Out with October...In with November

As October came to a close, we enjoyed a couple of fun days celebrating Halloween.  November began with cooler temperatures, but by the end of the week, we were enjoying milder weather again.  We can hardly believe there are only 8 weeks left in 2023!  At least we get an extra hour this weekend!

Saturday, October 28

It was a beautiful and warm day for Tracy's award-winning Disability Awareness Trick or Treat event.  There were a lot of happy participants!  Big thanks to Carol for manning the Arc and Arc of Abilities table, and to Liz and Adia who were there from 8-1 assisting Carol (and Tracy) with set up, working at our table, and helping with clean up!  Thanks to all of our AoA friends who were able to stop by, too.

Tracy uses "our" room as a quiet, sensory area while all the livelier action takes place in the gym.

So much fun to see the AoA friends who could make it today! 

Devin's Dad, Scott, and his sister, Hailey!

The train was a big hit!

Moose Patti, too!!!

Great job, Tracy!  This is a fantastic, and much needed, event for our community!  We appreciate you and your team for putting it together.  👏👏

Tuesday, October 31

🎃👻🍬  

Happy Halloween!  We had a blast playing games, dancing, crafting, cooking, eating, and just hanging out with our friends today.  There were cool costumes, too!  Our annual Halloween Party is one of our favorite days, and we didn't let the rain put a damper on it.  Tracy joined us for a while and helped with some of our games.  Sadly, we missed Sam and Drew, both of whom were under the weather. 🤧 We saved them a treat and hope they are back to themselves very soon!  We'd like to thank Laura's family for the decorative paper products and table cloth, the super-cute and tasty Oreo Mummy cookies, and the treat bags, too!  You definitely treated us!

BINGO!

Prize box!

We washed hands and then wrapped our own Mummy Dogs!

Musical Chairs!  So much competitiveness wrapped in good sportsmanship! 💛

Crafting with Witch Carol!

Wednesday, November 1

It was blustery and quite chilly when we arrived at the center this morning, and much to our disappointment, it stayed that way into the afternoon, even though the sun came out.  We decided not to take a post-Halloween Hike at the park, and walked in our hallway instead, to music blasting.  We also updated our calendar for November, checked out a Memory Lane blog post, and threw in a lesson from BrainPOP on giant squids, since we had extra time.  It was a laid-back, and relaxing day at the center!

We are thankful that Tessa is quick and very precise at cutting!  She cut these letters out for us in record time!

Alexis shared a postcard from her recent trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway and western North Carolina.  Laura was happy to help her put it in the travel album!

Mid-morning movement!

After Halloween Hallway Hike!  

We even had time for this.  Lisa put the scrambled words on the big screen and you would not believe how quickly we figured them out!  Yay, us!!  Go ahead and try it yourselves!! 

Thursday, November 2

We had another stay in the center, laid back kind of day today.  After all the parties we've had lately, we decided a Movie Day was in order!  Pirates of the Carribean, nominated by Michelle, won today's vote.  It was longer than our usual movies, so we broke it up with movement breaks and then finished it after lunch.  We also got in a backyard walk this afternoon, and then watched a Mystery Doug science lesson about skeletons.  We learned that we have 206 bones in our bodies!  A fun extension to the video was drawing our hand bones by following Doug's step by step instructions.  We didn't have time to finish, but tomorrow we will "paint" our drawings with oil, and when we hang them in the windows, they should look like a hand x-ray!  It was fun!

Popcorn!  Thanks, Adia, for popping it for us!

Kevin prefers to work puzzles while he sort of listens to the movie.  😊

Patrick multitasks while watching...

Hey, Doug!  We did not know the human skeleton consisted of 206 bones!  That's cool!

Friday, November 3

Several of our friends have been absent last week and this week due to a cold bug we are passing around. It's a different vibe when several are out at the same time, but we keep them in our thoughts and press ahead.  We hope to be back at full steam next week!  

Meanwhile, we sent a crew to work at Pet Supplies Plus this morning, and kept a crew at AFCC to prepare lunch.  We were celebrating a number of "food holidays" that took place this week: Sandwich Day (grilled cheese), Deviled Egg Day (Nan's "famous" recipe), and Cinnamon Day (snickerdoodles).  We squeezed in a walk, a few chapters from our read aloud, and ended the week with yoga.  It was a great day, but we were ready for the weekend!

Dog beds and squishy toys at Pet Supplies Plus!  How comfy for your favorite pets!

We finished our hand skeleton art.

X-rays!

Deviled Egg Day!

Cinnamon Day!

Sandwich Day!

Crafts, too!

Yoga at the end of a busy day!

Coming soon...here are next week's plans!

Tuesday:  Their birthdays are on Saturday, November 11, but we are celebrating Liz and Patrick today with a Bowling and Pizza Party!  Later in the afternoon we'll meet a grad student from Liberty University who is seeking our input on her thesis research!  We're planning a fun project with her.  Please wear Arc shirts.

Wednesday:  We are volunteering at GCOC today so please wear Arc shirts again.  It's National S.T.E.M. Day so we will have activities centering around science, technology, engineering, and math.  We'll use STEM skills in cooking as we prepare chili, cornbread, and apple bites for lunch,  We'll also begin work on the project for our grad student friend.  

Thursday:  Today's activities will focus on lessons about Veterans Day and pomegranates...an interesting combination!  We'll do some November crafting, too.  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is offering Domino's Pizza, Yogurt Combo, or Chef's Salad.

Friday:  Today is an Eaton Work Day, so please wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch!  We'll take a walk after our work day if the weather is nice; if not, we'll end the week with yoga back at the center.

Enjoy the weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang