"Bowl" Week!

 

We're calling this post "Bowl" Week because we went bowling on Tuesday and had a Super Bowl party on Friday!  In between, we celebrated Groundhog Day (late, but still fun), volunteered at Grove, learned about the weather, celebrated National Optimist Day, and worked at Pet Supplies Plus.  February got off to a great start for the Arc of Abilities!

Tuesday, February 4

First thing this morning, we were excited to see Sam arrive on the WATA bus!  He was visiting family in Arizona during the month of January, and he was missed by his friends.  Welcome back to the gang, Sam!  

 

Soon we were off to bowling.  The place was busy today, but we quickly settled in on lanes 1-4, and had a fun morning.  We weren't even phased by the testing of the fire alarms!

When Laura has only one pin left and she picks up the spare!

We had our own version of the Super Bowl as Chiefs fan Kate and Eagles fan Devin squared off to see who would score the higher game today.  Kate/Chiefs came out on top in game 1, and Devin/Eagles scored higher in game 2.  We're not sure what that may or may not mean for the actual Super Bowl! 😏🏈

Tracy, JaVante, and Katrina suprised us when they popped in to say "hi" at bowling!  We enjoy visiting with them so much, and they are the best bowling cheerleaders!

Back at AFCC, we enjoyed 🍕🍕🍕for lunch but forgot to take a picture.  JaVante couldn't join us because he needed to study for a test, but Tracy and Katrina came, and after lunch, encouraged several of us to take a walk on this spring-like day!

This afternoon we learned about groundhogs and discussed the fact that Punxsutawney Phil predicted 6 more weeks of winter, even though we couldn't tell by today's nice weather!  We hope he may be off the mark this time, but we shall see.  We enjoyed using rice cakes, peanut butter, bananas, ginger snaps, and marshmallows (teeth) to make an edible groundhog.  Tasty!

Groundhogs eat a lot in the fall to bulk up for their long hibernation.  We just had a little snack in their honor!

Before calling it a day, we put tables and chairs away and then heard a knock at the back door.  Caroline, Pip, and Indy surprised us with a quick visit!  They had been working with a classroom in the school and finished early.  What a great ending to a very good day!

Wednesday, February 5

We felt Punxsutawney Phil's prediction today!  It was chilly outside!  We bundled up and carried on with a good day volunteering at GCOC, creating lovely Valentine decorations for our room, and learning interesting facts about the weather to commemorate National Weatherpersons Day.

While one crew volunteered at GCOC, this crew worked on creating coloful and "heartfelt" decorations for our room.  Thanks, Allison, for helping us get them made.

February is so pink...and red...and purple!  Today's decorations look great on the whiteboard.

Meanwhile, our Grove crew noticed that GCOC executive director Katie Patrick is an Eagles fan!  So were quite a few of today's volunteers!  That's Ally behind Xavier.  She told us that she will be moving on to a new opportunity later in the month.  We're happy for you, Ally, but we will sure miss you!

As usual, we had plenty of food to sort and pack into distribution bags.  Things got organized fairly quickly, and we worked efficiently to get it done in a little over one hour!

Back at the center, we all joined in on our annual game of Super Bowl pool noodle volleyball.  The object is to predict who will win the Super Bowl based on which team's balloons remain unpopped.  Today we played with red and gold for the Kansas City Chiefs, and green and black for the Philadelphia Eagles. 

We played for about 15 minutes and for the first time ever, no balloons popped!  We thought that could mean the Super Bowl would end in a tie, but that's not likely to happen, so we needed Plan B for our prediction.

Plan B was to pop the balloons by sitting on them, and whichever team's popped first, would be the predicted winner of Sunday's game.  (In our traditional game, shown above, if the balloons pop then that team is predicted to lose.) Liz and Devin volunteered to be Eagles, and Thomas and Patrick represented Chiefs.  Based on this ridiculous, but fun, activity, the Eagles are going to win!

Speaking of the Eagles, we think it's kind of cool that our custodian, Juwan has an uncle named Reggie "Truck" Brown who played for the NFL back in the 1980s, and retired from the Philadelphia Eagles in 1987!  Today, he does motivational speaking.

Sam could be a motivational speaker.  We showed lots of pictures from his travels across the country in January to visit family in Arizona, and when he was finished telling us all about his adventure, we wanted to hit the road and head west where it's warm and sunny!  Here, Sam was showing us a souvenir of a scorpion that he got.  We're glad you had a great time on your travels, Sam, but we're also happy you're back at the Arc of Abilities!  We missed you!

Today was National Weatherpersons Day, so we learned about the job of meteorologists, and then took a scavenger hunt to learn facts about the weather.  Did you know that a lightning bolt can be as hot as 50,000 degrees or that the sunniest city on Earth is Yuma, Arizona?  Hey Sam, did you visit Yuma on your adventure?!

Thursday, February 6

As we arrived this morning, we were having chilly temps and a thunderstorm!  It was a perfect morning to bring out the disco ball for our dance warm up!

We spent the morning doing brain work.  Kevin, Abraham, Sam, and Thomas worked on map skills as they searched for Pennsylvania, the home of Punxsutawney Phil.  Xavier, Laura, and Annmarie were proud of their knowledge about groundhogs as they matched words with pictures.

In these photos, Bryan, Alexis, Devin, Liz, Emma, Kate, Patrick, Michelle, and Erik were so focused on their weather-themed crossword and alphabetizing assignments they didn't even notice their pictures being taken!

.

After working our brains, we had to work our bodies!  This was a fun and active indoor recess activity that used Super Bowl LIX as its theme.  We enjoyed it!  Click on the pic and follow the link to try it!

We tried a science experiment called Dancing Raisins to see if raisins would float (dance) in water or soda.  We learned that carbon dioxide is the gas that makes the bubbles in soda, and then we predicted that the carbonation would cause the raisins to float, or "dance" in the soda.  Unfortunately, while Lisa told us that it is true that raisins would have more buoyancy in soda, our soda didn't seem "bubbly" enough, and we only saw a couple of raisins dance.  We had better luck using our brains to see how many words we could make out of the letters in DANCING RAISINS!

Despite our not so good luck with the science experiment, it turns out we are a pretty optimistic group!  We learned that optimism means we see possibilities, and appreciate the things we have, and that in turn can lead us to thinking positively and making good decisions.  In fact, we decided optimism is a super power!  Happy National Optimist Day!

 

Friday, February 7

It was a busy morning for us as one group went to work at Pet Supplies Plus and the other one stayed at the center to do Super Bowl Party preparations.  Everyone was busy!

Pet Supplies Plus...

Bryan and Laura helped Scott clean the crickets' container.

Kevin hung bags of artificial greenery for aquariums.

Devin, Patrick, and Alexis stocked the dog aisle with toys and treats.

When FedEx delivered a box, Scott asked if we would like to see what was in it????

We would never have guessed it was a chameleon, two red bearded dragons, and a lizard (in the shredded paper)!  Aren't they cute?!  Scott said the store hasn't received any shipments of these types of critters for a while because the weather has been so cold lately.  This shipment came from Naples, FL.

Thomas, one of PSP's managers, joined us today as the gang showcased Eagles gear for your pets...are you trying to tell us something, PSP?!!  Or were you sold out of Chiefs gear?!!

On the way back to AFCC, we dropped off completed gasketing work that we finished this week for Eaton.  Bernie and Ethan were there to receive our work, and they gave us more to complete next week!

Meanwhile, at AFCC...

Erik led the preparation of our beautiful veggie tray.

Nan and Sam assembled fresh and juicy fruit kabobs.

Michelle and Abraham can't wait to try our football shaped brownies!

Thomas, Xavier, and Kate did a lot of work to get our board decorated in Eagles and Chiefs colors.

Along with our veggies, fruit kabobs, and brownies, we had pork bbq sandwiches and chips with dip.  We only had 13 in attendance today, but we kicked off a fun Super Bowl party with our lunch!

Our party continued with a game of Super Bowl Bingo in which we learned what a few terms meant like "offsides," "sack," and "line of scrimmage."  Devin and Patrick are pulling for opposing teams, and they used the teams' colors to mark spaces on their Bingo cards.

A tradition each year at our Super Bowl party is to make a bar graph using helmets to vote for which team we think will win.  More of our guys are pulling for the Eagles this time, though some said they like both teams, and others said "it's just a game" so no one should get upset!

We wound up the party and the week with an Eagles vs. Chiefs game of cornhole.  It's hard sometimes with our gang to tell it's a competition, because they pull for each other even if they aren't on the same team!  

