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!
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!
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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
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