Settlement to do research for our new friend Sierra, who is a doctoral student at Liberty University. We're helping her learn how accessible (besides physically) the museum is for individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. We're going to pick up boxed lunches (sub sandwiches) from Publix for lunch, so please bring $10. We'll have lunch at the center where Sierra will join us for panel discussions about our experience at Jamestown Settlement. We're going "undercover" (i.e., we don't want to identify ourselves as members of Arc), so please do NOT wear Arc shirts today!!! 😉
Wednesday: Our therapy dog friends visit today for a Thanksgiving themed session. We'll read books and have a scavenger hunt! It's also America Recycles Day so we will check out a BrainPOP video lesson and then reuse toilet paper tubes to make "fancy" birdfeeders with worn out pencils to serve as perches. Lunch on your own. The JRES Cafeteria is available and is serving Popcorn Chicken Bowl or Hot Dog.
Thursday: Today is National Button Day so we're going to do fun things with buttons! We'll also celebrate Princess Day and Mickey Mouse's Birthday, both of which are Saturday, because we're always up for Disney themed activities! Lunch on your own. The JRES Cafeteria is available and is serving Domino's Pizza, Deli Sub, or Chef's Salad.
Friday: We'll send a group to Pet Supplies Plus for a work session, so please wear PSP shirts today. The Cooking Crew will roast our recently harvested sweet potatoes, bake a rice recipe that incorporates pomegranate seeds, and saute chicken nuggets for lunch! It's also Take a Hike Day, so we're hoping for mild weather after lunch and a visit to Newport News Park where we can make up for missing our post-Halloween Hike!
Enjoy the weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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