Today, the Eagles scored the most points!  We'll have to wait for the big game on Sunday to see if those other Eagles score the most, or if the Chiefs prevail to become "three-peat" Super Bowl champs.  But no matter which team wins, we'll all be good sports because it's "just a game!"

"Bowl" week was fun, and next week will be, too.  We always look forward to celebrating Valentine's Day, so that will be a highlight.  Here's a look at our upcoming schedule:

Tuesday:  Our community outing today will be a trip to The Mariners' Museum to work with Wisteria and team.  The weather forecast is calling for rain, so we will return to the center for lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is available for Chicken Fajitas, Pizza, or Taco Salad.  We'll also celebrate Inventors Day with a lesson and fun activity that will showcase our inventor talents!  Arc shirts optional.

Wednesday:  We will volunteer at GCOC so please wear Arc shirts.  Other activities today will include playing new card games and a Mystery Science lesson about dogs and chocolate.  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is offering Asian Chicken with Rice or Sub of the Day.

Thursday:  We're celebrating Heike's birthday today!  We'll also celebrate National Tortellini Day by making Tortellini Soup with a side salad for lunch.  Even though Heike won't be able to join us for too long, due to her work schedule, we'll play birthday games in her honor! 

Friday:  Happy Valentine's Day!  First, we will have a work morning at Eaton, so wear your Eaton shirts.  We'll return to the center for lunch on your own (JRES Cafeteria is serving Corn Dog Nuggets or Chicken Sandwich) followed by a Valentine Party/Card Exchange that will include dessert.  Bring your cards for the exchange, and feel free to change into your Valentine colors when we return from Eaton! 💘💘💘

Enjoy the weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang

Happy Birthday, Allison!

What a beautiful Tuesday when we started this week, with a promise from Mother Nature for the rest of the week to be mostly nice, too.  We were here all four of our regular days (Tuesday-Friday) for the first time in 2025!  The week flew by as we filled it with engaging activities including a birthday celebration, volunteering at Grove, visiting a new (to us) museum, and working at Eaton.  Here's what we were up to as January came to a close.

Tuesday, January 28

Our community outing usually takes place on Tuesdays, but this week we stayed put since the museum we are visiting is not open on Tuesdays.  We filled the day with dancing, checking our blog post from last week, exercising, and watching a movie.  We also made up celebrations for National Peanut Butter Day and Polka Dot Day, both of which we missed last week due to our snow days.

When we visited APEX-PT and Rock Steady Boxing for a workout last Friday, Scott did an activity with us where we rolled a die and had to complete a corresponding exercise.  We loved that idea so we did it again today for Polka Dot Day...maybe a stretch, but those are dots on the die!

Looks like the girls rolled a 4 because they were doing squats.

The boys had just finished toe touches as they waited to see what Abraham would roll for them to do next.

After good movement with our dance warm up and roll the die exercises, we were ready to settle in for a movie morning.  We watched Wish today, and we thank Kate for the share.

 

When we missed Peanut Butter Day, we also missed our lunch of peanut butter sandwiches with a twist.  Since we already had the groceries, we enjoyed our fun sandwiches today!  Everyone started with peanut butter and selected other ingredients to add, like bananas, marshmallow creme, potato chips, and even sliced peaches!

Polka Dot Day was up next!  A few of us had polka dot clothing, and Liz had a polka dot tote bag.  Kevin sported a cute bow tie and also brought the book Put Me in the Zoo, which features a main character with spots!

We watched a cartoon short about Minnie Mouse, who is known for her polka-dot fashion.  The cartoon was in Spanish, but we still got a kick out of Minnie spraying on way too much perfume, and then having to deal with all kinds of consequences from being stuffed in a flower vase to almost baked in a cake because she smelled so good!

Here's a close up of Kevin with his bow tie and showing us the polka dots on the inside of his book.  Liz is sharing her polka dot art.  She colored different sections of it in colors that matched different holidays.  So creative!

