These summer mornings just keep heating up as we warmed up inside at our Monday Movers seated exercise group. We gently stretched arms, shoulders and legs all from the safety and comfort of our seats! After we moved our bodies, it was time to stretch our vocal chords at Karaoke Sing Along. Such an invigorating start to the day and week! We sang all the way up to lunchtime and once the meal was through and the mail was passed out, we embraced our inner artists at Crafty Corner. This week, we painted beautiful butterflies to display on our gallery wall and it’s so inspiring to see how unique each one is, even though residents started with all the same materials. Our weekly game of Tic Tac Toss followed craft time and we had a big group trying their luck this week! Shirley Klinski was the fourth-place winner, Milda Bautch came in third and Virginia Fritz took second place. Our first-place winner this week for Tic Tac Toss was Dennis Schuh! After a bit of supper, we cleared the tables for Monday night Bingo. Thank you so much to Joyce Berger, Marie Berger and Riley for all their wonderful help setting up, cleaning up and passing candy prizes!

Tuesday started a little quieter – residents gathered after breakfast for a tranquil Catholic mass and prayer service, led by Father Jojo. With the time in between mass and lunch, we enjoyed visiting with each other in the dining room and folks in their rooms. This week was National CNA Week and we were entertained with an impromptu “Oreo Challenge” during lunch. Residents placed an Oreo cookie on their CNA teammate’s forehead and it was a race to see which CNA could get the cookie from their forehead into their mouth first! With the increasing summer temps outside we are so thankful and happy to be inside in the air conditioning! One thing we are always really happy about is freshly popped popcorn; folks scooped up bowlfuls of the savory snack at the weekly Popcorn Social and enjoyed it in the lobby, outside and anywhere else they were relaxing! Noel and Aaliyah gathered folks in the dining room for a peaceful afternoon of singing church hymns and reading Bible verses and before you know, it was time for supper. Our Tuesday evening concluded with playing games all evening with Aaliyah!

We started our Wednesday morning with a friendly game of bowling; unfortunately the kiddos are on summer break so we don’t have any students helping with pin-setting and score keeping.  We had a large and mighty group of bowlers and we bowled five games apiece! Mary Matzek came in fourth place, Shirley Klinski took the third-place spot and Dennis Schuh claimed second place! We had a tie for first place this week: Kevin Bauer and Maria Christopherson! Bowling took us right up to lunch and afterwards we got ready for Fruit Bingo. Bingo is always a popular activity so our group was large today! Thank you to volunteer Wanda Ebensperger for her help with set-up, clean-up and prize passing! Carol Campbell from the Seasons was the Blackout Bingo champion this week! Most everyone stuck around after Bingo for our Peaches and Cream Social. We served up a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with peach syrup and topped with a dollop of whipped cream – yummy. Happy National Peaches and Cream Day…and happy first day of summer!

Lana Ingli stopped by to read us the local news and let us know what’s happening in the community. We always appreciate our volunteers coming over and sharing some time with us; what a lovely way to spend a Thursday morning! After lunch was cleaned up, there was mail delivery and more visiting with friends. But pretty soon it was time to pamper our ladies with a manicure and we had quite a few today looking to freshen up their nails. Sparkly pinks and purples were the popular colors today! Later on in the afternoon, it was so hot outside that the only way to get cool was with a good, old-fashioned squirt gun fight! Residents gathered outside to spray each other and activities staff with their squirt guns and we had a blast keeping cool in the most fun way! We enjoyed ourselves immensely and before you knew it, it was time for supper and then an evening of Pokeno fun with Aaliyah.

Shuffleboard kicked off our Friday morning with our residents hoping to take home the title of first place! While we don’t always have a large group playing, there are always several others who come out to cheer them on and watch the fun! Our shuffleboard game took us almost right up to lunch and after lunch there was a little bit of downtime to relax. We gathered folks together a little later for an outdoor game of “boat races” with teams of CNA staff and residents. Soon after the races, the dining room started to fill up with folks as we prepared for our weekly Happy Hour! We snacked on soda, beer and barbecue meatballs while enjoying tunes from Ryan Herman. With the weather staying toasty, we would sure love to see your smiling faces; stop by for a visit anytime!