Memory Garden May Look Back
May has lived up to it’s promise of warmer days with a little sunshine poking through the clouds, giving our Memory Garden residents a chance to enjoy some outdoor activities. We took full advantage of the first nice day by having milkshakes out in the Black Eyed Susan courtyard accompanied by some country music. On Memorial Day our residents attended a delicious picnic lunch at the Louis Ferreri Memorial Park. We were even able to have a campfire sing along in the park with music by Spencer Drake as we roasted marshmallows and ate s’mores.
For Kentucky Derby Day we celebrated by having our own horse race – Memory Garden against Comfort Today. With a roll of the dice our horses progressed around the track. It was a very close race but Comfort Today won by a horse hair. The ladies all wore their fancy derby hats and we all enjoyed virgin mint juleps and rum balls.
On National Fruit Cocktail Day we of course had a fruit cocktail party with a wide variety of cut up fruit to satisfy everyone’s taste. National Pizza Party Day was a blast as our residents each made their own personal pizzas and devoured them with some home made punch. Our residents had a good time on National Creativity Day with rock painting. Adding their own touch of color to rocks that will eventually decorate our vegetable garden. On National Bird Day we learned very interesting bird facts by asking some fun trivia questions.
The vegetable seeds that we germinated last month grew so big we planted the seedlings into peat pots. Hopefully the weather will allow us to plant them outside during the first week of June.
We had an abundance of very talented entertainers this month. Saved By Grace sang in perfect harmony as always, Lucille Miller played piano for our residents at the monthly birthday party. We also had the pleasure of listening to the music of Lucille Shurkus as well as the Larson Family. Jeaneen Jaynes graced us with her impeccable piano playing. We also enjoyed our weekly visits by Don Sandy as well as Spencer Drake.
Our residents enjoyed a lunch outing at The 50’s Diner. Everybody loved the food and the atmosphere. For Take Out Tuesday we had mouth watering burgers, chicken fingers and fries from Applebee’s. We also took in the sights of our beautiful county as we went on a scenic drive around Chautauqua’s many country roads.
During our magazine scavenger hunt we split up into two teams, Each team searched through our many magazines trying to be the first to find all the items on the given list. The residents tried their luck at a penny toss game where they had to toss pennies into cups with different point values. The one with the most points at the end wins!
Our residents had a great time playing a variety of summer time games, such as horse shoes, putt-putt golf, bocce ball (roll your ball out and try to be the closest to the target ball), cornhole (toss your bean bag into the hole on the board), and Frisbee golf (try to toss the Frisbee into the basket). We also revisited our favorite games of bingo, ring toss, kickball (kicking the ball around the circle to each other), funnel ball (try to transfer the balloon from your funnel into someone else’s funnel without touching it), balloon volleyball, bean bag toss, shuffle board and giant kerplunk (pull out the stick that will drop the least amount of marbles). The residents always have fun when we get out the white board and play Pictionary (guess what the picture being drawn is) as well as target practice (draw targets on the board and shoot suction cup Nerf arrows at them for points).
Ribbon dancing gives an exciting new twist to exercising. Hold onto dowel rods with ribbons dangling from them, then move your arms to the music making colorful designs in the air. National Butterscotch Brownie Day gave us a good reason to bake brownies and they were scrumptious! Painting with water colors turned out to be quite relaxing, especially while listening to music.
We had a huge turn out for our monthly tea party. With our tea we served lemon bars and crackers with cheese. Everybody drank their tea in fashion wearing their beautiful tea hats.
It’s been a great start to the warm weather season. June will mark the start of the summer concert series in Louis Ferreri Memorial Park. Its going to be a busy fun filled summer for our very deserving residents! If you have any questions or comments for upcoming activities please contact Margaret Wright at (716)488-9434, ext. 2226, or email at MWright@tanglewoodmanor.com.