Wednesday, January 29

Our dedicated volunteer, Allison, had a birthday on December 31, so we planned to have a celebration for her when we returned after the holidays.  Her volunteer day is Wednesday, so January 8 was the date.  However, Allison became a grandmother for the first time (earlier than expected) that week, so she couldn't make it on the 8th.  No problem...grandkids trump birthday parties, right?!  We rescheduled for January 15, but Allison's son had emergency surgery to remove his appendix, so she couldn't make it.  He's fine now, thank goodness!  Allison suggested it was ok and not to worry about rescheduling, but we were not deterred.  We planned for January 22nd...and that became a snow day!  

Finally, we got see Allison today, AND celebrate her birthday, and it was great...even though she had to share it with our celebration of Chinese New Year!

It was time to make Allison's birthday cake, so we sent Annmarie and Thomas to the fridge to gather some ingredients.

Michelle mixed up a chocolate cake mix and popped it into The Nina.  After it baked, we made a creamy filling and then iced the cake with chocolate frosting.  It was delicious, even though we forgot to take pictures!

After baking the cake and decorating the birthday board, we took advantage of the mild weather with some outside time.  This was just 1/2 of us, as Carol had taken a group to Grove Christian Outreach Center to volunteer.

Thanks, Erik, for getting Annmarie's basketball out from under this car...while Allison kept her eye on you both!

It had been a long time since we got to enjoy time outside!

Meanwhile, the rest of us were getting a good workout at GCOC, where we first unloaded canned goods from the delivery pallet.

Volunteers Tom and Ursula were visiting their grandchildren, but it was nice to see Thom, Peggy, and Joel.  We hadn't worked with them since mid-December, and we missed our camaraderie and working relationship!

The line was set up and we were ready to bag!

Thank you, Peggy, for the delicious cranberry scones.  We will share them with our friends back at the center.  We appreciate you for thinking about us!

Chinese New Year seemed to come a little earlier this year, but we didn't mind.  We had a lesson about Chinese customs related to this 15 day holiday, and learned about our Chinese Zodiac characteristics based on the year we were born.  All of that was fun, but we were really here for the lunch takeout!

Once again we thank Hong Kong restaurant for preparing our 18 orders, and getting every one correct!  

We easily transitioned from Chinese New Year to Allison's birthday when it was time for cake and candles!  We love the poster card we made for her with all of our pictures becoming "flowers" in vases.  We also wrote very sweet messages for Allison. 

We hope all your wishes come true, Allison!  Thank you for volunteering with us.  We appreciate your help and friendship!

Our friend Tessa hit a milestone this week.  She still needs assistance to get into a standing position, but once there, she is able to stand on her own for about 2 minutes.  She's feeling much more comfortable doing this now!  Her grip is getting stronger, too.  She can take her shoes and socks off with just a little help.  Getting them back on is a little bit harder, but she's getting there.  We're so proud of you, Tessa!  We know you can do it, so keep working hard.  We love and miss you at the Arc of Abilities. 💕

Thursday, January 30

Today we visited a museum we had not been to before, the Virginia War Museum in Newport News.  It's bigger than it looks from the outside, and has a lot of great galleries that feature many interesting artifacts from all of the wars and conflicts the United States has been involved in since 1775.

We were a small group of only 12 today!

The first gallery highlighted the American Revolution.  We recognized a few of the artifacts and knew about some of the stories from our visits to Yorktown.

There are many weapons on display throughout the museum, including these from the Civil War.  We noticed how weapons, uniforms, helmets, and such changed over the years, and through the different wars and conflicts.

At this display, we were reminded that there were battles during the Civil War in our area.  We had learned about The Peninsula Campaign before at Newport News Park.

We asked everyone to point out something that caught their attention as we went through the galleries.  Liz noticed a proclamation that was issued by John Adams.  Laura was interested in a painting that showed a lot of soldiers on horses.  Devin found a newspaper clipping from The Philadelphia Inquirer which intrigued him because he's from the Philly area.

Future President Harry S. Truman wore this helmet during his service in WW1.

There is a small gallery inside a model of a train car that explains the role Newport News played in the embarkation of the military.  We learned that during WW1, all soldiers sent overseas embarked from either New York or Newport News.

We also learned about the Victory Arch monument that was erected in Newport News to welcome returning soldiers, and saw a model of it.  We did not have time to ride downtown to see it, but maybe next time we will!

Some other interesting artifacts we saw were a piece of the Berlin Wall and a section of fence from a concentration camp called Dachau.  We also saw a piece of rubble from the twin towers that fell during the attacks on 9-11.  We were somber as we read about the events that produced these historic artifacts.

