Our harvested potatoes, before and after a good wash! It was over 30 pounds of spuds!
We returned to our space at AFCC and welcomed almost everyone back from Summer Break (still had a couple of travelers). Our floors are bright and shiny, and we were happy to be in "our" room! It was quite a busy week for us as we visited the garden to harvest potatoes (as shown above!), went bowling, volunteered at Grove, and worked at the pet store. We also made some new friends this week, and welcomed some "old" ones for a visit, too! Here's a look at our first week in July:
Tuesday, July 9
We were very excited that Abraham was back in attendance after spending the month of June in Missouri helping his sister and her family settle into their new home! Welcome back, Abraham!
It was so hot and muggy today that we decided to just take a "Potato Patrol" to meet the master gardeners and harvest potatoes. Everyone else stayed on the Arc van (we will be using Arc vans sometimes this summer since Rec vans are used for camps) and waved from the street! Krafty Karen and her husband Steve, Barbara, Joanne, and Craig were already digging by the time we arrived. We ended up with over 30 pounds of potatoes!
We got a kick out of this large "mutant" potato that had some smaller ones attached to it.
The MGs had also picked us a bag full of green beans and some cucumbers. They pointed out that the cantaloupe melons are growing well, and so are the tomatoes. We will plan stops by the garden throughout the summer so we can harvest more produce as it becomes ready! Before we left, Steve prepared the bed where the potatoes had been so Karen could plant sweet potatoes, which we will harvest in the fall! Karen had started the "sweet potato slips" at home, and we appreciate her letting them get a head start so that now that they are planted in the garden, they will take off and hopefully grow well.
Thank you so much Karen, Steve, Barbara, Joanne, Craig, and all of our master gardener friends for everything you do to help us learn about and grow amazing fruits and veggies. We are very excited to eat our potatoes, and we should have enough to cook with them at least twice! We appreciate you meeting us for the harvest on such an uncomfortable morning, and for doing the "heavy" work, too. You guys are the best!
We're not going to lie, it was much more comfortable at the bowling lanes than it was outside at the garden! We enjoyed our time bowling with friends, and were delighted that we scored A LOT of spares and strikes! Everyone had a good bowling day!!! 🎳🎳🎳
Laura, Liz, Xavier, Cameron
Bryan, Emma, Abraham
Annmarie, Alexis, Erik
Sam, Michelle, Devin, Kate
After bowling we picked up our pizzas and didn't even have to vote about whether to go to the park or back to the center! Many thanks to Cameron and his parents, Stacey and Brian, for sponsoring today's pizza! It was a particularly good batch today, and we enjoyed them very much!
It's summertime and the gym is available for us! It's nice and cool in there, and we will be playing many group games as the summer rolls along. Today, some of our friends hung out during Choice Time.
Wednesday, July 10
We met our first new friend of the week today, Arc intern Michelle! She's a rising senior at W&M who is interning with The Arc of GW this summer, but we get to have some time with her, too! Her major is social work, and she says she is "loving" her time with The Arc. We're happy to welcome her to the AoA. Can you spot her in this pic of us checking on our herb garden today? (The herbs are great, by the way, and we plan to use some chives, basil, and rosemary in our home fries recipe on Friday!)
Our time with Intern Michelle included volunteering at GCOC this morning, playing a wild and active game Lisa called "kickballs" (kickball with more than one ball), and assembling the Arc's August mailing. We also washed our potatoes and updated our calendar for July. There was a lot going on today!
We worked with Tom and Ursuala at GCOC today, and would like to thank Ursula for baking these delicious brownies for us, and Ally for providing the Hawaiian Punch! We took brownies back to our friends who didn't volunteer, too, because Ursula included everyone!
Devin and Bryan teamed up to wash our potatoes by rubbing the dirt off while transferring them back and forth between clean tubs of water! Look how many potatoes there are!
Later, when the potatoes were dry, we all helped load them into clean tubs to bring inside. We're excited about cooking with them on Friday!
Enjoying Ursula's brownies didn't stop Liz and Devin from their work to update our calendar.
We may have been on Summer Break for a week in July, but we still have a lot of busy days this month!
Our "kickballs game" was a good workout, because with extra balls for players to kick, we were on the move a lot more. We're still working out the rules (and kinks), but we may be onto something with this new way of playing!
Be sure to check The Arc's August calendar and send your sign-up sheet to Kellie before the deadline!
Thursday, July 11
We love a celebration, and today, was a summertime favorite, National 7-11 Day! We could hardly wait to visit the nearby 7-11 after lunch to get free Slurpees, and some of us even wanted to try their special flavor for the occasion - Mountain Dew Freedom Fusion! But first, we had to have a little history lesson since we were on break for America's birthday!
We enjoy our "brain work" activities, which included crossword puzzles, making words with the letters in FIREWORKS, and reading to friends today!
One of our favorite "holidays" is 7-11 Day! We enjoyed our free Slurpees!
This year's free Slurpee cup art was created by Nolan, a 7 year old cancer survivor. 7-11 supports Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. This year's special Slurpee Day flavor was Mountain Dew Freedom Fusion.
Laura told us a story about going to a baseball game, and as she described the environment, we acted it out and laughed a lot along the way! Here, Devin was gearing up to make a big pitch...we all know he's going to play for the Phillies one day! He had us laughing at his fun antics, and he was laughing right along with us.
Drew and Alexis really got into the reenactment of buying hot dogs from the vendor. They were squirting ketchup and mustard all over each other!
Eating peanuts at the ballpark!
Thank you, Laura! This was a great way to spend an afternoon with an easy strategy to improve our physical AND mental health. Your guidance made it easy to follow, and we hope you could tell how good we felt after the session! So much fun with a little something for everyone, even our "shy" partiipants!
Friday, July 12
Our Pet Supplies Plus Crew was excited to work with Tracy and her new coworker, Katrina, this morning. Katrina is the second new friend we met this week! Thanks for joining us, ladies. We appreciate the support. Katrina will be working with Tracy, so that means she'll be working with us, too! The PSP crew was showing off some summertime items for your aquarium. How about a "pineapple under the sea" or a palm tree?!
If aquarium decor is not for you, how about Charlie or Chappy? They are so cute, and still looking for their "furever" homes.
Earlybirds Alexis and Emma put gaskets on Eaton parts this morning, and then Erik took over when they left to go to work at PSP!
Those of us who remained at AFCC got to work preparing lunch. Drew and Abraham are showing off fresh herbs we picked from our raised bed. We chopped chives, rosemary, and a little bit of basil to add to our home fries!
Happy National Jell-O Day from Annmarie and Laura, who made a tasty side dish of lime Jell-O and pineapple for us!
Side note: Many thanks to Laura's parents, who called to say they were at Costco and did we need anything?! Thanks, Lisa and Tom, for resupplying our popcorn stash!
Lunch was a big hit today! We didn't get any pictures of our final plates, but we enjoyed celebrating Beans and Franks Day (tomorrow) and Jell-O Day (today). Our side of home fries made with our freshly harvested potatoes were a huge hit! Thank you to our master gardener friends for growing potatoes with us at the garden at Freedom Park, and herbs in the raised bed here at the center. It was so much fun snipping fresh chives, rosemary, and basil to add to our potato dish!!
After lunch, Kevin shared pictures from his trip earlier this week to Charlotte, NC where he attended the annual conference on tetrasomy 18p, which is his rare chromosomal disorder. He loves seeing his friends each year!
Carol, Abraham, and Erik took our "old" friend Javante (he volunteered this afternoon) on an Eaton run to deliver work we completed this week. Javante got to meet Ethan and Isaiah. We'll all see them next Friday!
We voted to play corn hole this afternoon with Javante instead of having yoga with Jaime. When Carol and the guys made the run to Eaton, Sam, Devin, and Xavier decided to squeeze in a yoga segment while everyone else had Choice Time (with the lights out)!
We ended the day and week with a game of corn hole. Javante's team was the "Home Fried Potatoes" and they led for most of the game.
The other team took the name "Beans and Franks," and in the end, they made a big comeback and won by 1 point! It was a very exciting and fun game!
The corn hole game brought our week to a happy ending. It had been a very rainy day, and we were all ready to begin the weekend! Here is a peek at next week's plans:
Tuesday: Our schedule will be a little different today. Due to a temporary scheduling change, we will have our visit with Christina at The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg from 11:30-1:00. That means a late lunch, so we will spend the morning creating a healthy snack to tide us over until lunch time! We'll also welcome Arc Intern Michelle and Arc Communications and Development Coordinator, Caroline, to work with us today. Lunch on your own and please wear Arc shirts. Microwave available.
Wednesday: Our therapy dog friends visit today for reading and fun, so we will celebrate Words with Friends Day with them. It's also Wrong Way Corrigan Day, which is a fun (and true) story and an opportunity for a map skills lesson and watching a silly episode from the classic tv sitcom, Gilligan's Island! Lunch on your own. Microwave available.
Thursday: It's Tropical Fruit Day so we will incorporate some of them into our lunch of mac and cheese and pork bbq. We're having a belated celebration of Macaroni and Cheese Day and making a from-scratch recipe provided by Liz! We'll also get creative with a seashell craft that Krafty Karen gave us the supplies for, because that's tropical, right?!
Friday: Today is an Eaton Work Day, so please wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch. We'll return to the center after working for Choice Time or games.
Have a great weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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