Memory Garden August Look Back
It’s been quite an eventful August for our Memory Garden residents. Starting the month off with a performance from ‘Old Dawg Blue Grass’, part of our Summer Concert Series in the Louis Ferreri Memorial Park. The residents had a toe tappin’ good time! Later in the month we enjoyed the talents of the ‘Lake Erie Banjo Jammers’ and marking the end of the Summer Concert Series our residents had a great time listening to the ‘Dixie Doodlers’.
The day of our Annual Fishing Tournament and End of Summer BBQ, started off nice and sunny. Everyone enjoyed barbequed ribs, corn on the cob and macaroni salad, but the clouds rolled in forcing us to reschedule the fishing tournament to the 19th, which turned out to be a beautiful day. Memory Garden’s own Ernie S. caught the biggest fish!
The residents had a great time at our picnic in Rosewood’s courtyard, devouring sandwiches, salads, deviled eggs and brownies. While we were out there we tended to our vegetable garden. We’ve had great luck with the tomatoes and cucumbers (and weeds), everything is looking real healthy. Our monthly lunch outing took place at Wendy’s Restaurant. Everyone enjoyed their meals as well as each other’s company.
The monthly birthday party with music from Lucille Miller was fun for all. Cake, ice cream and Lucille’s piano playing – can’t beat it! What a great time we all had at the ice cream social, enjoying a variety of ice cream flavors and toppings, while listening to some favorite country tunes from the 70’s. The monthly tea party was a hopping good time as well. The residents have a lot of fun wearing the crazy little tea hats while sipping a wide variety of teas and nibbling on sweets. For the Saturday afternoon movie our residents watched, “A Dog’s Journey”, while enjoying some refreshing watermelon for National Watermelon Day.
Creativity was really buzzing with our craft club, as our residents made cute bumble bee decorations to hang in the activity room. Our baking group made some delicious cowboy cookies this month for the bake sale, benefiting The Alzheimer’s Association. Tapping into the hidden artist in all of us, we brought out the water colors and had a relaxing time painting pictures. Our residents always have fun at sing alongs. We sang to some great old country tunes as well as to some favorites from the 50’s.
Russ Keyser also entertained us this month with his Cajun style and his humorous ability to persuade audience participation. Our residents danced and sang along to the music of Cindy Sue as well as enjoying the melodic harmonies of ‘Saved By Grace’. Of course we had fun at our weekly sing alongs with Spencer Drake and the weekly polka music with Don Sandy. Dave Johnson made his monthly appearance playing some favorite old time hymns.
On National Tell a Joke Day we sat around a circle and had some hearty laughs telling really corny jokes. On National Dog Day we had fun with dog trivia questions and of course on National Bowling Day we played a few frames of bowling. There were some great weather days to get outside and take a few trips around Louis Ferreri Memorial Park on the golf carts. When we’re quiet enough we sometimes see deer and other wildlife.
We brought out some of our favorite games to play, such as ring toss (try to toss the ring onto the pole), penny toss (toss the penny into the cup for different point values), Nerf target shooting (shoot suction cup arrows at the target on the white board) and basket ball. Balloon Volleyball is a very fast paced, laughter inducing activity where everybody sits around the tables and tries to keep about 20 balloons up in the air. A couple of other very active games we played are kickball (kicking the ball around the circle to each other) and noodle ball (hit the balloons around the circle to each other using pool noodles). The residents also had fun with Frisbee golf (try to throw the Frisbee into the basket), ladderball (toss a short rope with balls on each end, trying to wrap it around one of the three ladder rungs), funnel ball (transfer a balloon from your funnel into your neighbors funnel without touching it) and shuffle board. We enjoyed some great summer time games as well, playing putt-putt, cornhole (toss the bean bag into the hole in the game board), horse shoes and bocce ball (roll your ball out trying to get as close to the jack ball as possible).
Bringing out the white board and our thinking caps, we played hangman, word-in-word game (how many different words can you make using the letters of one large word) and Pictionary (be the first to guess what the picture is being drawn).
Of course there were many games of our all time favorite bingo. The 7-up card game is another popular game with our residents (everyone receives seven cards face up and when one of your cards matches a card drawn from a separate deck, you turn your card over. The first to turn all there cards over wins).
It’s been a great summer! As much as we hate to see it end, you can bet there will be fun and beauty to be found in the upcoming Fall season! If you have any questions or comments for upcoming activities, please contact Margaret Wright, Memory Garden Activities Coordinator at (716)488-9434 ext 2226, or email at MWright@tanglewoodmanor.com.