We weren't sure if this military history museum would hold our interest, but it did!  Our guys have always enjoyed history, and learning how things were "back in the day."  

We enjoyed the Virginia War Museum and highly recommend it for all military or history buffs!

The weather was too cool and breezy to eat at the park, so we returned to AFCC for lunch and Choice Time.  Before wrapping up the day, we updated our calendar and began room decorations for February, which arrives this weekend.  We'll be at Eaton tomorrow, so we thought today would be a good day to get it started.  

Friday, January 31

Today we worked at Eaton for the first time in the new year.  Even though 6 of our friends were absent, we managed to assemble 144 PowerSlide Doors, apply "sticky" gaskets to a lot of rectangle parts, unload 2 huge bins of parts into smaller tubs, and sort hundreds of mixed parts...all in 2 1/2  hours!

Laura sorted parts while Emma applied gaskets to the rectangle ones.

Yes, that was about a million parts Dev and Pat transferred from the large bin to the smaller tubs!

Bryan moved boxes of doors from the back of the room to the front, and also unpacked them for the assembly line.

Kate and Xavier modeled for Thomas how to insert nuts and bolts into the doors to hold the amber lenses in place.

Liz, Nan, and Alexis attached 4 labels on the inside of each door, in case customers want to read the fine print!

Michelle is actually Step 1 in the door assembly line as she inserts the amber lenses before sending them to the label table.

We missed an opportunity to get a good shot of Erik wielding the electric screwdriver to tighten the nuts and bolts, but he did almost every door!  We apologize to Erik!  However, he can (barely) be seen behind David and Mark from Eaton, who stopped by to see how we were doing.  

We returned to the center for lunch and Choice Time.  It was relatively quiet with only 12 in attendance, but they enjoyed chatting, playing Uno, using the laptops, coloring, solving puzzles, checking devices, and just chilling!

 

We all perked up when a text came in from Drew's mom!  They are on the way to Florida for Drew's sister's upcoming wedding, and they thought we'd like to see Drew and his new friend, Buc-ee the Beaver!  You look very handsome with your "wedding haircut," Drew!  Have fun!

We ended the day with a yoga session with Jaime.  The theme was Lunar New Year...how perfect!  We got plenty of good stretching as she showed us poses for each of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.  Our first, and only, full week of January wrapped up in relaxing fashion!

Good-bye, January!  We'll kick off February next week and here are our plans:

Tuesday:  We'll go bowling and have pizza and fruit for lunch.  Since it's always fun, we'll have a lesson about Groundhog Day in the afternoon and make a tasty Punxsutawney Phil for dessert!  Arc shirts optional.

Wednesday:  We'll send a group to volunteer at Grove, so please wear Arc shirts today.  We will also work on February themed crafts to add to our room decorations, and we'll have a lesson on weather systems in honor of National Weatherpersons Day.  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is offering Roasted Chicken or Hot Dog.  Microwave available, too.

Thursday:  Today is National Optimist Day, so we will explore what that means!  We'll also do a fun experiment called "Dancing Raisins" to learn about buoyancy.  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is offering Domino's Pizza, Chef Salad, or Yogurt Combo.  Microwave is available.

Friday:  It's a Pet Supplies Plus work morning, so wear your PSP shirts.  The Cooking Crew will remain at the center to prepare lunch for our Super Bowl Party!  We'll serve bbq sliders, veggies, fruit kabobs, chips, and our traditional "football" brownies.  We'll spend the afternoon having fun with a variety of football themed activities, and end the week with a game of corn hole, since we don't have a football field!  Feel free to bring your favorite sports shirts/jerseys to change into for the party!

💖💖💖 Head's/Heart's UP! 💖💖💖

Valentine's Day is in a couple of weeks.  We will work at Eaton that morning, but we plan to have a Valentine celebration in the afternoon.  Our gang enjoys exchanging Valentines with each other.  To keep it simple (and less chaotic), we don't write names on the envelopes.  Instead, just sign each Valentine, and bring enough to put one in each friend's bag.  There are 22 of us in the program (counting staff and Allison).  Anyone who wishes may bring a few extras for others like Tracy, JaVante, Katrina, or the custodians, Heike, Juwan, and Karen.  We'll make sure they are delivered.

Have a great weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang