Our 10th Anniversary!

 

On our 10th anniversary we are thriving with 18 AoA and 3 staff members.  Today we missed Tessa, who was under the weather.  From left to right we are:  Carol, Michelle, Kevin, Kate, Drew, Annmarie, Xavier, Gail, Erik, Sara, Devin, Alexis, Liz, Laura, Patrick, Thomas, Lisa, Bryan, Nan, and Abraham.

This week we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Arc of Abilities!  From the day we opened our doors on March 16, 2016 to today, we have delighted in over 2,000 days of friendship, fun, and learning.  It's been a great decade, and we can't wait to see what the next one brings!  Check out our celebration on Tuesday, as well as the other great times we had this week visiting with Christina, reading with our therapy dog friends, exercising with the ladies at the church, hanging with Moose Patti, working at PSP, and a first day of spring trip to Rita's!  

Tuesday

Even though it was St. Patrick's Day, we put off officially wearing green until tomorrow so we could celebrate the AoA's 10th anniversary today.  We began with a trip to see Christina at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg.

With America's 250th birthday approaching in July, Christina chose to discuss patriotic symbols with us today.  All across America, communities are planning ways to mark this milestone, including here in Williamsburg.  Throughout the museum, we spotted many representations of patriotic symbols, and Christina was excited that we were familiar with most of them!

The Declaration of Independence being adopted by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 in a painting by Edward Hicks.

Early representations of Liberty, or Lady Liberty, before the one we are most familiar with today, the Statue of Liberty.

We went on a walkabout to see how many eagles we could spot in just one gallery!

We are always a captive audience with Christina, who tells interesting stories about the objects we see.  We revisited a painting we have studied many times over the years, and Christina was proud that we recognized a number of people who represent patriotism!  By the way, we have been working with Christina for 9 years, and we've been listening!

On the way to the education gallery, Christina pointed out that the newest exhibit is ready.  It chronicles the 100 years since Colonial Williamsburg was restored as a living history museum, and it looks like it will be worth a visit!

We didn't have enough time to do a project today since our lunch reservations were for 11:30, but Christina had a picture of George and Martha Washington in fancy clothing that we colored.  Mostly though, we enjoyed chatting with Christina during this part of our visit, and reminiscing with her about our first 10 years!  Thanks for our time today, Christina, and for all the years we've spent learning and creating with you!

As 11:30 neared, the excitement mounted for our lunch visit to Old City Barbeque.  We have driven past Old City on our travels for years, and the aroma from the cookers would fill the vans, causing our guys to plead with us to take them there!  We never set it up, until Moose Patti caught wind of our wishes, and told us to go for it, courtesy of our beloved Women of the Moose friends!  We were thrilled that WOTM offered to sponsor our anniversary lunch, and we are very grateful as well.  Lunch was delicious and the fellowship with our friends was special.  One more wonderful memory of our time together!

Happy 10th anniversary to us!  Thank you, WOTM friends, for your generous donation for our special lunch outing.  We deeply appreciate your friendship and support!  

After lunch we returned to AFCC for what will be our last time celebrating an anniversary there.  We are very grateful to James City County Parks and Recreation for the use of this space for the past amazing 10 years!  We have "taken over" the Abram Frink Community Center (by day, anyway), and made it our own, and Parks and Rec has always supported us in doing so.  We will miss this spot, but it will always have a special place in our hearts!

We made a collage with group pictures of us taken over the past 10 years.  These are the same pictures we put on the wall, and we became sentimental as we looked at them, remembering members who used to be with us but have moved on...and also noting how "young" we all looked "back in the day!"

Thank you to the Kline family for providing this beautiful, and extremely fresh and tasty, anniversary cake!  We were thrilled to cut into it and find out it was two layers - chocolate and vanilla!  It was a sweet ending to a sweet and special day!  

Happy 10th Anniversary to us!  May our next ten years be as spectacular as the first, and may we continue to make memories that will last a lifetime!  Thank you to the Arc of Greater Williamsburg -including its board of directors and incredible executive director, Pam - for guiding our growth and progress over the years, and for supporting our ideas and vision for creating Arc of Abilities.   Thanks also to our very supportive families, community partners, and other friends, whose support is also invaluable.  We are grateful for all of you!

We spent the last few minutes of the day looking at an old blog post.  This was from right before we had to shut down during the pandemic in March, 2020.  We couldn't help but notice how much Devin, Xavier, and Drew have changed in 6 years!  We're all older now, but we're better than ever!

Wednesday

Look at the beautiful bulb pot we planted back in October with our master gardener friends!  It's blooming with beautiful hyacinths and daffodils so far!  It's a lovely burst of color at our green door, and it reminds us of all the memories we've made with our MG friends!  We look forward to seeing them again in a few short weeks!

Speaking of flowers, here are this week's arrangements for Commonwealth Senior Living.  Trader Joe's donated a lot of roses, but not much greenery for filler.  We'd like to thank Nan for bringing some extra greenery from her yard, and Xavier, Erik, and Kate for assisting Allison and Carol before the therapy dogs arrived.

Liz, Michelle, Alexis, Laura, and Gail volunteered in the JRES Library before the dogs arrived.  They checked out some great books for us to read with them!

As always, we enjoyed reading with our therapy dog friends.  Today, we had 5 handlers and 7 dogs.  

Jen and Joey read with Kevin, Abraham, Liz, and Thomas.  

Marisol and a sleepy Tucker were joined by Gail, Drew, Alexis, and Nan.

Pip and Indy were great listeners today as their mom, Caroline, read with Tessa, Bryan, Laura, and Kate.

Birthday Boys Leo (5) and Tavish (3) enjoyed reading time with their dad, Kent, and Xavier, Sara, and Erik.

Carol and Casey were all smiles as they read with Devin, Michelle, and Annmarie.

For our third rotation, we learned about St. Patrick's Day by taking our handler and dog friends on a trivia scavenger hunt.  We wrapped up our fun visit with refreshments to celebrate both St. Patty's Day and our 10th anniversary (again)...as well as 4 years of joyful time spent with the therapy dogs!  So much to celebrate!

It was time for movement after the dogs left, so we combined a game of musical chairs with a jammin' hallway walk.  The rules were simple:  Once you got "out" in musical chairs, you just kept walking, only in the hallway!  The music could be heard in both areas, so...win-win!

Abraham tried to pull a fast one by doubling up on Liz's lap when the music ended.  Allison called him on it and sent him to the hallway jam!

Annmarie, Michelle, Drew, and Kevin were among the first to strike out in musical chairs, but they didn't mind because a jammin' hallway walk is really lots of fun!

After lunch it was time to finish our latest read-aloud, George Washington's Socks.  We have enjoyed acting out the more exciting chapters, and today we were on the last one.  We gathered for the big finale and looked like a sea of green!

When the performance was over, our actors took their bows.  Kate and Kevin had portrayed Matt's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clayton.  Bryan, Abraham, Sara, Erik, and Thomas were the "Adventure Club" friends (Matt, Q, Tony, and Hooter) plus Matt's little sister, Katie.  Playing the roles of General Washington and his officers were Devin, Alexis, Gail, and Liz.  Michelle had the role of Gustav, a Hessian who was hired to fight on behalf of King George against the patriots.  Gustav turned out to be a good guy, who treated his "prisoners" kindly and even saved Katie's life when she fell through the ice.  In this photo, we pretended the backpack was a tall black hat that Hessians wore as part of their uniforms.

Our audience put the finishing touches on our production with a big round of applause and shouts of "Bravo, Bravo!"  Thanks, Tessa, Laura, Drew, Annmarie, and Xavier!

Whew, that was a busy day!

Thursday

It didn't seem like it had been a month since we visited our friends at Williamsburg United Methodist Church, but it was time to go again!  Today, we had a blast with Gayle and the others for a session that was themed "Exercise."  First, we warmed up with a seated routine.

Our next activity was a scavenger hunt that took us all over the downstairs area looking for pictures that were color-coded for each team.  Gayle explained the rules and then it was game on!

Next, we had a friendly competition using parachutes. It was girls vs. boys to see who could keep the ball on the longest.  Once we got the hang of it, both teams did really well!

St. Patrick's Day Bingo was the last activity of the morning.  We brought the game using cards we made yesterday.

 
Abraham was the first winner!  

Thank you for a fun and active morning, our friends at Williamsburg United Methodist Church!  It's such a fun way to spend a morning, and the variety of activities is great for us!  Plus, you have awesome Bingo prizes! We look forward to seeing you next month for a science-themed morning!

Our friend Moose Patti joined us for the afternoon.  We baked Blarney Stone Cookies on the Pizza Pizzazz machine, celebrated National Let's Laugh Day with silly jokes and riddles, and made "cootie catchers" that held St. Patrick's Day riddles.  There were no laughs while we tried folding them, but once we got past that, the laughs came back!

Alexis, Patrick, Drew, Kevin, and Liz are the only AoA members left who were in the charter group that began the program on March 16, 2016.  That first week, Drew's mom gave us a Pizza Pizzazz machine, and on the second day of our program, which was St. Patrick's Day, we used it to bake Blarney Stone Cookies.  We have used it every St. Patrick's Day since to bake the tasty cookies, and it's one of our favorite traditions!

Blarney Stone Cookies are made with pistachio pudding and butterscotch morsels.  They are delicious and the Pizza Pizzazz bakes them perfectly!

Patti requested a game of corn hole, and we were happy to oblige!  She played with Team Leprechaun against Team Shamrock.  

Both teams got off to a good start, but Team Shamrock pulled out the victory today.  They were all set up for their victory photo, when Patti photo-bombed!  Just one more reason why we love her!  Thanks for visiting today, Patti, and bringing the silliness and laughter we all need!!  (And thanks again, along with WOTM, for the donation to cover our anniversary lunch at Old City Barbeque.  It was one of our program's top highlights of the past 10 years, for sure!)

Friday

We welcomed the first day of spring with a work morning followed by a relaxing afternoon outside!  

The AFCC Crew of Laura, Michelle, Tessa, Thomas, Drew, Alexis, Gail, Patrick, and Cameron wiped down tables and window sills, removed old decorations, cleaned the Nina, and loaded a number of boxes in the van for us to move to the new building on McLaws Circle.  They were busy!

Before leaving for PSP, Bryan, Xavier, Kate, Devin, and Liz helped load boxes on the other van for movie to McLaws, too!  It will still be a while before we move ourselves, but for now, we are taking things we don't use very often or only need seasonally.  It's fun to start the moving process.

We're kind of surprised at how much "stuff" we don't think we need to keep at AFCC until we move!  We have accumulated a lot over 10 years, and we just never know when we'll need it!

While moving things to McLaws, the spring cleaners got to see Kellie and Kasey, and we all piled into Kellie's new office for this photo!  Something we are looking forward to is getting to see Kellie, Kasey, Caroline, Sue, and Pam more often!

Over at Pet Supplies Plus, Xavier, Erik, Kate, Sara, Kevin, Bryan, Liz, and Devin were busy stocking all the great pet products on the shelves.  They worked well together, making sure the bar codes matched and the product was placed correctly on the shelves.  

We got to work with Roxanne today!  Since Easter is just around the corner, we decided to highlight colorful and fun toys for your furry friends, including some super-sized plush Peeps!  What fun!

Once we finished our spring cleaning, moving, and PSP work, we all met up at the "big" playground at WISC.  It's a great spot for us because the slides are long (and very fast), and there is a lot of room to play and chill with our friends.  We spent about a half-hour here, and most of the guys got a good workout with all the climbing they did!  That's an osprey nest atop the light fixture.

The slides are very popular!  And we always say, "There's nothing wrong with channeling our inner 6 year olds sometimes!"

Some of us delighted in finding a couple of good books at the Little Free Library, and then reading them in the fresh air and sunshine!  

A quick drive to the other side of the complex brought us to the covered picnic area.  It was a little breezy, but with the sunshine, it was quite comfortable for eating outside.

Finally, it was time for the highlight of the day!  We stopped by Rita's for a free Italian ice in celebration of today being the first day of spring!  

Thanks, Rita's, for sharing your tasty ice treats with the community!  It was a perfect spring day, and we're glad we stopped by!  

Wow!  This was definitely one of our most jam-packed weeks in a while!  We need a 3 day weekend!  😎  The weather looks great, so we hope everyone enjoys some time with family.  We'll be back together on Tuesday.  Here are our plans for next week:

Tuesday:  We're excited to travel to the Muscarelle Museum this morning for a lesson with our friend, and Xavier's stepdad, Steve Prince!  It was National Goof Off Day on Sunday and we can't let that one slip by, so we will return to AFCC for lunch and some goofiness!  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is offering Beef Soft Taco, Taco Salad, or Pizza.

Wednesday:  It's Service Work Wednesday so please wear Arc shirts.  We'll volunteer at the JRES Library and Grove, and arrange flowers for CSL.  In other activities, we'll catch up on thank you cards and have a lesson for Manatee Appreciation Day.  Lunch on your own.  JRES Cafeteria is serving Asian Chicken w/ Veggies and Rice or Flatbread Sandwich.

Thursday:  Today is National Spinach Day so we'll cook Lemon Spinach Pasta with Parmesan and a side of fresh veggies for lunch.  We'll also make an Easter craft to add to our room decorations, and after lunch, we'll watch a movie.

Friday:  We will work at Eaton this morning so please wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch.  If the weather is nice, we'll eat at New Quarter Park and enjoy a walk on the paved path.  We'll end the day with Choice Time and a game of corn hole back at the center.  Lisa will be out today and we welcome, and thank, Katrina from Parks & Rec for helping in her absence! 

Enjoy the weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang