It's been a great Fall Birthday Season, but we wrapped it up this week with our celebration for Liz and Patrick on Tuesday. What a double the fun time that was!! Now, we await the arrival of the winter season when we will celebrate a few more...
In other news this week, we volunteered at Grove, had a fun visit with Mike at the Watermen's Museum, worked at Pet Supplies Plus, and cooked and cleaned! It was a really nice week!
Tuesday
Since we would be celebrating Liz and Patrick at lunch time with a chicken nugget meal, we knew we needed to get in some steps and movement ahead of the party. We spent the morning at Newport News Park doing just that!
Upon our return to the center, Liz and Patrick's families were arriving with our delicious lunch treat. The aroma from the chicken nuggets had our mouths watering! Chips, apple slices, and pink lemonade rounded out the menu, and lunch was perfect! Afterwards, we indulged in delicious cupcakes, too!
Liz and Patrick, we hope all your wishes come true! Happy 30th to Liz, and Happy 33rd to Pat! Even though you were born in different years, you will always be birthday twins, since you were both born on November 11. We had a great time celebrating you together...it really was double the fun!
We can't thank the families of Patrick and Liz enough for treating us to a wonderful lunch. Sue and Kevin, and Lise and Greg, we really appreciate the time you spent with us, too. It's always great to catch up with you!
The double the fun birthday party continued with double game time! First, we played "AoA Fun" Jeopardy. Jeopardy is one of Liz's favorite games, so Lisa created a version filled with questions about our program, and we knew the answers to almost all of them!
Next, we cleared the room for a birthday version of corn hole, which Patrick requested. It was Team Birthday Boy versus Team Birthday Girl. The girls started off slowly, and after Round 1 they were down by a score of 10-3.
The girls rallied quite a bit in Round 2, but in the end, Team Birthday Boy won 16-12! Congratulations, guys, on a fun win for Patrick on his special day!!
Wednesday, November 13
This morning we sent a great group of Library Leaders to work in the JRES Library. We had to take two photos to capture them all! Thanks for your dedication to this volunteer opportunity, Liz, Bryan, Emma, Beka, Alexis, and Laura!
Other activities this morning included working in our "Card Factory" where we began working on a backlog of thank you notes we owe folks! For all of our amazing families and friends who have been so good to us this fall, we have not forgotten you! We appreciate you very much and you'll get a note of thanks very soon!
As quickly as we could color, cut, and write, Allison was gluing doo-dads on the cards and helping us finalize our products! Thanks, Allison!
Meanwhile, down at Grove Christian Outreach, look at how productively our guys worked on the food distribution assembly line. First, they got organized under the direction of volunteer Ursula.
Ursula treated us to Christmas decorated meringue cookies she made. They were delicious, and so light!
We also supported Liz as she practiced the speech for her brother's wedding one last time. She will be out tomorrow and Friday to be with family before the wedding on Saturday. She asked for a "group hug" with her friends. It was hard to get everyone in the picture, but we are all pulling for her and can't wait to hear about the wedding!
Thursday, November 14
Our lesson today was about turkeys, and we learned that turkeys got their name from the country of Turkey! When the settlers saw them here in the "new world" they recognized them as the same bird they knew to be imported from Turkey, so that's what they called them!
Tomorrow is America Recycles Day, so our project with Mike was a great fit! We used a box, a paper towel roll, and some paper bags to construct a turkey! On the feathers, which were cut from construction paper, we wrote or drew things we were thankful for, which is always a good thing to spend time thinking about!
Why weren't we surprised when Mike hung the turkey from the ceiling?! Actually, we're glad he did because it gave us tips on how to hang it from our ceiling when we get back to the center!
Thanks, Mike! Our time with you is always great, and we truly look forward to the projects we make with you! It was great to see Erin and Carrie again, too. Happy Thanksgiving to you all! 🦃🦃🦃
We decided it was a little too windy and chilly to stay at Yorktown to eat outside, but we did take a "turkey trot" before returning to AFCC! We plan to take a few more "turkey trots" before the holiday, too!
Lunch Lady Liz is away for her brother's wedding, but she would be proud of Bryan and Alexis for taking her place. They did a great job and got everyone's orders correct!
Tom Turkey is hanging from our ceiling! We think he kind of looks like the one in Macy's parade! LOL!
After lunch we had a work session. Erik and Alexis put gaskets on Eaton parts. Annmarie, Sam, Michelle, and Laura worked on more thank you cards for us to send to our many family members and friends who have been so generous to us recently.
Emma, Beka, and Kate prepared books from the JRES Library for discarding. Patrick, Devin, Thomas, and Bryan organized and inventoried the donations we've collected so far for the Fall Food Drive. Abraham, Kevin, Xavier, and Drew had hundreds of Eaton parts to sort. It was a busy afternoon for us!
Friday, November 15
It was a rainy and chilly start to the day, but we didn't let it keep us from heading to Pet Supplies Plus for a work morning. They count on our help. 👍 Today, it was stocking, stocking, and more stocking!
Alexis, Erik, and Thomas making sure the dog aisle was stocked!
Bryan, Thomas, Erik, and Laura stocking more dog goodies!
Seems like Laura worked with everyone as she also stocked with Bryan and Abraham!
We were happy to see Brittany and Lola, the ferret, today! Brittany wasn't feeling well the last time we worked at PSP.
We enjoyed working with Margie, and also showing off Thanksgiving bandanas. Our PSP friends said we could keep them for ourselves, or gift them to a favorite pup!
Meanwhile, the group that stayed at the center was also working hard! They prepared lunch, cleaned the fridge, microwave, and Nina, and started working on a family gift for the holidays!
Michelle and Beka started their day in the kitchen where they made fruit salad for lunch. Next, they joined Nan to work on a decorative holiday gift for our families.
Four of our members were absent today - all girls! Since Beka and Michelle were working on the gifts, the fellas were left to do the rest of the cooking, and the cleaning!
Once the chicken was baked, Devin and Patrick tore it into small pieces so we could add spices and salsa to make it tasty for our nachos!
Kevin and Drew are a good team who carefully measured ingredients for our rice side dish. Here, they were adding water to the rice cookers.
Kevin headed to the restroom, but Drew gave the rice a good stir to mix in all the spices!
Next, the guys celebrated National Clean Out the Fridge Day!
With a little extra time before the PSP group returned, we cranked up the dance music. We were thrilled when Xavier sang!
Lunch was great! We need to make chicken nachos and yellow rice more often! (The fruit salad was...what else...yummy, yummy! We didn't get a photo, though.)
This is a relaxing way to end a busy week, and everyone practices at their own pace. We think our newest member, Thomas, even fell asleep during Peace Out at the end! Jaime would probably take that as a compliment, Thomas!
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Everyone was calm and relaxed after yoga, and the sun was even peeking through the clouds! The weekend is forecast to be beautiful. Here are our plans for next week:
Wednesday: It's Therapy Dog Day! We will celebrate the season of Thanksgiving with reading, brain work, and a treat to celebrate Peanut Butter Fudge Day! We'll also have lessons from Mystery Science to find out if other countries celebrate Thanksgiving, and why we eat turkey on that holiday! Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is offering Cheesy Pasta Supreme or Sub of the Day. Microwave available.
Thursday: Today we are going to celebrate National Stuffing Day, as well as tomorrow's National Cranberry Relish Day, by putting our twist on a Thanksgiving meal. We'll divide into teams to prepare turkey chili, cornbread stuffing (dressing, actually), and cranberry relish/salad for lunch. Other activities today will include a lesson about Thanksgiving in the colonies, and we'll watch the movie The Mouse on the Mayflower.
Friday: It's off to Eaton for a work day, so please wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch. The weather forecast looks pretty good for time outside, so we'll plan to take a walk at the park, too.
The AoA will be in session on Monday and Tuesday, November 25-26. We will be closed November 27-29 for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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